Which AF Mode to use for dog sports

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Geowanda

Geowanda

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Hi I'm switching from D850 to the Z9 and I want to take full advantage of the upgrade.
I shoot protection/bite sports and the variety of shots I am faced with includes dogs running at me (fast) and I want to get a good focus on their eyes. Also, the dogs run at the decoy and quickly bite the sleeve or suit.
What would you recommend as an appropriate setting? AF-C single point or one of the Dynamic AFs?
TIA
 
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What I do is have DISP button mapped to be a wide area large focus + af-on button and the AF-ON button acts as a 3D tracking + af-on. So I start off by focusing with DISP and when I see the system recognizes the dog aka subject I switch to using the AF-ON button.
I have to say the system does a heck of a job keeping the dog's eyes in focus.

A few examples using the Z8 and an old AF-S II F mount 300mm f2.8 on an FTZ adapter:

Gasping for air by luftwalk, on Flickr

Watch out by luftwalk, on Flickr

Workout in the woods by luftwalk, on Flickr

The last image was with a 70-200 Z mount.
 
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Why not go to a place where owners take their dogs and do your own experimentation? People have reported that bird mode works better in terms of focusing on an animal's eyes but I would expect results could vary based on the breed. Try focusing on the eyes of an English sheepdog for example.

I would want to position myself parallel to the plane of the dog and the person being attacked so less depth of field is needed. Focusing on the person's gloved arm my work better than focusing on the dog's eye(s). Panning may help and being at an oblique angle to the movement of the dog. Focusing on a rapidly approaching subject is the most difficult situation for a camera's autofocus system. I had far greater success with birds approaching me rapidly when using the D5 than I did with the D850 (using the battery grip and EN-EL18 battery).

This is where one needs to experiment and then review the results. With digital cameras this is very easy to do.
 
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i run a fb group dedicated to dog sport and dog action photography if you’re interested:

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in general i use auto area with subject detection set to animal (only) unless there are things in the foreground in which case i would likely use c1 or c2 set to a box size that allows me to exclude the foreground elements

for bite spots i would almost certainly run in c1/c2 a lot of the time to allow me to limit focus to the dog as much as possible

https://flic.kr/p/2peaWxR
 
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working in close proximity to a handler (or decoy) is tricky and you really want to use an af box that you can keep in the dog and exclude the handler.

freestyle tricks are kind of like that. in this case i set an af box (c1 or c2) of a size and position where the dog _will be_ in the final position. i prefocus on the handler to get af in the ballpark, but then disengage af, recompose so the af box is over the empty space where it _will_ be, then engage af as it enters that box and start my burst.

in reality this is the same as i would do it with a dslr, only i have a box to work with instead of a af box like group.

https://flic.kr/p/2peh4nH
 
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Auto AF, BBF and animal SD. White leg a bit overcooked, but just learning!

IMG_1871.jpeg
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