Problems with AF A6500

[Johnhoward28]

Okay, so I bought this camera before heading to South America.  I had a few weeks to get use to it before leaving and thought I had a decent handle on it.  But now that I am home and reviewing my shots on a large screen, I am seeing that the AF missed way more then it hit.  It seems that it always missed on some point.  It either focused on the wrong thing, chose the shallow shallow DoF when I needed a deep DoF.  I am just not sure if it is me, or if the AF on the A6500 is just not worth even using. 

Take this shot for example.  I mean, this bird stands out like a sore thumb in this photo, but the camera chose to focus on the background rather than the subject.  How could the AF miss the bird standing in front?

 

 

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[LiveShots]

What focus area were you using, Wide, Centre, Zone etc.?

[Johnhoward28]

 I had the mode dial set to Superior Auto.

[LiveShots]

Focus area is set to Wide in Superior Auto. So focus will lock on to whatever gives it the best focus lock. In your case that would be the sharp edge of the grass.

https://helpguide.sony.net/ilc/1640/v1/en/contents/TP0001297225.html?search=Superior focus

Try using Aperture Priority and use Expand Flexible focus with tracking. You can then use the front or rear dials to adjust the aperture and the camera will adjust shutter and iso. 

[Johnhoward28]

1 hour ago, LiveShots said:

Focus area is set to Wide in Superior Auto. So focus will lock on to whatever gives it the best focus lock. In your case that would be the sharp edge of the grass.

https://helpguide.sony.net/ilc/1640/v1/en/contents/TP0001297225.html?search=Superior focus

Try using Aperture Priority and use Expand Flexible focus with tracking. You can then use the front or rear dials to adjust the aperture and the camera will adjust shutter and iso. 

 

So what you are saying is the AF is not useful on the A6500?  Yes, I know I can go manual, but my question here is not about how to adjust things manually.  My question is about the reliability of the Automatic Focusing system on the A6500.  One of the reasons I bought this camera was because of the accolades I heard about how intelligent the AF is, but ever since I bought it, it has consistently failed to choose the proper settings for the situation.  About the only thing it seems to understand is the human face, so I guess it is fine for portrait studio photography, but any decent smartphone can do an excellent job of taking pictures of people in perfect lighting. 

At least now I know to never turn the dial mode to AUTO on this camera, because it sucks!  Thanks for verifying this for me. 

[LiveShots]

The focusing system on a6500 is superb.

No camera in the world can read every scene and determine what YOU want it to focus on. AUTO means that the camera will measure the light coming in and try to determine the ideal shutter, aperture and iso.

You have to point the camera and tell it what to focus on.

You are confusing settings with focus, they are two different things. Read the manual. 

Edited March 13, 2019 by LiveShots

[rtcary]

I can understand your frustrations in gettingas new camera and not having the time to learn about it's many options.  A few months ago, my wife and I were getting ready to leave for a trip in China, and I wanted something lighter than my Nikon D810 with it's heavy "glass" yet a little better than my Panasonic LX100 or Canon G1x.  My daughter had a A6500 and wanted to sell it so she good get a A7iii --  I had very little time to learn the Sony's in's and out's.  As I recall, there are around 100 settings -- took me a lot of time to learn the essential, however I set #1 on the selection dial to Aperture Prefered, ISO Auto and f/stop to 5.6.  The #2 I set to Manual, ISO 400, f/stop to 8.0 and Shutter to 1/125 sec.  The focus area I set to Expand Flexible focus.  With those settings (if I used "M", I adjusted the settings to the conditions), I got over 2,000 images with hardly a miss.  For many, I just held the camera at arms length over my head due to the crowds and got great travel pictures.

Cameras been great so far...

\rtc

[Johnhoward28]

1 hour ago, LiveShots said:

The focusing system on a6500 is superb.

No camera in the world can read every scene and determine what YOU want it to focus on. AUTO means that the camera will measure the light coming in and try to determine the ideal shutter, aperture and iso.

You have to point the camera and tell it what to focus on.

You are confusing settings with focus, they are two different things. Read the manual. 

Call it whatever you want, but the name is "Superior Auto", and there is nothing Superior about it.  I am not an idiot and I have read a lot and studied a lot about this camera, but the SUPERIOR AUTO function on this camera SUCKS!

Edited March 13, 2019 by Johnhoward28

[Johnhoward28]

45 minutes ago, rtcary said:

I can understand your frustrations in gettingas new camera and not having the time to learn about it's many options.  A few months ago, my wife and I were getting ready to leave for a trip in China, and I wanted something lighter than my Nikon D810 with it's heavy "glass" yet a little better than my Panasonic LX100 or Canon G1x.  My daughter had a A6500 and wanted to sell it so she good get a A7iii --  I had very little time to learn the Sony's in's and out's.  As I recall, there are around 100 settings -- took me a lot of time to learn the essential, however I set #1 on the selection dial to Aperture Prefered, ISO Auto and f/stop to 5.6.  The #2 I set to Manual, ISO 400, f/stop to 8.0 and Shutter to 1/125 sec.  The focus area I set to Expand Flexible focus.  With those settings (if I used "M", I adjusted the settings to the conditions), I got over 2,000 images with hardly a miss.  For many, I just held the camera at arms length over my head due to the crowds and got great travel pictures.

Cameras been great so far...

\rtc

 

Thanks for the great and informative answer.  I really appreciate you taking the time to share your settings with me.  I normally shoot with this camera in Aperture mode and leave all another setting on auto, unless I need to go full auto.  It is an awesome camera and takes really great pictures.  It is just frustrating that it has the Useless AUTO mode that NEVER gets anything right, but yet everyone talks about how GREAT it is, but when you ask why it is missing, they say, "you have to set the camera up manually".  It's like I am speaking French or something.