I seem to recall but can’t find, a suggestion that one should change some of the AI Servo focus settings when doing avian photography with a Canon 5D IV. I will be doing my first avian photo trip soon and would love some help with this. Thanks!
I’m not sure about the 5DIV, Tony, but every Canon I’ve had had an extremely good discussion of these settings in the manual. You don’t want the abbreviated manual-you want to download the full one which is a lot of pages, but worth going through some of the sections. The part you’re looking for is the custom settings menu. On my 7Dii there are three settings to pay attention to: Tracking Sensitivity, Acceleration/deceleration tracking, and AF Point Switching. These together control how the AF tracks and how quickly it will switch off a subject. If you have messy backgrounds, which you often will or other birds getting in the way of your subject you want a fairly slow changing AF to keep it from picking up on the wrong thing. You’ll find different suggestions on-line and in books which is why I suggest reading that section of the manual so you really understand what those controls are doing and you can make up your own mind (and experiment).
Tony:
Canon has made all of this really simple for you an the parameters that Dennis talked about. Here’s my experience shooting at Bosque with my 5DIV and 7D II (basically same AF system).
For cranes or snow geese: Go to the Purple AF menu, The first tab has a list of AF cases. For these birds (cranes and geese) use Case 2.
For fast moving ducks, use Case 4.
Simple as that. Don’t mess with the parameters that are already set in these predefined cases, they work great.
Thanks Dennis and Keith. You have given me the info I need to delve into this and experiment. Just when you think everything about your camera is second nature…