Today was my first day with the A6400. I have never shot with such a small camera , and it will take some getting use to
All taken with the 100-400 and 1.4 TC , handheld .
These are cropped about 30 to 50% as the birds were still fairly far away.
I have a lot to learn about the options for focusing and what works the best in certain situations. I am impressed with this little camera. Today, any shortcomings , were due to me . I need to spend some more time and more practice with it. Over all very happy with it.
Birdie, thank you for doing that for us and congrats that you did get them all in perfect focus . Did you take any sequential short during a short burst, by any chance? Which AF Mode did you use; Zone AF?
AGeoJO wrote:
Birdie, thank you for doing that for us and congrats that you did get them all in perfect focus . Did you take any sequential short during a short burst, by any chance? Which AF Mode did you use; Zone AF?
Thank you,
Joshua
Thanks Joshua,
I did do some burst shots on the pelicans. The other little guys ( stilts and yellow legs) were not doing long flights. I got a couple of bursts with them ,but not many.
I used several of the AF Modes - Zone AF, Expanded Flexible Spot , Tracking Flexible Spot . I did not use wide.
I was shooting at the Spillway. They just opened it to relieve some of the pressure on the Mississippi River levees and reduce the level of the river as it is quite high. In the first shot the background is the spillway structure and you can see the water coming through.
At any rate where the water flows from the River to Lake Pontchartrain, there are telephone poles , lines, railroad tressels , so lots of things that get in the way when shooting.
It was also very windy today . The lens was moving in the wind at times. So I attribute some of the out of focus to the conditions and just my lack of knowing what I was doing
One thing I did discover is I needed to keep the shutter speed up to at least 1/2000 . The shots I took at 1/1600 were not as sharp as the ones at 1/2500.
I am not use to shooting with focus points that move around
I'm open to any thoughts and suggestions on how to improve.
I am not familiar with the A6400 but the new AF-mode with the A6400, Tracking Flexible Spot, is not something we have in the existing and older cameras, at least not yet. Is the size of the AF rectangle in that mode selectable also, like S, M and L? Judging by the name, that mode probably would be the one to use for tracking .
The sequential images of the pelican are in great focus, at least some 80% of them, I hope?
Haha, I understand that you are not used to the moving AF points. We can make our lives easier now, right and at the same time, we can increase our keeper - why not?
AGeoJO wrote:
I am not familiar with the A6400 but the new AF-mode with the A6400, Tracking Flexible Spot, is not something we have in the existing and older cameras, at least not yet. Is the size of the AF rectangle in that mode selectable also, like S, M and L? Judging by the name, that mode probably would be the one to use for tracking .
The sequential images of the pelican are in great focus, at least some 80% of them, I hope?
Haha, I understand that you are not used to the moving AF points. We can make our lives easier now, right and at the same time, we can increase our keeper - why not?
Yes, the Tracking Flexible Spot you are able to select S,M or L. I do believe you will have this with the update.
Yep the images are in focus on the burst. There were a couple of bursts that had one or two out of focus, again, I am not ready to say it is the camera.
One of the things that was such a nice surprise was how quick focus locked on. The stilts were feeding in some grassy areas . Out of the corner of my eye, I would see movement and just move the camera quickly to the area and most times if I had the subject in the viewfinder it would focus. These birds were not moving against a blue sky, they were flying low over the grass . A couple of time grass was in focus and not the bird . I didn't have that moving focus area in the right spot
AGeoJO wrote:
I am not familiar with the A6400 but the new AF-mode with the A6400, Tracking Flexible Spot, is not something we have in the existing and older cameras, at least not yet. Is the size of the AF rectangle in that mode selectable also, like S, M and L? Judging by the name, that mode probably would be the one to use for tracking .
The sequential images of the pelican are in great focus, at least some 80% of them, I hope?
Haha, I understand that you are not used to the moving AF points. We can make our lives easier now, right and at the same time, we can increase our keeper - why not?
kimknapp wrote:
Is that different than Lock-on Flexible Spot?
I don’t know the answer to that, Kim.
Birdie, does the new A6400 have the Lock-on Flexible Spot mode? If both modes are there, then there must be enough distinction between the two in terms of AF algorithm for Sony to do that. Or did Sony change the name only?
kimknapp wrote:
Is that different than Lock-on Flexible Spot?
It's supposed to be much better than the now "old" Lock-on Flexible Spot. I took my 6400 out the first time this morning when I walked my dog, saw 5 or 6 hooded mergansers, took about 20 shots. I haven't loaded them on the computer yet. But it's not fool proofed. A couple times the AF would lock on the head first then locked on the neck, or locked on another merganser. There are two modes in the Real Time Tracking, one is the wide zone, the other is the expanded spot (L, M and S). I used the L this morning but I think some times it switched to zone by itself. Still a lot to learn.
The Focus areas available on the 6400 are: wide ,zone , center, Flexible Spot (SML), Expand Flexible Spot (SML) and Tracking Flexible Spot ( you can select Tracking Expand Flexible spot SML , or wide, zone or center ) . There is no Lock on Flex spot. I tried the Flex spot and as kdrk888 stated it does at times jump to something else if it is closer to the camera. This is all so new to me, I have a lot to learn and experiment with. I also noticed that even if you select center, it is not locked on the center, it moves around even when you are not in tracking center.
Also, I can not find how to do center Lock on Focus. I can't find any lock on options at all.
Is there a place to set Auto Focus Tracking sensitivity for stills. I can find it for Movies , but not stills .
Lock on tracking is gone, replaced with the new AI tracking. When in anyof the tracking modes, it'll lock on whatever you focus on originally and stick to that until you reacquire focus again.
Jman13 wrote:
Lock on tracking is gone, replaced with the new AI tracking. When in anyof the tracking modes, it'll lock on whatever you focus on originally and stick to that until you reacquire focus again.
Well that explains a lot . Thank you. Trying to learn the A7riii and the A6400 at the same time, well I can get confused easily.
This might be a silly question, but I'm trying to decide between an A6400 and an A9. The A6400 would give me up to 840mm with the 100-400 with 1.4tc. Can anyone compare the A6400 with the a9? I'm primarily interested in BIF. I know the FPS is lower, but that 1.5x range really helps...And they seem to have very similar tracking systems.
I only used the camera for the first time very briefly this morning, I have a feeling that the AI Real Time Tracking may be good for a running dog, walking models/moving athletes/kids, a plane, a flying eagle, flying geese/ducks, but with a group of birds close together like the the mergansers I shot this morning, the focus may jump to another similar looking bird if they are close together. I remember someone was asking how the A6400 would track a pair of twins if they wear the same clothes.
I am going out to see swans and snow geese this afternoon and will experiment further. This time I will try the Tracking/ Flexible Spot M, instead of L.
I just cycled through the Real Time Tracking modes, I was wrong in the description a couple posts up. The options are:
Expand Flexible Spot
Wide
Zone
Center
kdrk888 wrote:
I only used the camera for the first time very briefly this morning, I have a feeling that the AI Real Time Tracking may be good for a running dog, walking models/moving athletes/kids, a plane, a flying eagle, flying geese/ducks, but with a group of birds close together like the the mergansers I shot this morning, the focus may jump to another similar looking bird if they are close together. I remember someone was asking how the A6400 would track a pair of twins if they wear the same clothes.
I am going out to see swans and snow geese this afternoon and will experiment further. This time I will try the Tracking/ Flexible Spot M, instead of L....Show more →
Douglas, unless you use a really fast lens that will create a shallow depth of field, in general, the increased depth of field as the result of the combined 100-400mm lens and the APS-C format will take care of that.
kdrk888 wrote:
I only used the camera for the first time very briefly this morning, I have a feeling that the AI Real Time Tracking may be good for a running dog, walking models/moving athletes/kids, a plane, a flying eagle, flying geese/ducks, but with a group of birds close together like the the mergansers I shot this morning, the focus may jump to another similar looking bird if they are close together. I remember someone was asking how the A6400 would track a pair of twins if they wear the same clothes.
I am going out to see swans and snow geese this afternoon and will experiment further. This time I will try the Tracking/ Flexible Spot M, instead of L....Show more →
Yes, it can and does jump at least in zone . That is why I was wondering about a Tracking Syn option. There is one for movies, but I can' find it for stills.
First let me say that I last used an A9 about a year and a half ago, but I still have yet to use any camera that focuses as well as it does. It's freakishly good, and freakishly accurate. Especially after the firmware update to bring the a6400 features to it, it'll still be the better focuser, predominantly because of the crazy fast readout speed, which no other Sony can match.
That said the a6400 is the closest any other Sony camera has come to the A9. It feels closer to the A9 than the A7III, and the A7III focuses very, very well.
shadow9d9 wrote:
This might be a silly question, but I'm trying to decide between an A6400 and an A9. The A6400 would give me up to 840mm with the 100-400 with 1.4tc. Can anyone compare the A6400 with the a9? I'm primarily interested in BIF. I know the FPS is lower, but that 1.5x range really helps...And they seem to have very similar tracking systems.
Jman13 wrote:
First let me say that I last used an A9 about a year and a half ago, but I still have yet to use any camera that focuses as well as it does. It's freakishly good, and freakishly accurate. Especially after the firmware update to bring the a6400 features to it, it'll still be the better focuser, predominantly because of the crazy fast readout speed, which no other Sony can match.
That said the a6400 is the closest any other Sony camera has come to the A9. It feels closer to the A9 than the A7III, and the A7III focuses very, very well.
I guess I am trying to figure out if the better autofocusing is worth the extra $2000 along with the limit of 560 vs 840 range. It is a tough decision.
shadow9d9 wrote:
I guess I am trying to figure out if the better autofocusing is worth the extra $2000 along with the limit of 560 vs 840 range. It is a tough decision.
It is indeed. I would say, if you're going to be shooting birds as your primary reason for getting the camera, I'd probably go for the a6400 for the extra reach, but you'd also enjoy the extra grip size on the A9 with large lenses. I use my a6400 with a Sigma 150-600mm, and it works fine, but it does feel small on the end of the big lens. For me, who only shoots wildlife/birds on occasion, it made far more sense to go with the a6400.
. Did you take any sequential short during a short burst, by any chance? Which AF Mode did you use; Zone AF?