AF - Priority Selection consequences

While trying out the D500 in the past few days, it just dawned on me (well just never gave it any thought before ) that, except selecting "focus", you will bound to have out-of-focus shots even if you're doing your part and tracking your target well. I would guess that the higher the fps, the more likely that it would be so. It seems to me that if I get out-of-focus shots, I can say: "hey, it wasn't me; it was the camera."  Is that why nobody can get single shot sharp and in-focus every time ? 

Am I crazy in thinking that or at least theoretically I am right?

What do you think?

Your question seems a little obscure so I am guessing that is why no one has replied.

What do you mean by " except selecting focus". The D500 has a variety of focus modes each applicable to a set of circumstances dependant on the subject. If you are getting a lot of unfocused shots it is more likely you have a wrong setting, or some type of user error than directly attributable to the camera.

Kim

Kim wrote:Your question seems a little obscure so I am guessing that is why no one has replied.

What do you mean by " except selecting focus". The D500 has a variety of focus modes each applicable to a set of circumstances dependant on the subject. If you are getting a lot of unfocused shots it is more likely you have a wrong setting, or some type of user error  than directly attributable to the camera.

Kim

Or may be I was stating something obvious and understood already I don't know; I had not thought about it before.
Thank you for your response, Kim !

Ah yes I see where you are coming from now. I have never had consistent results with the "release" mode, do not really like it. I use Focus all the time and very rarely experience the shutter not responding but I tend to stick to single focus mode most of the time and do not do a lot of 'machine gun' style shooting. l prefer slow and considered.

I presume this will explain the various options and the consequences of which one is chosen

http://nps.nikonimaging.com/technical_s ... _settings/

The idea behind this option is you can take a frame anyway even if AF won't lock sometimes it's a 50/50 chance it is focused but the AF sensor won't lock or alternately you take over with full time manual focus to tweak the setting. It may be in focus but on the wrong part of the bird you tweak it and if focus priority is on it won't take the shot. Most likely when shooting in deep twilight. Last thing you want to do when you have a great shot lined is have to dive into menus to make the camera take the shot when AF refuses to lock. I always leave my cameras on release priority.

ChrisRoss wrote: I always leave my cameras on release priority.

Ditto

Double ditto

Ditto times 3

The main reason is that I want to determine when the shutter fires, not leave that up to the camera. Also if you are a shooter that focuses and recomposes, if you have it on focus priority the camera won't take the shot without refocusing first, probably on something that you didn't want the camera to focus on.

So if you are using release priority all the time what percentage of out of focus shots do you get? When I tried it for a week or so I found I got too many shots lacking critical sharpness. Why would you need to shoot that way when doing landscapes or macros etc. I do all my landscapes in Live View mode and you can place the focus point in any location you want.

I just don't do focus and recompose at all.

Are you saying it is the way to go for bird photography or all types of photography?

The question was not about bird photography as far as I could tell.  If you are getting more OOF shots with release priority in landscapes or macro then there is something amiss in the technique employed that could probably be sorted out easily - you may just not be aware of something that you are doing or some setting that is giving you a less than optimal result.  For action, I certainly want the shutter to fire when I ask it to, not when the camera thinks it might have something in focus.  It is not unusual for something to be perfectly in focus but the camera does not interpret it to be due to either low contrast or focusing on lines that are parallel to the AF sensor.

Here is a focus and recompose example that can come up often, especially with cameras that only have AF concentrated toward the center or with a camera that only has a single AF point in the center like some medium format gear or older cameras.  I often focus stack a few shots to get the desired DOF while maintaining enough shutter speed to stop blades of grass or leaves from blurring.  If my first frame requires focus to be outside of the AF array, I will focus on the closest object and then compose the shot.  The first shot could not be taken in focus priority in that scenario since the center of the frame is now completely out of focus.  With release priority, I can now take the first shot which has the bottom of the frame in focus and then use the lowest focus point in the AF array for the second shot, the highest point for the third shot and manually focus to infinity for the final shot (or use the top point in the array if that falls on something that is effectively at infinity).  This is a scenario I am faced with almost every day, one that would be impossible with focus priority enabled.

No I am not getting focus missed in landscape, I focus stack via live view for landscape and can put the focus point any where I want but I and use a mix for macro shooting.

I tried using release for shooting birds after reading a much earlier post by EJ on always using release priority. I did get more out of focus shots than focus priority. I shoot every day on average and about once a week the camera will not shoot a shot. I am happy with that trade off.

I guess I would rather get a few potential OOF shots with the hope of getting some in focus than no shots at all if the camera thinks it doesn't have a subject in focus which can happen especially if the scene is a bit low in contrast. But of course your mileage may vary - in the end, shoot with what gives you the best results for your style of photography

I just came across this thread and I must admit I'm surprised that people such as Chris and E.J. use release priority!

On my Canon bodies my routine for quite a few years now has been to set the camera to Focus priority in all modes (including in AI Servo for the first and the subsequent shots). Because I use back-button focus, in those few instances where the camera refuses to take a shot all I do is roll my thumb off the AF button and then take the shot anyway. Focus/release priority only applies when AF is active!

When shooting a burst of an animal in motion I will sometimes notice slight "hiccups" in the timing which are obviously pauses for focus to be re-locked. I've always felt this to be a good thing!
One drawback on the EOS 5D Mk III is that with focus priority selected, the maximum burst speed drops from 6 fps to 4 fps (even when AF is not active, despite my statement above). But that has not affected the 1Dx/7D2/5Ds/5DsR/5D4 which all maintain full speed. It did mean that when I moved from the 5D3 to the 5DsR last year that my burst rate actually increased!

I always use release priority too. I have 't found it to be of any hindrance. I should switch focus priority to see how the camera reacts. I put my 7D MK2 to a good test this weekend photographing a northern hawk owl. Man, are they fast for an owl. I am going to guess that if I put the camera into focus priority before firing, I would miss a lot of shots. The camera seems to do very well with release priority.

Many times the camera (and operator) might have a hard time in keeping up with the focus especially if it's a fast moving bird, for instance. Occasionally during flight the AF might grab a wingtip instead of the head area and cause the focus to change slightly - sometimes the focus under those circumstances will be still good enough to get an acceptable image, especially if you have stopped down a bit, allowing more DOF. If you set your camera to focus priority and the shutter doesn't fire you will not get any images. Based on that, I always use Release just in case the camera, if it was fooled, will still take the image, and many times I've gotten a decent shot because the camera fired away regardless and did take images. Birds  can spin and flip giving the AF a hard time! What difference does it make if there's a few OOF images thrown in there?