timgangloff wrote:
My second night with the a9 was a lot better than my first night. Tweaked my AF settings and think I can make this work as a second body to my 1dx2.
a9 with 24-70 2.8 GM and ISO 3200, 2.8 and 1/1250.
Would you mind sharing what AF settings you are using for basketball?
In a nutshell, the thing that made the biggest diffrence for me was chaning the AF Tracking Sensitivity to 1 or 2 from a 5. I erroneously thought a 5 would give quicker, more accurate tracking, but I think it had the complete opposite reaction. It was really jumpy and seemed to pick up everybody around the player I was tracking and I repeatedly lost focus. After moving it to 1, lock on, I seemed to get a lot better results for tracking individual players and it is still quick enough to acquire focus when I want to track something else quickly, like, point and shoot action, without having the time to track focus.
Sony may recommend a 3 for basektball, but I lean towards a 1 or 2. But, I'm still new to Sony, so have much to learn.
^just now getting around to visiting Hatpix Photography, what a great site. Indeed you are the pro sports shooter.
Are you doing all with the a9 now or still mixing with the Canon?
Thanks MedicineMan. I shoot Sony and Canon (1dx2) now. With basketball, I'm using the 24-70 2.8 GM on the A9 for baseline work and the 1dx2 and 400 for downcourt action. I did rent the Sony 70-200 2.8 GM (it goes back tomorrow) to see how it works compared to the Canon and Metabones V on the Sony. Of course native is better, but I may be able to use my Canon 70-200 2.8 IS II until the Sony is in the budget.
Here are 2 from earlier tonight. 1 with the 70-200 and the 2nd one with the 24-70.
Speaking of fun, played today with the a9 + PZ 18-200mm What a hoot! Of course it goes into crop mode instantly (and an effective 300mm), my file to work with on 10.6 mpx, and then I had to crop into that. I'd bet no one in this forum would use the SEL PZ18200 but we like it for travel/video. So the original and the final. I'm very satisfied with this capture, the take away is the a9 is cropable and often it's not the number of pixels but how good they are