Shooting Action

[Richard Crowe]

I was playing with my Canon 7D camera shooting our foster Goldendoodle, Bailey, as she was running towards me returning the ball I threw.  Bailey was an easy subject to experiment with since she loves to fetch.  On the other hand, Holly will fetch once or at the most twice and then quit.

 

I used AI Servo for the shots.

AI Servo AF is an autofocusing system designed exclusively for Canon EOS cameras. It uses a form of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to determine the speed and direction of moving subjects, then focuses the camera lens to a predicted position (Focus Prediction Function) in order to increase the probability of obtaining a sharp photograph.

 

Basically AI Servo will follow focus on a moving object, especially one that is coming towards or going away from the camera.

 

I shot at Shutter Speed Priority (TV) mode, 1/1000 second to stop action and selected ISO 400 to make sure that I had sufficient exposure for my f/4 lens.  I used my 70-200mm f/4L IS lens and shot in low speed burst mode. 

 

I was practicing my action shots because next weekend, I am going to shoot a rodeo in Lakeside, CA.  I am very happy with nailing the focus down quite well.  All Canon DSLR cameras have the AI Servo mode (Nikon and other manufacturers probably have the same capability but, call it something else).  However there may be an slight difference in the capability to follow action between my 7D which is said to have the best focus of any Canon 1.6x crop camera and other Canon cameras.  There may also be a slight difference between my 70-200mm f/4L IS lens and other Canon lenses in focus speed and accuracy.  My lens is generally considered quite fast and accurate. But, I am sure that just about any canon camera/lens is capable of results close to these.

 

Here are the results of my testing...

 

[Jane, Guinness and Murphy]

Great, I especially love the second one with the "flying ear".

[Richard Crowe]

BTW:  I shot these using the camera eye-level viewfinder.  Live view shooting is simply not a fast as using the eye-level finder...

[Jarka, Monty & Auggie]

Thank you, these are all wonderful shots. I used AI Servo million times but I can NEVER come up with pictures like these. I guess I need to try the faster shutter speed. Thanks for the detailed how-to description.

[Jean, Rylee and Cooper]

Very nice as always, Richard.  What is low speed burst mode?  Do all cameras have this?  I have a Canon 60D.

[Richard Crowe]

The 7D has two speeds of burst shooting...  A low speed mode which is about 3 frames (or so) per second and a high speed mode which is about 8 frames or so a second. The actual burst speeds are influenced by factors such as RAW vs. JPEG capture; focus mode and exposure mode.  The advantage of high speed burst is, that you shoot obviously more frames in a second which might allow you to catch a moving subject in a more advantage framing.  The advantage of the slower burst rate is that you shoot fewer frames and have fewer frames to look through in post processing. A slower burst rate will also allow you to shoot in burst mode for a longer interval of time before the buffer of your camera fills up.

 

The Canon 60D has a single burst rate of about 5 frames (Canon says: 5.3) per second which kind of splits the difference between the two speeds of the 7D.  I don't know why Canon slowed down the burst rate from the 50D (which was replaced by the 60D) which was 6.3 frames per second.

 

BTW:  The frame rates for the Rebel series are a bit slower, about 3.7 FPS for the T3i.  However, since I shot Bailey using abut 3 FPS, the Rebel burst rate should be sufficient for all but the fastest moving subjects.

 

 

[Jean, Rylee and Cooper]

Thank you for the explanation!  Very helpful.

[Linda Scott]

Love your pictures Richard and the information is great; I need to practice my action photos too!

[Richard Crowe]

     I am beginning to experiment with a different exposure system for some of my action shots.  I want a cetrain shutter speed (like 1/1,000 second to stop action) and a certain f/stop; like f/4 (which is wide open for my 70-200mm lens) and will provide very narrow depth of field to isolate my subjects. However, I want to keep the shutter speed around 1/1,000 second to stop action...

     I am experimenting with setting the exposure on manual; the shutter speed at 1/1,000 second and the f/stop on f/4.  Then I set the ISO on auto.  That way the camera will always be at 1/1,000 @ f/4 but the exposure will be taken into consideration by automatically adjusting the ISO.  This is not for every shot, but I am going to try it at the rodeo I will be shooting saturday.  I want to keep the cowboy and animal he is riding in focus but have him separated from the background by blurring that background with selective focus.

     This seems to work O.K. but, the Internet article said it will only work with the 7D.  Of course, when the article was published, neither the 60D, the 1Dx nor the 5Diii was available. It might work O.K. on one or all of those later camera models.

     BTW:  the 8.3 frames per second burst mode of the 7D sounds like the chatter of a machinegun.

 

 

[Jean, Rylee and Cooper]

Good luck Richard.  I am sure you will get some great shots.  Please make sure to share them with us.  I can't wait to see them.  How fun.