Wildlife A7ii & 100-400gm settings

[followingeric]

Hi all

I will be going on two safaris later this year and have decided to advance with the purchase of the Sony 100-400gm at the main lens and not upgrade my body from a7ii to anything else. I mainly shoot landscape and auto-focus has never been a concern to me, but of course with Safari I am now thinking about it. I don't have enough money nor do i want to buy the new lens and a new body. Would rather invest in just the glass at this point.

Despite searching the internet for details regarding settings specifically for the A7ii, I can't find anything. I will be getting loads of extra bateries as I am aware and even experience this problem out in the field. I will also be upgrading my card to the fastest U3 card I can get. my understanding is the A7ii can't write faster than 30mb/s anyways. But at the moment I only have a U1 and it lags.

So my main questions are

1) what are optimum or go to settings for wildlife. I currently always use back button focus. But should I change that for wildlife. Any guidance that I can try before I go on the family dog would be great. I find tracking hasn't been successful in the past. 

2) tips on in the field, have to find the balance between not shooting too much on burst mode to slow the camera down. I would hate for it to be trying to write while I miss all the action.

My initial thoughts are to focus more often instead of trying to track and focus with mainly a centre point focus. Trying to keep lets say on the lions head. While also trying not to over shoot in burst to get me stuck while I wait to write.

Tips also on maximum iso and shutter speed recommendations are always welcome. I am by no means a beginer to photography. But maximizing auto focus settings for wildlife is very new.

 

Many thanks

 

Eric