How I Practice Manual Focus in Wildlife Photography

Why not use AF to track and focus and get a series of images to choose? Your technique works but you only get a few images that are in focus. Am I missing something?

With old Panasonic DFD bodies these skills are essential. With good PDAF cameras like Z8/9, A1/7/9, R3/5/6, OM-1 they seem redundant. Except for prefocus maybe which could be usefull no matter what system do you use.

Will following focus work on slow burst cameras? Like 6 frames per second for example.

Valuable insight especially for me that love taking photos of wild birds. I landed to your channel while I was doing yt search how to use manual mode to capture quality bird photos. Thank u for sharing ur knowledge. I did checked out ur ig as well, but ur last month long caption showed you’re on a break right now which I somehow understand what u going thru. All artists go thru with the burn out. Most especially for self taught artist like myself who hasn’t gotten real commission offers on my drawings and paintings. This is why for the meantime I’m shifting to wild bird photography to spice up my passion a bit and get on top of the competitive world of Art. Looking for your insightful tips when you’re ready to inspire more new aspiring & beginner photographers like myself. Best wishes to u.

These are really useful tips for me. I wanted to try out wildlife photography but didn't want to spend a lot of money. So I got a Sony a6000 for 215$, and a 300mm zoom Minolta lens for 30$, plus a 30$ adapter.

Thanks for the tips. Lovely video

Wonderful technique to have as backup I think. The newest cameras are so incredibly powerful it's almost a non issue. Image the power in 5 years from now. It does take the skill a little out of the equation.

Find this very helpful

Hello Jeremy. May I ask your opinion. I have Canon 400mm f5.6 AF (nice and light for walking around) and 300mm f2.8 MF primes (heavy, need monopod), both are non-IS. Do you think I would be better off using a Full Frame mirrorless with no IBIS, or a Panasonic G9 to get IBIS? I'm assuming with the heavy lens mostly on a monopod that IBIS doesn't add much but do you think it should tilt the decision on the lighter lens? I'd get the latest Canon R6 with IBIS but I the G9 is less $$$ even with speedbooster, what do u think

And another awesome video from you🥳.

Thank you so much for these tips! The AF on my 12 year old Nikon D90 is not really good and I often miss the right moment because of it.... So now I'm going to practice manual focusing....

I think it would be really interesting to see how your technique would compare to a Sony A1 or Canon R5, since they have Animal Eye AF.
I took a look at a video of the Sony A1 with the Sony 600 f4. With Birds-Eye AF and a bird flying right at the photographer, about 80 out of 90 images were sharp - the same with cheaper lenses.

I think a comparison would make sense and be very interesting.

Anyway, looking forward to the next video😉🙃

What tripod is it?

my tripod is not very stable whit a 600mm lenses.

You lost me at Panasonic 7d2 user

Awesome stuff Jeremy! Always love your stuff!

You are actually right
I also shoot in manual focus and
My images turn out to be better than auto focused photo
Because sometimes auto focus is a big irritation 😅

Practice, practice, and more practice. My neighbors probably think I am nuts. I take a lot of pictures I don't really care about just trying to practice a skill. You are right that water fowl is good to practice on. I take a lot of duck pictures but every once in a while you will find you took one that is uncommon in your area. I don't know birds as well as I should yet.

Amazing video ! That’s really great! Thanks for sharing !

You have some very nice technique Jeremy. Thanks for sharing it with us.👍👍

Good day Jeremy you have shared your shooting tips clear and precise, where others might just touch and go. Thumbs up for your generosity.
That been said we need to practice, practice and practice... with more practice we will be able to anticipate where and when our moving subject next move/direction.
And that apply to any photography field.

Hii can you dm me i have some questons

Amazing video. So many great tips. Do you always use a tripod when using manual focus or do you ever handhold?