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IRIS problem with 85 1.4 and 24-70 2.8 GM lenses


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Hi jdiffner.

I see you're partially missing the point. I'm not comparing apples to oranges. I say that for ANY KIND of professional use the Sony A7rII is nothing more than a paperweight when you must (for technical and/or artistic reasons) shoot at more than f4 with moving subjects in a studio (models, the move a lot!).

As NO OTHER CAMERA of ANY BRAND including toy cameras (except Sony) focuses with iris closed i clearly see a problem by Sony, not a mistake from me.

And for a better reason, this issue could easily be solved by a simple software update, so your opinion is clearly flawed.

 

BUT, a big but and a big thanks, I must say that in AF-S quality of AF is clearly much better. It's not my preferred choice because people move and move a lot sometimes but I can take it as a temporary workaround.

 

So thanks, again.

 

Best

Maurizio

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Umm

 

Sent from my Nexus 6P using Tapatalk

 

That's the thing about this place. There's always one feckwit that lacks comprehension skills. Hilarious all the same. ;)

 

@SA2016: Saw this on DP Review earlier.

 

The new 50mm F/1.4, and all the GM lenses AND at least the Sony 55mm F/1.5 ZA with updated firmware behave like this. They stop down the aperture before focusing in AF-C. This makes these lenses about as valuable for photography as a paper weight. This is a HUGE error on part of Sony and it requires an entire article, not just a foot note.

 

Rishi Sanyal: DP Review Technical Editor:

 

Yes, the a6300 w/ most lenses focuses stopped down - its behaviour is worse than the a7R II. Though I myself can no longer keep track since firmware updates change behaviour of various body/lens combos.

 

It's getting pretty ridiculous at this point, frankly. At a recent media event with set up strobes, Sony recommended everyone to shoot at F11. I was so glad they did this, because suddenly everyone else started saying 'focus isn't working'. Of course it's not - it's just hunting around by F11 since phase-detect literally turns off because there is no phase difference anymore by F11, most of the time. It was great to finally see a whole bunch of other media outlets finally realizing the problems with stop-down focusing. But I'm honestly surprised at what took so long. This behaviour started insidiously creeping into Sony's system in some form or another since 2012 with the NEX-6, and I've been harping on and on about it since then & just feel like a broken record at this point.

 

Well done John G Moore for helping out Maurizio and highlighting this.

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Hi Johnny, no, things don't work like that. DSLR always focus wide open. You see an approximate f2.8 image on the focus screen because it's the focus screen that looks like that. In fact when focusing screens were interchangeable you could change the standard screen with better versions that showed you the full opening of the lens to aid manual focus. It's only lately that they show you a slightly closed version of the image. But the autofocus system alway works wide open and that's why a f1.4 lens normally focus better in low light than a f4 lens.

Past f11 you can't focus if it's the lens that wide open isn't more open than that (this happens easily with f8 long tele and 2x multipliers but isn't that common).

But the value of opening referred to focus points is always referred to the wide open lens.

I understand that my english is poor and explaining this isn't that easy but I hope you'll understand.

Best

 

Maurizio

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That's the thing about this place. There's always one feckwit that lacks comprehension skills. Hilarious all the same. ;)

 

@SA2016: Saw this on DP Review earlier.

 

The new 50mm F/1.4, and all the GM lenses AND at least the Sony 55mm F/1.5 ZA with updated firmware behave like this. They stop down the aperture before focusing in AF-C. This makes these lenses about as valuable for photography as a paper weight. This is a HUGE error on part of Sony and it requires an entire article, not just a foot note.

 

Rishi Sanyal: DP Review Technical Editor:

 

Yes, the a6300 w/ most lenses focuses stopped down - its behaviour is worse than the a7R II. Though I myself can no longer keep track since firmware updates change behaviour of various body/lens combos.

 

It's getting pretty ridiculous at this point, frankly. At a recent media event with set up strobes, Sony recommended everyone to shoot at F11. I was so glad they did this, because suddenly everyone else started saying 'focus isn't working'. Of course it's not - it's just hunting around by F11 since phase-detect literally turns off because there is no phase difference anymore by F11, most of the time. It was great to finally see a whole bunch of other media outlets finally realizing the problems with stop-down focusing. But I'm honestly surprised at what took so long. This behaviour started insidiously creeping into Sony's system in some form or another since 2012 with the NEX-6, and I've been harping on and on about it since then & just feel like a broken record at this point.

 

Well done John G Moore for helping out Maurizio and highlighting this.

 

This is fantastic!! :-)

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I realise that the "Sony Artisans" are not engineers but just out of interest has anybody raised this issue with them ? 

 

If so, i'd love to know their feelings on the matter, I know they're not going to shoot themselves in the foot but surely this effects them as much as the rest of us, seeing that the pro grade glass is now pretty much redundant in the studio, how are they going to dress it up to shift more units ?

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Thats not really the point here but since you bring it up,

not every situation calls for another tedious bokeh shot

 

Bokeh shots aren't tedious, they're boring ....

  

Oh, what say ? Tedious and Boring mean

the same thing ? Well whooduh thunkit :lol:

  

Moving on from tedious vs boring, what the

bokeh cult is really about is Laziness. Just

blow away what you can't deal with. 

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What the point buying big, fast, heavy high quality prime f1.4 and shoot at f8?

 

Mate with respect, you're embarrassing yourself.  I'd keep sctum from now on unless you can add something constructive. ;)

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  • 2 weeks later...

Wow..... Did I really just read a complaint that a $5000 kit didn't properly compete with a Hasselblad rig?  How come my Honda Accord get's stuck every time I try to go off-roading? 

Now I may be wrong, but I haven't seen Sony make a press statement that the A7RII is the greatest camera in history and the only thing you will ever need (haven't seen Canon or Nikon make those claims either).  Is the A7 series a well executed concept?  Yes.  Are the G Master lenses fantastic?  Hell yes (own and shoot with both of the currently released models)!  Is is a great combination for 90% of what I shoot?  Sure.  Have I used it in the studio?  Yes.  Would I chose it over my medium format system?  ....No.  Does that mean that it's a piece of junk that I regret purchasing?  Not at all.  I had to make a fair amount of adjustments to my work flow with moving from Canon to MF, but I got over it.  Same when moving to the Sony.  

 

.....Just switch over to AF-S when shooting at small f-stops and quit complaining.

 

WOW. Did you read the article at all? This $5000 kit doesn't just struggle compared with a Hasselblad, the $5000 kit (in respect to continuous AF and less than fully open aperture) can't hold a candle to a $250 (used) Canon from five years ago. In given conditions, for no reason whatsoever, this camera simply will not focus. At all. For no reason whatsoever.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I am glad that I stumbled upon this post. Now many things are clear to me. I got the 24-70 GM the other day but found out that where the AF is concerned I don't have many keepers. I was trying to photograph my dog using AF-C at anything past f/8 but not many shots were in focus.

I did the test now using AF-S at f/14 and the AF worked fine. Even eye-AF worked ok but it didn't follow the subject. Then I switched to AF-C but all it did was hunting. This is too bad as eye-AF works much better (it follows the eye which it locked on to) in AF-C mode.

I hope that Sony is aware of this problem and offers a firmware fix.

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If I remember rightly when Sony brought out the A7rII (or maybe it was the A7II) they changed the way that some of the zooms focused and opened up the aperture when doing so and this highlighted a problem especially with the FE24-70 OSS of focus shift. I remember contacting Sony about this as I was getting real problems when focussing at f8 or more as the focus area was soft due to focus shift and the same was true of the FE16-35 OSS but to a far less extent. This was addressed in a firmware update and Sony's solution was to keep the lens stopped down (or partially so in some cases) when focussing which now seems to be causing other problems. The issue is that this technique seems to have been copied over into the 24-70GM which one would hope wouldn't be prone to focus shift!!!

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Thank you Viramati for your input. I work my way around this problem by using AF-S when I stop down past f4 and use AF-C when shooting moving subjects between f/2.8 and f/4. It is not ideal but at least it works. Eye-AF in AF-S actually works quite ok when shooting a static model, but it's more fun to use when in AF-C mode. 

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Eye-AF in AF-S actually works quite ok when shooting a static model, but it's more fun to use when in AF-C mode. 

 

Now isn't that the understatement of the century :-) - AF-C and Eye-AF are a match made in heaven. It's nice for AF-S, but how long does an eye stay stationary enough for it to be useful in AF-S?

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So there I was, using the 24-70 GM at a wedding for the first time, stopped down a bit for better dof during the bouquet toss, suddenly finding that nothing was focusing. When something happens from start to finish in about 5 seconds there's no time to explore options!! I have no usable photos of the bouquet toss! Not one!!! I am hugely angry right now! But at least I understand what happened. Guess I won't be relying on my Sony for anything important. Now thinking of again investing in Canon vs. Sony, but I can't afford a 24-70 for the Canon. Sony needs to get their head out of their a**.

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Now isn't that the understatement of the century :-) - AF-C and Eye-AF are a match made in heaven. It's nice for AF-S, but how long does an eye stay stationary enough for it to be useful in AF-S?

As long as your model isn't jumping on a trampoline you should be ok with eye-AF on AF-S That said, I do suppose that using eye-AF with AF-C will drastically improve your success rate while trying to photograph moving kids.

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As long as your model isn't jumping on a trampoline you should be ok with eye-AF on AF-S That said, I do suppose that using eye-AF with AF-C will drastically improve your success rate while trying to photograph moving kids.

 

If the model is moving just a bit you will not be able to acquire focus with AF-C.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Hi, first post here, nice to meet you.

I've just registered after reading this topic. Maybe this helps, not sure. I don't have a g-m lens or an A7r2, but I have an A7r (firmware 3.20) and a sony/zeiss 55 1.8ZA and this works on it.

When on afc, it does indeed focus at the fstop selected, unless you deactivate an option found on the second menu (gear icon), page 2. Should be named "live view" or something like that (my menu is on spanish). It's the one before pre-af on/off option. When it's set to "off" it opens for focusing depending on the ambient light, if good it opens just a little, on low light it focuses wide open and works fine.

 

Hope this helps,

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