Has anyone experienced this trouble with their Sony 200-600. It intermittently won't focus at and near infinity, fully zoomed, with or without the 1.4 TC. It will close focus. The problem was the same on another body. My other zoom works fine on my a9. To get it to work I have turned the camera off and on and disconnected and reconnected the lens. I've even tried both at the same time. It may take multiple times. There doesn't seem to be a specific way to get it back, but it eventually does work again, until the next time.
If you've had the problem, what was your fix. It has been in for repair and is still doing it. They replaced the 5th group block assembly. I will be sending it back, but I am researching more before I do. I plan to have a friend use it on his a1.
Thanks, Rex
Sony introduced a new FW for the lens yesterday. There is no way of knowing whether the new FW would address the issue you are experiencing. But still, it won’t hurt to update the FW. Who knows?
Basic question, but still worth asking - have you limited the focus range?
My experiece is that 200-600 af sufferes when using 1.4x TC. Hence I use TC only when I really want to frame tightly at 10m distance or closer. It seems that TC hits image quality more at infinity.
All in all, 1.4x TC is something that is best used with caution. With A9 it makes often sense, but with high resolution cameras cropping gives about the same results.
tuomkok wrote:
Basic question, but still worth asking - have you limited the focus range?
My experiece is that 200-600 af sufferes when using 1.4x TC. Hence I use TC only when I really want to frame tightly at 10m distance or closer. It seems that TC hits image quality more at infinity.
All in all, 1.4x TC is something that is best used with caution. With A9 it makes often sense, but with high resolution cameras cropping gives about the same results.
surgemaster wrote:
Has anyone experienced this trouble with their Sony 200-600. It intermittently won't focus at and near infinity, fully zoomed, with or without the 1.4 TC. It will close focus. The problem was the same on another body. My other zoom works fine on my a9. To get it to work I have turned the camera off and on and disconnected and reconnected the lens. I've even tried both at the same time. It may take multiple times. There doesn't seem to be a specific way to get it back, but it eventually does work again, until the next time.
If you've had the problem, what was your fix. It has been in for repair and is still doing it. They replaced the 5th group block assembly. I will be sending it back, but I am researching more before I do. I plan to have a friend use it on his a1.
Thanks, Rex...Show more →
When zoomed out @600 did you try to continuously tap the shutter button or BBF button to get focus ? .
There are on occasional times that's what it takes. .
surgemaster wrote:
Has anyone experienced this trouble with their Sony 200-600. It intermittently won't focus at and near infinity, fully zoomed, with or without the 1.4 TC. It will close focus.
Any chance you have a filter on the front of the lens? If so, take it off and re-test the lens.
I should have added some disclaimers about bird size, speed and daylight available at this time of year
Frankly I am also ok with large birds in summer. But these small birds in Nordic winter light are much more difficult objects. One aspect of difficult is that at closer distances 200-600mm focus gets kind of slow (compared to 100-400 GM for an example). Because of this, if one looses focus bird flies away and the moment is lost forever, there is second chance.
Not the best of pictures, but I had search a little in my Flickr to find examples with 200-600mm and 1.4 TC. Crested tit and willow tit are typical small birds in my local forest. Both pictures are shot from about 5m distance.
I haven’t noticed, but almost never shoot at 600mm and infinity focus.
At 600mm and infinity, lots of things won’t look sharp or in focus due to all the air between the lens and subject. It might struggle to lock onto something sharp.
tuomkok wrote:
Basic question, but still worth asking - have you limited the focus range?
My experiece is that 200-600 af sufferes when using 1.4x TC. Hence I use TC only when I really want to frame tightly at 10m distance or closer. It seems that TC hits image quality more at infinity.
All in all, 1.4x TC is something that is best used with caution. With A9 it makes often sense, but with high resolution cameras cropping gives about the same results.
Yes I have limited the focus range. It happens with full and 10 m to infinity. It occurs with/without the tc.
Thanks for reply.
ruthenium wrote:
It isn't clear how do you focus: wide, zone, spot etc. For instance, can you focus using the small spot?
Mostly in wide, which serves me well for BIFs. For stills I'll sometimes go to Tracking: Flexible Spot, if wide won't focus where I want it or I want to move the composition.
TGPhotography wrote:
I haven’t noticed, but almost never shoot at 600mm and infinity focus.
At 600mm and infinity, lots of things won’t look sharp or in focus due to all the air between the lens and subject. It might struggle to lock onto something sharp.
Is it a hardware focus issue, or atmospherics?
Hardware focus issue. It's not soft or wavy, it is way out of focus.
AGeoJO wrote:
Sony introduced a new FW for the lens yesterday. There is no way of knowing whether the new FW would address the issue you are experiencing. But still, it won’t hurt to update the FW. Who knows?
I will update. I don't even have v2 firmware.
I am not at all sure the lens should focus at infinity or near infinity in wide. Why should it? This is not decided by the lens. If there is any concern about the lens ability to focus at some distance, I would try the small spot or manual focusing. When the lens can focus, the camera should make it focus where the camera would like the lens to focus. It is the camera's decision, and that isn't always right. From time to time my A1 likes back-focusing even when the small spot is squarely on a face, or on a bird.
surgemaster wrote:
Mostly in wide, which serves me well for BIFs. For stills I'll sometimes go to Tracking: Flexible Spot, if wide won't go where I want it or I want to move the composition.
ruthenium wrote:
I am not at all sure the lens should focus at infinity or near infinity in wide. Why should it? This is not decided by the lens. If there is any concern about the lens ability to focus at some distance, I would try the small spot or manual focusing. When the lens can focus, the camera should make it focus where the camera would like the lens to focus. It is the camera's decision, and that isn't always right. From time to time my A1 likes back-focusing even when the small spot is squarely on a face, or on a bird.
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I agree. I am mostly shooting at far birds, so it is on 600-840 mm. It can miss focus, grab bg, etc. and I can reacquire with shutter button half down. That is all normal. But sometimes I see a subject at distance, pull up the lens-camera and it won't focus, no matter what I try. Then I re-aim at something close and it is perfect. Then I go back to the distant subject and nothing, out of focus still. I'll turn the camera off and back on . It still won't focus at distance. I try removing the lens and try again, nothing. After doing these things many times, all of a sudden it works normally. Normal may last for awhile and longer, then it acts up again.
One thing I do is grab the camera to bring up for shooting. I thought maybe I was stressing the bayonet mount, but the movement btw camera and body is normal. And I have twisted the camera and body, which is very minute, to see if there was a problem there. Didn't see any difference. Then I thought there was contact issues btw them. I've cleaned contacts and tested to see if they move in and out.
One thing i haven't tried is, when it happens, to zoom to 200 mm and see if it will focus at distance. (just thought of that)
Your description of the problem was possibly confusing. When lens "intermittently won't focus at and near infinity" this can be understood as a lens malfunction. Thus, the first question is whether there's any problem with the lens focusing mechanism? To test this you need a subject that the lens must be able to focus on 100%. This can be a distant building for example, anything with well defined edges. I would use the small spot to focus. If the lens can reliably focus on non-bird subjects then the problem you have experienced when trying to get far-away birds in focus at near infinity has something to do with the camera, not the lens. For example, it is possible that the camera subject (bird) recognition is limited in focus wide when birds are far away, meaning that the "intermittent" problem you observe is due to a poor subject recognition success rate of the camera.
ruthenium wrote:
Your description of the problem was possibly confusing. When lens "intermittently won't focus at and near infinity" this can be understood as a lens malfunction. Thus, the first question is whether there's any problem with the lens focusing mechanism? To test this you need a subject that the lens must be able to focus on 100%. This can be a distant building for example, anything with well defined edges. I would use the small spot to focus. If the lens can reliably focus on non-bird subjects then the problem you have experienced when trying to get far-away birds in focus at near infinity has something to do with the camera, not the lens. For example, it is possible that the camera subject (bird) recognition is limited in focus wide when birds are far away, meaning that the "intermittent" problem you observe is due to a poor subject recognition success rate of the camera....Show more →
Thank you Dmitri for trying to help me. As you say, I may not be explaining this the best way it could be. I've already sent the lens in for repair and it comes back the same. I don't really know if it is the lens or camera. I did some experiments yesterday and today. I will post the results later to see if it helps you gurus help me.
I can't talk to a tech at the repair shop, I tried, to better explain the problem. I don't want to send the camera in or resend the lens until I narrow down which is the problem.
Rex
