Autofocus is not a substitute for anticipation. How to keep sharp frames through receptions, run-throughs and stage work.
Anticipation beats tracking
Modern eye-detect AF is excellent, but it still asks the sensor to solve a problem that a photographer with two seconds of forethought has already solved. Watch the room — the couple always turns to each other before the toast, the child always runs three steps before they stop. Pre-focus where the moment is going to happen.
Shutter speed floor
1/250s for casual movement, 1/500s for a first dance, 1/1000s if someone's on a stage jumping. Anything slower means you're gambling on stillness that isn't there. If the room is too dark for those speeds, that's a lighting problem, not a shutter problem.
Back-button focus, still
It's decades old advice and it's still right. Separating focus from the shutter lets you pre-focus, wait, and fire without the camera hunting the split second the frame arrives.
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