In my previous post on 3 February, I concluded by saying that fewer “non-keeper” photos due to autofocus issues was a challenge. This post reports on steps that I took to improve the speed and accuracy of autofocus on my new (to me) Nikon D50 outfitted with the 50-250mm zoom lens. First I installed the latest firmware update on my camera, and then I practiced shots using the Wide-Area Large autofocus setting. Most of the birds in flight (BIF) photos were shot with a shutter speed of 1/2000, aperture of f/8, and ISO set to auto. As the ambient light dimmed just before sunset, this resulted in a rather high ISO of 12,800 for some photos – but the resulting photos are of acceptable quality at normal print size. Post processing was done with Adobe Camera Raw and Photoshop CC.
