Phase, contrast, or manual focus for wildlife photography?

[Shadowman]

Helpful replies, thanks folks

I am actually using a superzoom, but the reason I'm asking about phase and manual is that these features are available on some some cameras of this type.

Manfred mentioned single point focusing-is that where you select a certain area on your screen where the camera will focus?
In a quick test with my camera, I found that my continuous focus function could catch small subject with the least tries, as compared to my center focus and select area function. (these are different focus modes, not focus types )


Maybe an accurate AF could sometimes help with a shot like this I got the other day, but it's a tough situation with the ground right behind the bird

Nice to hear what you guys think, thanks!

Using a superzoom has other issues as well, I know of a few that advertise optical zoom throughout its stated focal length, but most superzoom/bridge cameras switch to digital zoom at the long end and quality of image suffers.

[ajohnw]

I suspect the biggest problem with the shot posted is that it's over exposed and resolution from such a small sensor. There are some bridge camera about now that us a 1/1.7 sensor and reach about 300mm. Also some with an even larger sensor but the max focal length goes way down. 100mm max from memory.

The sensor based phase detect uses "inward" facing pixels and appears to work rather well. I believe it's been used on some video cameras for some time.

A demo. Coin doesn't like his taste in music so be prepared to turn the volume down. Best to set HD and the slightly larger view.



Some of the shots are on here. I believe he did the TT with it as well. LOL Birds!

http://www.damianmcgillicuddy.com/galleries/motorsport/

Not entirely on thread but relates to some comments. I believe it uses both contrast and phase in continuous.

John
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[Nicks Pics]

Using a superzoom has other issues as well, I know of a few that advertise optical zoom throughout its stated focal length, but most superzoom/bridge cameras switch to digital zoom at the long end and quality of image suffers.

My super zoom (and I think this is fairly common) has 50x optical zoom, ( 12000 mm equiv.) and then optionally you can use the digital zoom which doubles that, but I personally think it's useless

I suspect the biggest problem with the shot posted is that it's over exposed and resolution from such a small sensor. There are some bridge camera about now that us a 1/1.7 sensor and reach about 300mm. Also some with an even larger sensor but the max focal length goes way down. 100mm max from memory.

I posted the killdeer as an example of a missed focus (it hit on the ground behind the bird) to see if peoples' opinion was that phase detect could achive better results in that situation, but I agree it is over exposed as well.

Super zooms do have rather small sensors, most 1/2.3 inch, some 2/3 inch, but the more the zoom they have, they less compatible with larger sensors they are, as John mentioned.

Despite these problems, a superzoom can sometimes get a decent photo, or one that has not obvious errors, especially when not at full telephoto. Like this one

[ajohnw]

The killdeer focus looks more like it's falls short to me. As I suspect I mentioned to you before - if you had position the central AF on either the birds tail or the banding on the neck any old contrast AF should find it. The usual problem with birds and contrast AF might have been shown in the last shot you posted. The camera may have focused on the twig in the foreground. Some cameras of the type you are using offer manual focusing but as there is a lot more pixels on the sensor than there is in the viewfinder a magnified view has to be used which can make focusing rather difficult.

Some simple post processing steps can improve the killdeer image. Just sharpening but I did boost contrast a bit. Nothing can be done about the over exposure but if the camera produces raw files as well there might even be a method of improving that aspect as well. This is the result



There is another aspect to this - just how big a final image can a camera like this be expected to produce reliably. I'd guess around this size 1000px wide maybe some what more. I'd say if 1500-2000px can be reached the camera is a lot better than I would have expected. Obviously some subjects could be a lot bigger. The main problem really is fine detail in things like birds feathers. Your best option is to zoom in as much as you can but don't expect too much at very long focal lengths.




Looking at this site's examples you may be able to get away with a reduction to 30%. It's a useful site for getting some idea of what a camera can produce without any post processing.

http://img.photographyblog.com/revie..._sl1000_35.jpg

On the other hand this is what the camera is dealing with when it produces a jpg which puts a limit on just how good results can be.



If you start looking for other cameras it would probably pay to look for those which use a 1/1.7 sensor for a long zoom, usually to 300mm. There are some other similar sizes about but they use rather old sensors. I'm thinking of Fuji in particular. I fancy one of these sorts of camera every now and again so keep an eye on what on offer. Really though for zooming to 300mm equivalent they don't seriously compete with micro 4/3 and the smaller sensor ones so far do not offer the quality I want.

One other thing I should point out is that the depth of field on the shots you have posted is very large compared with similar equivalent focal lengths on cameras that have bigger sensors. Sometime people press the shutter button before the camera has actually reached focus and some cameras will let them do that. Just a thought. On many cameras a 1/2 shutter button press activates focusing and when achieved something or the other indicates it.

John
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[Nicks Pics]

In regards to John's reply,

Thank you for your shared knowledge about cameras. SL 1000 does take RAW which I normally use for post processing. It unfortunately doesn't offer manual focusing though.

That pigeon shows a lot of blue fringing, which is common with the sl1000, it can be helped significantly, but not completely sometimes.