Red Dot Gun Sights: For those of you that have or still use a red dot gun sight installed on your camera shoe, how do you determine if your autofocus has locked in on your subject?

Ed D Loc: Virginia

For those of you that have or still use a red dot gun sight installed on your camera shoe, how do you determine if your autofocus has locked in on your subject?

BebuLamar

What do you use it for? I think one may get shot using it.

Jerry G Loc: Waterford, Michigan and Florida

You just have to trust your camera

bsprague Loc: Lacey, WA, USA

Mine is an Olympus "camera" red dot sight. I rely on the camera, set to center weighted, to get focused with the press of the shutter. Sometimes, setting manual focus at the expected subject distance works too.

Ed D Loc: Virginia

Birds in flight.

bsprague Loc: Lacey, WA, USA

BebuLamar wrote:

What do you use it for? I think one may get shot using it.

Both Nikon and Olympus make hotshoe mounted sights that work like similar gun sights. The purpose is to help get long telephoto lenses on the subject more quickly than without. If you do a lot of long telephoto shooting you may become very good at getting spot on framing with no help. If not, a red dot sight can help.

Iron Sight Loc: Utah

Im not using a red dot on my camera.
My Sonys have a audible BEEP when autofocus is achieved.
The Beep only occurs when the correct autofocus is selected.

billnikon Loc: Pennsylvania/Ohio/Florida/Maui/Oregon/Vermont

Ed D wrote:

For those of you that have or still use a red dot gun sight installed on your camera shoe, how do you determine if your autofocus has locked in on your subject?

By the time u get the red dot on the moving bird u missed the best shot. No skeet shooter would use one.
Put away that thing and learn to track the bird while bringing up the camera to your eye while continuing to track the bird with your eye.
This is how professional skeet shooters do it, that's how most professional photographers do it, and that's how you should train yourself to do it.

Ed D Loc: Virginia

Thanks for the input. I normally am pretty good at tracking the bird. My curiosity arose while watching a photographer use one and getting some really good results.

Architect1776 Loc: In my mind

Ed D wrote:

For those of you that have or still use a red dot gun sight installed on your camera shoe, how do you determine if your autofocus has locked in on your subject?

I don't know, I usually look in the viewfinder to see what I am photographing.

rlv567 Loc: Baguio City, Philippines

Iron Sight wrote:

Im not using a red dot on my camera.
My Sonys have a audible BEEP when autofocus is achieved.
The Beep only occurs when the correct autofocus is selected.

So if there are three objects within the same general area, how does your "beep" know on which one you wish to focus?????

Loren - in Beautiful Baguio City

sb Loc: Florida's East Coast

billnikon wrote:

By the time u get the red dot on the moving bird u missed the best shot. No skeet shooter would use one.
Put away that thing and learn to track the bird while bringing up the camera to your eye while continuing to track the bird with your eye.
This is how professional skeet shooters do it, that's how most professional photographers do it, and that's how you should train yourself to do it.

I disagree - with a long telephoto lens it is very challenging to track a fast-moving object. A red-dot allows you to keep both eyes on the bird, rapidly moving the camera to stay with it. You just have to have a camera with an autofocus that can keep up with you.

Canisdirus

If you have a long tele zoom....not really needed...just start out at 70%...find subject...zoom and click away...easy peasy...the methodology...not the results.

Long dedicated prime?...you should have enough practice by then to not need one.

It all comes down to...getting the click counts up...learn by doing.

billnikon Loc: Pennsylvania/Ohio/Florida/Maui/Oregon/Vermont

sb wrote:

I disagree - with a long telephoto lens it is very challenging to track a fast-moving object. A red-dot allows you to keep both eyes on the bird, rapidly moving the camera to stay with it. You just have to have a camera with an autofocus that can keep up with you.

And how do u know the camera is on the bird if both eyes are on the bird?

Fotoartist Loc: Detroit, Michigan

I use it for tracking small birds like a Sports Finder in Speed Graphic days. With 500mm+ lenses it gets me in the ballpark of the shot quickly to take it from there.