It's all about speed!

Fairyrose

Fairyrose

Suspended / Banned
Messages
75
Edit My Images
No
I've asked about upgrading from the Nikon D90 a little while ago, and thank you to all those who've replied with helpful suggestions.

I've now almost made up my mind to buy the D7200 but need to check something with you guys who have much more experience and expertise than me!

I find that he kind of photos I take are all about speed and I'm often let down by too slow a response of the shutter. Case in point: I've just tried to help a friend take some pictures of a litter of puppies and the little pups were so quick - every time they looked cute and in the right direction (facing me rather than their bum!) the shot was too late and out of 50 pics maybe 1 or 2 are moderately acceptable.

Will this sort of problem be gone with a new camera/ the D7200 or is it something else I need to be thinking of??

Thanks in advance for all your thoughts
 
Doubtful

They are so quick..
 
its all about light

with enough light you can up your shutter speed and capture the moment :)

A new camera isnt going to make that much difference.. a fast lens and enough light would be more important.. what lens was it ?
 
The description of lag suggests the delay between pressing the shutter release and the AF acquiring focus before it will actually fire in AF-S. If you use AF-C, the camera will fire the shutter regardless of whether it thinks the image is in focus or not, whereas AF-S will only fire once it's focused. (hence the delay between you stabbing the button and it taking a shot)

Back button focus (AF-ON) on AF-C mode should logically reduce the problem you are encountering. Basically acquiring focus before pressing the shutter release.
 
Last edited:
The issue is more likely your own delay between thinking NOW and actually pressing the shutter release, if the camera has already locked focus then it'll fire extremely quickly, so missing the 'moment' is your fault I'm afraid

And as an experienced Pro of many years I can honestly say - I do that all the time too at Weddings, and Brides move slower than puppies I reckon :D

Dave
 
Was that really because of slow response of the shutter or slow to acquire focus and hence slow to release shutter thereafter?

The actually shutter delay in cameras (i.e. the time between you pressing the shutter release and the camera acting upon it) is actually faster than delay in human reactions.
 
Get your position, DO NOT disturb or attract the attention of the puppies.....when you are ready, get yourself in position, pick a puppey or two or group - AND SQUEAK, suddenly. They will, I guarantee, all turn and look at you momentarily. You HAVE GOT TO GET THE SHOT - they won't be fooled twice!
 
Put the 7200 in high speed continuous and do little bursts in the little windows of time you anticipate they are in position or will be in a second.

I did it with fast moving little birds with a d300 and got great shots of them feeding their young and flying into and out of the nest ( although all ruined by noise )


 
So if I get this right the issue with the D90 is a time lag between you pressing the shutter and the shutter activating? I wouldnt have thought the D7200 would be much better than the d90 in this respect. There could be a number of reasons for this. It's possible the camera could be trying to obtain focus before activating the shutter. If your camera is set to focus priority it won't take a photo until it feels it has acquired focus. The easiest way to test is set focus to manual AF, confirm focus (little dot in the viewfinder on) and fire the shutter. If there isn't a delay it's the auto focus system causing the delay. It's possible depending on the lens you are using the focus acquisition could be too slow for a very fast moving subject like puppies close up. Lens can make a big difference to focus acquisition, just look at the speed difference between a 70-300 f4.5-56 and a 70-200 f2.8 with exactly the same camera.

What lens are you using? What was the distance between you and the puppies?
 
Last edited:
Thank you all for your helpful replies. To answer a few of your questions - and hoping for further input! :)

1. I had the Autofocus set on AF-A
2. The lens is a Nikon 18-105 (the kit lens for the D90)
3. I didn't have much space to move in (small garden)
4. Also, the light was not great - sunny day with trees give specks of shadows on everything

Maybe it was all in the technique... and I was hoping you'd give me an excuse to get a new camera!;)....
 
Fairyrose said:
Thank you all for your helpful replies. To answer a few of your questions - and hoping for further input! :)

1. I had the Autofocus set on AF-A
2. The lens is a Nikon 18-105 (the kit lens for the D90)
3. I didn't have much space to move in (small garden)
4. Also, the light was not great - sunny day with trees give specks of shadows on everything

Maybe it was all in the technique... and I was hoping you'd give me an excuse to get a new camera!;)....
Click to expand...
if you know it's moving AF-C is probably a better option. You could also set AF priority to 'release' so that it takes a photo every time the shutter button is pressed.

With AF-A the camera has decide whether the subject is moving or not. The lens probably isn't the fastest focusing but it should still be possible.

One thing with fast moving unpredictable animals is you aren't going to nail every shot. When I photograph squirrels they often sit nicely whilst I frame the shot then they dart off quickly and I get images of the squirrel disappearing out of the frame. Whilst you may see 10-20 images from a photographer, what you don't see is it may have taken 10-20 times as many images to get them.
 
rob-nikon said:
if you know it's moving AF-C is probably a better option. You could also set AF priority to 'release' so that it takes a photo every time the shutter button is pressed.

With AF-A the camera has decide whether the subject is moving or not. The lens probably isn't the fastest focusing but it should still be possible.

One thing with fast moving unpredictable animals is you aren't going to nail every shot. When I photograph squirrels they often sit nicely whilst I frame the shot then they dart off quickly and I get images of the squirrel disappearing out of the frame. Whilst you may see 10-20 images from a photographer, what you don't see is it may have taken 10-20 times as many images to get them.
Click to expand...
I agreed used to get depressed because a lot of my shots were OOF and I despaired then realised after reading further that even pros take a lot of shots and not all are spot on by any means, made me feel better.
 
SsSsSsSsSnake said:
I agreed used to get depressed because a lot of my shots were OOF and I despaired then realised after reading further that even pros take a lot of shots and not all are spot on by any means, made me feel better.
Click to expand...
Definitely, you only ever see everyone's best images, not all the duds. To put this into context I took over 700 images whilst on Skomer Island, I've highlighted about 70 as 'picks'. So far 23 of those 70 are edited and I've only shared 7 of those 23 edited images. Whether the other 16 are shared I'm not sure yet, one or two will likely be shared in the future but probably not all of them. That works out as a 1 to 100 (shared to taken) ratio. From a 2-3 day trip away I try to aim for 5-10 images that I'm willing to share. I'm hoping to do some landscapes tomorrow, I will probably aim for 2-3 shareable images from the whole day.
 
This really and truly not a better camera will get me better pictures, this is a situation where you have to learn about your subjects behaviour, learn about what external triggers gain their attention and what will not. Once you learn you will not be guaranteed a 100% hit rate but you will improve the number of good shot you take.
 
Thank you all, that's very reassuring!

Rob-Nikon, you said the lens is not the fastest - what would you recommend?

Actually something I wondered is whether buying a new 18-105 would make any difference? Or is my old eight year old kit lens the same as the 18-105 lens sold today?

Many of you said it's all about light. What lenses let in more light?
 
set af to afc and keep tracking the pup shoot in shutter priority keep it above the focal length of the lens
 
holty said:
set af to afc and keep tracking the pup shoot in shutter priority keep it above the focal length of the lens
Click to expand...

I'm intrigued - please explain what is this trick about keeping the shutter above the focal length of the lens?!
 
Fairyrose said:
I'm intrigued - please explain what is this trick about keeping the shutter above the focal length of the lens?!
Click to expand...

its to stop camera shake a very basic principle when taking pictures

think you need to read up a bit on photography to get the basics

also try you tube
 
Fairyrose said:
I'm intrigued - please explain what is this trick about keeping the shutter above the focal length of the lens?!
Click to expand...

I believe it means shutter speed at least 1/x where x is the focal length of the lens - 1/160 if lens is at 160mm. I definitely think af-a could have been the problem. Since your lens is an 18-105 and if you're indoors I'd definitely be pushing the ISO to get a higher shutter speed.
 
Fairyrose said:
Thank you all, that's very reassuring!

Rob-Nikon, you said the lens is not the fastest - what would you recommend?

Actually something I wondered is whether buying a new 18-105 would make any difference? Or is my old eight year old kit lens the same as the 18-105 lens sold today?
Click to expand...

Your 18-105 lens will be as fast as a 18-105 lens purchased today. It may not be as fast to focus as say a 70-200 but I feel it's not something where buying a camera or lens will solve the issue. It's going to be partly a few setting changes (AF-C, Single AF point on the animals eye), some practice following, AF tracking and anticipating their behaviour, fast shutter (at least 1/500) and an understanding that the hit rate will be quite low at first but slowly improves.


Fairyrose said:
Many of you said it's all about light. What lenses let in more light?
Click to expand...

Generally the wider the aperture the faster the lens will focus. Lenses like f2.8 and f4 will focus faster than a variable aperture f3.5-5.6.

Fairyrose said:
I'm intrigued - please explain what is this trick about keeping the shutter above the focal length of the lens?!
Click to expand...

It's to stop blur induced by movement of the lens when hand holding. With your 18-105 set at 105mm it would be a minimium of of 1/100 to stop hand holding inducing blur to the image. But if you are photographing a moving animal your shutter speed needs to be higher than 1/focal length as the animals movement needs to frozen. If I'm photographying moving animals I try to keep the shutter speed above 1/500 as a minimum. The problem is some animals move faster than others so sometimes 1/500 is ok, other times you may need 1/1000 or even 1/2000.

If you could post some examples of images you have taken that you don't feel are right (with settings) we could point you in the right direction to try again.
 
Last edited:
holty said:
its to stop camera shake a very basic principle when taking pictures

think you need to read up a bit on photography to get the basics

also try you tube
Click to expand...

Ok so do you have a recommendation for a good book?
 
When i review my images more often than not the ones that are not properly in focus is because my shutter speed shouldhave been faster
 
scott kelby has a set of 4 you can buy 1 at a time buy 1 first
before you ask - try amazon :LOL::LOL::LOL::LOL:
 
FWIW rated shutter lag on the D90 is 65ms, while on the D7200 it is 54ms

http://camerarocket.com/cameras/Nikon-D90-vs-Nikon-D7200#specs

Taking focus acquisition out of the equation, that's barely 1/100 of a second difference between the two (11ms).

The same source puts focus lag at 208ms [D90] vs 173ms [D7200] which is a little more of a difference, but still only 35ms.

At best you are getting a 46ms advantage with the D7200; literally less than the blink of an eye (a range of 100ms to 400ms as it happens).

Now consider that the average human reaction time to a visual stimulus is around 250ms.

You may conclude that the improved technology of the D7200 is probably not going to help enormously and that you may be best served by considering your technique, as others have already advised competently on this thread.

:)
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top