This is my cocker spaniel, Teddy, running toward the camera in the snow. Had I taken this now with my Canon R5, I would have trusted the eye-focus feature and relied on the camera's automation to hold focus. This is actually the most difficult scenario for a camera to track focus -- when a subject is relative close to the camera and the camera-subject distance is closing fast. Every couple of milliseconds the focus changes. In this case, I used a Canon 7D Mark II in 2016 and I knew the camera couldn't keep up with Teddy's speed. So, I pre-focused on a spot in the snow and just before he reached that point, I pressed the shutter. I was set to the fastest frame rate on the camera, 10 frames per second, and luckily one of those frames was sharp. My wife stood right behind me calling Teddy, and that's why he ran directly at the lens. My settings were 1/2000, f/8, and 1250 ISO, and I used a 100-400mm Canon telephoto set to 400mm. The long focal length also made getting this shot a challenge because the depth of field is shallow, making the focus zone just 2 or 3 inches. The picture proves my long held suspicion that cocker spaniels, once they get their ears flapping fast enough, can actually become airborne!
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