I'd like some advice on how I might improve my technique with regards to acheiving both good focus and good framing.


I have read some of the info already out there and much of it is either basic stuff (ie stuff that's in the manual or the excellent "xy For Dummies" books) or debates about the downsides of focus-recompose and focal planes etc. I've found neither to be particularly helpful as I'd like to think I understand most of the basics and the latter debate just explains a problem without really offering solutions. I'd like to know what people actually do that works.


I generally prefer to select focus points manually. But this has resulted in a lot of missed shots. It also means that I find myself framing shots depending on the location of the AF points on my 5DII rather than on what would look good. If I am photographing a living thing, for example, I want the eyes to be sharp. So I make sure that one of the AF points covers the eyes - but this may not be where I actually want to position the eyes. Although I scoff at my girlfriend's use of Auto AF selection, she does often get very good results with it, capturing moments that I'd have missed by being a perfectionist and manually selecting the point I need.


Furthermore, I have usually used AI Focus instead of Single Shot in most static or slow-moving situations. What I'm not entirely sure about this mode, though, is whether it will switch to Servo if I recompose and refocus on whatever is now under that focus point - basically I'm not sure how clever the camera is at identifying what the subject is and tracking it, rather than just tracking a point in the viewfinder. Frankly, I suspect not very clever is the answer.


So lately I sometimes use Single Shot if reframing. This has given me some good results but I'm still unsure if it's ideal due to the whole lens planes thing.


And as for AI Servo - what bothers me about this is the lack of focus confirmation. In this mode the camera seems to be just as happy to take shots while looking for initial focus lock as it is when tracking - whereas with AI Focus I know to wait until the focus-lock beep before taking the shot. But I don't trust AI Focus to switch to Servo quickly enough to take fast moving images, or to track them properly.


I suspect the ideal approach uses a mix of the shoot-with-focus-point-on-subject and focus-recompose techniques, and others. I guess that, due to a lack of knowledge and understanding of the limitations of the various focus modes, I'm just struggling to take control of my camera's auto-focus and am instead allowing it to dictate how I frame my photos - or even, sometimes, which photos I take at all - rather than allowing the anticipated look of the final shot to dictate the framing and timing.


Any help would be much appreciated .