By: David Policansky

David Policansky — Thu, 18 Sep 2014 18:45:50 +0000

Hi, Artie. I won’t read the other resonses. 1. If you had been higher, the horizon would have moved higher and the whole background would have been the white sand. But you’d have lost the nice reflections, so on balance, I’d say no, you shouldn’t have got higher. 2. I’m not big on moving things around, so I’m happy with the placement of the three nbirds as they are. 3. This one is NOT difficult because you’ve explained it so often. When you’re lying down you’re steady so one-shot AF is fine. Sitting or standing, you’re more likely to move a bit back and forth and so you want Ai Servo to make sure the subject stays in focus.

By: Dennis Davenport

Dennis Davenport — Thu, 18 Sep 2014 08:24:18 +0000

I’ll take a crack at #3–when you’re lying down and the subject is on the same horizontal plane as you are (on the ground), focusing on the eye of the bird then re-composing keeps the whole bird in focus, near the vertical plane of the bird’s eye. If you’re sitting or standing, where you have to point down to shoot the bird on the ground, if you focus on the eye then re-compose, other parts of the bird are now either further or closer than your focusing distance which means those parts could well be out of focus. This type of focus ‘error’ is less prevalent the further away from the subject you are, not only because DOF increases as you get further away, but because the angle formed by the ground and your camera’s line of view gets smaller as you get further away.

Comments on: Difficult Questions

By: David Policansky

By: Dennis Davenport