p.177 #2 · Official: Sony A7 and A7R Fullframe Mirrorless
nandadevieast wrote:
Is it possible for some wise forum member to hack these cameras to produce true uncompressed raw files? Is it even possible?
Not sure it's possible considering Sony's compression is likely implemented in their image processing ASIC. They might have a way to turn that off, provided there aren't other aspects of their processing pipeline that depend on it.
p.177 #3 · Official: Sony A7 and A7R Fullframe Mirrorless
Having bought this camera only recently i must tell you that i like it a lot.
I was a bit nervous about this because all my previous experiments failed
My mirrorless route: Nex5 to OMD em5 to A7
Also: Sigma DP2 Merrill. Now i have sold everything except Merrill.
I liked Nex a lot and did some good photography with it. But i dispensed with it in favour of EM5 which i had high hopes for. Can't blame it but we never quite got along well. Something was wrong, and the chemistry was missing...so ultimately i sold it. What prompted thesell button was a months photography with the Merrill, after which the EM5 files looked, well, coming from a cell phone I know that is grossly wrong but the feeling was that.
I recalled that i am missing my trusty LX3 compact with which most of my good photography happened. So i bought a RX100 Mark II. Well, no bonding again. I felt its slippery, fiddly (if there is a word like that) and too restrictive.)
Eventually i bought the A7 with the 24-70. I still have Merrill and will not sell it. While shooting, i always give it the best light, the best opportunity if i can and have time in my hands because i know it can give me the special shot.
Coming back to A7, i have started carrying it with me. I play with it for familiarity's sake and i have been able to figure it out by now thanks to you guys and largely due to the html manual that is available online.
I wouldnt rush to proclaim it as the best camera ever made. Let me go slow, shoot a bit more. Maybe i will love it. In any case i desperately want to love a camera, get the chemistry back which i had with my Lumix LX3.
I will get back to you in a few days. Here is some of my photography, hope you like it.
p.177 #5 · Official: Sony A7 and A7R Fullframe Mirrorless
Hi
Hope someone can answer this...
There is a face detect feature which according to the manual, adjusts focus and exposure as per the face detected.
I am trying to figure this out...does the camera over-ride normal AF then? Suppose you have a face in the middle and single focus point on the left, and you half press...now focus locks at the single focus point but you also notice a box appearing on the face...so apperantly camera is focussing there as well. And lastly a third smaller box appears on the eye if you are using eye focus...
I cant nail the behaviour of the camera...what does it prioritise in favour of what?
Which focus mode is advisable when using face detect?
p.177 #6 · Official: Sony A7 and A7R Fullframe Mirrorless
nandadevieast wrote:
Hi
Hope someone can answer this...
Face detection box: does this box focusses on the face? If yes then does it clash with the normal focus box that is being used...lets say the center focus box/point.
What if the face is in the corner and center focus point is being used. Which one the camera choses?
And does face detection alter exposure also?
It depends on what show active when you press the shutter to focus. If it's showing the face detect box then it will AF on the face. If it's showing the normal AF point and not the face detect it uses that. Seems the face detect will take priority if it recognizes one.
p.177 #7 · Official: Sony A7 and A7R Fullframe Mirrorless
I noticed when I have "one too many" with my friends Friday night , Sony A7 would not detect my face the next morning. That's because I drink too much or the Sony's face detection feature not being sensitive enough to detect hang-over face?
p.177 #9 · Official: Sony A7 and A7R Fullframe Mirrorless
nandadevieast wrote:
Hi
Hope someone can answer this...
There is a face detect feature which according to the manual, adjusts focus and exposure as per the face detected.
I am trying to figure this out...does the camera over-ride normal AF then? Suppose you have a face in the middle and single focus point on the left, and you half press...now focus locks at the single focus point but you also notice a box appearing on the face...so apperantly camera is focussing there as well. And lastly a third smaller box appears on the eye if you are using eye focus...
I cant nail the behaviour of the camera...what does it prioritise in favour of what?
Which focus mode is advisable when using face detect?...Show more →
if i recall correctly it just detects that the face is in the frame but focuses on wherever the focus point is. if you reframe so the focus point falls on the face and acivate AF the box on the face changes from white to green and focus becomes locked to the face even if you then reframe.
p.177 #11 · Official: Sony A7 and A7R Fullframe Mirrorless
sebboh wrote:
if i recall correctly it just detects that the face is in the frame but focuses on wherever the focus point is. if you reframe so the focus point falls on the face and acivate AF the box on the face changes from white to green and focus becomes locked to the face even if you then reframe.
This is what it does.
When using face detection, I put the camera on the wide AF setting. That way it'll just focus on the detected face wherever it is in the frame.
p.177 #13 · Official: Sony A7 and A7R Fullframe Mirrorless
The manual says the face detect adjusts focus if it detects a face...
sebboh wrote:
if i recall correctly it just detects that the face is in the frame but focuses on wherever the focus point is. if you reframe so the focus point falls on the face and acivate AF the box on the face changes from white to green and focus becomes locked to the face even if you then reframe.
p.177 #14 · Official: Sony A7 and A7R Fullframe Mirrorless
nandadevieast wrote:
The manual says the face detect adjusts focus if it detects a face...
first off, reading any camera manual is a complete waste of time and most things in it are probably wrong or at least mistranslated.
if the camera is in multipoint AF mode (or whatever the kids are calling it these days) it will focus on any detected face. if it is in any of the single focus point modes it will only adjust focus to face if you indicate to the camera that it should by moving the focus point to the face detection square.
p.177 #15 · Official: Sony A7 and A7R Fullframe Mirrorless
Great. Then it means if i want to actually use the face detect and eye focus with any degree of easy, i need to use multi point or dumb AF. Otherwise it will be too much of a chore.
p.177 #16 · Official: Sony A7 and A7R Fullframe Mirrorless
nandadevieast wrote:
Great. Then it means if i want to actually use the face detect and eye focus with any degree of easy, i need to use multi point or dumb AF. Otherwise it will be too much of a chore.
yup, my advice is to use one of your custom settings on on the mode dial as a face detect mode so it's quick and easy to switch to from a sensible focus mode when you aren't shooting faces.
also, AF sucks and you should just permanently disable it on all your cameras.
p.177 #17 · Official: Sony A7 and A7R Fullframe Mirrorless
sebboh wrote:
first off, reading any camera manual is a complete waste of time and most things in it are probably wrong or at least mistranslated.
if the camera is in multipoint AF mode (or whatever the kids are calling it these days) it will focus on any detected face. if it is in any of the single focus point modes it will only adjust focus to face if you indicate to the camera that it should by moving the focus point to the face detection square.
This is completely wrong. I have it in single AF point and face detect on all the time. If a face comes into view it will show a square on the face. If you AF when the square is showing the square on the face will turn green and it focuses on the face.
I've done this hundreds of times. You need to stop giving incorrect advice.
p.177 #18 · Official: Sony A7 and A7R Fullframe Mirrorless
bcaslis wrote:
This is completely wrong. I have it in single AF point and face detect on all the time. If a face comes into view it will show a square on the face. If you AF when the square is showing the square on the face will turn green and it focuses on the face.
I've done this hundreds of times. You need to stop giving incorrect advice.
it seems like other people have a different experience from you. you are sure it always happens even when you have the single AF point completely outside of the box (just a tiny edge is enough to select the face box)? what are the full AF settings you're using?
p.177 #19 · Official: Sony A7 and A7R Fullframe Mirrorless
bcaslis wrote:
This is completely wrong. I have it in single AF point and face detect on all the time. If a face comes into view it will show a square on the face. If you AF when the square is showing the square on the face will turn green and it focuses on the face.
I've done this hundreds of times. You need to stop giving incorrect advice.
My A7 certainly doesn't do that. My Fuji cameras do. On the A7, it will show the face detection box, but if the face is not inside of the single AF point then the face detection box will not turn green and focus will not be on the face. Switching to wide area AF mode is what's needed to make this work similarly to Fuji, where the camera will always focus on a face if it sees on.
p.177 #20 · Official: Sony A7 and A7R Fullframe Mirrorless
itai195 wrote:
My A7 certainly doesn't do that. My Fuji cameras do. On the A7, it will show the face detection box, but if the face is not inside of the single AF point then the face detection box will not turn green and focus will not be on the face. Switching to wide area AF mode is what's needed to make this work similarly to Fuji, where the camera will always focus on a face if it sees on.
"..."...Face Detection frame (grey or white when face detected) allows a regular (using shutter button for example) focusing (white turning into green) when face is around/close to a current flexible spot ( [Focus Area] = Flexible Spot ) AF point location within the frame (the Face Detection frame must touch/intersect with the displayed current AF spot frame to have a white color - once there is no touch the Face Detection frame will become grey... so you might need to either move Flexible Spot AF point within the frame closer to the face or reframe to bring the face closer to that AF point) OR you need to use [Focus Area] = Wide | Zone instead of [Focus Area] = Flexible Spot... HOWEVER it is still possible to focus using "Eye AF" button even if the Face Detection frame is grey (it will find an eye and turn a grey frame into a green one) !
Eye AF = Focuses on a person’s eyes when you press the button, even [Smile/Face Detect.] = OFF... When the camera focuses on the eye(s) and [Smile/Face Detect.] is set to [On], a face detection frame (big green frame) is displayed around the face after Eye AF frame is displayed (small green frame) around the eye(s). When [Smile/Face Detect.] is set to [Off], a detection frame (small green frame) is displayed on the eye(s) for a certain time (it disappeares then)... Press the shutter button while still pressing the Eye AF key...."
sorry for a long text and possible typos
PS: also if you are using WB = UniWB then Sony's (A7) AF will _NOT_ work under a certain daylight illumination (Blue channel saturation is close to Green channel saturation in raw, Red channel is behind) to detect faces... unlike my m43 cameras Sony (A7, not sure about other cameras) apparently uses also color to distinguish faces, while m43 cameras don't... so if you want to shoot some green/blue aliens with face detection bring another camera brand..."
