*head up: at the osprey scene, you will see me shaking up the camera erratically, i want to see if the camera will pick up on something else but it still locked to the eye*
buffalowolff wrote:
It gets confused, but I expected that. Looks really good to me..... you need to wait for the earthquake to end next time ;-)
at the osprey scene, you will see me shaking up the camera erratically, i want to see if the camera will pick up on something else but it still locked to the eye*
Not sure how it stacks up to the R5. (Maybe Geoff can chime in on that) But looks better than some other YouTube videos would have you believe.
Unless you compare it side-by-side under the exact same circumstances, targeting the same bird, it would be difficult to say one way or the other. IMHO, BE-AF will have more value for perched birds and if the bird’s magnification is fairly large.
Although the Zone-AF of the A9 II is wonderful and works 95% of the time but if the bird flys away from you at an angle, there is a chance that the wings would be in focus rather than the eye. Although the likelihood of that kind of image as an absolute keeper is slim, I could see that the BE-AF would help there.
Just another great example that BEAF works in the hands of a bird photographer unlike in the hands of a YT clickbaiter.
Thanks Alex.
This looks very similar to R5. When the operator pans the BIF smoothly enough the system can do eye af for BIF. If the operator is a bit behind or unsteady the system resorts back to dancing dots or in the Sony case RTT. I’m not seeing anything that looks worse than the R5 here. Keeping on the eye for the Osprey takeoff was looking good
The advantage of Sony's BEAF implementation is that you have full control over the "watch area". If you use a smaller area like Alex used in a lot of this video then it only looks in that area to see if it can find a bird/eye. But the genius is that it then seems to be able to keep focusing on that eye if you recompose or the bird moves outside of that initial watch area. (Although this may only work if you are in the RTT variant of whichever AF mode you are working from??). The R5 has two options....full sensor watch area or a Single Point (about the size of Sony Flex Spot Med) in which to look for a bird/eye. Sony has the advantage here with Zone especially and even Expand Flex Spot, Large Flex Spot and even Small Flex Spot could help in some cases. With Canon I have to setup a 2nd back button to be Spot AF but that doesn't activate Eye-detect. I have to focus on a bird in cluttered surroundings with the Spot AF and then switch back to my Bird Eye AF button to help out the system "See" the bird. With Sony you can use Small Flex Spot that you can not only target onto a bird in clutter but it also starts the EyeAF without switching back and forth.
On top of this the Sony has the option to layer on RTT to any of the AF modes and have Eye-AF working in conjunction. Just way more options with the A1's system that will be a big advantage to a photographer that understands the different situations and doesn't just wander around pointing Wide AF at everything expecting it to work all the time
I was never a fan of animal eye af before until now. I find the only useful scenario for me now is like the ospreys perching, before, I have to toggle to flex l to get the portrait shot (I want the eye) then toggle back to like wide or zone. With A1, now I don't have to do anymore. As long as I turn on the option from the menu and set it "on" under face/eye priorities in AF. No matter what focus area I'm on, it will find the eye and lock on it first. That alone take away one extra step on my workflow.
Alex Phan wrote:
I was never a fan of animal eye af before until now. I find the only useful scenario for me now is like the ospreys perching, before, I have to toggle to flex l to get the portrait shot (I want the eye) then toggle back to like wide or zone. With A1, now I don't have to do anymore. As long as I turn on the option from the menu and set it "on" under face/eye priorities in AF. No matter what focus area I'm on, it will find the eye and lock on it first. That alone take away one extra step on my workflow. ...Show more →
Alex, if you are in say Center AF but aren't in the Real-Time Tracking version of it and you get the Eye-AF to start working, can you then move the bird outside of that Center AF area and it keeps the Eye-AF going? Or do you have to be in the Tracking version of the AF mode in order for it to do that?
Alex Phan wrote:
San Pedro. Is the falcon activity pick up at your location yet?
I haven't been up to check Torrey Pines lately so I don't know. Even the Pelicans have been a bit subdued this year. For some reason the colors never got as strong as they normally do.
Holy sh*t! That is way more spectacular than I was expecting for the first gen. firmware. I just hope it works reasonably well with the 200-600 at 15 to 20 FPS. If it does I will be thrilled to death.
