Auto focus in the snow

Fenman55

Fenman55

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Name
Martin
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Relative rookie question:-

I was out this morning taking photos oflgangs of Wigeon with a 300mm lens on a Tidal stretch of river with only a narrow band of water open, the sides were iced up and covered in a good layer of snow with up to 6" of snow on the banks with a leaden grey sky.

Problem:- I couldn't get the camera [Canon 450d] to focus. I guess that everything was so flat and the camera didn't know what to focus on am I right or do I have a problem?

It wouldnt focus last night with about 6" of snow covering everything, but worked normally when I checked focusing on "non snow scenes".

Does this demonstate the limitations of autofocus?
 
Hi
Yes is the answer to your last question. Auto focus needs some datail to focus on. It finds newspaper easy, plaine paper difficult. Try focusng on snow with some light and shade in the af area. For the Wigeon try servo and make shure there is detail in the af area.
 
Thanks everyone for your replys, i feed re-assured.

The wigeon were at approx 100yds, I was on a bridge and we have had best part of 6" of snow on the Fen and the wash had nothing to focus on that wasn't white or reflecting the leaden sky. So manual focus it was.

The tidal was about a 1/4 its normal width due to the tide and the ice, the wigeon were packed solid and I could get no nearer without flushing the lot, I did that yesterday!!
 
I hit the same sort of problems just yesterday myself taking pictures of objects in the snow. I just chose a single auto-focus point, put it right on the subject, focused, then recomposed and took the picture. Works a treat!
 
I had this problem too , just switched over to manual focus!
 
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