05-18-2011, 08:30 AM
[quote name='olegk' timestamp='1305650577' post='8422']
(I know the community here tends to dislike my pictures, but this time I need some to demonstrate the case.)
I claim that in many practical cases high continuous-shooting frame rate of the Sony A55 can compensate for the presumed AF-speed deficiency.
I don't really care whether the camera fitted with 50mm f/1.4 in someone's hands can track an approaching train.
What I already know, is that in my hands, when fitted with either 16-80 f/3.5-4.5 or 70-210 f/4, it's unable to track my dog running towards me.
So, my solution is to preset the focus for the desired subject size, set the 6 fps or 10 fps mode, and keep the shutter pressed for approximately a second at the right moment.
After several rounds I'm rewarded with 1-2 usable pictures.
By the way, the dog's picture here is taken with an MF lens - Jupiter 37 - 135mm f/3.5 - made in USSR in early 80s. It has enormous number of aperture blades, and thus greatly outperforms the 70-210 set at 135mm in defocusing the background trees.
The flower-and-bug picture was taken with the 16-80 and 10 fps. The swinging of my head with the attached camera did the focus-guess job.
[/quote]
Unfortunately I have to second that - tracking a running dog gives really tough job to your camera, especially if the dog is not particularly big but very bouncy.
I found myself in a similar situation: while Nikon D300 has supposedly efficient "3D" tracking, it still wastes over half of frames during this task. So at the end of the day I had to buy a battery grip to keep up with my dog, lol <img src='http://forum.photozone.de/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='
' />
P.s. Google says it's 12 blades.
(I know the community here tends to dislike my pictures, but this time I need some to demonstrate the case.)
I claim that in many practical cases high continuous-shooting frame rate of the Sony A55 can compensate for the presumed AF-speed deficiency.
I don't really care whether the camera fitted with 50mm f/1.4 in someone's hands can track an approaching train.
What I already know, is that in my hands, when fitted with either 16-80 f/3.5-4.5 or 70-210 f/4, it's unable to track my dog running towards me.
So, my solution is to preset the focus for the desired subject size, set the 6 fps or 10 fps mode, and keep the shutter pressed for approximately a second at the right moment.
After several rounds I'm rewarded with 1-2 usable pictures.
By the way, the dog's picture here is taken with an MF lens - Jupiter 37 - 135mm f/3.5 - made in USSR in early 80s. It has enormous number of aperture blades, and thus greatly outperforms the 70-210 set at 135mm in defocusing the background trees.
The flower-and-bug picture was taken with the 16-80 and 10 fps. The swinging of my head with the attached camera did the focus-guess job.
[/quote]
Unfortunately I have to second that - tracking a running dog gives really tough job to your camera, especially if the dog is not particularly big but very bouncy.
I found myself in a similar situation: while Nikon D300 has supposedly efficient "3D" tracking, it still wastes over half of frames during this task. So at the end of the day I had to buy a battery grip to keep up with my dog, lol <img src='http://forum.photozone.de/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='
' /> P.s. Google says it's 12 blades.