GregWCIL Loc: Illinois

I took these three shots today on the Illinois side of the Mississippi River.

For two years I've been using continuous 3D focus on my D800 for BIF. I've had pretty good luck with it. I'd say 2/3 of the shots are focused properly. The only way I can get locked in a bird is with a clear sky background. But once locked on, it seems to hang in there pretty good.

My questions is if I should be using a different mode part or all the time? What modes do you have luck with?

Immature Bald Eagle near Keokuk, Iowa

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Seagull (I guess) in same vicinity

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Backlit Bald Eagle early evening

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birdpix Loc: South East Pennsylvania

I'm not a Nikon expert but I believe that, when you are in AF continuous mode, you have the choice of having the AF system decide what the subject is or you can decide which AF point will initiate AF. Which are you using?

Do you have "Lock On" set to on. You can set this to refocus quickly or with a delay. I would set it with a delay. (setting 4 or 5).

When the background is very busy and is fairly close it may be of benefit to reduce the number of AF points. You can chose single point, 9, 21 or all 51. Perhaps 21 points might work better with a busy background. It does put a burden on you to keep those AF points on the subject, though.

I hope someone with D800 experience will pipe in.

Apaflo Loc: Anchorage, Alaska

For a non-expert, you pretty much hit it on the head!

Lock-On may not make any difference though, unless there is a flock of birds flying randomly. :-) It is most useful when doing sports or event photography, and people are often walking between the camera and any given subject.

Lets look at the User Manual page by page! Starting on page 91 were it explains that AF-C if for moving objects, so that's a no brainer. But note that it also says if the subject moves it will engage predictive focus tracking. It also refers to page 281 to set "release priority".

Page 281 is "a1: AF-C Priority Selection", and probably "Focus" is what you'd want. Sometimes "Release + focus" might be better, for example in dim light at dusk or a dark cloudy day.

Since we are there, skip down a couple pages to 283 and look at "a3: Focus Tracking with Lock-On". If there are lots of birds flying in random directions, that might be useful. Also if birds are flying behind trees, power poles, or whatever and it seems that AF just loses its marbles every time that happens. Otherwise set it to off. (I have little experience with this! No trees, and I shoot birds at least a couple miles from the nearest power poles. It makes life simple.)

Back up to the front, see page 93, "AF-Area Mode", which determines how the initial focus point is selected, and what happens when the subject moves off that specific point. Single-point AF is for stationary subjects. If Dynamic-area AF is selected the manually chosen initial focus point (see page 96) will look at whatever it is on when AF is activated (with a half press of the shutter button or holding down the AF-ON button. See page 92). But the camera will also watch information at other focus points (9, 21 or 51 of them). If the subject moves away from the manually selected initial focus point the camera will use information from the others to track it. Hence if you manually select the center focus point that will be used until the subject moves away from it, then which ever focus point detects the subject will be used as long as it is on the subject. And the subject can move all around to however many different focus points are enabled and whichever one single focus point the camera thinks is on the subject will be used to focus.

The difference between using 9, 21, or 51 points is how fast and how accurately the camera can detect the subject. It is much less likely to miss if only 9 are in use and one of them is on the subject. But if the subject is moving fast or erratically you might have a very hard time making sure at last one of those 9 is on the subject. With all 51 enabled it is much easier to always have a focus point on the subject... but with 51 to choose from the camera isn't nearly as accurate at selecting. In poor light using 51 may not work well enough. The manual says 51 would be typical for birds in light. Certainly true of fast birds that are up close!

The 9, 21, and 51 point system is primarly for subjects moving directly at or away from the camera. It is less able with sideways movement and apparently may not use color information, or at least as much of it, as 3D-Tracking does. The 3D-tracking mode works better when fast or erratic side to side motion needs to be tracked.

Page 94 discusses "Auto-area AF" where the camera decides which initial AF point to use when AF is initialized. It has face detection, for example. And probably is not a good mode for birds.

Another set of options is on page 103, where Cl or Ch can be selected for Continuous low speed or high speed. Ch shoots a the highest frame rate it can go at. I like to set Cl to either 1 or 2 fames per second. Ch would be the only thing to use for flying birds.

That is a once over, by the book. Now the question is which parts didn't quite become crystal clear. (I have time, cause I can't shoot birds for another week, as the sun doesn't come up until then... But I did see a raven flying around in the dusk at noon today. )

GregWCIL Loc: Illinois

I do not use "lock on." However, that is a good idea to try.
The number of focus points is always a trade off it seems. If you use 9 it is very tough to keep those nine on most BIF. I do a fair amount of shotgun shooting and consider myself above average on being able to swing with a target, but 9 points is hard with most birds.

I know you don't shoot Nikon, but what is your personal preference for settings?

GregWCIL Loc: Illinois

Apaflo, thanks for you thorough reply. (I can't imagine living in darkness through the winter, btw.)

I've read the manual, of course, but was hoping for personal experiences of what works best. I hadn't tried lock-on because I'm usually shooting a single bird. But often, such as with eagles, it might be just the ticket when trying to capture them landing. Maybe it would be less likely for the surrounding branches to catch the focus.

Personally, I think release priority is a joke on Nikon's part. It simply lets the shutter go off whether or not the subject is in focus. Who wants a bunch of blurry shots. I'm looking to increase my number of in-focus frames.

I'd forgotten the manual talks about 9, 21 and 51 point focus being primarily for objects moving directly toward or away. That would seem to rule out almost all the birds I shoot.

What settings do you use?

And now the important questions: I looked at your website. You have done a lot of work documenting life in Barrow. The whaling photos were amazing. What do they use that thick whale skin for?

Two of the most wanted on my bucket list are to photograph polar bears and the northern lights. Are either of those predictable for someone who travels to Barrow?

Thanks again.

Apaflo Loc: Anchorage, Alaska

The only real problem is when the sun comes up, it's always right in your eyes! We have about 2 hours of civil twilight even on the shortest day, so it isn't really just darkness all winter. The summer really is light all the time though. From late April until mid-August, it's daylight.


Just about all of them at various times. It is totally dependent on what is being done.

A lot of times, with many of the various camera configuration options it isn't so much having the exact configuration on the tip of the fingers, it's just knowing approximately what can be done and how to look up the specifics to get a refresher. Then go try things and see what works best in the situation at hand.


Food! Typically it is cut up into slices with about 2 inches of pink blubber attached. The blubber is crunchy and some people think it tastes like almonds. For me the skin is the good part. I swear it tastes just like a really good very rare rib steak!

I don't much care for beluga, and Bowhead is the only whale I've ever eaten. They say it is by far the best. Folks here could hunt grey whales, but nobody wants to eat one. Bowhead whale meat of just about every kind is highly prized. The advantage of being a Captain is that they get the best cuts! The closer one is to a Captain, but better you eat... :-)


They are totally hit or miss. As the climate warms the polar bears are moving away from this area due to lack of sea ice in the summer. I have only seen one polar bear the past two years.

Northern Lights is much more likely, but Fairbanks is a much better place to try your luck. We get about as much, but particularly in February and March they have more clear weather and we have cloudy skies.

Two things that are a guaranteed photo op here are birds and culture. If you are well healed, check out Matthew Studebaker at www.studebakerstudio.com. He does an extremely good job. If you want less hand holding and more adventure, skip the organized tours and call Mike Shults just before coming to Barrow. If that doesn't work, get off the plane and go to Sam & Lee's Chinese Restaurant and ask Mrs Kim what to do. She knows everybody and their brother!

Birding is a big deal here from late April until into July, then is sort of slack for awhile and picks up again in mid-September through October.

Whaling is another sure hit, but the exact dates vary. In late September or early October as soon as the temperature is below freezing most of the time, fall whaling starts. Depending on the weather, it lasts until they fill their quote. It might be done with in 5 days, or it may take 3 weeks. If you are here though, even one whale is enough for many hundreds of shots over several hours of time. Not to mention you'll get fed too.

Culture is every day, but Nalukataq, July 4th, Christmas, Kivgiq in February some years, and spring carneval in the first week of April are more significant than other times. But on any day of the year what is here is unique to Alaska.

birdpix Loc: South East Pennsylvania

Shooting with my Canon 7D MkI when shooting birds in flight I usually use what is called "center point expansion" that is just the central AF point plus the 4 adjacent ones unless I am shooting small birds against a clear sky. Then I use all 19 of the available AF points but with the center point selected to start AF. Canon's equivalent of "Lock On" is AF tracking sensitivity and I have that set to low. It delays the camera from refocusing if the AF points wander off the target briefly. It isn't only for when something passes between the camera and the subject. I also set the camera to focus rather than release priority as, like you, I don't want any out of focus shots.

MtnMan Loc: ID

Contrary to most recommendations to use AF-C I use AF-S single point for BIF on my D800 with a Sigma 150-500. I set the shutter release to continuous and have the shutter release set to focus priority. I then pan to get the focus point on the bird while holding the shutter down. It fires when it achieves focus.

I strive to get the focus point on the eye.

I sometimes get bird parts but they are pretty much always in focus.

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GregWCIL Loc: Illinois

That is very interesting. I certainly can't argue with the result you showed (fantastic photo, btw). Do you think the camera is refocusing between each shot? Are you shooting on continuous high?

MtnMan Loc: ID

The camera refocuses for each bird or if I wander off the bird because it can't focus on the sky.

Yes, Ch, which on a D800 isn't all that fast anyway. I shoot in RAW which may slow it down.

GregWCIL Loc: Illinois

Know what you mean about frame rate on the D800. I often shoot in 1.2 crop mode since it will take it from 4 fps up to 5. Also have smaller files to deal with. Biggest downside is making sure I keep everything inside the smaller frame in the viewfinder.

I'm one of those who are waiting for a top of the line crop frame camera - higher frame rate and more pixels. But I'm not giving up much with the D800.

birdpix Loc: South East Pennsylvania

That is an interesting technique! I would surmise that it works best when the subject is flying parallel to you so that the focus distance is not changing significantly. I would guess, that if the bird is flying more towards or away from you, that this technique would not work as well. In fact, the camera would not achieve focus or if it did, the bird would move quickly out of the depth of field for the chosen aperture and focal length. What has been your experience with this situation?

MtnMan Loc: ID

I can't recall any coming straight at me. I'll have to browse a little more. But I haven't seen a problem.

This guy was coming almost at me.

Maybe it is because I use the minimum f-stop to get the highest shutter speed at lowest ISO. The delay from when it achieves focus till it fires must be small enough that even so it is still within the DOF.

It might be an issue with faster birds but I haven't noticed it so far.

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Apaflo Loc: Anchorage, Alaska

Every spring I have a wonderful opportunity to shoot Arctic Terns and Sabins Gulls, both rather fast birds that sometimes are flying across my path but at other times are flying full speed straight at me.

AF-S will catch a big slow bird going cross ways, and may get a few shots even straight on.

It won't do what AF-C will do. With an Arctic Tern coming straight at me I fully expect maximum frame rate from a D4, and that every shot will be spot on focused if I'm able to track the bird and keep it in the frame. Using 9 points isn't usually good enough, and 21 or 51 is typically what I use. I don't use 3-D Tracking though.

Here is a thumbnail (click on it get a larger version) of a composite that I have on my webpage. This is one bird, three different exposures. Shot last June.

http://apaflo.com/gallery3/d4a_1212.s.jpg.tmb

martinfisherphoto Loc: Lake Placid Florida

I use the D600 but also used the same settings on the D7000 before going to full frame. I used to use Focus Lock On but I tend to get pretty close to my subjects. It works great when birds fly parallel to you. Many times they don't so I've now switched to Focus Lock Off. In this mode the auto focus will continuously focus on the subject.. The only drawback is you have to stay on target or the camera will focus behind the subject or grab anything else it can. I now use 9 focusing points as well, with the focus lock off. Here's a example of one eagle dive bombing another taken two days ago. I was to close to get the whole shot, happened faster than I could react but the lens kept focus. I was zooming down from 400mm to 240mm when this shot was taken.

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