Best autofocus settings for low-angle, from-the-hip shots of moving dogs

Question

I photograph dogs with a Canon 60D and a wide-angle lens, usually holding the camera low to the ground and shooting "from the hip." I use AI Servo, continuous burst, and a fast shutter speed, and I usually keep the center AF point selected so I can control focus. The problem is that dogs often move off-center, so many frames end up out of focus because the center point is no longer on the dog.

For this kind of chaotic, close-range action, should I keep using the center AF point, or switch to all AF points and let the camera pick the subject? Is there a better autofocus approach when I can't realistically pre-focus or manually move focus points while shooting?

user39138 · Answer

Basically, yes, use all your focus points and hope for the best. I use center focusing quite a bit too, but when doing AI servo and continuous shooting it's hard to keep the center point on a moving target, so I often switch back to all focus points.

In your case, you definitely want all your focus points on. I don't know the exact algorithm it uses to decide what to focus on, but being closest is up there. If you're just using center focus, you'll have much lower chances because if you get just a little off it may not focus where you want. If you have all of them on, you've got a good chance it will focus on the closest thing, which is what you want. Of course, if you're too close, that could be a problem too, but I'll let you worry about that. :-)

Note, I also typically use back-button-focusing (not always), but in this case you're probably better off sticking to shutter button auto-focus.

Best autofocus settings for low-angle, from-the-hip shots of moving dogs

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