Manual Focus?

[MatthewBotos]

I have more of a general technique question: how useful do you find manual focus to be in shooting sports?

I set my focus on the finish line for a ski race (http://matthewbotos.com/gallery/2008/Whistler_Racing/) and started increasing the ISO to get a faster shutter speed and a higher aperture to increase the chance of getting the skiers in focus.

There were plenty of hits (one of my favorites from early in the race is below) and plenty of misses. How would you setup for catching people crossing the finish line?


<img src="http://matthewbotos.com/gallery/d/27389-3/img_6553.jpg" width="600" /> (http://matthewbotos.com/gallery/2008/Whistler_Racing/img_6553.jpg.html)

Thanks for your input!

[smc1377]

In situations where the action is too fast moving or where I can only see the action for a brief moment, I will just set the focus like how you did, and then just snap away as each subject passed by. That's probably the only way to make sure your subject is in focus each and every time since the action will move too fast to allow your lens to properly focus each time.

[wannabehorsephotographer]

I'm still working on getting my action shots fine tuned, and my manual focus is a pain in the bum - to put it nicely, but I try to pre-autofocus on the ground or a pole near my subject's "anticipated" path (horse's seem to never do what I want them to). As long as my aperture isn't too wide, my subject seems to come out in focus.

[clockdoc]

I agree that manual focus can be a pain. Some things to try next time are using a high contrast subject/line to get focus a sharp as possible, use a smaller aperture for increased depth of field and use a wider focal length lens (also provides more depth of field at the same distance.) You may have to crop some images in post processing but hopefully they will be generally sharp overall.

If the subject is moving perpendicular to your line of sight then you need to pan and follow the action (use burst mode if your camera has this feature). Prefocusing in autofocus on a subject not in the same lighting as your intended subject may provide a sharp image but exposure may not be the same since the camera will set focus and exposure at the same time.