Af-c Without Pressing Shutter Not Working

[cmtn]

I am trying to set up continuous autofocus without pressing the shutter, and can only get it to work on one of my 4 sony A6000's.  For the life of me I cannot figure out what is different about the settings on that one camera that will enable the lens to refocus without pressing down the shutter when I move the camera around to different subjects.  I have tried different lenses, and they all will continuously autofocus on just that one camera.  All of the sony a6000's have been upgraded to version 3.2.  Thanks for any ideas/help.

[tinplater]

I don't understand your question...do you want to disable focus with shutter button and use another button (back button focus) to achieve focus?  You can disable shutter focus, and you can assign focus to a variety of other buttons.

[cmtn]

I want it to adjust focus without pushing a button.  My one camera does that, on several different lens.  For example, if I put my hand close to the lens, it focuses on my hand.  When I take my hand away, the background is out of focus - it automatically adjusts focus on the background, without pushing a button.

[LiveShots]

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[tinplater]

Very confusing, you have to tell the camera to focus on something...if you select a tracking option then it will track the selected object.  Since the one camera is doing what you want, carefully duplicate the settings from that camera to the ones that aren't working.  It sounds like you want tracking enabled (where you push button to achieve selected focus, the camera tracks the selected item).  There aren't that many choices continuous focus plus lock on AF or lock on af flexible spot.  I have my A6500 set to use the center wheel button to start the lock on auto focus process.  It requires a push to bring up on off choice, press to on, then a third press to choose the focus object in the center rectangle.  Then a half press of the shutter to achieve focus, then a full press to take the picture.

Another choice is to enable lock on AF Flexible spot.  Then a half press achieves focus and is held while you hold the shutter button half way down.  You have to continue to half press the button or auto focus will stop.

[cmtn]

I think I found something that works for me  - turning on ' af with shutter', tools menu (3rd tab), and turning on 'lock on autofocus, start with shutter' (camera main menu, 5th tab).  That enables autofocus to occur when the camera is unattended,  when pushing down the shutter halfway for focus is not an option.

My purpose is to use the sony a6000 in an underwater casing suspended from a rope and towed, while it takes photos at 3 or 5 second intervals.  I tried this last fall in Bonaire, and it worked very well - the fish pretty much ignore it, which is not the case when a diving body with a camera comes towards them.  You can see some of my pics here: http://journeywest.com/20171007.html .

The third party time release app I use can be found at the youtube link below:   It allows shooting in af-c, which the timelapse on the sony playmemories store does not.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-OSMhZfV04&feature=em-comments

 

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Edited June 21, 2018 by cmtn

[tinplater]

Thanks for posting your images...they are beautiful.

[Pieter]

I think what you mean is pre-af. Find it under menu 2 page 3, first option. It makes your camera pre-focus continuously when active without any button presses, for quick focus acquisistion when doing action shots. It's set to off by default to conserve battery life.