Nikon AF Modes

[Music] hey everyone Steve from back hundred gallon here and today I want to finally share my nikon AF settings for action photography people have been requesting this video for a long time but I've hesitated to make it since it is Nikon specific however I just can't keep ignoring all these requests anymore so here you go now before we jump into the meat of this video I want to mention the tips were about to go over are also covered in detail in my ebook secrets to studying wildlife photography in fact there's quite a few AF tricks in that book that are not going to be covered in this video today and that apply to all types of cameras so if you're interested in learning more be sure to check it out right here at this link below also the first thing you need to know is that I use back button AF for all my subjects action are still however these settings work the same regardless of whether you shutter release AF or back button ass by the way if you want more info on back button AF and why it's so cool see my ebook or the video at this link right here and finally before we get started I want to emphasize that these are the settings I personally use and that work well for my style of shooting everyone is different so it works for me might not work as well for you in this case there really can be more than one right answer so do whatever works best for you with that in mind let's get started by looking at a few items in the custom functions menu note that not every camera will have every option we're about to discuss custom functions how many AF points some Nikon cameras have a setting in the custom functions menu called number of focus points this probably isn't what you think it is this setting simply allows you to choose if all of the available AF points are selectable or if only a portion of them are this has nothing to do with how many active AF points you're using it only sets the number available for you to choose with the multi selector on the back of the camera my camera lets me choose between 51 and 11 selectable AF points I personally have it set for all 51 but if you find that switching from the middle AF points to the side AF points is too slow you may want to set it to 11 so you don't have to scroll through all 51 as you move throughout viewfinder note that if you're using one of the dynamic motes which we'll discuss in a moment you can still use all the AF sensors around your selected point there's only limits the number of points you can choose with your multi selector custom functions focus tracking another setting you may have in your custom functions menu is called focus tracking with lock-on what this does is determine how long the camera will pause if it temporarily loses an AF lock on the subject before it attempts to reacquire that focus lock it's designed so that if a bush tree or other obstacle passes between you and your subject while you're panning the camera won't instantly jump away from your subject and onto that bush of tree the downside is that if the camera loses an AF lock it tends to take a touch longer to reacquire it and that hesitation can cause to miss shots this can also cause a delay when you're trying to quickly jump from one subject to another personally I usually have this turned off for wildlife photography the only time I turn it on is if I'm in a rare situation where I have a lot of potential obstacles in the foreground in those cases I might go ahead and turn it on usually set to one of the shorter settings just to keep the camera from accidentally focusing on a foreground tree or something honestly I think this is probably much more useful for sports shooters as they track a player on a field with other players constantly getting between the photographer and the subject so keep it off unless the camera seems to be jumping to foreground objects too much and then start with one of the shorter settings this is one mode where there just isn't one hard and fast rule it all depends on what you shoot singler continuous AF the final custom function I want to discuss has to do with single and continuous focus however I thought it might be good to discuss exactly what single and continuous AF was all about before we went into that section so let's examine this first so how do you decide if you need to use continuous or single-shot AF if you're using back button AF like I do the choice is actually really easy you set your camera to continuous AF and just leave it however if you prefer focusing using your shutter release you'll have to pick a mode fortunately this is really easy to single-shot AF allows you to lock in focus and will focus at that distance as long as you keep the shutter button halfway pressed this is ideal for when you want to focus and recompose with a static subject however if the subject is moving the AF won't follow your subject and that's where continuous AF comes in for moving subjects continuous autofocus will adjust the focus under the AF area and try to keep it sharp at all times this works great when you're AF Square is on your subject however it's not as fun when you want to focus and then recompose since as soon as there's something new under your AF sensor it will refocus on that point the bottom line for static subjects stick with single-shot AF for moving subjects or when using back button AF choose continuous autofocus custom functions AF s AF C release priority okay let's look at one last item in our custom functions menu this is actually broken up into two menu items one for AF C and one for AF s but the options work in about the same way basically this option allows you to tell the camera if it should release the shutter only when it has an AF lock or if it should release the shutter regardless of whether it has a confirmed AF lock or not for AF s this should generally be set to focus or it kind of defeats the purpose of AF s in my opinion for AF C you may have several options it may seem like focus or focus plus release or release plus focus sounds like a good idea however over the years I found that just setting this to release seems to work best at least for the types of photos I take if you have it set to focus it will not release the shutter unless the camera knows it has a solid AF lock again this sounds good at first but keep in mind that sometimes the camera has good focus but can't confirm it and it costs you the photo additionally setting this to focus makes it impossible to properly use back button AF there are also some focus + release modes in these modes the camera will slow down the frame rate in tough to focus situations to try to get a better AF lock I have usually before in my wildlife photography and find it seems like it hurts more than it helps at least for this type of stuff I take honestly I found my keeper with just released to be just as good if not even better than any of the other modes in AFC so that's what I use right now AAF modes single point or dynamic for this there's no one right answer it all depends on the subject and your ability to track it although for stationary subjects always go for single point AF also don't confuse single-shot AF with single point AF single point AF means you're just using one AF sensor single-shot is the focus mode we just discussed a minute ago now how do you know when to switch from single point to dynamic 921 or even 51 first you need to understand how dynamic AF works the idea is this when your main AF point loses a lock the camera will attempt to regain focus by switching to one of the surrounding AF points however it always gives top priority to the main AF sensor only switching to the others when that sensor can't get a lock however as the number of those points increase so do the chances one of them will not be in an ideal location for your point of focus for example let's say you were photographing a bird flying by and your AF mode was set to dynamic 51 your main AF sensor is locked on to the head so you can get a nice sharp eye but as you pan the camera loses a solid AF lock and it switches to one of the other AF points in theory this sounds great but what if the AF point it picks is on a wing tip instead of the eye sure it's locked on but the focus point is off and the image is now a throw away so here's how I work my way through the modes if I can keep a single AF point on my subject I'll use single point AF every single time no need to introduce a wild card into the equation in many cases the camera may lose the AF lock for a second but most the time it will be able to recover almost instantly if I was in one of the dynamic AF moans and lost the focus lock with my main AF point I'd risk the camera locking on using an AF point that wasn't in as good a spot for optimum focus now this isn't to say I won't switch to one of the dynamic modes far from it if I'm having a hard time keeping a single AF point on my subject as it runs or flies by that's when I switch to dynamic AF I'll start with d9 and if I'm still not able to keep the sensor on the subject I'll then move to D 21 I personally don't use D 51 most of the time if I'm using dynamic AF it's actually just d9 so start with as few AF points as you possibly can and only move up two more if you can't keep your AF sensor on the subject 3d AF for my own photography I personally never use 3d nikons 3d AF relies on color in order to keep an AF lock and most of my subjects are about the same color as a background so it's been pretty unreliable for me if with wildlife I think it's better suited for sport shooters actually the idea is this though you select your AF point and start tracking the subject as the subject moves across the frame the camera will automatically switch AF points to track and follow it it's actually pretty incredible when you can use it but my wildlife work it just doesn't work real well for me group AF finally we have group AF this is new on some nikon cameras and it causes some confusion many people think it's the same as dynamic but it actually works differently group AF basically takes a small group of AF points and treats them as one large AF point using them all simultaneously this is different from dynamic AF where the camera gives priority to the main AF point in the middle of the group and only switches when that point loses in AF lock group AF gives all points equal priority and acts like a giant AF sensor the advantage is a group AF get sometimes acquire a lock with single or dynamic point AF struggles it can be more reliable in low contrast low light or tough to track situations if your camera has it it's definitely worth experimenting with especially those times when the other AF mode seem to struggle a little bit the disadvantage is that group AF will tend to focus on whatever is closest so if you have a bird facing you straight on and you're trying to get it eyes sharp you'll probably end up with a sharp beak tip instead in this photo of the bear I have the vast majority of the group AF area over the head but you can see the blade of grass on the foreground has put the camera to decide to focus on because it's actually closer for this single point AF would have been a much better choice that said group AF can be very useful as long as you understand the limitations and behaviors of the system well that about does it for more AF tricks remember to check out my ebook secrets to studying wildlife photography what we've discussed today is actually only a fraction of the AF tricks discussed in that book in fact if you grab the book you'll learn AF tricks for tracking your subjects how to deal with low contrast subjects which AF sensor is always the most reliable in a bad situation how different types of AF sensors work tricks with AF limiters and presets and tons more and hey that's just the AF captor there's dozens more thanks for watching and remember to subscribe to my youtube channel also make sure you sign up for my email newsletter not only will I tell you when I release new videos but I am also working on articles for the website all the time and the only way to know when those get posted is to sign up for that email newsletter thanks so much for watching have a great day you

Channel: Steve Perry

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Keywords: photography tips, photography help, Backcountry Gallery, Steve Perry, nature photography, Nikon AF, how to use nikon af, group af, dynamic af, nikon autofocus, how to use nikon AF, continuous or single shot af, nikon single servo af, nikon 3d AF, nikon dynamic and group af, nikon af tricks, nikon af settings, nikon dynamic 9, nikon dynamic 21, nikon group af, nikon focus tracking with lock on, nikon focus tracking delay, how many af points, Nikon AF Settings

Id: _N_bzhJAKms

Length: 12min 6sec (726 seconds)

Published: Sat May 09 2015