Look Sharp

Motorsports, wildlife and children are especially challenging to keep sharp, but accurate focusing is well within your grasp if you follow our experts’ tips

Steve and Ann ToonSteve and Ann Toon are a pro wildlife photography couple with backgrounds in journalism, a shared passion for conservation, and a 20-year love affair with Africa, where they spend several months each year, often leading specialist photographic safaris. Visit www.toonphoto.com.

Photographing wildlife is challenging, capturing great images of moving animals even more so – they’re often fast, unpredictable and erratic. The ability to acquire and maintain focus on active subjects is an essential skill if you want to capture pin-sharp, dynamic shots – it’s one thing you can’t fix in Photoshop. The latest autofocus technology has dramatically improved our hit rate for wildlife action, but understanding the capabilities (and limitations) of your camera, and how to utilise its range of AF settings is still vital.

1 Go off-centre if time allows

If you use the ‘focus and recompose’ central point technique with a long lens and shallow depth of field, then the focal plane will change slightly, which can result in a defocused image. To avoid this, if we’re photographing a subject that is rooted to the spot (i.e. we’ve got time), and we want the point of critical focus to be off-centre, we will select a suitable off-centre focus point, rather than focus and recompose with the centre point.

2 Stay single, stay simple

We both use a single, usually central, focus point for most of our shots. It’s a cross-type sensor, offering the most responsive AF performance for moving animals. For a static, off-centre subject that might not hang around long we can focus and recompose quickly, rather than waste precious time choosing off-centre points. A single point means we have absolute control over where we focus, vital for good wildlife images, where it’s crucial to ensure key elements like the eyes are sharp.