p.1 #1 · ELI5 setting up the A7rVI AF for kids sports
My younger cousins are getting to the team sports age, so I decided to YOLO buy an A7rVI and 100-400/4.5 for a month or so and try to shoot some of their games. I thought about buying a 250/4 for my GFX and trying to get by, but it seemed fun to see what the latest and greatest AF subject detection and tracking are like.
My copy didn't come with a manual (do any? I know they won't shell out for a friggin' charging cable, so...) so I'm clueless about where to start with autofocus settings. I tried shooting out-of-the-box settings at a nighttime high school football game and was not terribly impressed, although to be fair it is a poorly lit stadium and I was at ISO 20,000 (and of course shooting my 9yo cousins playing soccer at 1pm and with no helmets hiding their faces will be a much less demanding stress test). What are your recommended tweaks and settings, or links to guides?
p.1 #2 · ELI5 setting up the A7rVI AF for kids sports
I've not seen any set-up guides specifically centered around kids sports per se......if someone sent me out to shoot some tomorrow I would shoot in manual with auto ISO, shutter speed set to freeze motion (this could be variable due to what sport you're shooting) @ 4.5 with the 100-400 you could be into some high ISO in poor light. Subject recognition set to human, continuous AF and the frame rate would also depend on the sport..... BigBabyMoses on here shoots some older kids sports....maybe he'll come along with some other ref's....
p.1 #3 · ELI5 setting up the A7rVI AF for kids sports
Lee Saxon wrote:
What are your recommended tweaks and settings, or links to guides?
I didn't reply initially because I have no guides or links to offer. But since you're not getting much help, I figured I'll share how I photograph my kids.
I set the camera to AF-C mode.
I have a medium-sized AF area in the center. The size corresponds roughly to 1.5x the size of an expected head. This is to avoid having multiple faces recognized.
Next, I have configured 3 buttons with:
1. Subject recognition ON/OFF. Target = People.
2. Focus hold + Track (the button on the lens)
3. Press and hold to switch to a small center AF with tracking.
With all that in place, depending on the situation I use one of the following focusing strategies:
If face recognition works and reliable, I place the center AF area onto a target face, press focus hold + track (camera begins tracking the face), then recompose and shoot.
If face recognition doesn't work, I hold the custom button #3 to quickly switch to a small center AF area with tracking and no target detection. Then I place the center AF point onto a contrasty part of a kid's clothing, and then begin tracking. Recompose + shoot.
