Jun
18
(2006)
XT Rapidfire + AF Servo mode
Filed under: Uncategorized. Tags: canonxt, photography.
I took my Canon Digital Rebel XT to Evan's soccer practice/game on Saturday, hoping to get some shots of him and his teammates playing the game. I also wanted an excuse to fiddle around with some of the settings and modes on the XT to see how they perform.
Wow.
I turned on rapidfire/burst mode, which can pump out 14 shots in about 3 seconds. Absolutely perfect for capturing the right shot in a game of soccer. I wound up shooting over 150 pictures during the 25 minute game! 99% were deleted, but the 1% that I kept were amazing - and likely impossible to have captured without this mode.
Also, I switched to AF Servo mode - which causes the autofocus system to keep tracking a moving target to maintain focus. So, as Evan and his 'mates were running to and away from me, they were kept in perfect focus at around 5 fps. Absolutely amazing. Check out this shot from a sequence that I shot as Evan ran past me (maybe 10 feet away) with the ball.
Have to say - I'm absofrigging loving this camera… I probably shot 500 pictures this weekend - keeping only about 75 in total. But the ones I kept are pretty cool photos, IMO. I've still got SO much to learn about the XT, and photography in general (especially customizing exposure and aperture settings - many/most of the soccer photos were a little blown out due to the bright morning sun), but I'm looking forward to figuring that out.
Also, a few things I realized after taking this many pictures.
- USB 1.0 connections are painfully slow when dealing with several hundred megabytes of images. I need to pick up a PCMCIA compact flash reader until I have a home computer that has USB 2.0 on board. Ouch, that's slow…
- A 1 GB card may not be enough - I went through a good portion of the card in a 25 minute game. Imagine what a full game/event would take…
- The faster CF cards would be worth it if shooting in rapidfire/burst a lot. I skimped, and just got the el cheapo 1 GB card. If I'd have sprung for the faster one, I could have extended the rapidfire sequences a bit more…
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3 Responses to “XT Rapidfire + AF Servo mode”
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Burst mode is a great way to get shots when you're subject(s) are moving (and I like the fact that my D50 is smart enough to figure out when to use continuous focus & when not to) - in fact, it's the mode I usually leave my camera in, just for those occasions when I do want it to.
As to card size… yes, I agree 1GB won't be enough. I can fill my 1GB card in a few hours, but when doing lots of bursts it goes even faster. Of course the main time this could cause problems is while on holiday (although only if you don't really like spending your holiday copying files off your camera).
I'd definately go for a card reader of some sort - one of the differences between the D50/D70s is the D50 packs USB2. The speed difference is very noticeable. But USB2 is still too slow. Either that or the card is.
If you go to (shudder) Walmart you can get Lexar Platinum 1GB 80X CF got $67 dollars (if there are any left. I have one that I use from when it was the king of the Lexar heap. I'm looking to get that or a 2GB for our vacation this summer or for Hawaii (eLearn).
Raj, thanks for the tips. I’ll keep my eyes open if I trek to Wally World. Maybe CostCo will have something, too…