Manual focus issue with my Sony A7RII

[kambrose]

I'm a landscape photographer and I've had a reoccurring issue with Sony a7RRII and Sony FE 24-240mm lens.  It completely loses focus during a shoot.  I find myself checking every other photo just to make sure the focus is still OK. When the camera does lose focus, it's way out of focus.  It will suddenly go from from a crisp photo to a shot where it looks like I'm focusing 2 feet in front of the camera.   Auto focus works great and this past weekend I was losing manual focus so often I had to switch to auto focus.  I use a tripod and I prefer to manually focus on a particular object and not rely on auto focus.  Any thoughts? 

[aliengrove]

I have found that when using my Sel90mm macro lens on either of my A7 bodies that for some reason focus changes after every shot so I have to refocus every time. Very annoying and I have no idea why it does it. Perhaps when changing from magnified view to normal after taking a shot the focus changes due to some electronic signal being sent to the lens, though you would think the focus mechanism should stay disabled when the lens is switched to mf.

[Guest all8]

Between shots, with no changes to FL, it should hold focus. I could be that you have some setting which is causing a focus to occur, such as a variation on back button focus, or perhaps prefocus, and if you are even using DMF ... then actually its normal to focus between shots. But probably its how you switch to MF which is the problem: google mentions this: http://beforethecoffee.com/2014/03/02/sony-a7-a7r-focus-options/

 

 

 

 

If you set AF/MF Button to HOLD in the custom Key settings then for the occasional MF you will need to hold down the AF/MF button while pressing the shutter release – a little bit awkward but doable with some practice. If you release the AF/MF button then follow with a half press of the shutter, AF will be reinitiated and your manual focus efforts will be gone.

[Guest all8]

The other possibility is the the lens was not making a good contact with the body. Remove, and reattach could help, possible cleaning of the contacts.

[Username]

I won't cost you much to just switch to a manual focus lens.

Then the whole problem goes away .... unless you buy a 

reeeeally trashy MF lens. Those can creep a bit too :-( 

[Marolou]

Maybe a stupid answer, but, did you check the Pre-AF setting? (Gear-wheel, 3rd level)