sony a7r2 focus not working?

[brian.mccready1]

Hi everyone

I have bought myself a 7r2 and I am having problems geting sharp pictures. I have been trying to take pickies of gold finches on my feeders.

I have been using a sony 70-200 g lens, supposed to be very good, and the feeders are about 30 mts away and i just can't seem to get a decent picky, when I crop about 50% the pickies are dreadfull. I have

tried loads of settings from auto, manual, shutter speeds, high iso, low iso you name it, iv'e tried it. steet photography is fine and similar stuff to.I have yet to see the wow factor you read in reviews. so I am wondering if my camera is faulty. It does not seem any better than my a6000. surely it should be. could there be something wrong.......any ideas are welcome, or is it just me?

[adwb]

shutter speed? aperture?  iso? is it on tripod ? we need more info please

[yali]

hm, first thing coming to my mind: do you have the camera on aps-c mode? what is the resolution of the original uncropped pic?

[brian.mccready1]

I have used a tripod with ibis of, full 42 mega pixel, crop mode 18 mega pixel, several shuter speeds between 30 up to 1000, iso from 50 to 6400. done the same with my a6000, but the a7r2 is no better. even 50%crop with a camera of this speck should be better this.

[yali]

what lens did you use with the a6000?

The A7RII in crop-mode will obviously be worse than the a6000. In cropmode it only delivers 18 megapixels. the a600 will deliver 24 with the same field-of-view

[Guest all8]

I have used a tripod with ibis of, full 42 mega pixel, crop mode 18 mega pixel, several shuter speeds between 30 up to 1000, iso from 50 to 6400. done the same with my a6000, but the a7r2 is no better. even 50%crop with a camera of this speck should be better this.

 

Firstly, use a tripod _without_ ibis, and see if that helps. Secondly, post a sample so people can see your problem, and note the AF mode used (AFS/C and Mode). 

 

You will need a fast shutter speed to take photos of small birds, a 50% hit rate is rather good.

 

This was my first attempt, with A7ii w. 70-200 G4, hand held, ISO1600, f4.5, 1/125, 200mm - I had a low hit rate because of the shutter speed, but its possible. This might have even been with manual focus, prefocused to the mid point of the perch.

 

 

 

Its probably you  

[Guest Peter Kelly]

To figure out the case of the problem you'll need to be certain what it is first!

 

Obviously there are several causes of unsharp pictures:

 

Out of focus

Motion blur

Low light

Poor optics

Camera shake

 

But as well as that there is perception. Sometimes I have found that certain textures, such as bird feathers, don't appear to be sharp when in reality they are. I think it's how digital renders them.

Also, the effects of this become more so if you crop heavily. Anyway, to try to solve your issue you need to rule out each possibility.

 

So the obvious thing is to check the lens with shots of static, very well lit items with various apertures and low ISO. If you find it's not sharp then nothing you do will fix your problem!

 

That said, I think 1/1000 is the absolute minimum speed for birds whose movement, even while perched, can be very quick indeed over short distances.

I'd much rather shoot these at 1/4000 at ISO 6400 than 1/500 at ISO 800. Likewise, at 30m you can shoot wide open and still have a DoF of 1/2m, so stick with that to give you all the light possible.

And to certainly rule out camera shake, keep using a tripod with AS turned off, just make sure it is a good tripod. It's easy to believe your tripod is solid, even if it isn't!

 

Good luck!

[brian.mccready1]

thanks for all your advice, will keep practicing and hope to get good sharp pickies eventualy,

[Guest Colin Scott Johnson]

May be obvious, but there is a switch on the 70-200 for Manual vs Auto Focus.

If this is switched to manual it will drive you crazy trying to figure out what is going on