Shooting small birds in the trees/brush???

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MotoPixel

MotoPixel

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As Spring is about upon us, I've been practicing shooting video of small birds in and among branches. Getting a feel for which autofocus modes work best and what settings for AF sensitivity and speed give the best results.

This group of clips was shot in AF-F mode with Single Point AF. For this type of shooting, it's, IMHO, a good way to go. Other modes get all distracted by the branches and Animal AF just gets in the way, no pun intended. AF Speed set to +2 and AF Tracking Sensitivity to 3 (higher than default). Seems to be a good balance, to me.

I shot these clips earlier this morning with a Z9 and 100-400mm lens on tripod w/fluid head, VR off. Clips are Oversampled UHD, 120P, H.265...edited in Resolve Studio, though no color grading, NR or sharpening. Rendered to UHD 30P H.265 for upload to YT.

Best appreciated on a 4K display...

Test clips on YT

Cheers!
 
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I agree single point AF is the only way to reliably shoot birds in bushes. I also set the camera to AF-C (not AF-F) and only AF (using the BBF) when needed. In fact the only time I use AF-F is for BIF...most of the time I try to shoot MF because the AF just isn't reliable enough. Same goes for my A1.
 
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I forgot to include that these clips were all shot in AF-F mode, which for this particular type of shooting seems to work for me.

When on a tripod, I tend to use the LCD, not the viewfinder, so can refocus if need be via touching the LCD. The clip of the Cardinal amazed me at how I was able to track focus reliably amongst all the distractions. I feel a good part of that was working out AF Speed and Sensitivity to not jump to obstructions too quickly. Definitely going to experiment more with different modes when the subject is not filling the frame to a lesser extent than these birds were.
 
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MotoPixel said:
I forgot to include that these clips were all shot in AF-F mode, which for this particular type of shooting seems to work for me.

When on a tripod, I tend to use the LCD, not the viewfinder, so can refocus if need be via touching the LCD. The clip of the Cardinal amazed me at how I was able to track focus reliably amongst all the distractions. I feel a good part of that was working out AF Speed and Sensitivity to not jump to obstructions too quickly. Definitely going to experiment more with different modes when the subject is not filling the frame to a lesser extent than these birds were.
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AF-F with Single Point tracked well - nice video!
 
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