Peter,
There is no doubt that autofocussing on birds in bushes is difficult, but
the problem usually turns into one of focus-hunting, where the camera will
focus on the bird, then the twig and back to the bird again (ad infinitum).
This behaviour can be controlled to some extent by using spot focussing in
the camera, but not ideal. Whilst manually focussing can be difficult, it is
not impossible. Obviously it helps if the subject is bright or there is
contrast between the subject and the obstructing background.
It is also possible to replace the standard focussing screen with one that
aids manual focussing - http://www.katzeyeoptics.com/ are a supplier of
these devices.
Paul Dodd
Docklands, Victoria
-----Original Message-----
From:
On Behalf Of Peter Shute
Sent: Friday, 12 December 2008 11:50 AM
To: 'David Stowe'
Cc:
Subject: Digital SLR for bird photography
David Stowe wrote on Wednesday, 10 December 2008 7:46 AM:
> In the old days of film and manual focus only cameras
> focussing screens were fantastic and had split prisms etc to
> ensure you were getting what you wanted in focus. Since the
> advent of auto focus teh focussing screens are designed to
> help the AF system not the user.
> This i think is the single biggest reason why manually
> focussing modern cameras is quite difficult.
I didn't know that. I assume the optical screens on DSLRs are much better
that the approx 100k pixel electronic viewfinder on my Canon S3, but perhaps
not so much better as I thought. Are there particular brands and models
that have better focusing screens than the rest?
Given the number of occasions that the bird is behind twigs or leaves, I
would have thought that the quality of manual focusing was essential, yet it
doesn't seem to be discussed that often.
Peter Shute==========www.birding-aus.org
birding-aus.blogspot.com
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