One of the questions I get is how do i focus and pan when working with multiple flying subjects? Take for example these CT-114 Tutors. These guys happen to be the Snowbirds Demonstration Team, part of the Royal Canadian Air Force. They also happen to be one of my favorite performing groups due to the smoke, close proximity of formation and number of formations that they do.
[swf]http://www.jakepeterson.org/swf_imgs/rarjt1888.swf, 585, 435[/swf]To answer the question, I just do into Auto Area AF mode. on the D3 it’s a switch on the back side, on the D4 you have to press the AF-On button and then look through the view finder and turn the front switch. Well what this does is it makes basically the whole view finder the focus point. Whatever is closest will be grabbed onto first. In the D4 when in Auto Area you actually see all the sensor points in the view finder so you can see where you’re focusing. The benefit of using this mode is it takes away one more thing to think about when you’re shooting. You don’t have to be concerned where the focus point is while panning and thus moving it while trying to pan. It’s just one of those tricks to make life a little bit easier.
In the Camera Bag:
Nikon D3, 200-400 VRII, on Lexar UDMA Digital Film
