a6600 Viewfinder Lockup on Activating Auto-Focus

[Brad Mitchell]

Hi all.

I was shooting birds with my a6600 this weekend and experienced multiple-second lockup of the "live" image on my viewfinder when activating the auto-focus.  Here are more details:

• Focus set to AF-C continuous.
• Camera configured for rear-button activation of auto-focus (autofocus is not engaged by pressing main shutter release button half-way).

Everything worked fine for about an hour.  I took hundreds of photos.  Then things started acting up.  When I pressed the rear-button to activate auto-focus, the viewfinder image would freeze for about 2-4 seconds before showing live image again.  And of course my bird would move within those couple seconds.

A few things I tried unsuccessfully to fix the problem:

• Used rear display instead of viewfinder.
• Tried AF-S instead of AF-C.
• Changed away from and back to my M2 shooting mode (which is a custom camera mode I've configured for bird photography):  Manual mode, Auto ISO, rear-button AF-C.
• Cycled power on the camera.
• Removed memory card, and then inserted and formatted a different memory card.

Then, I removed the battery from the camera, waited 10 seconds and put the battery back in.  This solved the problem and I continued shooting for another hour without problems.

My experience was probably similar to what is shown in the video here, though it is difficult to tell from the video if activation of AF is initiating freeze-up of the "live" display:  https://www.sonyalphaforum.com/topic/12851-a6400-lcd-viewer-freezes-in-photo-mode/?tab=comments#comment-51290

Has anyone else experienced this problem or know what causes it?

Best regards,
Brad Mitchell