TGPhotography wrote:
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. ...Show more →
Correct, none were shot in crop mode.
The hawk is the weirdest of them and I had the bird closer and farther in many other perched shots, but in none of them could I get BEAF to work. Tried four different focus modes (S and M spot, flex spot, zone) both tracking and non-tracking and spent a total of about five minutes taking dozens of shots at three different perches. Nada. The nuthatch should have activated BEAF, too, based on my past experience with birds that size at that distance, regardless of its usefulness in terms of overall focus/DoF. I was surprised I got no flicker of life from BEAF at all as the bird moved around. And, as you say, the last cardinal also should have worked, but light was low in that case so I'll give BEAF a pass because of that.
With smaller subjects BEAF has indeed always been a bit of a crapshoot, especially in low light. The owl is a perfect example -- I'd not expect BEAF to have worked on that, yet it did activate and tried to find the eye. Shooting today, however, it seemed more random than usual -- the same group of birds (mainly cardinals) at the same distances, often on the same branches, showed no rhyme or reason as to when BEAF worked. The shots I posted were the extreme distances I tried. Many were closer, on the ground, and still seemed very random.
My limited testing has shown the main problem to be with the 200-600. When I least expected BEAF to activate, it did. When I most expected it to activate it didn't. The 100-400 at least gave me some recognizable BEAF behavior. Maybe the easiest fix is to alter my expectations
Me and others posted on that but the thread just went quiet . People claimed the full initialise sorted the problem, I found it helped but imho performance is still worse than fw1.20 .
If we was able to downgrade fw there would be no problem at all , everybody could stick with the fw they prefer
Douglas L wrote:
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.
What I don't read about in this thread, is the biggest change I see myself in EyeAF behavior.
Because I switched from the 200-600G (which I sold) to the 600GM, I have to leave a little room for the lens causing different behavior.
The biggest change that I see, is (bird) EyeAF kicking in when there is not a bird in sight. It sees bird eyes in things like a cat's behind, a tree trunk etc. and goes of on a roll that many times just goes on even when I let go of the (half press of the) shutter button. It behaves as if scanning the area where it thought it saw a bird eye, and I have to focus somewhere else and half press the shutter button to get it out of its frantic routine.
It never used to do this, certainly not to the degree of firmware 1.31 after re-initialization, but the again, I used it with the 200-600G, and the 600GM may have to do with the different behavior.
This behavior is the biggest indication of buggy EyeAF for me, regarding AF accuracy, the 600GM without TC is so dead accurate, that I only see an improvement over the 200-600G. But when the "false positive" routine kicks in and get's caught in its loop, I have to break of shooting and focus elsewhere, which can lose shots. It is buggy behavior which indicates trouble with Eye recognition.
Here is a thought, why not record what your seeing in the EVF and share footage ? If several users reporting issues would do this, the footage could also be sent to Sony support. End of the day, we need to collectively gather data and submit to Sony... Otherwise nothing may be done
ChrisMak wrote:
What I don't read about in this thread, is the biggest change I see myself in EyeAF behavior.
Because I switched from the 200-600G (which I sold) to the 600GM, I have to leave a little room for the lens causing different behavior.
The biggest change that I see, is (bird) EyeAF kicking in when there is not a bird in sight. It sees bird eyes in things like a cat's behind, a tree trunk etc. and goes of on a roll that many times just goes on even when I let go of the (half press of the) shutter button. It behaves as if scanning the area where it thought it saw a bird eye, and I have to focus somewhere else and half press the shutter button to get it out of its frantic routine.
It never used to do this, certainly not to the degree of firmware 1.31 after re-initialization, but the again, I used it with the 200-600G, and the 600GM may have to do with the different behavior.
This behavior is the biggest indication of buggy EyeAF for me, regarding AF accuracy, the 600GM without TC is so dead accurate, that I only see an improvement over the 200-600G. But when the "false positive" routine kicks in and get's caught in its loop, I have to break of shooting and focus elsewhere, which can lose shots. It is buggy behavior which indicates trouble with Eye recognition. ...Show more →
Maxxus46 wrote:
Here is a thought, why not record what your seeing in the EVF and share footage ? If several users reporting issues would do this, the footage could also be sent to Sony support. End of the day, we need to collectively gather data and submit to Sony... Otherwise nothing may be done
I understand your motivation, but TBH why the hell should we waste our time doing Sony's job for them with no guarantee that anyone at Sony will even look at it let alone act on it? If there are problems reported, Sony surely has extensive testing capabilities for their cameras and firmware. And if Sony wanted to build a logging capability in to their firmware (the usual way one reports firmware/software problems) then they surely would have done so by now.
I took the 200-600 out again this afternoon and faired a little better with BEAF but it was still wildly inconsistent. Birds that were relatively small in the frame activated BEAF while a few minutes later birds at similar distances did not. Some birds that were pretty big in the frame (bigger than my Hawk example from earlier) still did not activate BEAF at all. No flying birds activated BEAF, but ducks at the same distance on water did. There was seemingly no rhyme or reason to how BEAF behaved.
i am in socal (OC) and still using FW 1.1. I have the 200-600 and 600 GM. If anyone wants to meet up to do side by side comparison and you're running 1.31, i can accommodate.
We can meet up at SJWS in Irvine. The pond water there is filled up from latest rounds of storm. Lots of ducks and water fowls to do all kind of AF comparison.
From various discussions with Alex Phan, he has the latest fw 1.31 installed. He did not notice any degradation in how AF works. The guy shoots mostly BIF. I think most people here know who Alex is...
I don't know if it means anything but there was a post today on the Phoblographer which mentions the A1 getting a "big update". It doesn't have much to say except there's a new bird/animal combined mode. I haven't seen this mentioned anywhere else on the internet, but it may suggest that the rumored February firmware update may actually show up at some point in the not to distant future.
Ltgk20 wrote:
I don't know if it means anything but there was a post today on the Phoblographer which mentions the A1 getting a "big update". It doesn't have much to say except there's a new bird/animal combined mode. I haven't seen this mentioned anywhere else on the internet, but it may suggest that the rumored February firmware update may actually show up at some point in the not to distant future.
I saw a "review" of the new firmware earlier today that mentioned the A1 combined bird/animal mode. The page was written like the update was already released. I had to do a triple check reading it on my phone to make sure it said Sony A1.
I didn't put much stock it though. I thought it was just a crazy rumor or written by AI. We can hope.
Now I can't find the website.
I'll let someone else upgrade first and report back before I decide
I'll weigh in as well. Having both the A1 and 600GM I can say without a doubt the tracking went downhill after 1.31. In flight that manifests itself as slow to initialize subject detection and drifting on and off subject in flight. I am getting many more shots of phrags in focus and not the bird that is in the foreground. The saving grace is 30fps. Without that the number of HQ images would be reduced to just a few on each flight. Looking forward to seeing Sony address this with a release at some point
Very strange. From "the Sony a1 is a camera that I really considered purchasing" it sounds like this reviewer does not own A1 and, if this is correct, would not have much experience with the camera. How they could possibly comment on the details of the rumored FW update?
RoamingScott wrote:
That’s one of the most poorly written articles I’ve ever seen on any site.
Was just thinking the same. Definitely feels like it was written by some AI engine or poorly translated from Japanese and reading it just set off my "fake" alert. There are just so many hilarious sentences. One of my favorites: "While I much prefer the rangefinder aesthetic of the Sony a7c, the a1 actually feels more like a Minolta". That might explain why BEAF doesn't work
Read through most but not all of this. I don't feel any difference at all on my A1 and 600F4. I am still getting the same really high percentage of keepers as before. When shooting over water it sometimes jumps to water which it did before. When shooting larger birds in flight it sometimes jumps to near wing as it did before as well. I didn't notice any difference to be honest with any of the firmware updates. I was photographing titmice in flight a couple weeks back. Almost every shot was extremely sharp on the eye of the birds. Those birds are really small and really fast and the camera performed flawlessly. Can't speak to what others are experiencing but my A1 is as good as ever. I posted one titmouse shot on my IG that is as sharp as you can get for a tiny songbird in flight. Focus point is right on the eye. Greater Scaup was also a recent flight shot as was the kestrel with prey. All taken in 2023. I have other flight shots but have not processed them.
Mitsuru Umezu
"The content of this article appears to be consistent with an article posted today on a Weibo photo group. An English translation is attached for reference.
However, I do not know the authenticity of the article. https://weibo.com/5236048381/Mvrx8dHz4?pagetype=profilefeed
”Sony A1 camera new firmware update may be released. Recently, some photographers have upgraded the latest firmware version of Sony A1 camera, and said that this update to enhance the obvious, improved ease of use and autofocus performance, on the release upgraded some of the features of the Sony A7R5 camera, such as new subject recognition options, animals / birds with the scene hybrid recognition, to provide users with more options.”
Mitsuru Umezu
"The content of this article appears to be consistent with an article posted today on a Weibo photo group. An English translation is attached for reference.
However, I do not know the authenticity of the article. https://weibo.com/5236048381/Mvrx8dHz4?pagetype=profilefeed
”Sony A1 camera new firmware update may be released. Recently, some photographers have upgraded the latest firmware version of Sony A1 camera, and said that this update to enhance the obvious, improved ease of use and autofocus performance, on the release upgraded some of the features of the Sony A7R5 camera, such as new subject recognition options, animals / birds with the scene hybrid recognition, to provide users with more options.”...Show more →
I read Chinese. Following the link you posted, I typed in "Sony A1" in Chinese in the search box, I found the article by "Independent Photographer Association", it says "New Sony A1 FW will (maybe) be published, recently some photographers who have updated their A1 with the latest FW indicated this update provides obvious improvement, better operation and AF, including some of the features from the A7RV, such as new options for subject identification, animal/bird identification when they are present at the same time, provides more options to users".
It's a good suggestion, however, I mainly meant to add this behavior to the list of Eye AF peculiarities since it may indicate a bug in the firmware. I don't see it affecting AF accuracy in the way others describe, so firmware 1.31 is mainly impractical for me personal, instead of a downgrade in AF accuracy.
That said, I see more info (albeit of the rumor kind) coming along that a new firmware for the A1 is in the works, so my bet is on the new firmware fixing things, including the issues that I am seeing with 1.31.
Maxxus46 wrote:
Here is a thought, why not record what your seeing in the EVF and share footage ? If several users reporting issues would do this, the footage could also be sent to Sony support. End of the day, we need to collectively gather data and submit to Sony... Otherwise nothing may be done
Mine with 200-600 has been better since I switched eye priority in AF to off instead of leaving it on . It used to be useful before leaving it on because it would just activate and grab the eyes if recognised, I’ve added on/off in fn menu so turn it in for perched . If on it still grabs wrong parts more than I’d prefer , usually tail or other objects not even on the bird .
I’ve also noticed it’s been more difficult with birds on branches mainly going to the background branches again and just staying there until I point camera at ground and lifting back up . Would still love the option to assign a custom button to close focus recall
Douglas L wrote:
I read Chinese. Following the link you posted, I typed in "Sony A1" in Chinese in the search box, I found the article by "Independent Photographer Association", it says "New Sony A1 FW will (maybe) be published, recently some photographers who have updated their A1 with the latest FW indicated this update provides obvious improvement, better operation and AF, including some of the features from the A7RV, such as new options for subject identification, animal/bird identification when they are present at the same time, provides more options to users".
Thank you! My translator plug-in wouldn't process the imbedded text/characters.
In the mean time, my vigil remains. There will be firmware update...just a matter of when:
My A1+ G200-600 combo works just fine with Bird Eye AF so my interest in the next firmware is more about potential new features. I would much appreciate Eye AF to switch automatically between animal, bird etc. as I sometimes forget to change human/animal/bird and lose a few seconds when I realize I am not in the correct mode even though I've set this feature to a custom button. Minor nit, but why not 😎 Of course if the next A1 firmware brings more AF stability which seems pretty common with Sony firmware updates particularly for those experiencing issues--all the better.
