AGeoJO
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| p.1 #1 · p.1 #1 · Wildlife photography using Sony E-mount? - A real-life experience | |
Background
I have been using Sony A7-series camera when the A7r became available almost 3 years ago. There are a lot features I like about the system but AF is definitely not one of them. Especially, when it comes down to using Canon lenses, which works fine for landscape, travel photography and people photography as long they don’t move around too fast, but that’s about it. However, due to its IQ, I started using my Sony gear more and more and my Canon gear less and less. At the same time, I started feeling that the weight of wildlife photography gear started to take a toll on this old body. Slowly but surely, I started selling my Canon lenses and migrated almost fully to Sony. Wildlife and sport photography are the two fields that Sony has neglected so far. Although I started killing the idea of doing wildlife photography using the mirrorless system but I still kept two longish Canon lenses, the 400mm f/2.8 Mark II is one of them and the other is even a shorter one a 300mm f/2.8 Mark II.
The introduction of 399 PDAF points in the A7r II brings about a huge improvement in the AF department. Shortly after that, Metabones updates the FW of its adapter allowing PDAF to be used on Canon lens and even more recently with the latest FW, allowing almost native AF features. I started playing with the two longish lenses leftover from my Canon days and to my pleasant surprise the AF results are more than decent. And the IQ coming from those lenses is just superb. Based on the new development, I dabbled back into doing some wildlife photography again.
At the beginning of the year, a group of shooting buddies and myself, made a plan to go to Costa Rica. I bought a (new to me) Canon 400mm DO II lens for that trip with the intention of selling the faster f/2.8 lens. I practiced and practiced locally at various birding spots and at the zoo until I felt comfortable. I was totally convinced that the smaller lens would be perfect for me first. Although that lens is quite a bit smaller and lighter but at f/4, the aperture did not feel quite adequate since I anticipated that the lighting conditions in CR would be more restricted than, let's say here in Southern California. Plus, the actual reach of a 400mm may not be adequate, necessitating the use of an extender, further cutting the light necessary to make the AF effective. So, two days before the actual trip, I decided to take the bigger lens. I was willing to put up with the weight and bulk for a faster aperture. And I didn't regret that move. The AF algorithm of the lens seems to jive very well with the algorithm of Metabones. The longish focal length is not conducive for fast AF but the fast aperture of f/2.8 helped the case and apparently made more than up for that.
Costa Rica
Lenses Canon 400mm f/2.8 Mark II, Canon 1.4X TC Mark III, FE 90mm f/2.8 Macro, FE 70-300mm, FE 24-70mm GM. Bodies: 2X A7r II, A6300 and just to be on the safe side, my (now sold) Canon 7D Mark II. Accessories: Mitros+ flash, Better Beamer, and Gitzo tripod. I am limiting my experience to using the long Canon lens with or without TC with Metabones.
- Camera setting: Aperture priority (mostly wide open or one-stop down), auto ISO (with selectable minimum shutter speed depending on circumstances) and AF mode set to continuous. I used the back button to trigger the AF.
- Adapter: I used both modes of Metabones IV interchangeably. When I anticipated some kind of movement for tracking of the object, I used the green default mode. Although it is great for tracking moving targets and the AF is really fast but the AF point may not necessarily fall on the area you want to be in focus since it prefers focusing on areas closer to you within the selected AF area. The advance mode, combines phase-detect and contrast-detect AF, enabling the lens to act more like a native FE lens and I used that mode for pinpointing smallish targets and I preferred this mode for its accuracy.
- Camera support: Tripod is used 100% of the time. On the boat ride along the Sarapiqui river, the tripod was used more as monopod.
- Fill-in flash: Just a tiny fill-in flash would do wonder to your images. The flash effect should not be readily noticeable. Even -1-stop is too much for my taste. I prefer -2-stop but the Sony flash compensation system is not consistent and not responsive to adjusting the flash output to my liking. So, I just used the manual mode to 1/128 power or something like that. Yes, the HSS is important and my flash was set to that. Flash was not allowed to be used at the quetzal habitat in the mountains of the last image. The first 4 images received a tiny dose of fill-in flash.
- Method of shooting: No trick to take perching birds, semi stationary lizard, etc. For flying or better said, hovering hummingbirds on the other hand, the trick was to pre-focus at the prominent flower stalk or stalks. They are plenty colorful hummingbirds there and they need to feed on nectar provided by flowers. You just wait and be ready when they approach those flowers. Depending on the orientation of the flowers, line yourself up with the same direction what you anticipate they will approach the flowers. I did one of the three steps to get them in perfect focus. 1) I focused using AF on the head of the hummingbird. Depending on the size of the target and the placement, it worked OK but I experienced more than just a few times that it tried to rack the focusing mechanism again and I missed the chance of getting the peak moment. 2) I focused manually (back by a smidgen). And the rate of success was quite good and 3) the “spray and pray” method without re-focusing after the initial pre-focus result. About half-way of the trip, after I found out that I had plenty of images of well-focused hummers, I started using this method the most. By making sure that your position will give you the best chance of capturing well-focused hummers, you just take sequence shots until your buffer is full. Did I get out-of-focus images on this trip? Oh, yes, tons of them but the number of keepers and more importantly, I was able to capture peak moments of quite a bit of hummers.
In summary:
The notion that a mirror less system would not be "good" enough for wildlife is being challenged, at least partly. It depends on the type of wildlife, I would say and it is perfectly suitable for perching or hovering birds in Costa Rica, like on this trip. I resorted to a native FE lens for BIF purposes. For macro or close up shots, I used my native macro lens and mostly I focused that lens manually. Knowing what your gear can do, push the ability of your gear to the limit, but adjust to the changing condition is the key. That adapted lens focused swiftly and in 90% of the time it did what I hoped it to do. As I mentioned earlier some place here, I would take this lens in combo with my mirrorless system to locations, such as CR, Panama or Ecuador or some place similar for wildlife but I would not take it to Africa on safari or use it for strictly BIF purposes.
Thank you for reading this long post and please feel free to ask any questions.
Joshua
The entire frame - I ended up cropping it and the 42MP shows its muscle
Edited on Apr 23, 2017 at 08:59 PM · View previous versions
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. It seems that the Metabones adapters have come a long way with the newest firmware updates. I know you didn't really do any BIF in Costa Rica. However, I was wondering whether you thought that tracking larger birds with the a7rii and a big white (400 2.8 in your case) would yield usable results? Sony's a-mount 500G might work better (?), but the price and the inability to use the Sony 1.4 TC makes it less desirable. 
The last shot looks like a painting that should be hung up on a wall !
and you need to align yourself for that to get the maximum depth of field and you increase your chance of getting more images in focus.