I said a few days ago that I wanted to experiment more with the Fully Automatic Shooting (Scene Intelligent Auto) on the 5DM3 using the 100-400. I headed out to the airport and started looking for scenes which would give the auto feature problems. One thing I did notice was that it didn't ue a wide open setting in order to minimize ISO selection. Wide open really gives a narrow DOF, especially in close. One of the settings which you cannot manipulate is its choice of autofocus method. It is always chooses all the points. Additionally, it looks for the closest objects in the view. Today's shot is (top) me controlling the camera and (bottom) the camera in automatic shooting. I was looking to get the Hartzell sticker in focus in both cases. For the top one, I simply used the center spot and it worked well. For the bottom one, I tried all sorts of maneuvers to get it in focus, but the large material in the lower left was controlling as far at the scene is concerned. The moral of the story is that in anything but the simplest of conditions the auto feature will cause some sort of problem.

So what is it good for? Well, one thing is that every once in a while you get a situation where you want a quick shot and don't have time to monkey with settings. That happens when we are traveling and Ginny sees something she wants to photograph that is soon to be whizzing by. Next trip (in two weeks) we should try the auto out for quick shots.