osv2 wrote: wordfool wrote:
You ignore the fact that I've been using the A1 for almost two years taking photos of birds, including plenty of hawks in the same area at the same times of year in the same light, so I know how it used to perform and what to expect and I can say with certainty that it is no longer performing at the same level when it comes to BEAF.
i noticed that something had changed in the af as well, but i fixed it for the most part by no longer using the [1(Locked On)] setting, i put it on "2", i did not reload the previous settings off of an sd card... i also did a factory reset first, fwiw.
as someone posted earlier, this is a difficult thread because nobody is talking about what settings they are using.
wordfool wrote:As far as long-necked water birds go, I've found the A1 always had problems finding the eye so that's nothing new.
i just demonstrated that it finds the eye without any problem, just not in the wide-area mode that most bif people out here prefer.
wordfool wrote:I also don't generally use tracking focus when shooting birds but I wonder now if that might be a factor in the relative failure of BEAF since v1.31. I generally just use AF-C non-tracking (small spot or zone focus) as do a lot of photographers AFAIK.
i don't see that methodology with other bif shooters, they tend to use wide-area mode, depending on the background.
i don't know how what you are calling "non-tracking" is different than tracking, but for moving targets, tracking with af-c is what sony recommends, i can't imagine doing it any other way:
"Even if you usually shoot images using the tracking or Face/Eye AF function, you can pause the tracking and face/eye detection functions in the following cases, where you want to switch a subject to another one during shooting or the camera cannot recognize a face because the subject is wearing a helmet.
When the tracking function is paused, the focusing area will be switched to the focusing area where tracking was started. When tracking was started by selecting [Spot], you can specify a subject you want to shoot at the spot you set in the frame indicating the focusing area.
After an intended subject is in focus, you can restart tracking by canceling [Tracking-Off Hold]." https://support.d-imaging.sony.co.jp/support/ilc/custom/04/en/practice1.html
When I first started birding I used tracking, but quickly discovered that for any fast moving bird in trees or against other busy backgrounds the tracking proved to be a detriment and so with experimentation and advice of some folks here I switched to using basic, AF-C non-tracking small spot and zone focus (and occasionally wide for BiF). Me tracking the bird with the focus area (and assistance from BEAF) is far more reliable than allowing the camera move the focus area around, regardless of how sticky I make the tracking sensitivity. I don't think this is an unusual way of doing things from what I've read over the years, but now I wonder if Sony has now optimized BEAF for tracking focus.
My problem with water birds is probably user error as much as anything else because I don't often photograph them. But if an Egret, which already has a small pale eye in a sea of white, bends its neck I find BEAF goes a bit haywire, often finding an "eye" in the dark space between the bend of the neck and something in the background or, in one extreme example, it just kept wanting to focus on the dark space created when the bird bent its neck enough to give the illusion (at an angle) of two parts of the neck meeting (despite the small spot focus area being right over the bird's head).
Feb 28, 2023 at 03:56 PM
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