My kid’s school had this super fun mile “race” this morning. I decided it would be a good opportunity for me to try some action photography. This light on pictures, since I forgot to take any behind the scenes shots, and everything else has school kids in it.

I’m not entirely sure what I was thinking but I brought my Nikon. I struggle with the auto-focus so I thought I would work on it some more.

Gear I Brought

• Nikon z7ii
• Nikkor z70-200mm f/2.8 S VR
• Peak Design Messenger Bag
• Peak Design Slide Strap

That’s it.

I didn’t want to full on embarrass my kids so it was the “lightest” set-up I have brought in a while (by light, I mean least about of gear, not weight). Besides, I’ve heard of lots of people using the 70-200 as their primary lens so I thought I’d give it go.

Setup

To set the scene, this was in the morning. It started around 8:30. It was cold and the sun was was coming up. The light was BEAUTIFUL in certain areas, where it was coming through the trees, but it was a nightmare to shoot action photography in.

I’ve never really shot something like this with my Nikon. At the motor rodeo a few weeks ago, I used my OM-1 Mark ii for all the action and the Nikon for portraits, I haven’t used the Nikon for action because I struggle with the auto focus.

Mode

I wasn’t even sure where to start. I usually shoot in Manual Mode, but I knew that wouldn’t work for this. I set it to Aperture Priority (A), with my aperture at 2.8. I probably should have set the aperture somewhere between f/5-8 but I didn’t notice that until post processing.

Focus Mode

I usually don’t shoot moving subjects so I live in AF-S (Auto-Focus Single), however AF-C (Auto-Focus Continuous) is the better choice for moving subjects. When you activate the auto-focus, the camera will continuously keep focusing on whatever is in the focus brackets.

Auto-Focus Area Mode

The part I struggled with was the Auto Focus Area Mode. There are a few available:

• Pinpoint AF: One point.
• Single-point AF: Four points.
• Dynamic AF: Focuses based on what is around the selected area.
• Small Wide-area AF: Small rectangle.
• Large Wide-area AF: Large rectangle.
• Large Wide-area AF (People): Large rectangle that looks for people.
• Large Wide-area AF (Animals): Large rectangle that looks for animals.
• Auto-area AF: Uses whole screen and looks for people/animal faces or the closest subject.

I tried a few of these modes. Pinpoint/Single was too small. I thought the Dynamic Area AF would be good but I couldn’t tell when it was in focus or not. Wide-area AF (small) was too small to move around the screen manually. I ended up using Wide-area AF (Large-People) most of the time. One drawback was that it didn’t detect people until they were too close.

I really struggled to tell what was in focus or not. I ended up doing more manual work, by setting up the focus square to the area where I would expect people to come through the frame and I would manually set the focus to that area.

Overall it did a decent job. The lighting was difficult since we were I the woods and the sun was coming up. There was a lot of bright highlights and dark shadows.

Afterthoughts

After the fact I realized it would have been a good opportunity to try the dynamic light setting. I haven’t tried that before, but it’s an option on the z7ii.

Another solution for the light might have been to bring a flash to use as a fill light. I’m not sure if an on-camera flash like my Godox V1 would have been powerful enough at a distance, but I could have tried it on camera and off camera, or brought the Godox AD200 and set it up. That probably would have been distracting for the kids though.

I wish I had brought my 24-70mm lens for when I was around large groups of people and for inside in the gym. I didn’t have enough room to use the 70-200mm in some places, or I had to walk really far away to get everyone in the picture.

Mistakes are how you get better.

Keep Learning!