AF Points

[jamesino]

When you guys are a) shooting portraits and b) shooting fast action sports, do you switch on all the Auto-Focus points and let the camera automatically choose or do you guys choose the desired point and focus?

Specifically, for the Rebel XTi when I'm doing the above two types of photography, should I switch on all 9 of my AF points or just turn on the central/middle one, focus, then recompose?

 

[Samriel]

I'm still in the beginner camp, so take what I say with a grain of salt. There probably is no 100% general solution as to how to AF when, but I tend to do the following:

With portraits I mostly use one point and than recompose, especially when using a shallow DoF. This of course only applies when I have the time to do this (which in the case of portraits I usually do). When I'm lazy, or for some reason use a with a deeper DoF, I tend to shoot multi-AF. I also find myself using MF quite often when shooting portraits.
I'm not shooting much action & sports, but I tend to let the camera handle the AF with as many AF points as possible when I do. I tried using one-point AF when shooting sports a few times - it worked, but multi-AF worked better (I probably still lack the skills).

 

[Computer_Generated]

You know I just read a post about this on another forum. This guy was suggesting that you don't use the outside AF points. He suggested using the center one as the pixels converge there. Apparently the top ones have only horizontal pixel lines and the side ones have vertical. To get the best focus he suggested using the middle to meter and focus, then re-frame. I haven't put it to the test but it seemed to make sense and he comes with a good background in stock photography.

 

[prodigy2k7]

In sports, i tend to use the middle one, just so it doesnt focus on the background because 9 AF points don't always cover the whole subject...