Sony A7 III slowing down in continuous shooting after a few frames. (when panning)

[n1smo]

Hi,

I took my A7III on the racetrack for the first time, but im having problem that makes the camera basically useless for motorsports.

The frames go down from 8fps to 2-3 fps when im doing panning shots of vehicles.

However, only in shutter priority and at slow shutter speeds about 1/100 or 1/200. If I set a higher shutter speed like 1/1000 that does not happen. All other settings remain the same. It does not matter whether i use an adapted lens or native Sony one. If I set the camera to Manual with the same settings, it does not what shutter speed i dial in, im getting constant 8 fps.

My settings:

- Shutter priority
- single point AF or expanded spot
- AF-C with release priority (makes absolutely no difference whether I choose "release" or "balanced").
- Continuous shooting "HI"
- Auto ISO
- IBIS out

Here is a short video with a 24mm GM,  of course this is nonsense, but you can see what I mean. I suggest to watching it with sound. In a normal scenario with real cars and e.g. A 70-200GM it is just like that.

https://imgur.com/a/jvtWLCo

If somebody wants to try this on his A7, I should mention that I can not always recreate the problem. It seems to happen mostly in bright conditions and at a greater distance between photographer and subject. But happened every time i tried to do panning shots of cars this weekend.

I asked this already on dpreview, but nobody could really help me with this. I hope someone has a solution for this.

 

Kind Regards

Michael

[Chrissie]

Are you aware of this ?   (last bullet point in the Notes section):

Quote

Continuous shooting is unavailable in the following situations:

• The shooting mode is set to [Scene Selection] and a scene other than [Sports Action] is selected.

 

[n1smo]

Yeah sure, continous shooting works fine, just the frame rate is going down for no reason in the described situation.

[LiveShots]

10 hours ago, n1smo said:

However, only in shutter priority and at slow shutter speeds about 1/100 or 1/200. If I set a higher shutter speed like 1/1000 that does not happen.

I think it has more to do with shutter speed. Try the same test with Silent Shooting (electronic shutter) rather than mechanical shutter.

[n1smo]

 

I have a little updated on this. After further research it has nothing to do with shutter speed. This can happen at any shutter speed, as soon as the camera needs to adjust the aperture in shutter priority, the frame rate drops. If the aperture is at minimum or maximum shutter (aperture number is blinking) the frame rate stays constant. You can see it in this video: https://imgur.com/a/ILYaSzf

[Pieter]

Sounds plausible: adjusting the aperture takes some time during which the camera can't take a photo. While panning the lighting conditions may vary a lot. Try M-mode instead of S-mode, dial in your desired shutter speed and pick an aperture which will give you around iso 400-800 at moderate lighting conditions. With auto-iso you'll have some 2-3 stops of headroom to compensate for varying lighting conditions during panning.

[n1smo]

Plausible maybe, but in my opinion the implementation is lacking. Im no engineer but im pretty sure this can be fixed by firmware. 

We have a "Release Priority" setting for AF already, why not one for exposure metering as well, just keep firing even if the aperture is not fully adjusted, just keep the frame rate constant. 

After spending plenty of hours with this problem in the last few days, i found out that nikons z6 has pretty much the same problem. 
But their solution is to lock the Exposure to the first frame in burst mode. If you want exposure metering for every frame, the frame rate is reduced from 12fps to 5.5.

I know i can use M, but this way they can pretty much remove shutter priority completely. 

[LiveShots]

11 hours ago, n1smo said:

..as soon as the camera needs to adjust the aperture in shutter priority, the frame rate drops.

Thanks for posting this, it explains why I’ve never seen this on my α9, as nutty as it sounds I shoot in Aperture Priority when shooting sports. I use the Min Shutter Speed option that shifts the ISO if the shutter speed drops below my preset.

[Iansky]

Have a look at this Mark Galer video on setup for sports with the A7iii.  I use this setup and I have no issues with frame rate.

Good luck.

 

[n1smo]

6 hours ago, Iansky said:

Have a look at this Mark Galer video on setup for sports with the A7iii.  I use this setup and I have no issues with frame rate.

Good luck.

 

Thx, i know this video, but as far as i can remember its basically all about freezing action (fast shutter speeds), and he forces this with the minimum shutter speed setting the a7iii offers, so he is able to shoot fast action in aperture priority, but that is not possible if you want to force slow shutter speeds for motion blur. My problem is tied to shutter priority.

[tinplater]

33 minutes ago, n1smo said:

Thx, i know this video, but as far as i can remember its basically all about freezing action (fast shutter speeds), and he forces this with the minimum shutter speed setting the a7iii offers, so he is able to shoot fast action in aperture priority, but that is not possible if you want to force slow shutter speeds for motion blur. My problem is tied to shutter priority.

What about shooting manual, select shutter speed and aperture and choose auto ISO?

[n1smo]

Yes, if sony does not fix this with a firmware, manual mode or AE lock are currently the only solutions to this.

[tinplater]

2 hours ago, n1smo said:

Yes, if sony does not fix this with a firmware, manual mode or AE lock are currently the only solutions to this.

Since motor sports are generally shot in excellent lighting, I would think auto iso adjustments would be just as effective as varying aperture.  I routinely shoot outdoor action (soccer, baseball, football, etc) in manual mode with auto ISO.  And since I am shooting fast shutter speed, the ISO is generally quite a bit higher than what you would get with slower panning exp;osures.

[Iansky]

On 5/1/2019 at 6:50 PM, n1smo said:

Thx, i know this video, but as far as i can remember its basically all about freezing action (fast shutter speeds), and he forces this with the minimum shutter speed setting the a7iii offers, so he is able to shoot fast action in aperture priority, but that is not possible if you want to force slow shutter speeds for motion blur. My problem is tied to shutter priority.

This does also work for slower panning shots as well and all you need to do is change the shutter speed setting from fast to slow and this will allow slower shutter speeds for panning such as the image below using this method.

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