Why you should never use the wrong focus mode...

[Uncle Kevriano]

I was photographing a bird flying display yesterday, so had used wide with tracking as a focus mode. As this horse was part of the show I tried to grab a few stills of him without switching focus mode. Look at where it actually focussed.

• ILCE-7RM4
• FE 200-600mm F5.6-6.3 G OSS
• 200.0 mm
• ƒ/10
• 1/1000 sec
• ISO 3200

 

[spudhead]

Not much help but wide is pretty much a useless focus mode imo and always has been, the camera is going to grab anything in frame and probably nothing you want, also f10 dof is part of the issue I guess

 

[Uncle Kevriano]

Not much help but wide is pretty much a useless focus mode imo and always has been, the camera is going to grab anything in frame and probably nothing you want, also f10 dof is part of the issue I guess

Yes I know. I put this up to highlight why you should always make sure you are on the right one. Wide with tracking is good for BIF at times though.

 

[Thad E Ginathom]

had used wide with tracking as a focus mode. As this horse was part of the show I tried to grab a few stills of him without switching focus mode. Look at where it actually focussed.

Did you have human-eye AF turned on. What a clever camera to find an eye!

wide is pretty much a useless focus mode imo and always has been

Wide+tracking is my standard setting. I shoot people, and the camera will almost always find one and focus on one of it's eyes. If it is not the right person, I put their eye in the middle of screen where the camera usually grabs it. It is not foolproof, but... almost. If it won't do this reliably, it means I have been a big-enough fool to shoot cats and forgot to change back to human.

Maybe animal-eye af would have nailed that horse?

Before a7iv, on the a6500, I used to be moving focus spots all the time and then press eye-af.

 

[Uncle Kevriano]

Did you have human-eye AF turned on. What a clever camera to find an eye!



Wide+tracking is my standard setting. I shoot people, and the camera will almost always find one and focus on one of it's eyes. If it is not the right person, I put their eye in the middle of screen where the camera usually grabs it. It is not foolproof, but... almost. If it won't do this reliably, it means I have been a big-enough fool to shoot cats and forgot to change back to human.

Maybe animal-eye af would have nailed that horse?

Before a7iv, on the a6500, I used to be moving focus spots all the time and then press eye-af.

Tracking will have been on human eye as on the RIV you can't track with animal eye (because Sony are stupid at times). For whatever reason it chose to focus on the lettering on the sign behind. If I had changed it to single centre it would have nailed the focus on the horse, as it has on other shots.

 

[spudhead]

Eye focus is also pretty useless I have animal and bird on a1 and don`t use it, I have had the eye focus grab black spots on butterflies holes in trees and even makings on birds and holes in bird houses. I have used it on the a1 and it prioritizes the eye, on shutter release over the entire image focus, same on a9 imo.

 

[Thad E Ginathom]

I switch to animal (when I remember) for my cat pics. It (a7iv) seems to me to track?