Geoff,
This has been my experience although I admit that so far, my shooting experience with the A1 II has been limited. Almost all the time in my cases, the background is far away and the foreground distractions are minimal. I have been shooting either using the Zone AF Area or Wide AF Area without tracking. As such, the camera doesn't have any issues grabbing focus on my target and sticking to the target while panning. I tried the bird AI tracking and again, maybe due to the smooth background, it works just as fine.
In February, I took my original A1 to Japan and shot quite a few eagle actions, among others, after a FW update to 3.0. Prior to that FW, I shot pretty much only using the Zone AF Area without tracking since I believed that that setting reliably delivered the most focused shots. On that trip, I changed that to the bird AI tracking and I was pleasantly surprised that it did the job as well as without. The improvement there is palpable, IMHO, well, based on memory.
So, I feel that due to the background conditions at 2 locations, both the A1 and A1 II perform roughly on the same level in terms of grabbing focus and sticking to the focus points. Based on your description though, it sounds like you need to use a more targeted AF Area. I have noticed that you have used the GM 300mm lens quite a bit and lately more than the GM 600mm lens. Due to the focal length, the GM 300mm tends to have a wider DOF. Maybe, just maybe, that the wider DOF of the shorter lens makes the focus more "jumpy" to the foreground? Not sure though, just putting it out there...
The last time I went to the local falcon site, I took my GM 600mm and noticed the shallower DOF more so than using the 400-800mm. AF-wise both lenses performed fine but again, the background was far away. I wanted to get a faster shutter speed using the prime lens. Too bad the falcons didn't put up a good show last weekend.
I hope you get the new camera to sing again soon...
Apr 04, 2025 at 08:56 AM
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