Is Nikon the greatest?

[bjornthun]

Keeping the subject under the active focus point is the photographer's job.

Anything else leaves you no control over the composition.

Yes, irregular movement is tricky and will lead to some missed shots, but assuming the active focus point is kept on the eye (or at least on the dog's face) one should get a high percentage of keepers.

How about these for more difficult subjects?

Particularly the first image is nice!

Using focus tracking, will imply a looser composition and cropping in post, in some cases. That is the price you will pay for getting the shot.

[Peter Connan]

Peter Connan: The first picture is adorable as such. That said I want to know more about tracking.

Do you use the AF-ON-technique that many Action shooters apply (and I have never even tried in my life)?

Thank you and Bjornthun for the compliments.

Frank, yes I do. I also very carefully select the number of focus points for the subject and background.

If the subject is small or far away, and especially if the background is busy or of similar contrast to the subject, one has to use the minimum number of focus points. As the object becomes larger or closer, and the background cleaner, so more focus points can be enabled.

So for the three birds in that post, I would have used either Group Area, or 9 points, whereas for the plane in my earlier post all 51 points would have been fine.

If many focus points are active, covering both subject and a busy background, the camera has no good way of determining what the object is.

3-D is supposed to be able to do this, but I have had no success with that. Perhaps the D5 with it's dedicated AF processor might be significantly better. Only time will tell.

[elsa hoffmann]

Greatest or not, the Nikons and their sundry associated items take up an awful lot of space in my car boot (also seen a couple of decent tripods).

By the way, the keen observer will spot the longest zoom lens in my possession, the 360-1200 Nikkor, buried somewhere in the pile.

I just scrolled down and saw the pic - didn't even have to see your name to know that was yours. Missing the bananas