Center Lock-On AF seems hit-and-miss to activate + Eye AF issue

[Alastair M]

Hi,

New to the forum and to Sony Alpha, I have a new a9 (de-camped from Canon 5D4 and a bunch of nice L glass) - sorry if the below is either dumb or has been asked multiple times. I'm pretty technical so the complexity doesn't befuddle me but some of the combinations seem to be succeeding.

I am trying to figure out how to make Center Lock-On AF (which I will call CLOAF from now on) activate consistently. My issue is not to do with how it focuses with CLOAF active, my issue is activating it:

- The manual says you must have focus area set to Center or Wide, you can then press the assigned button for Focus Standard and it will start working. 

- However if I am using my "normal" focusing area, which is expanded flexible spot, and then I use the pre-assigned function button C4 (which comes factory-set to CLOAF on/off) and set it to 'on', it seems to start working (even though I am in the "wrong" focus area mode)

- I cannot correllate it but if I follow the manual and press the assigned button for "Focus Standard", sometimes the CLOAF comes on and sometimes it does not but I cannot figure what's different between the times it does come on and the times it doesn't. 

- I anyway cannot think of a reason why it shouldn't work using expanded flexible spot AF; it also says elsewhere in the manual that if CLOAF is activated it focuses on the nearest thing to the center of the frame anyway and simply overrides all other focus settings.. so what difference does it make what area I have selected?

- On a similar note I have seen references saying that CLOAF only works "when using continuous focusing mode" but, to my knowledge, there is no such thing - only continuous shooting mode? However even in single-shot mode (single shot shutter, single shot AF), I can see the CLOAF "window" appears sometimes and manuals refer to being able to use this, once locked-on, to recompose a shot. Which seems fully compatible with and very useful for single-shot photography.. just with fewer focus / recomposition errors.. no?

- I am also almost 100% sure (almost.. but not actually 100%) that I either read in a manual somewhere OR saw on an a9 instructional video somewhere that the center-button within the control wheel is used to activate CLOAF (once it has been switched on as a function within the menus).. however this does not seem to work and I have seen elsewhere that this center button is pre-assigned to "Eye AF"... and yet, if I ever actually do manage to get CLOAF activated, the centre button DOES de-activate it.. so, one wonders, if you're using active CLOAF and press that button (which is pre-assigned to Eye AF) does it jump into Eye AF or does it jump out of CLOAF or both?

Hope this is making sense.

Two other points...

-  I have also set face recognition active - does it get confused between tracking a face and tracking the center? Are these two compatible? 

- And finally - when I want to go "one step smarter" with my focus on a face, and use Eye AF (which is assigned both to the center button AND to C3), the little green square over the eye doesn't seem to appear and it's not clear to me whether I am now using CLOAF, Face Detection AF, and/or Eye AF. Could this again be because I am always using expanded flexible spot for my focus area and I am always using single shot for shutter & AF? Still doesn't make sense to me why Eye AF wouldn't work under these conditions.

Thanks in advance if you can help!

Alastair

 

 

 

 

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