Sony Alpha Forum

Like Cameratose, I usually go for as much depth of field as I can, but sometimes there is no getting around out of focus areas, such as a closeup of a cactus flower.  I guess, everything else being equal, I might be concerned about a lenses bokeh, but everything else is seldom equal.  At this point in my photography I think I have bigger problems than unattractive bokeh.

I elected to upgrade from Sony A1 to the A1 ii and am seeing some significant focusing challenges in the little time I've spent with it so far. Less than 10% of photos appear to be in focus when photographing small birds in subject mode birds with seemingly no improvement when subject mode is changed to birds/animals/people. Scenario: Sony A1 ii, 200-600 G lens @ 600mm, F6.3, shutter speed on male cardinal (in-focus mostly) at 1/250 ISO 125 and female cardinal (nothing in focus) at 1/1600 ISO 100; AF-C set with eye supposedly in focus in both shots. Lens has AF on, OSS on, Mode 1. I've tried switching out lenses using 100-400 with and without 1.4X converter and used handheld and used tripod. Photos are at a distance of 20-25 yards. The photos below are within a couple yards of one another. There is seemingly no improvement in AF performance despite the combinations of lens, tripod and focus zones attempted. Birds are stationary. Many of the photos will have everything in the frame seemingly out of focus and some may have the head in focus and rest of body out of focus and immediate area around bird slightly out of focus at F9-F11. I considered that I was cropping too much and had pixel peeping / expectations problem, but some photos are wildly out of focus when supposedly focusing on eye or body. Neither photo below is cropped. Ideas are welcome!

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Agreed, but it's ancient thinking. Any modern forum lets you edit whenever. It's simply a setting they could click to turn off. It's one reason I won't post many photos here. After 10 minutes I lose complete control over my own property. 

Bokeh is indeed as much about the quality of out of focus blur as it is about the quantity. Especially the focus transition zone (where things go from 'within focus' to 'out of focus') may be under scrutiny when assessing bokeh. Another optical 'defect' which manifests itself in bokeh is LoCa (longitinal chromatic abberation). Some call it ugly green/magenta halos in contrasty out-of-focus areas, others call it character.

You can, but only within like 10 minutes after posting. I guess it's to prevent falsification of history.