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by **ABG** on Sat Apr 22, 2006 12:26 pm

As some of you know, I visited the far south coast of NSW over Easter, staying with some friends. They had acquired a new family member since my last visit, Jack, a Staffy cross Jack Russell. We took him for a walk down the beach and I grabbed some photos. It was terribly difficult getting a nice smooth pan because Jack was darting off in zillions of unexpected directions. This is the best I managed. C & C welcome

by **MattC** on Sat Apr 22, 2006 12:57 pm

Andrew,

This is a ripper of a shot. You managed to capture his head clearly while everything else is on the go. Well done.

Cheers

by **Manta** on Sat Apr 22, 2006 12:59 pm

Outstanding shot Andrew! I love it.

Being the owner of a Jack Russell, I know how hard it is to get a focussed shot of the little buggers. Not even Nikon can provide a fast enough shutter speed!

by **Zeeke** on Sat Apr 22, 2006 1:02 pm

having a jack russell aswell.. i can appreciate the difficulty ur having... .. ive tried a few times trying to capture mine running.. but damn the lil bugger runs too damn fast... sometimes i just log on focus and he's already too close or too far away... ive tried manually focusing to a point and firing off shots when he approaches.. but even that can be difficult...

Great work.. and well done on capturing a great image

Tim

by **Big Red** on Sat Apr 22, 2006 1:11 pm

Zeeke wrote:having a jack russell aswell.. i can appreciate the difficulty ur having... .. ive tried a few times trying to capture mine running.. but damn the lil bugger runs too damn fast... sometimes i just log on focus and he's already too close or too far away... ive tried manually focusing to a point and firing off shots when he approaches.. but even that can be difficult...

Great work.. and well done on capturing a great image

Tim

perhaps you could try setting the focus manually using a manual lens then set the camera to af and hold the shutter down and as it comes into focus it should fire.
works on the pentax if you have the AF not set to continuous.
not sure if you can focus trap on a nikon though.

by **MattC** on Sat Apr 22, 2006 1:13 pm

Yes, it can be done.

Cheers

by **Zeeke** on Sat Apr 22, 2006 1:15 pm

Big Red wrote:
Zeeke wrote:having a jack russell aswell.. i can appreciate the difficulty ur having... .. ive tried a few times trying to capture mine running.. but damn the lil bugger runs too damn fast... sometimes i just log on focus and he's already too close or too far away... ive tried manually focusing to a point and firing off shots when he approaches.. but even that can be difficult...

Great work.. and well done on capturing a great image

Tim

perhaps you could try setting the focus manually using a manual lens then set the camera to af and hold the shutter down and as it comes into focus it should fire.
works on the pentax if you have the AF not set to continuous.
not sure if you can focus trap on a nikon though.

Which is what ive tried a few times... i manually focus with my camera set up that way.. but hes still too fast....

Tim

by **MattC** on Sat Apr 22, 2006 1:26 pm

Try CSM15 set to AF-ON for trap focus. Once a focus point has been selected using the AE-L button the camera will not fire unless a subject is in focus, so you can chase Jack around with your finger down on the shutter release and camera will not fire unless he (or something else) is in focus.

Cheers

by **Manta** on Sat Apr 22, 2006 1:39 pm

MattC wrote:Try CSM15 set to AF-ON for trap focus. Once a focus point has been selected using the AE-L button the camera will not fire unless a subject is in focus, so you can chase Jack around with your finger down on the shutter release and camera will not fire unless he (or something else) is in focus.

Cheers

This works really well Zeeke. I use it regularly for macro work, particularly for little beasties on swaying branches. As soon as they swing into the predetermined focus zone, the shutter fires. Easy.

by **ABG** on Sat Apr 22, 2006 1:40 pm

Thanks for the comments guys.

I gave up trying to get a nice sharp image of him after a half dozen or so shots. It's not so much that they're too fast, but they shoot off at all sorts of unexpected angles. AFC is too slow to keep up with the directional changes. I didn't stop and think of using the trap focus method with AFS - doh. Lesson learnt for the future. Shooting racing cars and bikes is so much easier thanks to their (generally) predictable path.

What I ended up doing is stopping the lens down to f11 and shooting at a focal length of 50mm, so that focus was no longer critical. This one was shot at 1/40th, which portrays the movement nicely.