Why does autofocus miss birds with my Nikon D5600 and 70-300mm lens?
Asked 5/22/2023
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2 answers
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I use a Nikon D5600 with the kit lens and a 70-300mm zoom. For birds, I’ve tried single-point AF, 9-point AF, and continuous autofocus.
When a bird is flying, the camera often focuses on the sky instead of the bird unless I try several times. When a bird is perched and moving around on a pot, autofocus also struggles to stay on it even when I place the focus area on the bird.
Am I using the autofocus modes incorrectly, or is this mainly a limitation of the camera/lens combination? Also, for bird and wildlife photography, would better results come more from improving technique, upgrading the lens, or changing to a different camera system?
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
3y ago
2 Answers
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With any of these modes, you have to be aware that the camera is not actually 'intelligent', nor particularly 'smart'. You have to give it some good clues as you what you're after, and also try your best to follow it yourself.
It's not a bad camera & it's not a bad lens, but it's not …erm …expensive enough to have the latest & smartest eye-tracking & faster than you can blink auto-focus. I have similar but not identical. I have the older D5500 & the even more of a stretch 18-300mm, but I'm going to guess they're similar enough to be a reasonable comparison.
I'm going to assume for this type of shot you're at or near 300mm all the time, which is where it's going to be at its slowest & least forgiving, with an f/6.3 aperture [same as mine]. The smaller your maximum aperture, the slower the focussing will be. In poor light sometimes that can be more 'point & hope' than 'point & shoot'. In decent daylight though, even overcast, it ought to be fast enough to mainly keep up. Your example shot seems predominantly backlit, which I don't think is going to make it any easier.
Most times I just open the aperture right up at minimum zoom, so the camera will always keep it as open as it can wherever you set the zoom to. One less thing to think about. [This doesn't affect the speed of auto-focus, I just like to keep my ISO down & my DoF shallow.] I actually use ISO as much as I can to ball-park my exposure, trying to keep it as fast as possible without running out of headroom & tend to only close down aperture if I run out of compensation on ISO. In Aperture Mode you can set ISO on the Fn button + jog-wheel. [Fn is at the front left of the camera, just under the flash pop-up… & yes, that can be a bit irritating until you get a feel for it;)
After that, it's a case of trying to keep up with your subject. I sometimes use Continuous focus [AF-C] with 3D tracking. Other times, I'll keep it on single point & just do my best to keep up myself. tbh, over a few years I've got better at that than trying to get the camera to be smart enough to know what I actually want all the time.
If you're going to trust to the continuous tracking, I think you'll find that the 3D tracking will be a lot better than the full Auto-area AF. That will force you to hit your subject centre-frame at first half-press, but will then follow reasonably well, so long as you can keep your subject within the 'focus box' marked area towards the centre. If it goes outside, it will lose it.
The other thing is you might have to take 6 shots, none of which work this time… but next time you might nail it. I throw out a whole lot more than I keep. I cull in camera if I know I didn't get the shot then cull again heavily when I have them in the computer. No point keeping the ones that have no hope of being keepers.
Originally by user57929. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user57929
3y ago
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This is mostly normal for that camera/lens combo, especially with birds. Your D5600 and 70-300mm are capable, but they do not have the fast, highly intelligent subject tracking found in newer high-end bodies.
At 300mm the lens is relatively slow (small maximum aperture), which gives the AF system less light and makes tracking harder. Small birds against a bright sky or moving around quickly are especially challenging.
So it’s not necessarily “broken,” but technique matters a lot:
- Use continuous AF for moving birds.
- Keep the focus area on the bird yourself; the camera won’t reliably figure it out on its own.
- For birds in flight, acquire focus early and track smoothly.
- Expect misses; even stronger systems do not get every frame.
For perched birds, AF should work better, but quick movement can still cause it to jump to the background if the bird is small in the frame.
In general, bird photography benefits greatly from both better AF systems and faster/longer lenses. But before changing formats, it makes sense to keep practicing with your current setup. A different camera can help, but success with birds still depends heavily on technique and keeping the AF point on the subject.
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UniqueBot
AI3y ago
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