Focus Issue (Page 8): One other thing, why change to a portrait orientation when shooting sports? You need to give yourself room to see what's about to happen. I would keep landscape...

Kaib795 Loc: Maryland, USA

One other thing, why change to a portrait orientation when shooting sports? You need to give yourself room to see what's about to happen. I would keep landscape view and if there is a great shot just crop in later to frame it as you like. I've screwed up enough shots with on board flash by doing this camera rotating and regretted it every time (shadow maker technique). Stay focused and follow the action besides if you turn the camera vertical you have less focus points to put on a moving object. As mentioned, if you are using back button focus and forgot to refocus after rotating the camera, that's all it is.

bleirer

I was just using DPP and noticed in the menu on the bottom around the middle you can choose "show all auto focus points" or "only show in focus auto focus points" It would be worth checking if the camera had acquired focus before shooting. With BBF it is possible to acquire focus, release the bbf button, the subject moves or leans a little, take the shot, and with narrow DOF it is a little out.

RRS Loc: Not sure

bleirer wrote:

I was just using DPP and noticed in the menu on the bottom around the middle you can choose "show all auto focus points" or "only show in focus auto focus points" It would be worth checking if the camera had acquired focus before shooting. With BBF it is possible to acquire focus, release the bbf button, the subject moves or leans a little, take the shot, and with narrow DOF it is a little out.

While using BBF, for Canon , the focus point will show in DPP if you are in fact holding the button down when actually shooting. If your subject isn't moving and you release the BB, prior to taking the shot, no focus point will show when you check with DPP.

bleirer

RRS wrote:

While using BBF, for Canon , the focus point will show in DPP if you are in fact holding the button down when actually shooting. If your subject isn't moving and you release the BB, prior to taking the shot, no focus point will show when you check with DPP.

So I did a quick test that confirmed that you are correct. If the BBF is not engaged the focus point shows only as a black box, not the usual orange/red box, but with BBF off there is no difference between in focus or not in focus. In that case it proves that he had the BBF engaged, since we can see the orange/red focus point, so that menu item in DPP I mentioned would confirm if it had focus lock at that point the shutter was pressed, since choosing "only show in focus auto focus points" would reveal if the focus was acquired. I think it must have since he said he was in focus priority and it shouldn't have fired unless it acquired focus. Still a mystery then, unless the subject simply moved while the shot was being taken and no tracking was happening.

I guess I'm out of ideas, hope you figure it out!

RRS Loc: Not sure

Grahame wrote:

I'm not familiar with the ops Canon but reading up on what you mention I would have suspected that if the camera on changing orientation had automatically chosen a different 'focus point' OR 'focus point selection method' that would have been indicated in the viewfinder.

You are right, the focusing point does change automatically as you change from horizontal to vertical, if you have chosen that option in the menu. If you are using BBF things change! When you go vertical and use BBF the focusing point you see in the viewfinder will be centered if you haven't moved it but will show up in DPP as off set. The ability of the offset focusing from vertical to horizontal only seems to work when you are not using BBF. So if the OP had set up the offset focusing and used BBF the focus would have actually been on the center of the shirt, as it would show in the viewfinder, but would show up in DPP as being on her face. I've checked this out on a 7DMK2. This offset option only seems to work when using the shutter button but not in BBF.

bleirer

RRS wrote:

You are right, the focusing point does change auto... (show quote)

That sounds like a winner!

frankraney Loc: Clovis, Ca.

Grahame wrote:

You have entirely misread what I have said.

I mentioned that the DoF was reduced in his portrait orientation shot because his subject distance was "shorter". This based on the op's comment.

The op did not move, so neither did the distance. He only flipped the camera. Thus I did not misread what you said which was:

"So I see it as for the portrait shots the subject/camera distance was shorter than when he was using landscape orientation. Hence, the shots in portrait orientation are going to have a shallower DoF and any back/front focus error more noticeable." which indicates the op moved closer, which he did not, except by possibly leaning the tripod forward slightly after focusing. Maybe that's what you meant, but I did not read it that way, several times.

raymondh Loc: Walker, MI

RRS wrote:

You are right, the focusing point does change auto... (show quote)

I'm fairly certain that I moved the focusing pt when I changed to vertical since my goal was to catch her facial expressions. It would also be a rare occurrence for me not to be holding my BBF button down while shooting.

Grahame Loc: Fiji

Kaib795 wrote:

One other thing, why change to a portrait orientation when shooting sports?

Because it can allow you to capture and frame a shot as you want if the subject is too close for the focal length you are using when in landscape orientation.

TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC

Have you tested for front/back focusing of the lens yet? It would be helpful to eliminate that as a possibility.

RRS Loc: Not sure

raymondh wrote:

I'm fairly certain that I moved the focusing pt when I changed to vertical since my goal was to catch her facial expressions. It would also be a rare occurrence for me not to be holding my BBF button down while shooting.

That's the problem, using the BBF button if in the vertical position if you have set the focus off-set. Go to the menu and go to the purple section, fourth bar and look as to how or what you have your camera set to. If set to the middle position the try looking through the viewfinder and you will see that the focus point is in the upper third of the viewfinder. Now push in on the BB and look and you will see that the focus point has now moved to the center position as in horizontal shooting. That would account for the DPP focus point showing as on her face but in reality it was on her shirt. Try it.