A7rII Focus Issues

[GarethIwanJones]

I'm hoping someone may be able to advise me on some focusing issues I've noticed with the A7RII.

 

i was shooting a commission last week that involved reasonably fast moving subjects. I set the camera to multi shot drive, continuous focus and centre point focus. This seemed the obvious best setup for shooting fast moving objects. Unfortunately this proved not to be the case. The camera failed miserably to focus on the moving subjects, it was very frustrating.

 

Does anyone know if i'm doing something wrong? Is there a setting I've missed.

 

On My Canon's I would use this setting, hold down the focus  and the shutter in high speed drive and I'd get a 80% hit rate. With the Sony in the same setup i had a 0% hit rate.

 

Any suggestions welcomed.

G

[adwb]

gareth , seems most people stay away from centre spot unless trying to isolate a subject from a group of objects , like a cat through wire fence, 

there are a couple of focus you tube videos, some a bit conflicting I suggest you watch then test 

 

its not something I use so I cant help further than to say Im in Bristol as well if you want to have joint moan session about the camera 

 

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=sony+a7r+ii+focusing

[Golem]

The center focus strikes me odd also.

  

It seems intuitive to NOT use it for

unpredictable action, but clearly the

reason you did it is cuz it worked on

your Canons. OTOH, I find it  doubly

puzzling about the Canon, firstly that

you even tried it ... and secondly cuz

it worked !

  

I can only speculate that the Canon

uses a very different algorithm than

other brands when it comes to action

subjects and predictive focusing. Not

just different than Sony but different

than all [or nearly all] others, cuz it's

not normal with any camera I know

of to use center spot for that ... but I

have no reason to doubt what you'd

experienced with Canons !  

  

It's really puzzling, but nevertheless

try several trial runs with a broader

array of AF points to see how things

go when you do action the way most

other users do it. It works for others

so I expect it won't let you down. Not

much to be gained wondering why

Canon is so different. It's inneressin,  

but is not applicable to non-Canons.

[GarethIwanJones]

gareth , seems most people stay away from centre spot unless trying to isolate a subject from a group of objects , like a cat through wire fence, 

there are a couple of focus you tube videos, some a bit conflicting I suggest you watch then test 

 

its not something I use so I cant help further than to say Im in Bristol as well if you want to have joint moan session about the camera 

 

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=sony+a7r+ii+focusing

 

Thanks I've had a look through some of those videos and there doesn't appear to be anything obvious that I'm missing. i did find an option to change the priority of focus over shutter in continuous drive. Again didn't seem to make much difference.

[GarethIwanJones]

The center focus strikes me odd also.

  

It seems intuitive to NOT use it for

unpredictable action, but clearly the

reason you did it is cuz it worked on

your Canons. OTOH, I find it  doubly

puzzling about the Canon, firstly that

you even tried it ... and secondly cuz

it worked !

  

 

 

Hi, centre point focus is usually preferred for fast moving action if you know you want the subject in the centre of the frame. The camera knows it only has to look at one point and determine focus rather than the whole frame, so tends to be more efficient and accurate. Certainly this id the case with the Canons, the cameras are much better at focusing near the centre than they are out wide. 

 

In this instance i was photographing Mountain Bikers coming towards me on a slightly angled line. The 5d had no problem tracking the bikers as they moved closer but the A7 was so bad it was if I had it set wrong. I probably should point out that I was using a Metabones and a canon 70-200 2.8 II IS.  I've had zero problems focusing that lens for still subjects so it was surprising to see this problem with moving objects.

 

I'm shooting a similar thing again this Sunday so will experiment a bit more and see if I can find a solution.

 

G

[adwb]

do you have a native FE lens Gareth to test as well?

[GarethIwanJones]

Only the 85mm. Will try it out.

[adwb]

yes worth a try could be the metabones causing a problem, I remember the early ones certainly stopped quite a few focus features from working, but I thought software updates had fixed them, dont use one so I don't know.

[MLWolfe]

Have you read the post in the lens forum about the camera's inability to focus in continuous mode while stopped down past f/4 while using the 85 and 24-70 G lenses? It's a huge issue. Could that be part of your problem?

[Guest Jaf-Photo]

I don't know the your exact scenario, but it may have been a case for Wide AF-C? With fast moving objects that would have picked something up even if only the closest object.

[mebond11]

I had the same problem with my Sony A7RII using native lenses. Autofocus failed often with subjects at relatively short distances moving toward the camera. initial focus would fail, or subsequent shots on continuous autofocus would fail. This would be well outside the minimum focus distance, but within about 20-30 feet from the camera. I did side by side tests with a Sony SLT and a Nikon d810, both of which nailed autofocus reliably and quickly in identical circumstances. The problem was particularly acute at longer focal lengths, e.g., 200MM. Autofocus also performed poorly, and took longer, in low light. Sometimes refused to focus at all.

 

I ultimately concluded that on sensor PDAF just wasn't up to par with dedicated AF modules. I really wanted to love the camera but ended up selling it. I couldn't take all the failed shots. I have read other posts about this same problem, but not as many as I would have thought given my experience.

 

It seems the new Sony A9 works much better. Perhaps Sony has sorted this problem out for future cameras

[Enna]

Hi guys, 

 

I need help. ASAP. I filmed a discussion panel with the Sony a6400, and while the camera was formatting the first 

video clip i pushed -REC- and didn't allow it to finish formatting. 

 

Now i have a corrupted video file, that doesn't even have the .xml  extension.

 

I tried almost everything, video repair software,  converters.

The video with the issue is C0001.

 

Any help would be appreciated

 

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