Douglas L wrote:
When everyone near to me was happily shooting away when the hummers were hovering the flowers, there I was messing around this fancy pantsy $6500 camera trying to make it work.
All you need to do is keep the camera in the shade of your body when not shooting. Somewhat annoying, but certainly workable.
Daran wrote:
All you need to do is keep the camera in the shade of your body when not shooting. Somewhat annoying, but certainly workable.
I did. I was hand holding the 600 GM, put it in front on my body away from the sun when I wasn't shooting, as soon as I lifted it up to my eye level it went dead many times. I just tried taping both ends of the EVF with dimlight and left about 1/3 of the sensor exposed, it was too slow to come on. I just removed the dimlight and bought s boonie hat. Hope that helps.
Douglas L wrote:
I did. I was hand holding the 600 GM, put it in front on my body away from the sun when I wasn't shooting, as soon as I lifted it up to my eye level it went dead many times. I just tried taping both ends of the EVF with dimlight and left about 1/3 of the sensor exposed, it was too slow to come on. I just removed the dimlight and bought s boonie hat. Hope that helps.
Yeah that does sometimes happen if the path you take to raise the lens to your eye allows the sun to hit the sensor even for a split second. Sometimes that is unavoidable. I've also had it happen when I just move the camera away from my eye a couple inches in order to eyeball a bird I'm trying to track. It seems when the light is early morning type it only takes a second to trigger the issue when the proximity sensor has already been triggered with the camera close to your body or to your eye.
arbitrage wrote:
Yeah that does sometimes happen if the path you take to raise the lens to your eye allows the sun to hit the sensor even for a split second. Sometimes that is unavoidable. I've also had it happen when I just move the camera away from my eye a couple inches in order to eyeball a bird I'm trying to track. It seems when the light is early morning type it only takes a second to trigger the issue when the proximity sensor has already been triggered with the camera close to your body or to your eye.
Thanks Geoff.
EVF frustration aside, here are some shots from this morning. All shots of birds were very heavily cropped.
Douglas L wrote:
Just want to rant...Went to shoot hummingbirds in the morning both yesterday and today, with the sun slightly behind my right shoulder between 8:00-9:00 AM. The damn EVF went black a dozen times! I use the deep eyecup and 10 second power saving mode. It's so frustrating. I will put a small piece of dimlight on it to see how it goes.
I feel your pain. The issue is so variable depending on the sun angle, shooting style, etc. I use the 10 second power save and I’m usually viewing with left eye, and the original eye cup and have not experienced the problem except during my first outing when the power save setting was different. I usually shoot with sun behind me, but not as early in the morning as you.
EVF frustration aside, here are some shots from this morning. All shots of birds were very heavily cropped.
Hi Douglas,
Great images. I still haven't sold enough equipment to purchase an A-1. But I wear a Baseball cape when taking photos with my other Sony A7r series bodies when sunlight is an issue. When the sun is an issue I have the brim over my eyes and camera. When it isn't I turn the hat around so the brim is over my neck. Would that help you?
Great images. I still haven't sold enough equipment to purchase an A-1. But I wear a Baseball cape when taking photos with my other Sony A7r series bodies when sunlight is an issue. When the sun is an issue I have the brim over my eyes and camera. When it isn't I turn the hat around so the brim is over my neck. Would that help you?
Rich
Thank you Rich. I will try the boonie hat this weekend at the airshow in Ocean City, Maryland. I will be shooting with the sun over my shoulder or behind me most of the time, just the prime condition for the EVF blackout. I have owned the A7, A7II, A7III, A7R, A7RII, A7RIII, A7RIV and the A9, I recall this issue happened to me once with the A7RIV a couple months ago at Middle Creek. I know some folks have experienced this issue in other bodies more than I did. But this A1 thingy seems way more prevalent and too easy to be triggered.
With the evf issue I have shot in the exact same places, exact same time of year wearing the exact same clothes. The A9 never did this to me once. I did hear it could happen on the A9 but never experienced it.
With the A1 it happens repeatedly. I always wear a hat, almost never glasses. Even if you keep the evf away from the sun with the camera at your hip it can still happen in a split second when you move the camera away from your eye to find your subject and then move the camera back to your eye. No long exposure to sunlight required. I was able to do this repeatedly and reproducibly one sunny morning. Some reports were the issue got better over time. I have not experienced any improvement. It is not getting worse either. I wonder if it truly does get better over time or if people reflexively got better at preventing the issue in the first place.
Because this is an image thread...
Y'all seen any rabbits?
Sony ILCE-1
FE 200-600mm F5.6-6.3 G OSS
ƒ/6.3 600.0 mm 1/500 1250
One of the only times I have not been happy with auto white balance on the A1. I did severely mess up the exposure in the first place due to user error which may have contributed. The original was almost blue. This was my sad attempt at correcting the wb:
Sony ILCE-1
FE 200-600mm F5.6-6.3 G OSS
ƒ/6.3 600.0 mm 1/2500 400
Random hummingbird.
Sony ILCE-1
FE 200-600mm F5.6-6.3 G OSS
ƒ/6.3 600.0 mm 1/1250 1250
If it makes you feel any better my Salvia is just sitting. Not dying. Not growing
I've gotten in a habit of swinging the camera down towards my chest from the eye position, using my face,neck, then chest to block backlight/Sun from hitting the EVF.
If strong light/Sun behind me and I forget and swing the A1 to the right where my body/neck/face can't shield I too have experienced this wonderful Sony phenomena.
One good thing about living in a rainforest is we have plenty of frogs. Found this little man
yesterday evening.
Used the Godox on the A1 with the 90 macro and my home-brew flash diffusor.
Taking a break from the east coast this week. In Santa Fe, NM visiting some friends. A few from their backyard which is not really setup for birding. The Scaled Quail was a first for me. They have a bunch of these running around.
Thinking about a trip to Bosque Del Apache on Friday. Anyone know how that is at this time of year? Is it worth the 2+ hour drive down there?
arbitrage wrote:
Yeah that does sometimes happen if the path you take to raise the lens to your eye allows the sun to hit the sensor even for a split second. Sometimes that is unavoidable. I've also had it happen when I just move the camera away from my eye a couple inches in order to eyeball a bird I'm trying to track. It seems when the light is early morning type it only takes a second to trigger the issue when the proximity sensor has already been triggered with the camera close to your body or to your eye.
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TGPhotography wrote:
With the evf issue I have shot in the exact same places, exact same time of year wearing the exact same clothes. The A9 never did this to me once. I did hear it could happen on the A9 but never experienced it.
With the A1 it happens repeatedly. I always wear a hat, almost never glasses. Even if you keep the evf away from the sun with the camera at your hip it can still happen in a split second when you move the camera away from your eye to find your subject and then move the camera back to your eye. No long exposure to sunlight required. I was able to do this repeatedly and reproducibly one sunny morning. Some reports were the issue got better over time. I have not experienced any improvement. It is not getting worse either. I wonder if it truly does get better over time or if people reflexively got better at preventing the issue in the first place.
One of the only times I have not been happy with auto white balance on the A1. I did severely mess up the exposure in the first place due to user error which may have contributed. The original was almost blue. This was my sad attempt at correcting the wb: https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51243475994_8c8792b27e_h.jpg
Sony ILCE-1
FE 200-600mm F5.6-6.3 G OSS
ƒ/6.3 600.0 mm 1/2500 400
Geoff, Tyler, you both hit the nail on the head. Even if I hide it from the sun when I am not shooting, when I lift it to my right eye, or when I just move the camera a few inches from my eye, if the sensor gets exposed to the sun at the "right" angle during the very brief movement, the EVF could just go black. I just read on the A1 FB group that Sony told someone they will have a FW update soon? Or were they referring to the IBIS issue some experience?
Anyway, since this is an image thread, I will refrain from further ranting on the EVF issue here.
Douglas L wrote:
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Geoff, Tyler, you both hit the nail on the head. Even if I hide it from the sun when I am not shooting, when I lift it to my right eye, or when I just move the camera a few inches from my eye, if the sensor gets exposed to the sun at the "right" angle during the very brief movement, the EVF could just go black. I just read on the A1 FB group that Sony told someone they will have a FW update soon? Or were they referring to the IBIS issue some experience?
Anyway, since this is an image thread, I will refrain from further ranting on the EVF issue here. ...Show more →
I've been told by Sony that they expect it to be fixed in a firmware update and they didn't sound worried about it at all.
. Hope that helps. 
