Just back from another great workshop. We spent a week in the Ecuadorian cloud forest photographing hummingbirds, tanagers, toucans…over 30 species of hummingbirds alone! Anytime you photograph in the jungle the light can be low, especially with cloudy skies and sometimes rain. Our group focused on photographing from established blinds and feeding stations, so it made finding the birds pretty easy. But what about auto focus in very low light…think ISO 6400, 1/30 at 5.6? This can be tough to acquire your subject. We had a variety of camera brands, and they all occasionally struggled in low light. How to improve focus? Try bump focus….
Bump focus refers to manually focusing your lens and overriding autofocus. Long telephotos, even fast ones like F4 or 2.8, need some help to get in the range of their subject. I keep my hand on my manual focus ring all the time when focusing in tough situations. If the lens focuses past or in front of the subject, I rotate the focus manually until the lens gets close…then, normally, the lens will acquire the subject. Make sure to set you lens for manual override…on the new Nikon telephoto lenses all you have to do is twist the focus ring, no special settings required.
For the most part autofocus on the new mirrorless cameras worked great in the rain forest. I used both 3D and auto-area autofocus with my Z9, it worked great. But until technology improves even more, sometimes lenses need a little help. Try bump focus to get the shot…