I have an A7V I rented for an event this weekend. My worries about the sensor readout speed were confirmed yesterday afternoon. I photographed three innings of the local college baseball game and the ball was a bit deformed coming off the bat. I'm used to shooting an A9ii. I'm glad I rented the A7V. I mostly shoot sports so I'm going with a used A1.
I just got an a7V, but if I was shooting wildlife, I'd get the a1 with the 50mp fast-readout sensor and deep bufffer.
Skip spending $2,900 + tax on the a7V, and sell your a7RV for $2,400-500, then buy a mint used a1II for just north of $5,000. You can thank me later :-)
Imagemaster wrote:
Filling a buffer with a thousand useless images is hardly equivalent to what pre-capture accomplishes.
That's true. There is a technique one can use, though, to produce similar results:
- Take a burst of images at a high frame rate (e.g., 20 or 30fps).
- Review the burst and find the best individual frames.
- Protect those best images.
- Delete the stack of pictures; the camera will only keep the protected ones.
To be able to shoot longer while waiting for the action to appear, 20fps, compressed RAW, maybe even JPEG, and a good CFe card will help.
Anyway, Sony should add pre-capture to the A1. At its price point, it deserves it, especially compared to the competition who had it for years now.
But, at the moment, if pre-capture is important for the OP, the A7V may be a better bet than the A1.
Had the same choice and got used A1 with vertical grip yesterday.
In 2004 I had Minolta A1 with vgrip as my first digicam. BTW, Sony's current vertical grop lacks very useful design feature present in A700 and A900 (as well as Minolta's Dynax/Maxxum 7 and 7D grips) - hand position there were lower than grip edge and holding camera vertically you had viewfinder exactly on the same height as in horizontal camera position. With A1 (A7/9) grip you have camera higher in vertical position...
Anyway, that's a great piece of hardware.
Very fast, EVF is great (after my good old A7rIII), customisation is simply overwhelming...
Battery drain is huge, maybe three or four times bigger than A7rIII so far.
Despite some warnings my Tough-M SD cards works well.
Highlites exposure mode worked differently and underexpose much (like having a tiny patch of bright sky on the edge of the frame will drop metered exposure 2 or 3 EV's easily even with AE calibration set to +1), so what is better Metering mode - whole frame or multi?
Imagemaster wrote:
Well shoot the same subject side-by-side with a photographer that uses pre-capture and he will get 100 times more useable take-off shots than the one not using pre-capture.
On top of that, with pre-capture you set the maximum number of images the camera keeps in the buffer after you fully depress the shutter, so you don't need more buffer capacity.
Those who have not personally used pre-capture are hardly competent on critiquing it.
Pre-capture provides little benefit unless you are shooting with something like the A9iii at 120fps with only a 2 second buffer where it helps avoid filling the buffer too early.
You have plenty of buffer on the A1 at 30fps (5 sec) and 20fps (20sec) to shoot early often in anticipation of the action.
And at those frame rates you will probably still end up with way less images to go through than you would get using pre-capture on the A9iii.
So if you are shooting with only a 2 second buffer or if your camera locks up and stops shooting entirely when its buffer fills up (Canon!) then you probably want pre-capture - otherwise its not going to be critical to capturing action.
duncangr wrote:
Pre-capture provides little benefit unless you are shooting with something like the A9iii at 120fps with only a 2 second buffer where it helps avoid filling the buffer too early.
You have plenty of buffer on the A1 at 30fps (5 sec) and 20fps (20sec) to shoot early often in anticipation of the action.
And at those frame rates you will probably still end up with way less images to go through than you would get using pre-capture on the A9iii.
So if you are shooting with only a 2 second buffer or if your camera locks up and stops shooting entirely when its buffer fills up (Canon!) then you probably want pre-capture - otherwise its not going to be critical to capturing action.
2 seconds of buffer (at max frame rate) is plenty if you're trying for the take off. ½ second of pre capture, 1 ½ seconds after the shutter if fully pressed. For most birds that's good. If it's a kingfisher that dives straight down, and you want the entire sequence, then you're right, a 2 second buffer isn't enough.
I will add that an a9III shooting at it's max fps only has about a 2 second buffer also.
I have a1 mk1 for more than 2 years, for most of the case, a7v has more fun and hit rate, especially new AF tracking in a7v.
so sold a7r5, get a new a7v + used a1 for backup should have best ROI?
Used A1 are piling on FM, 10+ unsold. They are not moving even being lowered to like $3200.
B&H give around $2k for trade.
For me, A1 is good enough as long as tracking is sticky and a accurate. Who needs AI? Since they give the Xtra small tracking focus point in 4.0, it's more engaging to select my tracking spot l.
That said, I'm still eager to know if A7V's EVF is truly "focus on" lag free. A1 exhibit an extra 8 frames or 0.067 second delay on 120hz evf. From reviews it seems Sony has got rid of this "focus on" lag.
duncangr wrote:
Pre-capture provides little benefit unless you are shooting with something like the A9iii at 120fps with only a 2 second buffer where it helps avoid filling the buffer too early.
Well I guess that would be a surprise to the thousands of Olympus/OM owners that have found it beneficial for the last ten years:
Olympus Pro Capture is a pre-buffering feature introduced with the E-M1 Mark II in 2016, allowing photographers to capture moments before fully pressing the shutter by saving up to 70 previous frames.
This afternoon I spent 20 minutes waiting for a hawk to take off, handholding the OM 150-400 f4.5 lens. Did I keep the shutter button half-depressed all that time? No.
Pro Capture was set to 30 frames pre-capture and buffer to maximum of 50 frames, and shutter speed at 50fps. Did I capture the hawk taking off? Yes, in the opposite direction.
q-w-z wrote:
Very fast, EVF is great (after my good old A7rIII), customisation is simply overwhelming...
Battery drain is huge, maybe three or four times bigger than A7rIII so far.
I also went from A7R III to A1. The EVF is even better on the A1, the LCD not so much, and even a bit disappointing for a camera of that calibre (my friends' A7R IVA has a nicer LCD).
I also noticed the battery drain is higher and the camera gets hot just by perusing the menus. I did some research, and it appears that it is expected for the A1. Some suggested setting the EVF quality to standard to avoid it. We'll see if that works.
Now, I'm thrilled by the AF. The bird eye detection works well, and the tracking modes work much better than on the A7R III. The buffer is deeper on the A1, but it fills up quicker at 30fps, even with the CFe cards I bought (cheap Pergear 256Gb). That said, at around 15fps, the buffer is almost unlimited. In general, the A1 is much more responsive than the A7R III. I was complaining about the sluggishness of changing settings with unnecessary animations. None of that on the A1, it's fast, it seems really built for speed.
Now about pre-capture... This is really what is missing on the A1. I tried doing long bursts, and it kind of works when you can somehow anticipate the action. Otherwise, waiting 5 minutes for a bird to fly off, pre-capture is the only way to go. For small birds, I even suspect that only an A9 III would be adequate, as 30 fps may not be enough.
I also discovered that somehow (as it was in A7m2, A7rIII) adapted Sony A lens (via LA-EA3) stabilize better when I manually put focal length in the Steadyshot settings (despite lens is correctly reported focal numbers into camera and EXIF)... Hoped it was fixed but apparently no.
Just got my A1 in and have been tinkering with it on and off today. It's incredible, and I'm happy with my decision to grab one used, over an A7V, tho my experience is with an A7RV so not really apples to apples, admittedly.
The AF is perceivably faster on the A1 than the A7RV, while the A7RV feels a bit "smarter". Something to do with the AF calculations per second difference I'm sure, and the updated AF algos with the RV, but also it's brand new to me and I have to tinker with the settings more. Love how the character of noise is noticeable less potent than the A7RV too. Right off the bat I noticed that.
BigBabyMoses06 wrote:
Just got my A1 in and have been tinkering with it on and off today. It's incredible, and I'm happy with my decision to grab one used, over an A7V, tho my experience is with an A7RV so not really apples to apples, admittedly.
The AF is perceivably faster on the A1 than the A7RV, while the A7RV feels a bit "smarter". Something to do with the AF calculations per second difference I'm sure, and the updated AF algos with the RV, but also it's brand new to me and I have to tinker with the settings more. Love how the character of noise is noticeable less potent than the A7RV too. Right off the bat I noticed that.
Cute kitty! Glad your liking the A1, its still an awesome camera these days indeed. What firmware version is it on? The most recent one is 4.0 and it has some pretty good upgrades. My A1 was on 1.31 for a long time before I recently updated to 4.0 and I did notice improvements in AF and the XS focus box and the option to customize the size of focus boxes is really neat.
It's on 4.0 thanks to the previous owner for updating it for me. I probably just need to get more familiar with the settings, admittedly I'm not super familiar with the RV either, but with the A1 testing yesterday I was tracking any parents dogs who ran behind a flag pole, and the autofocus stuck to the pole and didn't want to go back to the dog behind the pole. I'm sure it just needs adjustments.
The other problem is now I need fast CF cards 🤣
For fun, I did a 30 second 30fps shot in compressed raw for testing, and it took about 2 minutes to clear with my Sony tough SD cards lol.
pdog109 wrote:
Cute kitty! Glad your liking the A1, its still an awesome camera these days indeed. What firmware version is it on? The most recent one is 4.0 and it has some pretty good upgrades. My A1 was on 1.31 for a long time before I recently updated to 4.0 and I did notice improvements in AF and the XS focus box and the option to customize the size of focus boxes is really neat.
To add another data point, I was in the same camp as the OP. I decided to go with the A1 instead of a new A7V. Upgraded the firmware from 1.31 to 4. No problems with the Bluetooth. Creator App is much better than previous app. I shoot a variety of subject matter including people, macro, and the occasional wildlife. I found that my previous body (A7RIV) was lacking in autofocus speed, and I really wanted a camera with in-body focus stacking. Autofocus on the A1 has been a huge upgrade. The larger buffer with CFe cards is also a game changer. Overall, very happy with the upgrade
It's on 4.0 thanks to the previous owner for updating it for me. I probably just need to get more familiar with the settings, admittedly I'm not super familiar with the RV either, but with the A1 testing yesterday I was tracking any parents dogs who ran behind a flag pole, and the autofocus stuck to the pole and didn't want to go back to the dog behind the pole. I'm sure it just needs adjustments.
The other problem is now I need fast CF cards 🤣
For fun, I did a 30 second 30fps shot in compressed raw for testing, and it took about 2 minutes to clear with my Sony tough SD cards lol.
The setting your looking for there is AF tracking sensitivity, its a value that can be adjusted from 1-5, with 1 being "locked on" and 5 being the most responsive. So in that example with the dog behind the pole, if you had the value at 1, it would lock onto the dog and stay on the dog even though it went behind the pole. If it was more 4-5 responsive side it would shift from the dog to the pole. It was probably on setting 3 by default. For my AF tracking sensitivity button I put it on the wheel and just press it and then use the wheel to quickly adjust it. I'm usually on setting 1 or 2 but sometimes go to 4-5 for birds on water that bob up and down.
And yes fast CF cards are a must for action, the 800mb a second ones work great and i've never really had a long buffer clear time even when I get excited at seeing a new bird and I'm holding the trigger down.
Appreciate that! Now I have to figure out if I want to keep my RV, get another A1, or finally get a long tele lens 🤣
Does the tracking sensitivity play any part in focus speed? Meaning, if I'm tracking an object in motion, usually coming towards the camera, does that sensitivity affect how quickly it tracks the subject while being accurate as it moves towards the camera?
pdog109 wrote:
The setting your looking for there is AF tracking sensitivity, its a value that can be adjusted from 1-5, with 1 being "locked on" and 5 being the most responsive. So in that example with the dog behind the pole, if you had the value at 1, it would lock onto the dog and stay on the dog even though it went behind the pole. If it was more 4-5 responsive side it would shift from the dog to the pole. It was probably on setting 3 by default. For my AF tracking sensitivity button I put it on the wheel and just press it and then use the wheel to quickly adjust it. I'm usually on setting 1 or 2 but sometimes go to 4-5 for birds on water that bob up and down.
And yes fast CF cards are a must for action, the 800mb a second ones work great and i've never really had a long buffer clear time even when I get excited at seeing a new bird and I'm holding the trigger down. ...Show more →
BigBabyMoses06 wrote:
Appreciate that! Now I have to figure out if I want to keep my RV, get another A1, or finally get a long tele lens 🤣
Does the tracking sensitivity play any part in focus speed? Meaning, if I'm tracking an object in motion, usually coming towards the camera, does that sensitivity affect how quickly it tracks the subject while being accurate as it moves towards the camera?
The A1 does it all, if it was me I'd sell the RV and get a long tele lens.
Not sure how the tracking sensitivity impacts focus speed on objects moving towards you, once it has it locked it should keep it unless objects in the fore-ground appear in front of it. Once I have an object locked with the little green box on the eye I usually just keep the AF-ON button mashed in while I shoot away. If its still on the big green box meaning it is focusing on the subject but not on the eye(probably because its too far away). Mentioning that reminds me of subject detection. The A1 has 3 options, human, bird, and animal, so adjust that with what your subject is it should help as well.
CJMiller wrote:
My worries about the sensor readout speed were confirmed yesterday afternoon. I photographed three innings of the local college baseball game and the ball was a bit deformed coming off the bat.
TBH this sounds like you're trying to eliminate the only interesting thing to look at in a typical baseball game snapshot. And this is coming from the A1 owner. These little imperfections are precious. They spice up the boring reality we live in. That's what made this photo famous:
