Camera settings.

Jeff.B

Jeff.B

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Jeff
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Not my normal photography but I need to take photo's of dogs running toward me/away from me/across field of view.

Camera Nikon D700

After searching on the net the following settings have been suggested:

Custom Setting Menu a1 (AF-C Priority selection): "Release + Focus."

Custom Setting Menu a3 (Dynamic AF Area) to 51 Points (3D Tracking)

Camera in continuous focus mode - aperture priority.

Using 70-200 lens - 1000 iso gives me 400sec at f5.6

Any more suggestions from experienced action photographers that will help improve image sharpness would be appreciated.

Thanks

jeff
 
Moving to Talk Nature as the Sport Photo Sharing section is n't the right one :) And I'm not sure that the Talk Sports forum would help. The are action photographers in the Nature one. If you get no response, I'll move to Talk Sports :D
 
Ah, see I read dogs so assumed Nature. Did you mean greyhound racing then? I shall move it to sports if so
 
ok, I'll move it then, it's still not Sports though and Nature does have moving things :lol:
 
:lol: yeah ok, you've got me there
 
Jeff.B said:
Kelly, you've not heard of country sports then?
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Yup, but I reckon that Kelly's right as most of the gun dog pics on here go into Nature.

It's worth a hunt in the nature pics forum, because there are some excellent shots of dogs working in there.
 
Yes, it was see who would put up with you ;)

Now let's get back on track and help this gentleman please :lol:
 
kelack said:
Now let's get back on track and help this gentleman please :lol:
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It's the usual problem really. Without knowing more details it's pretty difficult to say.

The basic principles for sports remain the same; ie Av/M, AI Focus etc etc, but no-one can guess the light.

Likewise different breeds move at different paces, so SWAGing the shutter speed would be risky; ie a Border Collie doing Flyball is going to be much faster than a Lab retrieving.

As for specific camera settings- that needs a Nikon guy.

As per the norm, the best bet is to look at some decent photos of what you want to shoot and read the Exif.


Edit:

The one thing I would say is that single point is almost always more reliable than 51/whatever your camera has.
 
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ditto mark ... its moving.. its probably moving fast... high shutter required.. achieved either by lens wide open and/or upping the iso.. other than that .....can only generalise :)
 
DemiLion said:
Likewise different breeds move at different paces, so SWAGing the shutter speed would be risky;
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SWAGing the shutter speed - please explain.
 
Thanks for all the comments, have also checked out the nature section and there are indeed some great pictures of dogs in action. The exif on them is helpful. I know it is, as with many things, a 'suck it and see' thing and, having half a dozen working gundogs myself, will do plenty of this.

My post was really regarding the menu setting for fast moving subjects, not particularly sp/ap. This I have found most useful http://johnfriend.blogspot.com/2009/10/nikon-d300-auto-focus-for-sports-i.html the d300 being very similar to d700 in terms of menu settings. I feel it could also be useful to set shutter priority and auto ISO.

jeff
 
bigrob said:
SWAGing the shutter speed - please explain.
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After wasting a silly amount of time looking this up it's one of Mark's quirky sayings...... scientific wild arsed guess

Not helpful :lol:
 
kelack said:
After wasting a silly amount of time looking this up it's one of Mark's quirky sayings...... scientific wild arsed guess

Not helpful :lol:
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No, but very funny never the less :lol::lol::lol::lol:

Mustb remeber to drop that into conversation some time

Les :D
 
Oh yes, definitely funny, hence the :lol:
 
kelack said:
After wasting a silly amount of time looking this up it's one of Mark's quirky sayings...... scientific wild arsed guess

Not helpful :lol:
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Well it sort of is...

Rather than take just a guess, you base it on the principles that you already know and work from there, as opposed to taking a complete punt at it; ie start at 1/1000th and work up or down according to needs and conditions.

It's a fairly common(ish) term in technical areas. Or at least I thought it was! :D
 
:lol: it's not helpful if people don't know what it is. Even google didn't come up with anything. It was only when I remembered you'd used it on here before that I searched on here :D

It's a good term though
 
kelack said:
:lol: it's not helpful if people don't know what it is. Even google didn't come up with anything. It was only when I remembered you'd used it on here before that I searched on here :D

It's a good term though
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Good point and noted! :D

TP glossary needed perhaps?
 
:lol:
 
Jeff.B said:
Not my normal photography but I need to take photo's of dogs running toward me/away from me/across field of view.

Camera Nikon D700

After searching on the net the following settings have been suggested:

Custom Setting Menu a1 (AF-C Priority selection): "Release + Focus."

Custom Setting Menu a3 (Dynamic AF Area) to 51 Points (3D Tracking)

Camera in continuous focus mode - aperture priority.

Using 70-200 lens - 1000 iso gives me 400sec at f5.6

Any more suggestions from experienced action photographers that will help improve image sharpness would be appreciated.

Thanks

jeff
Click to expand...

Though not an 'experienced' action photographer I think you'll need a faster shutter speed than that. I did a Police Dog trials day a few months back and found standard (as recommended by Kipax) settings for action sports to work, using a shutter speed of 800. I was using a 55-300 (needed more reach than my 70-200 gave) on a d7k and the dogs were running towards, away and across. Below is one image from the day, there are others on my Flickr.

6219579097_103cc085bf_z.jpg

(no, he didn't out-run the dog:D)
 
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