If you're not familiar with Jan Wegener, he is a master bird photographer and an excellent educator on the subject. So, there are going to be few people better positioned to teach you the tips and tricks of getting the most out of autofocus than him. If you have ever tried to photograph wildlife — particularly wild birds — you will know it is incredibly difficult. Tracking anything that moves quickly and somewhat erratically is difficult for both the photographer and the autofocus system and one tip Wegener gives I believe is underrated, simply because it's one of the more boring: zooming out.
Most modern camera sensors have a tremendous amount of flex in the files and allow for pretty aggressive cropping without it looking as if the image has been cropped at all. When shooting wildlife, even on a micro-four-third body, I quickly learned that zooming out made focusing easier and that cropping in post yielded the results I wanted.
However, if you have designs on getting it all right without a crop, you'll need the other tips in this video. And, if you have any tips that aren't in this video, make sure you share them in the comment section below.
The modern cameras are really pretty easy to use. People should go and buy an old film camera and shoot sports with it like we did and then you'll never complain about the auto focus or auto focus struggles. These new young photographers coming through. Don't understand what it was really like back in the day - really it is not that difficult with the modern gear.