portrait shooting...continuous advance?

Elaine

I'm wondering how many portrait shooters out there use continuous advance vs. single shot advance. All the time or just in certain cases? Also, single shot AF vs. continuous AF...do you use continuous with continuous and single with single? It seems like if you're trying to capture a kid that's moving, using single shot AF with continuous advance could give you one image in focus and the rest a blur.
Now, for a stationary group shot, it seems like a good idea to use continuous advance, to try and catch everyone's eyes open at some point, and since the focal point isn't moving, using single shot AF would be OK.

Anyway, I'd love to hear about what other people do! Thanks!

dangin

continuous autofocus w/ low speed shooting mode (3FPS). but i only take one shot at a time then pause for my strobes to recycle.

~Jan~

I keep my camera on single shooting. The only time I switch to burst is when my subjects are doing something like jumping in the air and I want to capture that.

I also use one-shot focusing. I like to focus & recompose sometimes, and you can't do that with continuous focus. I do use continuous focus, once again, if I want to capture an in-motion shot.

Here's an example: My camera was set to continuous focus/burst shooting, because my son was running around the driveway with the hose and I wanted to capture action. W/ those two settings and a high shutter speed, I was still able to capture a clear shot despite his running.

Morbid Andrew

yeah I agree, I'm not much for continuous shooting. I recompose and honestly do a lot of manual focus. I try to keep my camera off auto as much as possible. I learn more about my camera that way.

pyrtek

Morbid Andrew wrote:

yeah I agree, I'm not much for continuous shooting. I recompose and honestly do a lot of manual focus. I try to keep my camera off auto as much as possible. I learn more about my camera that way.

How does manual focusing teach you about your camera?

dangin

pyrtek wrote:

How does manual focusing teach you about your camera?

it teaches you to use it rather than spending all this time trying manually focus while covering an event that may be fast paced?

evoryware

One shot AF and Continuous drive for kids and portraits. I'll never use single shot again. For sports and stuff AI Servo.

pyrtek

dangin wrote:

it teaches you to use it rather than spending all this time trying manually focus while covering an event that may be fast paced?

Heh, yeah, that sounds about right.

System

I can't remember the last time I used burst shooting, except for showing off. I can get about 3-4 shots per second in single shot mode, and that's quite enough for me. And I mostly shoot musicians on stage - let me tell you, kids are serenity personified compared to those hyperactive people

SloYerRoll

Most photogs look to find something that makes them exclusive.
Seems like Andrew has the 'use MF even though AF is ridiculiously good' market cornered. I don't think many photogs are gonna try to muscle in on that territory.

pathfinder

Try to shoot hummingbirds in flight in manual focus and let me know how it works out.....



Single point, center AF, Burst mode 20D