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For the African safari I would definitely keep it and use it as a second body if you do not have another. You will not a) want to because of then dust which is a major problem, b) will not have time to change lenses. I used one body with a 300 f2.8 w/ 2x teleconverter and the other with the 70-200 /f2.8 on the second, this combo worked great. I would start the morning out without the teleconverter on the 300 then when we would stop for the morning break put the 2x on.
This is exactly the setup I'm considering! Thanks @kybob !
That’s the same initial reaction I had as well. It seems to pick up an eye much faster and seems every bit as good as 1.20. That’s the earliest firmware I encountered and until now was the best.
Sounds promising, If it goes back to being stickier just more consistent with BIF with busier backgrounds I would be happy. With the local urban Peregrines they'd fly past the old mill , with FW1.20 it would nail most shots , after FW1.3* it become noticeably worse with up to FW2.01 it'd jump straight to the windowsill's and bricks as the birds flew past almost like they'd totally altered the AF system . It got to the stage I'd lost confidence in it so was shooting less BIF . Eye AF for me was definitely worse , I even started turning it off regularly just using spot S with tracking for perched birds
_DSC3959 by leon kirkbride, on Flickr
Fantastic shot, Leon!The lighting is almost always poor in this location but the birds hunt , after standing about for hours in the cold nothing more annoying if the cameras focus isn't reliable . It usually happens quick so if the focus hits the background it could be hours before seeing them again. FW1.20 had no problems but with FW2.01 I had more bricks in focus than birds .
Hoping to test FW3.0 soon
Thanks Lance
I’m glad they’ve brought it back and this makes me even more happy I turned down the version 2 body. The A1 when right is just about perfect. Having the addition of focus bracketing honestly makes it perfect for me now.
Be interesting to hear how you get on Geoff , IME previous A1 FW's made the focus noticeably more twitchy for BIF . When panning using tracking or no tracking I was getting far less nailed shots . It wasn't so much the eye AF with FW1.20 I liked it was the stickiness and also less jumping to backgrounds . I'm just hoping FW3.0 gets it back to how it used to be , thats more important than focus bracketing or pre capture for me anyway
I agree with all your assessment. I’m also very glad I passed on the mark two A1 because the current A1 is just fine. I could easily use mine another 3-4 years without any hesitation.
Thank you @sh1209, @Andeye, and others for sharing your experiences with fm 3.0. I too stopped at v 1.32 and have hesitated to do another update, but many of you have had good luck with this using your 600 GMs. If the same holds true for the 200-600, I should finally do the updates. I'll need to figure out all of the various updates I'll need to get there. Could take a while.
. Thanks again!
As long as you go to the newest version you should be okay. It does have some nice features added such as focus bracketing.
You have to do 1.35 then 2.0 then 3.0 unless im mistaken. I know for sure you have to do 1.35 first though. You will lose all settings and they cannot be saved on card like during a normal firmware update. I just took some images with my cell phone of the most important items prior to updating.
Also remember that when you go from 1.35 to 2.02 you will lose all your settings, the menus will be quite different. Good to write down your settings or take photos or a video of the menu screens before doing that update. After 2.02 you won't lose settings again going to 3.0.
. Thank you, @sh1209 and @arbitrage! You both are always so helpful!
You’re very welcome. There’s no way I would’ve told you to do this prior to version 3.0. I’ve been very happy with mine since updating. It is a little time-consuming once you have to redo all your settings but hopefully just a one time thing from this point on any firmware updates should be just like normal updates. I think version 3.0 is what made me want to keep the A1 to be honest. I did have some thought about buying the version 2 A1 but after getting it back, seemingly the way it used to be, I’m very content with sticking with it.It's too bad the fm updates aren't cumulative. Would make things a lot easier. Sorry, if I sound "fussy".
