will47 Loc: Indianapolis, IN

I use the above camera and a friend, who also has one, suggested that I start using zone auto focusing in my photograhy. 99% of what I shoot are birds, animals, and landscape photography. I do take some photo's of people at events but rarely portrait work. I know I can go shoot some photo's in this mode, and I will very shortly, but I am wondering if this sounds like sound advice? Normally I have been shooting in single point in the center. Zone auto focusing will give me 15 focus points for the camera to choose from. Thanks.

robertjerl Loc: Corona, California

I have found it only works if there are no other things getting into the field of view near the subject and esp nothing between you and the subject-like branches closer to you than the one the bird is on.
For sports, action an airshow and BIF etc with a sky or distant background zone will work fine. Example, you have two or three players come together on the field far enough away you have good DOF then the zone will focus on something in the group and DOF will get you a good shot. But if say a fan in a row in front of you raises their arm into your view the zone AF can jerk the focus off the field and onto the arm. That is why the 7DII and 5 series and 1 series have an AF setting where they will ignore or delay changing AF when something intrudes on the field of view. In that case if it happens just as you press the shutter all the way the 1st and maybe 2nd shot in a burst get the subject before the AF switches to the intruding object.

griffzky

I also spend a lot of time shooting birds, and quite often the only way to get the shot is with center spot focusing because you have to be sure to focus on the bird, and not any branches closer to the lens in the photo. I think his suggestion would work great for landscape or scenic photography, but not for "most" bird photography. If you were shooting a flock of seagulls taking off from the water it would probably work great.

sergio

the above is right!

khorinek

I use zone focus when shooting a group of people. You have more focus points with zone. If shooting a single object/subject, I would use single point.

Jrhoffman75 Loc: Conway, New Hampshire

Single point with expansion would be a better choice. In Zone AF all focus points in the zone are active, and as discussed above, camera can select distractive items around the bird.

With single point expansion only the primary point is active and only if that point can’t achieve focus will the expansion points take over.

Clapperboard

Please take a look at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NpFezdEC4d4


There's some useful suggestions/explanations for using the focus system(s) on the 7D mk2.

Best wishes.

mwsilvers Loc: Central New Jersey

It can go either way. Instead of just soliciting opinions why not just try it yourself?

jeep_daddy Loc: Prescott AZ

I have a 7D II and love it. I shoot a lot of birds and most of the time use just one single point. But did you know that if you use BBF (back button focus) you can program 2 buttons on the back? I use BBF and have the one on the right set for a single focus point, and the button that is just to its left programmed for 9 focus points. If and when a bird flies, I simply move my thumb to the button I programmed for 9 points and put that on the BIF. You can also set the focus "case" for the second button so that stays that way every time you press that button.

Good luck with this and give it a try.

amfoto1 Loc: San Jose, Calif. USA

I use a pair of 7DII for the bulk of my work. Over the last 2+ years I've taken approx. 100,000 images with them and, before that I took some 300,000 shots with a pair of similar original 7D that I used for five years. I've experimented with all their focus patterns and most of the focus-related tweaks (I don't use the "Cases", just as I don't use "Scene" modes, White Balance presets, etc. I make my own settings.)

I don't agree with your friend.

I mostly shoot sports/action (some portraiture, some wildlife and occasionally scenery) and I use Single Point AF most of the time. It's more work for me, but my "rule of thumb" is to use as few AF points as possible. That puts me most fully in control of exactly where camera and lens focus. Any time you use multiple AF point patterns of any type, you're letting the camera decide where to focus, and it won't always focus where you wanted.

But don't "get married" to any single AF pattern. Be flexible because there are times when the 7DII's other focus patterns can be useful....

Zone Focus CAN be useful at times. (7DII has two versions: "small"/15-point and "large"/25-point.... original 7D only had one.) To me Zone Focus is specialized and I feel it works best when shooting a subject that's well separated from any background and/or the background is very plain... such as a bird in flight against a blue sky or distant clouds... but not one flying close in front of trees. If using a telephoto with a fairly large aperture that makes for shallow depth of field, you have to be careful. Zone can work fine for a subject flying toward you... But if the bird is flying past you from left to right or right to left, the camera will want to focus on the closest wing tip, leaving their body, head and eye somewhat out of focus. Stopping your lens down can help.

Expansion Points are another focus pattern the camera offers that can be helpful at times. (7DII has two versions: 4-point that enables the AF points right, left, above and below a selected point... and 8-point that enables all the points surrounding a selected point. Original 7D only had 4-point Expansion.) I sometimes use it with really fast, erratic moving subjects that are difficult to keep a single point on myself. For example I might use it when photographing a horse and rider running a gymkhana event where they accelerate and decelerate rapidly, and change direction frequently.

The difference between Zone and Expansion modes, besides the number of points, is that Zone is sort of like a scaled down version of All Points/Auto, where all the AF points are equally able to start AF and it can be passed off to the adjacent points as needed. With Expansion, on the other hand, the photographer chooses the starting AF point, but the camera can opt to use an adjacent point if it detects that the subject has moved away from that starting point.

7DII also has Spot Single Point AF, which is sort of a high precision AF. It uses a smaller than usual AF point. An example where I might use it is if trying to photograph a bird sitting in a tree among a tangle of branches. It also can be useful for portraits. Supposedly it slows AF a little, so I don't normally use it for action shots. But I have heard of people using it successfully with butterflies and other small critters.

All Points/Auto Selection is the last of the seven AF patterns that 7DII offers (all Canon DSLRs have this and Single Point... a few also have other patterns here or unique ones of their own). I absolutely never use this. It simply activates all the AF points and leaves all the focusing decisions up to the camera. It will usually focus on whatever is closest and covered by an active AF point... which far more often than not isn't where I want the camera and lens to focus.

It's a lot more work for me, but I get the highest percentage of accurately focused shots using Single Point and Spot Single Point. Shooting an equestrian even recently, I took around 3000 images using Single Point alone and after post-processing found I'd missed focus on around 30. And I bet half or more of those were my fault... not the camera's.

Used right for certain types of subjects, the Expansion Point modes can work well. I use them far less often, but when I do there's somewhat more missed focus images.... I'd have to guess it's around 10 or 15%. Much of that simply can't be helped, since AF will sometimes be distracted by and lock onto another object in the scene.

It's similar with Zone Focus modes, but leaves it more up to chance where the camera will focus... As a result, I use the Zone patterns less often... pretty rarely. (I don't shoot a lot of BIF and seldom have other, similar opportunities to use it).

Stationary subjects... scenery, posed portraits, etc. I will almost certainly use Single Point... Sometimes I may even use Spot Single Point.

That's what works for me and much of what I shoot. Experiment and decide what gives you the best results for the types of subjects you shoot. You're friend is entitled to their opinion and I don't know what they shoot... But I can't help but suspect they have a lot of missed focus images. I think that's pretty likely, with them insisting on using a somewhat specialized focus pattern such as 15-point Zone for everything.

travisdeland Loc: deland, FL

here's a dropbox link to a guide on the AF system of the 7DmkII that Canon came out with a while back. It does a very good job of explaining the various settings and their properties:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/xbgb6kebmavbhiv/EOS_7D_Mark_II_AF-Setting_Guide-p9090-c3945-en_GB-1427891547.pdf?dl=0

this guide also is pertinent for the newer cameras as well. Hope it helps