genji wrote:
Well, the v6 update has definitely fixed the pulsating problem with the A7RIII and the autofocus seems fast and accurate.
As far as assigning a custom button to toggle between AF and MF, I'd suggest that the AF-ON button is both more logical and easier to reach than C4. I have the AF-ON button set to AF/MF Ctrl Toggle and the AEL button set to Eye AF.
I use AF-ON for Eye AF, which I use very often with any lenses, including the Sony ones. Then, I use AEL for Magnification, which I set to x4.7 by default. That way, I can zoom in anytime I want. I tend to use these two features more than switching between AF and MF. And, in general, when I switch, I usually have time to do so. That's why I set C4 to AF/MF Toggle.
V.6/A9/35mm F/1.4 ZM @1.4 Fast and accurate, even in low light. Eye autofocus 2/3 into periphery. Same with 90mm Leica...135mm Contax (but at weight limit). It is getting harder to spend money on native lenses. Much like the Metabones..real improvements. In the A7, early Metabones days, my Canon EF 24-105 was a dog. So much so that I purchased the previous manual focus version. Now, the autofocus is fast and accurate.
Last thing..to test the ZM, I removed the 35mm F/1.4 Canon/Metabones. The size weight difference vs ZM/TechArt was beyond substantial.
Wahoowa wrote:
Focus peeking is always on MF mode. If you use TAP, which is autofocus, peeking is not available.
What I do with my A9, which is doable with A7R3, is I customize the C4 button to be "AF/MF toggle". That way, I can quickly switch between AF and MF with any lens, not just with TAP. When I need to do my own focus, I switch to MF and focus peeking will be ready for me to use. (That's in another menu to set.)
Thanks for the AF/MF toggle tip. For some reason, if I tried to switch from AF to MF using focusing menu:AFS, AFC, MF etc, with TAP, it got message that MF is not available with this lens or something to that effect and had not found a way to use MF when using TAP. But AF/MF toggle switch works beautifully.
V6 is definitely a major improvement in AF especially in low light. Will need to try more but it seems much better than V5 as my initial impression.
Wahoowa wrote:
V6 is out today and it's great. AF is improved considerably.
Good thing I saw this thread pop up today or I would have not known there was an update. Thank you. How did you know there was an update? Did you get an email ? or Just happened to check their website?
I updated my TAP to v6 as well after reading about the new firmware here (had some intermittent failures loading the new firmware to it on my A7II where the remaining data counter just stopped progressing before reaching 0, but it worked after a couple of re-tries). I tried it out with my A9 today using Voigtländer Heliar 50/3.5 and Ultron 35/1.7 and indeed AFC was working much better, no more aggressive hunting / focus pulsing. I still find AFC much more reliable as AFS is giving me false positive focus locks here and there. Focusing outside of the central region also worked pretty well several times when I used touch-focus to place the focus area somewhere well beyond the central area (towards the corners). I'm happy with the AF performance after the update on the A9.
I'm still having another problem that didn't seem to get improved though, the adapter is doing some kind of "restarts" randomly, e.g. while focusing it can suddenly switch to Manual mode, and do similar movements as when the camera is powered on and then come back to AF mode. Today it also got stuck in manual mode a couple of times after doing this and I had to restart the camera to make it work again. These random restarts happen quite often, e.g. I saw it around 10 times in 2-3 hours of shooting today.
Juha Kannisto wrote:
I updated my TAP to v6 as well after reading about the new firmware here (had some intermittent failures loading the new firmware to it on my A7II where the remaining data counter just stopped progressing before reaching 0, but it worked after a couple of re-tries). I tried it out with my A9 today using Voigtländer Heliar 50/3.5 and Ultron 35/1.7 and indeed AFC was working much better, no more aggressive hunting / focus pulsing. I still find AFC much more reliable as AFS is giving me false positive focus locks here and there. Focusing outside of the central region also worked pretty well several times when I used touch-focus to place the focus area somewhere well beyond the central area (towards the corners). I'm happy with the AF performance after the update on the A9.
I'm still having another problem that didn't seem to get improved though, the adapter is doing some kind of "restarts" randomly, e.g. while focusing it can suddenly switch to Manual mode, and do similar movements as when the camera is powered on and then come back to AF mode. Today it also got stuck in manual mode a couple of times after doing this and I had to restart the camera to make it work again. These random restarts happen quite often, e.g. I saw it around 10 times in 2-3 hours of shooting today....Show more →
I just completed the update to V6 using the A7rIII + TAP + Voigt 35 F1.2 VII. First couple of shoots and I experienced the same. While testing the restart happened twice then I realized on the second restart the camera restarted wih the TAP @ F90. So I changed back to F2 and so far after about 12-15 test shots I haven't experinced the restart again. Will keep checking.
LBJ2 wrote:
I just completed the update to V6 using the ArIII + TAP + Voigt 35 F1.2 VII. First couple of shoots and I experienced the same. While testing the restart happened twice then I realized on the second restart the camera restarted wih the TAP @ F90. So I changed back to F2 and so far after about 12-15 test shots I haven't experinced the restart again. Will keep checking.
I had those random restarts on the previous firmware v5 too, probably as frequently as with v6, but I don't remember the adapter getting stuck in MF mode after such restart on the previous firmware. I saw that scenario twice today and first time I fixed it by unmounting and re-mounting the adapter, and 2nd time by restarting the camera (power off/on).
Juha Kannisto wrote:
I had those random restarts on the previous firmware v5 too, probably as frequently as with v6, but I don't remember the adapter getting stuck in MF mode after such restart on the previous firmware. I saw that scenario twice today and first time I fixed it by unmounting and re-mounting the adapter, and 2nd time by restarting the camera (power off/on).
I didn't have to restart or remount the adapter/lens. In my case the camera restarted on its own after a few seconds. I'm up to 29 test shots now and camera/adpater seem stable so far, no restarts yet. Will try next with the A9.
LBJ2 wrote:
I didn't have to restart or remount the adapter/lens. In my case the camera restarted on its own after a few seconds. I'm up to 29 test shots now and camera/adpater seem stable so far, no restarts yet. Will try next with the A9.
For me most of the restarts also work out with TAP returning to functional AF mode on its own after a couple of seconds. I shot a lot of images outdoors today when trying out the new FW, more than 1000 shots and lots of them in low light. Not sure what conditions provoke the restart but I guess it might be a case of continuous AF running into some situation that TAP can't handle well. These restarts only tend to happen for me while AFC is actively focusing on something (shutter button is half-pressed). I usually use TAP in AFC with Wide area focusing and if I want to focus on something particular that Wide mode doesn't pick up, I use touch focus to guide it. The restarts did happen in both of these modes today. I guess it might not show up in short testing easily but may show up in regular use unless it's something unique with my unit. Anyway, I've had these restarts with TAP on my A9 probably since I first used the combo and not only on the new firmware, but can't recall having them on my A7II (if I did, they must have been uncommon enough for me not to pay attention).
Anyway, I'll keep using TAP more now since AFC is now working much better than it was previously on A9 and will keep an eye on the restart problem to make further observations about it. It wouldn't bother me too much if it only happened once in a while but recently it's happening a bit too frequently.
Juha Kannisto wrote:
For me most of the restarts also work out with TAP returning to functional AF mode on its own after a couple of seconds. I shot a lot of images outdoors today when trying out the new FW, more than 1000 shots and lots of them in low light. Not sure what conditions provoke the restart but I guess it might be a case of continuous AF running into some situation that TAP can't handle well. These restarts only tend to happen for me while AFC is actively focusing on something (shutter button is half-pressed). I usually use TAP in AFC with Wide area focusing and if I want to focus on something particular that Wide mode doesn't pick up, I use touch focus to guide it. The restarts did happen in both of these modes today. I guess it might not show up in short testing easily but may show up in regular use unless it's something unique with my unit. Anyway, I've had these restarts with TAP on my A9 probably since I first used the combo and not only on the new firmware, but can't recall having them on my A7II (if I did, they must have been uncommon enough for me not to pay attention).
Anyway, I'll keep using TAP more now since AFC is now working much better than it was previously on A9 and will keep an eye on the restart problem to make further observations about it. It wouldn't bother me too much if it only happened once in a while but recently it's happening a bit too frequently....Show more →
So far, not having any restart issues with the A9 + TAP + Voigt 35 F1.2 VII. But will continue to check for this as I use this combo more.
The techart website recommends that you don't update if you are not using an A7riii or an A9. Has anyone that has an a7ii updated and seen any improvements?
spicole wrote:
The techart website recommends that you don't update if you are not using an A7riii or an A9. Has anyone that has an a7ii updated and seen any improvements?
I used it briefly on the R2 and it seems fine.... however, since it works so well on the R3, the R2 is strictly a landscape camera now
bluloo wrote:
I had a TAP restart issue today, but it almost immediately returned to normal operating mode without intervention on my part.
I've had it multiple times, annoying, but self fix in a few seconds, so not the end of the world. I guess it's better than the metabones lockup, that can get pretty bad.
Mines behaved perfectly on my A7RII since installation. Has anyone else checked the battery drain. I did the upgrade, shot a dozen frames, and left it on the camera overnight and the battery is still at 98%!
navmannz wrote:
Mines behaved perfectly on my A7RII since installation. Has anyone else checked the battery drain. I did the upgrade, shot a dozen frames, and left it on the camera overnight and the battery is still at 98%!
-John
Did you find any of the performance improvements to exist on the A7rii? I have an A7ii and wonder if it would make a difference to update the firmware.
spicole wrote:
Did you find any of the performance improvements to exist on the A7rii? I have an A7ii and wonder if it would make a difference to update the firmware.
If its fixed the battery drain problem then its definitely a gain - still sitting at 98%
Hi everyone, new here so please excuse missteps. Very useful thread (thank you) on the TAP (a new discovery for me, great idea despite the weaknesses I think) so I thought I'd share my short experience.
So far I must say, wow. I just lack the experience and/or talent for speedy MF, and when I finally came to terms with that, I traded my M240 (after a history of M's) for a Sony A7RII a while back and stuck to Sony. Having the Techart makes me happy that I didn't sell my Leica glass though. I just received my TAP on 5th of January from a reseller here in Switzerland (serial number in the mid 7000, so it's probably been sitting on a shelf for a while) and updated to the fresh version 6.00 firmware right away.
So far no wobble of course (still new) and I'll just wait to see about that one. What I can say already is that the battery on my A7RIII did drain from 100% to 86% overnight with the TAP attached and the camera turned off despite firmware version 6.00. Removing and re-inserting the battery works for me. Eye-focus works fine with AF-C enabled (I have normal AF-C on "AF-ON" button and eye-focus on "AEL" button with no AF on shutter button).
Ardmoyle wrote:
Hi everyone, new here so please excuse missteps. Very useful thread (thank you) on the TAP (a new discovery for me, great idea despite the weaknesses I think) so I thought I'd share my short experience.
So far I must say, wow. I just lack the experience and/or talent for speedy MF, and when I finally came to terms with that, I traded my M240 (after a history of M's) for a Sony A7RII a while back and stuck to Sony. Having the Techart makes me happy that I didn't sell my Leica glass though. I just received my TAP on 5th of January from a reseller here in Switzerland (serial number in the mid 7000, so it's probably been sitting on a shelf for a while) and updated to the fresh version 6.00 firmware right away.
So far no wobble of course (still new) and I'll just wait to see about that one. What I can say already is that the battery on my A7RIII did drain from 100% to 86% overnight with the TAP attached and the camera turned off despite firmware version 6.00. Removing and re-inserting the battery works for me. Eye-focus works fine with AF-C enabled (I have normal AF-C on "AF-ON" button and eye-focus on "AEL" button with no AF on shutter button).
Welcome to the forum, Nick. Your experience with the TAP v6 and A7RIII matches my own (and, I suspect, that of other members). It's just a pity they don't seem to be able to fix the battery drain problem.
