I've been posting some of my initial attempts at photographing dogs running, boys running, and soccer matches with the Mark III. I thought I'd start a thread where we can discuss optimization of settings for things like this.
My typical sports setup from the K-3 II and 55-300PLM was shutter of 1/1250th, f/7.1, TAv, shake reduction off, drive speed high, AF-C, back button focus, single/center point focus. This is the starting point for a sunny day. If it's cloudy or a night game shutter speed goes down, and aperture as wide as it'll go. Very interested to see if I get better results with 12800+ ISO at night.
For the K-3 Mark III I changed some things, or tweaked some new settings:
- Autofocus from center point to Expanded Area AF. I tried small, then I tried medium (originally I thought I was using medium and large). I think
large medium was better at ensuring something was in focus, but not necessarily the player in question. - I left shake reduction on. I think my next experiment will be with shake reduction set to the new Panning mode, then perhaps off.
- I left Autofocus Hold on low. I'm going to try with it off.
- 1st Frame Action in AF.C is set to focus priority
- Action in AF.C Cont is set to focus priority
- I set the camera to Highlight Weighted Metering. My thought here is that I'm often in bright sunlight, high dynamic range, with white uniforms and field markings that will sometimes blow out, and this will help?
- I think everything else is set to defaults
On the autofocus settings I have a question. In the manual on page 63 it lists options under AF Active Area, and the third one down is called "Tracking" with a note that it's not available in movie mode. On the camera there's no such mode, or at least I can't figure it out. I can cycle through Auto, Zone, the various select sizes, spot, but nothing called tracking? Is tracking automatic, if so why does tracking appear to be a mode in the manual?
My first attempts over the weekend were very promising, but I'm sure with some help here I/we can fine tune settings to optimize the performance of the camera for sports.