Focus settings advice

[HarrisDPI]

Hi all. If you don't mind, I could use some advise here.

 

I shoot a lot of conferences (people speaking animatedly at podiums on stage) usually in bad lighting without the opportunity to use flash.

 

Given the lighting, I typically have no option but to shoot wide open at f1.2 or f1.4 in slow burst mode usually using single point focus as opposed to continuous as I've never had much success with continuous in the past and do not feel confident relying on that focus mode as it tracks too much before the shutter is released.

 

However, given such a narrow depth of field it doesn't take a genius to realise that if I am shooting in burst mode then only the first shot in a series is ever in focus as the people are moving ever so slightly back and forth at the podium.

 

So, I'd be interested to hear what others do/would do and how you set up your X-T1's for similar situations and also find out about your shooting techniques (e.g: do you rely on continuous focus, do you use zone focus, face detection, slow or fast burst mode, back button focus etc etc) to get a higher hit rate in focus in burst mode at such a shallow aperture?

 

I realise it is a totally different beast, but I come from a Nikon D4 which I used to set to continuous focus and always did a perfect job every time.

 

P.S. I have updated firmware to version 4.

[darknj]

Generally speaking, the X-T1 is not that great for moving subject, to an extend, if they are just walking, it should be good enough.

 

That being said, I assume you have the Face Detection feature disabled ? When it's off, it allows you to use the center points as Phase Detect AF, which is faster a bit more reliable.

 

Now, on your case, I would use on Continuous mode zone focus on Mechanical Shutter and use the large 5 x 3 zone so the tracking happens only in that area. It does a decent job on my 5 years old son that likes to hide from me when I try to take a piture of him. Of course not all shots are 100% accurate, I get about half of them good.

 

One question, you say you shoot at F1.2 or F1.4, I guess you are using the 56mm, is that correct ?

[HarrisDPI]

Many thanks for the reply.

 

Yup I predominantly use the 23mm f1.4 and 56mm f1.2 and a typical shooting distance is between 1 and 2 metres away

[darknj]

The 56mm is known to be a tad bit slow in AF, the 23mm should fare better.

 

Then again, since I do not own either lenses, I could be talking out of my butt, so any of the lenses owners can confirm or correct me on previous statement ?

[gordonrussell76]

Continous Focus is fairly good also try using the Lower burst mode I find you get less shots but they are more accurate.

 

Turn shutter priority to Focus as opposed to release for both single AF and Continous (set as default to release)

 

This will slow down your burst but it means the camera prioritizes focus accuracy over shutter release.

 

Turn on High performance mode

 

Possibly Turn on Pre-AF (take more batteries)

 

 

 

G