Making the most of AF

EOS autofocus is highly advanced, but have photographers kept up?

EOS cameras have an extensive array of features, and this makes them suited to a wide range of photographic subjects and styles. However, most people are not making use of functions that could simplify their photography.

Take focus, for example. Older EOS cameras had two options for the arrangement of focus points: you selected one point, or the camera automatically made the selection from a few points. Once photographers switched from full auto, they selected the single point, often the centre one. The entry-level EOS 800D has 45 points to choose from, and four different groupings for AF points. Advanced models have more.

Many people would like to just point the camera and have EOS technology make great photos. But expectation and reality rarely match. Take the EOS 800D – which of the four focus areas should you use, and for which subjects? Reading the manual tells you how to select different arrangements, but not which one to use.

Ideally, you want to choose the smallest arrangement of AF points that you can keep on your subject. Which to choose varies with photographer skill. I have shot lots of rally cars in the past, using a block of nine AF points. I shot some again recently, for the first time in years. Feeling out of practice, I opted for Zone AF with 9 or 12 active points on my EOS 5D Mark IV. The difference is that the zone can start to focus with any of the 9 or 12 points. Older cameras with the block of nine always started focussing from the centre. Zone AF gave me a better chance of getting one AF point, out of the 9 or 12, on the car. The risk with more active AF points is that the camera chooses a blade of grass to focus on, not the world champion flying past at 120mph.

Learn what your camera does and when to use its features. Sometimes, the subject you want to photograph is tough to capture well. A professional wildlife photographer knows where to find the subject and how it moves; that makes them more successful than me.

Zone af makes it a little easier to capture these cars flying close by at 120mph, as more af points are actively looking for initial focus

Choose the right af points setup to match your subject and your own skill level