D300 w/70-200 f2.8 VR slow focus?

[N'Kolor]

Okay so I have the above and I was out shooting today. I was trying to shoot some birds that were flying in. They were single birds at about 60' coming in to about 15', then shooting off. I was almost unable to capture ANY usable images as the focusing on the camera just would not lock on. I tried the 51 point, 9 point and center and couldn't get anything.

I had the Canon 40D with 70-200 f4L and I never tried to shoot flying birds but for some reason I think the Canon was significantly faster at focusing. Maybe I am doing something wrong. Should I try to manually focus for things like this?

Really looking for help from other nature photographers.

Thanks!
Mike

 

[JerryPH]

Use C or Continuous focusing on small moving objects with the D300.

 

[JIP]

I think yo umust have dead batteries because with the internal focusing my D70s will even focus that lens quickly.

 

[Joves]

Also to add to what Jerry said for flying or faster moving objects you can set your center AF mode to wide in the custom settings menu. It helps when having to track them. Atleast I know I can do that on my D80.

 

[N'Kolor]

Joves, can you explain how to do this?

 

[Joves]

Joves, can you explain how to do this?

Yes go to your user menu, then to Custom settings, then to Center AF area and, set it to wide. That is if it is the same as the D80s menu. Also I would consult your menu. You might alo set your camera to shutter priority and, set it to 1/250 or higher to freeze the action. I prefer 1/500 really for alot of flying creatures though.

 

[Garbz]

The other setting you should look at is focus tracking delay or predictive focus delay or whatever it's called. It's amongst the advanced focus settings anyway.

It controls how long of a delay the camera has before re focusing on a moving target which may have already been in focus. A long delay allows you to temporarily move the camera off the target with the focus updating. Disabling it will cause it to continuously focus all the time and you'll likely hear your lens creeping back and forth.