BEST AUTO FOCUS SETTINGS FOR ACTION

[GDKP]

BEST AUTO FOCUS SETTINGS FOR ACTION

Curious to hear from the community what the best AF settings are for shooting action.  I shoot a lot of ski/snowboarding but have been struggling to keep subjects centered and focused. Recently switched over from Canon but have struggled a bit with high speed shooting on my Fuji XT1.  Currently using AF Continuous Wide but still picks up / focuses on a lot of random objects in the frame (trees, rocks etc) making every shoot with an athlete a bit of a dice roll if it will be in focus. 

Edited January 6, 2020 by Olaf W.
Title corrected

[Doug Pardee]

The 16-megapixel Fujis simply aren't built for moving subjects. The AF-C is almost unusable, as is the video. Those two items were the big improvements in the X-T2, and they were further improved a lot in the X-T3.

Your best bet is probably to use Zone AF, with the central 3x5 zone that uses only PDAF-capable AF points. Use AF-S, and press the shutter all the way down without stopping when you're ready to take a picture. That way the camera will focus and then snap the picture the instant that focus is achieved. Of course, you won't have any clue what it'll focus on, but if you keep the subject near the center of the zone, without any closer objects, it'll probably work... at least sometimes. You might try dropping down to the 3x3 zone to reduce the amount of the scene that the camera can choose to focus on.

Alas, the actual fix is for you to buy an X-T3.