Once again, you can FIX the r4 and the 200600 to work in almost all shooting conditions.
However, you need to calibrate the 200600 and the effort you have to put into it will exceed what the service center would get paid by Sony...
Furthermore the calibration process isn't written in a manual (that's what I was told).
I really don't know how to explain it but here goes....so every so often I decide I need to torture myself in the backyard and shoot the A7RIV and 200-600 to see if I can find any combination of settings that can get me a keeper rate I'm happy with. A few times lately in overcast weather I was finding more consistency after trying a few things. But then today in full sun (which usually gives me more trouble than overcast) I had a 1.5 hour backyard shoot of birds, bees and butterflies that gave me very, very high consistency. I was astounded.
My settings today were as follows:
OSS OFF or OSS Mode 3 (I still think this makes the biggest difference of any setting)
Tracking Sensitivity to 3 (I've used 5, I recently used 1, today I just thought..throw it on default and see)
Electronic Shutter in H+
Mostly using Small Flex Spot and Expand Flex Spot
Short bursts or just single frames shot at a time
I stopped down to f/8 most of the time, some at f/7.1 but I left wide open alone today and typically I'm a wide open only shooter.
Things were looking so consistent while chimping the back LCD that I decided to throw caution to the wind and threw on the 1.4TC
Once again I stopped down to f/10 and sometimes f/11. Once again consistency stayed high.
I really don't know how to explain it...the only things I did today that I've never done before is stop down the lens and move Tracking Sensitivity to 3. I think stopping down had some effect and I doubt TS of 3 had much to do with today's success.
Usually in sunny conditions I find constant back focus with this combo but maybe stopping down gave me that little bit of buffer room with the DOF? I wouldn't think it would make much difference at these narrow DOF but maybe it did. That said, I still think that OSS OFF or Mode 3 makes the biggest difference compared to running on OSS 1 (which is how I shoot my A9 all the time regardless of lens and how I shoot my 600GM all the time regardless of body). I'm not sure about OSS 2, sometimes I think it helps over OSS 1 and other times I'm not sure.
Anyways, because of today's success I plan to test more tomorrow. Give the combo a full morning of birding with the A9II in the bag just in case things take a turn for the worst as they usually do with this combo
Geoff, what do you mean with “Electronic Shutter in H+”? Do you mean EFCS or entirely electronic shutter, in other words, silent shutter?
FYI, I will go to the burrowing owl location tomorrow morning and originally, I was thinking of bringing only the G 200-600mm with the A9 II but I may as well use the A7r IV for a few runs. I will be leaving the GM lens at home tomorrow .
AGeoJO wrote:
Geoff, what do you mean with “Electronic Shutter in H+”? Do you mean EFCS or entirely electronic shutter, in other words, silent shutter?
FYI, I will go to the burrowing owl location tomorrow morning and originally, I was thinking of bringing only the G 200-600mm with the A9 II but I may as well use the A7r IV for a few runs. I will be leaving the GM lens at home tomorrow .
Thank you!
I meant Silent mode (Electronic shutter) in H+ (10FPS). Have fun at the owls tomorrow. Try OSS OFF or Mode 3 if you give the RIV/200-600 a go.
arbitrage wrote:
I meant Silent mode (Electronic shutter) in H+ (10FPS). Have fun at the owls tomorrow. Try OSS OFF or Mode 3 if you give the RIV/200-600 a go.
But we will be dealing with the rolling effect though, which is fine for stationary targets but in my case, I am emphasizing flying actions. I will try the Mode 3 though. Thanks!
arbitrage wrote:
I meant Silent mode (Electronic shutter) in H+ (10FPS). Have fun at the owls tomorrow. Try OSS OFF or Mode 3 if you give the RIV/200-600 a go.
I applaud you for continuing the experiment and wish you continued success. I am trying to determine how the ES would affect anything? Did you happen to look at the af points and was the actual recorded af point on the subject or somewhere else as I’ve demonstrated in the past? After selling my a7riv I’m still waiting on my R5 and hope to be able to compare it with adapted ef lenses to my a9 with a 200-600 soon though since I don’t own a $12k Sony prime yet it won’t be exactly fair.
This discussion is interesting. I am a technical person and I debug things. Fact that with 100-400 the results are much different than with 200-600 is interesting to me.
I have some ideas.
This might be some compatibility problem that no change in settings will help to mitigate unless it is fixed in software or even hardware of camera. It might be hardware problem where different copies of lens would differ in results. This can still happen despite accuracy for still subjects. For still subjects the hybrid AF uses phase detect first and near end it corrects it using contrast detection or just though feedback loop which requires fast small changes to focus (where motors in lenses might differ). Also for a moving subject there may be no time to increase accuracy in the last step.
But perhaps some settings can help mitigate it. How to discover it?
The problem with birding is that you never get same scene so it is very hard to evaluate effect of change of settings. Best bet is to have artificial target. E.g. improvise engine powered merry go round with af target stuck on it. Still, a lighting might change and results with it, but variance will be lower than with birds. Perhaps best settings for that af target will be very different to best settings for photographing actual birds. But it is worth trying. If not, just use bird feeder and take pictures in same spot to decrease variance.
Next issue is cameras have so many features that interact between them. My guess of what settings could help:
Shutter:
- EFCS shortens delay between last AF measurement and picture taking. It makes bokeh worse at high shutter speeds, but probably it should be helpful.
- Use of electronic shutter may increase or decrease delay between last AF measurement and picture taking. Try it. To reduce rolling effects, avoid uncompressed raws which have slower scan time due to 14 bit processing (1/10s) than with 12 bit processing of compressed raws (1/20s).
- Try lower drive frame rate to let camera do more AF measurements between shots.
- Edit: Turn "Anti-flicker Shoot." off. It delays shutter and you are not going to need it for BIF.
Stabilization:
- Stabilization when active takes CPU time (because it is not only in lens, but sensor is stabilized as well). It may delay picture taking from last AF measurement. It also takes more battery power which means CPU power management may reduce its frequency (this is also a place where different lenses with different motors and actuated mass could have different AF results). Turn it off. You need fast shutter speed for birds anyway. Stabilization may even have negative effect at high shutter speed.
Display/EVF features:
- There are options like higher quality EVF. Mostly likely higher quality settings will take some CPU time or reduce sensor AF time. Try turning them off. Higher viewfinder FPS might be better or not. Try both. Also using display instead of EVF might produce different results, it has different resolution, it has different CIPA battery rating. It might be still usable as EVF with loupe attachment.
- Camera can display a lot of things in overlay over the picture. Any actively changing displays, e.g. histogram, tilt indication can take CPU time that could be used for AF. Turn off zebras. Turn off exposure guide (it makes my A7iii slower to respond to dials). Turn off auto-review.
- Try changing NTSC/PAL Selector, it affects refresh rate when HDMI is connect and possibly even without it.
- There is an option to see image with simulated exposure or with different exposure that camera thinks is good for viewfinder (Cam2 / Live view display / Setting Effect). On my A7iii this impacts AF when viewfinder shows too dark or overexposed subject (though actual exposure in M mode is different, perhaps because of flash). Option that will expose well for AF sensing will likely be better. Try both.
Turn off auto features:
- It is well known that AF-A modes do poor job because of spending time to decide between AF-S and AF-C. It may be similar for other auto features. Including auto exposure (including Auto ISO in M mode), auto WB.
- Turn off IR control and other remote features (use airplane mode) that are active during focusing.
- Turn off DRO. DRO silently shortens exposure and changes tone curve to compensate.
AF features:
- Play with AF-C priority options (you already did that, right?).
- Use smaller areas where AF is active. Zone or L point instead of wide. There is a chance that camera will spend shorter time reading less AF rows (maybe not if information from whole sensor is used for tracking).
- Try different AF Tracking Sensitivity.
- If lens supports it (no idea) try different Aperture Drive in AF settings. Do not assume that focus priority is best like manual tells (it may be more complex).
FYI: I am a A7iii owner and I am just researching whether to get A7riv as general camera replacement for A7iii. I do not shoot BIF. A7iii has best AF of all the cameras I had (previously Nikon DSLR) though it is not perfect in small DoF conditions with some lenses so wonder if it gets worse or better with A7riv.
AGeoJO wrote:
But we will be dealing with the rolling effect though, which is fine for stationary targets but in my case, I am emphasizing flying actions. I will try the Mode 3 though. Thanks!
Yes, you will probably want to go to MS if the owls have fast wing beats or erratic movements.
Again, I have no idea what settings matter the most in getting better results, not sure if ES is helping much if at all. All I know is the biggest difference I've noticed is the IS setting. I'm sure today I'll go out and get terrible results
armd wrote:
I applaud you for continuing the experiment and wish you continued success. I am trying to determine how the ES would affect anything? Did you happen to look at the af points and was the actual recorded af point on the subject or somewhere else as I’ve demonstrated in the past? After selling my a7riv I’m still waiting on my R5 and hope to be able to compare it with adapted ef lenses to my a9 with a 200-600 soon though since I don’t own a $12k Sony prime yet it won’t be exactly fair.
I'm not sure how ES affects things and if it is any part of my limited success with the combo. The post above by jtra has a theory about EFCS and maybe ES affecting things. I've never looked at the AF points. What program are you using to do that again?
Wow, I got a recommendation from Sony Canada to get the Sony A7R IV (or III, or II), the 200-600mm 5.6-6.3 G OSS and FE 2x to shot the moon. Was thinking to get the A7R II anyways, but it's surprising the same Sony didn't notice the A7R IV and 200-600mm incompatibility.
johnvanr wrote:
It's exactly this that makes me wary of choosing Sony (or Nikon) for the long term.
I mean, I had a similar issue with Canon before. My 24-70 2.8 II had a pretty obvious issue where one corner was just complete mush. And not a small bit of the corner, like a good 5-10% of the total frame. Sent it in to Canon service (along with my camera) twice and they never actually fixed the issue.
Igor Sotelo wrote:
Wow, I got a recommendation from Sony Canada to get the Sony A7R IV (or III, or II), the 200-600mm 5.6-6.3 G OSS and FE 2x to shot the moon. Was thinking to get the A7R II anyways, but it's surprising the same Sony didn't notice the A7R IV and 200-600mm incompatibility.
Shooting the moon should be fine. A7RIV+200-600+2X TC in crop mode:
So day two went almost as well as day one. For whatever reason shooting perched birds was a total success with my new settings and even flight stuff started working.
I did a little testing of switching off certain settings from my list above and I don't think MS vs ES makes much difference although I still prefer silence when I can and I prefer to have less vibrations if I can. But I didn't see any noticeable hit rate drop in MS.
I think the biggest thing was stopping down slightly and using OSS 3 or OFF. I'm not sure if the TS of 3 makes any difference.
Of note the mallard IF was in ES by mistake and every other shot in the burst (many were in good focus) had crazy wing distortion especially at the tips. In the shot posted the bird was in a stable wing pose so no distortion but you can see the leaning grass in the background which on its own ruins the shot. You could get away with some duck IF poses that don't ruin the shot with ES but you will need a far background that blows out to just smoothness and no vertical reeds, grass or trees.
Geoff @arbitrage, thank you for your effort and apparently successful “experiment”. What will be your approximate keeper rate? I assume it is still lower than that using the A9 II but it has become more acceptable, right? With that said, we realize that the A7r IV with its 61MP is not designed for fast action wildlife photography.
I was at the owl site yesterday morning and we did get some actions and because of the few opportunities, I felt more comfortable using the A9 II in capturing them. I ended up not using the A7r IV at all, in other words...
AGeoJO wrote:
Geoff, thank you for your effort and apparently successful experiment. What will be your approximate keeper rate? I assume it is still lower than that using the A9 II but it has become more acceptable, right? With that said, we realize that the A7r IV with its 61MP is not designed for fast action wildlife photography.
I was at the owl site yesterday morning and we did get some actions and because of the few opportunities, I felt more comfortable using the A9 II in capturing them. I ended up not using the A7r IV at all, in other words...
I found for the perched stuff the hit rate was very high. I found for some of the flight stuff I got acceptable hit rates but not A9 like. I found that the A7RIV likes very short bursts. For perched I'd actually just do single shots (although I was in H+ ES) by doing a quick tap of the shutter, pause, repeat. For the flight I did quick bursts of 2-4 shots, pause, repeat (if bird still there). I find the RIV gets behind with flight either because of the lag and me panning too slow and/or the AF processing just gets behind. Certainly the short bursts help. I may try to just lower the FPS to M or something and see if that is better. One of my friends said lowering his FPS helped his A7RIV/2-6 results. He also found OSS not being on Mode 1 to make a big difference.
The more I re-read jtra's post above, the more I think he has nailed some concepts that make a lot of sense. I also seemed to see that using the smallest AF area possible helped. I got better results trying to keep a Flex Spot on a GBH's head/neck IF than letting Zone do its thing. Also slowing things down as he theorized seems to help and shutting off as much as possible to reduce the load on the CPU.
My biggest issue right now is what you mention with your owls...no matter how good I can make the A7RIV/200-600 work, I just won't trust to get me a shot I really want. Yesterday I was mostly playing with birds that I have enough good shots of I didn't care if the day ended in a total bust. But I also had the A9II/600GM loaded at my side in case the shot I actually wanted (Osprey diving for fish) materialized (unfortunately the Osprey kept fishing too far out in the lagoon).
arbitrage wrote:
My settings today were as follows:
OSS OFF or OSS Mode 3 (I still think this makes the biggest difference of any setting)
Tracking Sensitivity to 3 (I've used 5, I recently used 1, today I just thought..throw it on default and see)
Electronic Shutter in H+
Mostly using Small Flex Spot and Expand Flex Spot
Short bursts or just single frames shot at a time
I stopped down to f/8 most of the time, some at f/7.1 but I left wide open alone today and typically I'm a wide open only shooter.
Things were looking so consistent while chimping the back LCD that I decided to throw caution to the wind and threw on the 1.4TC
Once again I stopped down to f/10 and sometimes f/11. Once again consistency stayed high.
I really don't know how to explain it...the only things I did today that I've never done before is stop down the lens and move Tracking Sensitivity to 3. I think stopping down had some effect and I doubt TS of 3 had much to do with today's success.
Anyways, because of today's success I plan to test more tomorrow. Give the combo a full morning of birding with the A9II in the bag just in case things take a turn for the worst as they usually do with this combo...Show more →
Try value 1-3, 5 is anyway the wrong one...
AF Tracking Sens. (still image)
You can select the AF track sensitivity when the subject goes out of focus in still image mode.
5(Responsive) / 4 / 3(Standard) / 2 / 1(Locked on):
Select [5(Responsive)] to focus responsively on subjects at different distances.
Select [1(Locked on)] to keep the focus on a specific subject when other things are crossing in front of the subject.
arbitrage wrote:
The more I re-read jtra's post above, the more I think he has nailed some concepts that make a lot of sense. I also seemed to see that using the smallest AF area possible helped. I got better results trying to keep a Flex Spot on a GBH's head/neck IF than letting Zone do its thing. Also slowing things down as he theorized seems to help and shutting off as much as possible to reduce the load on the CPU.
FYI: I have added one more item to my post: Turn off Anti-Flicker.
I have no idea if the CPU load theory is valid. It is quite likely that there are independent processing units for AF and the rest so it will have no effect, but I proposed a way to measure that. I have no A7Riv so I cannot test it.
FWIW, I settled on G 200-600 OSS mode 3 with the A7rIV for some time. Of all the settings and combination of settings I fiddled with too many times, lens OSS Mode 3 seems to have made the biggest difference for my BIF hit rate at a distance no matter the shutter speed. However if the birds come toward me I'll lose focus in mode 3, OSS Mode 2 seems to work better for me for closer fast flying/moving subjects while in high burst mode, H+.
I never use the G 200-600 + the A7rIV without OSS. Mode 3 or mode 2 depending upon subject distance. AF-Wide seems to be the best for BIF rate for me and I touch to focus AF tracking while in AF Wide for perched birds, as soon as I release the touch to focus I'm back in AF-Wide in a few seconds.
Fiddled turning auto everything on/off but that didn't seem to help much--but then again and this is where brain fever can take over, maybe I didn't fiddle with the right combinations of auto settings on/off. Ha Ha
Geoff, to determine the af point, there are a couple ways to do it. In camera, you can hit magnify in playback and it supposedly takes one to the active AF point. There are a couple of software programs which will display the AF point including Wolfram Sons' program at www.soens.de
.
though, which is fine for stationary targets but in my case, I am emphasizing flying actions. I will try the Mode 3 though. Thanks!
