wordfool wrote:
Interesting that you're using tracking. When the weather improves here I might go out again with the 200-600 and try tracking focus modes to see if that makes a difference compared to my last, non-tracking outing.
watch out for that [1(Locked On)] setting, it may not be desirable.
wordfool wrote:
Interesting that you're using tracking. When the weather improves here I might go out again with the 200-600 and try tracking focus modes to see if that makes a difference compared to my last, non-tracking outing.
I thought that tracking in Zone was more appropriate to test with these birds. They were not flying, of course, but these small birds are quite agile when feeding. They move and would often quickly turn to look around.
Tracking sensitivity was at 3 and Priority was set to Release.
RoamingScott wrote:
For those out of the Nikon loop, and I can't blame you, there is a major Z body announcement in March. Most of us are hoping it's a Z9 in a Z6 body, and there seems to be some smoke above that fire. If so, hope to see a few of you vote with your wallets and punish Sony for this bad behavior
I’ve tested mine , it’s ok with perched or birds on feeders . It’s stuff in flight I’ve noticed the most noticeable drop in performance.
With fw1.20 I used AF-C , Release , tracking speed was mainly 2 sometimes 5 depending on the bird , zone mainly for BIF , sometimes zone tracking which was great for peregrines . Flex spot small for things in trees , bushes and flex spot L tracking for perched or feeding . Bird eye priority in AF was on all the time , it just activated if it recognised an eye within the boxes no tracking or entire frame with tracking. As long as I could get the bird in frame and panned smoothly it nailed a high percentage of shots even at high fps . With the urban peregrines they fly in from clear background to busy backgrounds (bricks or trees ) The camera would do great holding onto them and also quickly recovering if it did drop off them . With fw1.31 it’s not picking the birds up as fast , it’s dropping more and not recovering as well . I’ve noticed it’s grabbing backgrounds more , the camera seems to be hesitating more . It’s also not as quick waking up from sleep . The BEAF grabbing more rear ends and other objects.
When it does grab I’m getting less nailed shots , you’ll get the odd ones that really stand out , now I’m getting more that look soft because it’s off .
Settings after some faffing about now are AF-C , balanced priority, tracking speed 2 or 3, bird eye priority to AF off , standard zone , flex spot small , tracking flex spot large . I suppose the A1 is still very good , I just find it annoying it’s noticeably NOT as good for me as it used to be .
I will try a Z9 again , I have friends that use them , in all honesty last time I tried one it definitely was not up to the A1 for fast birds but that was when both cameras had older firmware
RoamingScott wrote:
Honest question, has Sony produced a meaningful firmware update for any camera after the A7R3 EyeAF update? My A7R4 certainly never got one. The A1 hasn't seemed to have gotten one (and in fact it seems every A1 update make the camera worse somehow). The A92 hasn't seemed to have gotten one. I honestly don't know.
Really?
What about the update to the A1 that added reduced resolution RAW? Before that update, the A1 had lossy compressed, full-size lossless compressed, and uncompressed. After it, it gained lossless compressed RAW-S and RAW-M.
Forwarded this thread to a Sony Artisan, and he agreed to pass it onto Sony (although he stated Sony is already aware). One thing that was brought up - Sony needs user base to reach out and submit samples of the issues to support or otherwise they have little info to go on. I would suggest users in this thread reporting issues open cases and post updates here for tracking the issue progress. Good luck
multibit wrote:
I’ve tested mine , it’s ok with perched or birds on feeders . It’s stuff in flight I’ve noticed the most noticeable drop in performance.
With fw1.20 I used AF-C , Release , tracking speed was mainly 2 sometimes 5 depending on the bird , zone mainly for BIF , sometimes zone tracking which was great for peregrines . Flex spot small for things in trees , bushes and flex spot L tracking for perched or feeding . Bird eye priority in AF was on all the time , it just activated if it recognised an eye within the boxes no tracking or entire frame with tracking. As long as I could get the bird in frame and panned smoothly it nailed a high percentage of shots even at high fps . With the urban peregrines they fly in from clear background to busy backgrounds (bricks or trees ) The camera would do great holding onto them and also quickly recovering if it did drop off them . With fw1.31 it’s not picking the birds up as fast , it’s dropping more and not recovering as well . I’ve noticed it’s grabbing backgrounds more , the camera seems to be hesitating more . It’s also not as quick waking up from sleep . The BEAF grabbing more rear ends and other objects.
When it does grab I’m getting less nailed shots , you’ll get the odd ones that really stand out , now I’m getting more that look soft because it’s off .
Settings after some faffing about now are AF-C , balanced priority, tracking speed 2 or 3, bird eye priority to AF off , standard zone , flex spot small , tracking flex spot large . I suppose the A1 is still very good , I just find it annoying it’s noticeably NOT as good for me as it used to be .
I will try a Z9 again , I have friends that use them , in all honesty last time I tried one it definitely was not up to the A1 for fast birds but that was when both cameras had older firmware ...Show more →
multibit wrote:
It’s also not as quick waking up from sleep
Funny you should mention that because I found myself noticing this the other day for the first time since I've owned an A1. It's not as bad as the A9 wake from sleep pause that lost me many shots, but the fact I noticed it at all on my A1 suggests it is a bit longer than I'm used to.
It is the 1st of March. The rumored firmware update has been released. The only problem is the rumor site got the company and camera wrong. Turns out it was actually Nikon releasing another update for the Z9.
Typical sloppy information from a rumor site being run by an Italian with A bad haircut.
Maxxus46 wrote:
Forwarded this thread to a Sony Artisan, and he agreed to pass it onto Sony (although he stated Sony is already aware). One thing that was brought up - Sony needs user base to reach out and submit samples of the issues to support or otherwise they have little info to go on. I would suggest users in this thread reporting issues open cases and post updates here for tracking the issue progress. Good luck
I'd be happy getting the performance back so I can enjoy using it again , I'd personally take that over any new features .
Just took my 100-400 out in less-than-perfect light and, although I seemed to have more luck with BEAF than with the 200-600, it was still very inconsistent.
I'll try to post some images later as examples, but in one case I was photographing a large group of mixed, small birds (Cardinals, Juncos, Sparrows, etc.) feeding on some grain someone had left on the ground. I was close enough that the medium spot focus box easily covered the heads of most birds, but only in about 10% of shots did BEAF activate. Tracking vs. non-tracking made no difference, and changing focus mode made no difference (as would be expected).
Having used this lens in similar conditions in the same place before, I know this is worse BEAF performance than in the past when I would regularly see the little BEAF box pop up photographing the same sort of birds. My gut feeling is that the BEAF seems to be have become less sensitive overall -- bad light and low contrast seem to have more of an impact than before, at least with the 100-400. With my 200-600 the other day BEAF was just plain bad and virtually non-functioning, even in good light.
Honestly, reading this thread I'm surprised by the scale of the problem. Until now I've seen a few comments here and there stating that 1.31 seems to be worse at following BIF in the most demanding scenarios. I myself noticed just after the upgrade, that the improvements to human eyeAF accuracy from 1.30 seem to be gone. I wasn't sure about it but it's hard to confirm without downgrade option...
More fake news. End of February has come and gone and no update, not that it makes much of a difference to me the way I have been shooting lately (very little). Judging by the comments from known bird shooter, I’m sure there is a problem, but I don’t shoot as much to realize it. I hope Sony fixes the issue.
Laslo Varadi wrote:
Nationality not racial. I was in Italy 3 years ago and it was a great place to visit by the way.
maybe I'm being oversensitive and have deleted my comment
Thought I'd post a few examples straight from camera (jpgs from RAWs, no editing or cropping or artistic intent!) to illustrate the problems I'm having with BEAF. It'll be interesting to hear from folks whether my expectations for BEAF are in the right ballpark, but my opinion is that BEAF is not working as well as it used to with these sort of shots that I've been taking for years.
First three are with the 200-600 a few days ago. Second three are with the 100-400 today in slightly worse light. The 200-600 was terrible with BEAF and I barely got it to activate at all over the course of an hour's shooting. Overall, the 100-400 seemed to work more as I'd expect -- a bit sporadic with its BEAF activation, probably due to the low light, but I saw it working often enough to feel a little reassured. Focus modes I variously used were AF-C small spot (my usual default), medium spot, and zone, both in tracking and non-tracking modes. Lenses wide open at 600mm and 400mm, respectively.
Screech owl, pretty small in the frame, BEAF box was bouncing all over its body (which was not really a surprise considering I can barely make out its eyes from its markings):
Red-tailed hawk, in good lighting, BEAF did not activate at all (excuse the minor file corruption... having issues with my card reader). I had about 5 minutes taking shots of this bird and despite trying multiple focus modes I never got BEAF to activate:
Nuthatch in decent but not great light. BEAF did not activate at all as I followed it:
Northern Cardinal brightening up a dull day. BEAF worked as expected for this shot:
But a few seconds later BEAF failed to activate at all as he bobbed his head around, which was more typical of this outing:
Despite having a black eye in a black mask, BEAF used to have no problem with Cardinals. But here's another in which BEAF did not activate at all. Yes, it's a busy background, but how can an algorithm not see there's a bright red bird at the center of the frame?!
multibit wrote:
I'd be happy getting the performance back so I can enjoy using it again , I'd personally take that over any new features .
I kind of remember Sony Artisan Colby Brown (?) asked on the Facebook A1 Group what features A1 users would like to see in FW update and he would pass it to Sony. But that's a while ago.
wordfool wrote:
Thought I'd post a few examples straight from camera (jpgs from RAWs, no editing or cropping or artistic intent!) to illustrate the problems I'm having with BEAF. It'll be interesting to hear from folks whether my expectations for BEAF are in the right ballpark, but my opinion is that BEAF is not working as well as it used to with these sort of shots that I've been taking for years.
First three are with the 200-600 a few days ago. Second three are with the 100-400 today in slightly worse light. The 200-600 was terrible with BEAF and I barely got it to activate at all over the course of an hour's shooting. Overall, the 100-400 seemed to work more as I'd expect -- a bit sporadic with its BEAF activation, probably due to the low light, but I saw it working often enough to feel a little reassured. Focus modes I variously used were AF-C small spot (my usual default), medium spot, and zone, both in tracking and non-tracking modes. Lenses wide open at 600mm and 400mm, respectively.
Red-tailed hawk, in good lighting, BEAF did not activate at all (excuse the minor file corruption... having issues with my card reader). I had about 5 minutes taking shots of this bird and despite trying multiple focus modes I never got BEAF to activate: https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52720687705_b4485885b2_c.jpg
Despite having a black eye in a black mask, BEAF used to have no problem with Cardinals. But here's another in which BEAF did not activate at all. Yes, it's a busy background, but how can an algorithm not see there's a bright red bird at the center of the frame?! https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52720535039_ae4f1ee0f9_c.jpg...Show more →
I assume none of these were shot in crop mode?
My opinion:
The only one of those I would expect BEAF to work reliably is the red tailed hawk. Maybe the last cardinal. I don't have experience with cardinals. I am just judging by size in the frame and profile.
Most of those the birds are too far away and too small in the frame. Sure, BEAF may or may not work in the far away instances. The bird is so small it doesn't matter all that much. A normal AFC mode like zone or small/med flex spot would work.
BEAF is most needed when the bird is close enough the whole animal won't be in focus so you want the eye sharp. The other benefit to BEAF is when there are other things in the frame the camera might grab onto while the bird is close.
Far away shots normal AFC is so good at picking up movement that wide, zone, or small/med flex spot should work. Plus at greater distances the whole thing will be in focus anyway. Basically A9 focus at that point.
I think that once BEAF activates for the first time in a situation, it seems more likely to work again. So in the red tail hawk shot if BEAF isn't working in zone, I would use small flex spot since it is perched and easy to drop it on the head. That usually gets BEAF to work, even if you switch back to zone. Don't know if I am imagining this, but it is my impression after hundreds of hours of use.
Just my opinions.
I shoot in AFC wide/zone non tracking generally. I have custom recall holds for small flex spot with tracking on the AEL and AFON buttons. One recall custom hold keeps the same shutter speed/A/ISO and just uses small flex spot with tracking. The other hold is for a 1/500 shutter, wide open A, auto ISO for perched birds. All focus modes wide/zone/small flex spot are with subject recognition on.
wordfool wrote:
First three are with the 200-600 a few days ago. Second three are with the 100-400 today in slightly worse light.
subject is too small in the frame with all of those shots... the hawk seems possible, but the head is small, and if the head isn't recognizable there can't be any eyeaf.
here is lizard eyeaf at just beyond mfd, with an a1/200-600/1.4x, the orange box is tracking/eyeaf location, and as we can see, the exif says that it's using both face tracking and animal eye tracking... i think that i put the expanded flexible spot on the lizard head, with sony real-time tracking.
i'd be looking at your pic exif to see if the bird face is detected, aka face tracking... for those shots you won't need eyeaf if face detection is working.
