"Aperture Drive in AF" on on A7R5 and A7R3

[Ski542002]

Hi: Even though some of the menu items in each of these two cameras are somewhat different, I'm trying to configure both to have similar actions when shooting PR projects, I use both cameras on a shoot.  

On my RV, I purposely set "Aperture Drive in AF" to Focus Priority. I want the same setting on my A7R3. BUT, on the R3 the menu says, INVALID WITH THIS LENS. I use the Sony 85 1.8, the 24-70 F2.8 G Master, and the 70-200 F4 G Master for both cameras. WHY is this option available on the R5 but greyed out on my R3, using these Sony lenses?

[Ski542002]

Hello again:  I accidentally hit submit, and there was no way to edit my original post.

My title should have read "Aperture Drive in AF" on A7R5 and A7R3.   Then continuing my original question...Even though some of the menu items in each of these two cameras are somewhat different, I'm trying to configure both to have similar actions when shooting PR projects, I use both cameras on a shoot.  

On my RV, I purposely set "Aperture Drive in AF" to Focus Priority. I want the same setting on my A7R3. BUT, on the R3 the menu says, INVALID WITH THIS LENS. I use the Sony 85 1.8, the 24-70 F2.8 G Master, and the 70-200 F4 G Master for both cameras. WHY is this option available on the R5 but greyed out on my R3, using these Sony lenses?

[lattesweden]

There is no Focus Priority mode on the A7RIII: https://helpguide.sony.net/ilc/1710/v1/en/contents/TP0001979556.html?search=aperture drive

The first camera to get it half baked was the A9mkI (only for some lenses, see lens list on Sonys site and also only with the e-shutter). The first true implementation of the Focus Priority mode in the Aperture Drive in AF menu was on the A7RIV.
If you don't know the order of Sonys body releases, see my post here: https://www.dpreview.com/forums/thread/4710785

And as we know, Sony very seldom retrofit older cameras with functions they didn't have at launch, so I wouldn't hope for an update.

[Olaf W.]

8 hours ago, Ski542002 said:

My title should have read

I‘ve corrected the title

[lattesweden]

I know what the Aperture Drive in AF Focus Priority does, I was curious what you wanted to achieve with it. I guess it is the same reason as me.

 

I shot a lot of low light club events and I have had problems with AF in low light for group portraits with flash at smaller aperture openings for DOF (like f8).

 

This was an issue with my A7RII, A9 and A7III. They all focused wonderfully in AF-C in low light wide open at f1.4 but when stopped down, they often lost focus (since Sony normally focuses at the working aperture = the set aperture). 

 

Aperture Drive in AF Focus Priority basically makes the body focus SLR style, meaning wide open, or near wide open (a little lens dependent) no matter what working aperture you have set.

 

The first camera to get Focus Priority half baked was the A9mkI (only for some lenses, see lens list on Sonys site and also only with the e-shutter so doesn't work with flash). 

 

The first true implementation of the Focus Priority mode in the Aperture Drive in AF menu was on the A7RIV.
(If you don't know the order of Sonys body releases, see my post here: https://www.dpreview.com/forums/thread/4710785 )

 

One of the reasons for buying an A7C for me was that it has Aperture Drive in AF Focus Priority and with it set to Focus Priority it shots stopped down in low light like a champ. 

 

My new A7RV does this as well (but I don't like 60 Mpix files for events, too slow in LR, and the 26 Mpix "M" mode on the A7RV is not true RAW so one looses DXO Prime noise reduction, same problem with Adobes new AI Denoise. One can round that problem by shooting 60 Mpix and then converting all the RAWs with Adobes DNG Converter and set its output to 20 Mpix and use that in LR for speed and then use the 60 Mpix RAWs for the special cases that needs the better noise reduction.

 

So the best event bodys at the time is A7C and A7IV and maybe A9II (but Sony has a special list of Sony lenses that works with the A9II Focus Priority mode and I don't know if 3d party lenses do work with it or not, haven't found anyone that can confirm. On all A7x bodys with Focus Priority mode it seems all E-mount AF lenses are compatible no matter brand).

 

There is no Focus Priority mode on the A7RIII, nor A7RIIIa: https://helpguide.sony.net/ilc/1710/v1/en/contents/TP0001979556.html?search=aperture drive

So you are out of luck on that body. And as we all know, Sony very seldom retrofit older cameras with functions they didn't have at launch, so I wouldn't hope for an update for the A7RIII/A7RIIIa, meaning you need to get an A7RIV or later body (see my body list link above).

 

On bodys that don't have the Focus Priority mode, turning of Live View Effects can help a little, using AF-S helps alot in my experience. Is slower off course and only measures once, but for group portraits with deep DOF, it works even if you or the subjects move a little depth wise. Before I had Focus Priority enabled bodys, I used AF-S and had it set in one of the memory modes on the PASM dial to switch more easily. I also had f8 set in my "group portrait" memory mode.

[Ski542002]

I appreciate your very comprehensive reply!

Thanks

[Ski542002]

You mentioned and I read (before I purchased the RV) that the 26 Mpix "M" mode on the A7RV is not true RAW.   I’ve never done a side-by-side comparison of the full raw, versus the 26mp version.  Going to do that tomorrow just to see the difference.  Will include a low light segment in the image to check noise.

Unless I see a noticeable quality difference between the 2 files, I can pretty much guarantee that I will not shoot 1000 full rez raw files for a wedding.  That’s the main reason I never pulled the trigger on the original A7R4.  

[lattesweden]

The 26 Mpix mode is really good up to about 8000 ISO including room for shadow push and the regular noise reduction in for instance LR can handle that well.

The problem comes when you go higher on the ISO and need better noise reduction algorithms like DXO Deep Prime or the new Adobe AI Denoise, Topaz Denoise etc and they answer that they can't work with your file, since it is isn't a proper RAW.

And all you is left with is the regular noise reduction, which isn't good enough to handle those noise levels.

The 60 Mpix files at high ISOs on the other hand cleans up surprisingly well in DXO Deep Prime for instance, I guess since there is so much data to work with.

[Ski542002]

Hello Lattesweden.  That's good to know.  I started testing this issue and found another frustrating issue regarding tethering the RV to Capture one Pro 23.  Need to figure that out first!  

If you want to take a gander at the issue, just search on this forum...

A7RV tethering to Capture 1 Pro for Mac & iPad, jpgs only?

 

 

[Ski542002]

Good morning Lattesweden:  So far, it's been a fantastic Wednesday.  If you want to see the solution for my tethering issue, go to the other thread indicated above.  More menu confusion with the Sony menu system!

Regarding my files' testing.  I tested with the RV on a tripod, shooting a Zeiss Batis 25. I ran the test shooting at 100 asa and 3200 asa.  I literally never go above 3200, so I don't care about higher ISO settings.  Shot a room in my home that had a full range of tones, including a very dark bathroom, which metered about 5 stops darker than normal.

I shot APS-C medium raw, and full uncompressed raw files on the RV.  

The 100iso test was unnecessary because there was no noise anywhere.  

Surprisingly to me, of the 3 files shot, the medium raw file from the RV had by far the cleanest noise in the dark bathroom. The worse was the full uncompressed raw. The medium raw noise in the dark bathroom was uniform, the full raw file in comparison, was almost blotchy.  

But MORE surprising, for the hell of it I ran the test on my A7R3 using the same lens, at 3200.  I shot uncompressed raw.  The A7R3 was by far the best of all files, and better than the medium-raw on the RV.

For my architectural and most of my corporate work, noise won't be an issue because I'll be shooting at base ISO. For my PR and wedding work, this conclusion could be an issue especially on a dark dance floor, but we'll see.  

[FunWithCameras]

On 5/9/2023 at 9:25 AM, Ski542002 said:

You mentioned and I read (before I purchased the RV) that the 26 Mpix "M" mode on the A7RV is not true RAW.   I’ve never done a side-by-side comparison of the full raw, versus the 26mp version.  Going to do that tomorrow just to see the difference.  Will include a low light segment in the image to check noise.

Unless I see a noticeable quality difference between the 2 files, I can pretty much guarantee that I will not shoot 1000 full rez raw files for a wedding.  That’s the main reason I never pulled the trigger on the original A7R4.  

The A7RV has two different 26Mp RAW files, both of them called 26Mp M. One is shot in APS-C crop mode - that one is a true RAW file. The other is shot in FF mode, and that one is not true RAW. There are also two 15Mp S RAW files (APS-C and FF), but neither is true raw.

If you can do good noise reduction on the files that aren't true RAW, that's cool. I haven't tried. I shoot L size RAW files, and sometimes a thousand or more of them in one shoot. But I'm under no time pressure to deliver a wedding album from them, so my experience isn't the same as yours.

[Ski542002]

Hello:  Yes, I mentioned in my previous reply...

"Surprisingly to me, of the 3 files shot, the medium raw file from the RV had by far the cleanest noise in the dark bathroom. The worse was the full uncompressed raw. The medium raw noise in the dark bathroom was uniform, the full raw file in comparison, was almost blotchy."

My medium-raw was much cleaner than the aps-c, with the full, uncompressed raw being the worse.  See the attached screenshot.  A screenshot is not the best way to show a comparison but you can see how much cleaner the medium-raw image is on the right.  Both at 3200

My experiment contradicts your thoughts on aps-c vs medium-raw. But again, I'm guessing this won't be an issue because this toilet/bathroom was at least 5 stops darker than 80% of the entire scene.  i.e on a dance floor, this level of darkness would be in the background.  For these scenarios, I usually darken the deep tones to hide the noise crappage.  

I have two weddings coming up on 5-20, 5-21, which will be my first real-world experiment with this new camera.  I'm ONLY shooting aps-c and medium-raw with the RV.  On a dance floor I always use on-camera strobe, so the dark-tones should not be an issue.  Will report back in after I do this real world experiment. 

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