I'm setting up an A1 following Steve's guide, using BBAF. I find that my thumb falls much more naturally on the AF On button, so per Steve's set-up, my default is the selected AF area with tracking. On this camera is there any downside to initiating focus with tracking on?
Sony A1 AF Question
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FB101
Well-known member
There can be downsides to tracking but most of the time tracking AF is outstanding.
The most common case where you do not want to use tracking is for a bird on water with shimmering lights and reflections. The tracking will jump off the bird and on to the shiny water almost every time.
Similarly, but much rarer, if a bird is in the middle of branches the AF might jump to leaves or berries. It’s rare and even rarer if you used a small initial AF area for acquisition.
third, if you need super fast AF acquisition, then there might be a slight delay when using tracking. That’s why, when in a situation where subjects appear fast and you want instant acquisition, you might want to first acquire with non tracking and then switch to tracking. It seems the camera just stays on subject when going from non tracking to tracking and doesn’t lose focus in the switch.
For the most part, tracking in the A1 is pretty darn good, but like everything, it’s not perfect… yet.
The most common case where you do not want to use tracking is for a bird on water with shimmering lights and reflections. The tracking will jump off the bird and on to the shiny water almost every time.
Similarly, but much rarer, if a bird is in the middle of branches the AF might jump to leaves or berries. It’s rare and even rarer if you used a small initial AF area for acquisition.
third, if you need super fast AF acquisition, then there might be a slight delay when using tracking. That’s why, when in a situation where subjects appear fast and you want instant acquisition, you might want to first acquire with non tracking and then switch to tracking. It seems the camera just stays on subject when going from non tracking to tracking and doesn’t lose focus in the switch.
For the most part, tracking in the A1 is pretty darn good, but like everything, it’s not perfect… yet.
Just switch the buttons so AF On is non-tracking and vice-versa for the other button.
I second what Hut says. I use shutter focus with af/on assigned to tracking and it works flawlessly.
arbitrage
Well-known member
In my simple test of shooting my iPhone's stopwatch I was able to get 30FPS with Tracking. Now, given a more erratic real life subject maybe it does drop somewhat. I think Mark Galer got ~27FPS. Certainly not a reason to skip out on Tracking if you think it is the best mode for a particular scenario.
FB101
Well-known member
that one is tricky, what has worked best for me but takes quite a lot of practice is to acquire the bird in the sky with tracking and keep it during thestart of the dive if you can. Switch to non tracking before it hits water! That’s the key because if you are in tracking while the bird hits water you have 100% chance AF will jump to the water. Only resume tracking after it“s done splashing around and extracted itself from the water.
‘I have thousands of shots focused on water droplets because I kept in tracking the whole time.
That works for ospreys. I suspect even faster birds like king fishers might need non tracking throughout so that you can use 30fps throughout.
It's mostly just learning what does and doesn't work with tracking. Most of the time I start with tracking because it's very good at either sticking to the spot on the animal I want it to or, more likely, it'll just see the face / eye and grab right on, leaving me free to compose as I choose. However, there's a reason why AEL is set for normal AF - if tracking isn't getting the job done (or if I know it's not going to work well), I simply focus with the AEL button instead.
FB101
Well-known member
i agree. In my own tests only selecting lossless compressed dropped fps to a hard 20fps
All the others are variable - shutter release on ”auto” can go from 30fps to like 2 fps (maddening), tracking usually drops the rate by less than a handful if coupled with release priority (but if AF priority or “auto” then all bets are off).
arbitrage
Well-known member
I use Tracking sparingly. I do use it for most of my perched bird work which then is 99% of the time switching into Bird Eye AF. Bird Eye AF comes on more readily in Tracking than non-tracking for whatever reason.
But for most of my BIF work I use non-Tracking Wide (sometimes Zone). For very erratic BIF you will see Tracking resort back to non-tracking (ie dancing squares) a lot of the time anyways. And as mentioned up thread, Tracking will sometimes grab a distraction and never let go. Non-tracking may bounce over to a distraction for a frame or two but then will re-acquire the moving subject. Tracking will often just lock on that distraction for the entire BIF sequence and you miss it all.
This past weekend the Violet-green swallows arrived back in town. Wide (non-tracking) did the trick as it always does for me....
But for most of my BIF work I use non-Tracking Wide (sometimes Zone). For very erratic BIF you will see Tracking resort back to non-tracking (ie dancing squares) a lot of the time anyways. And as mentioned up thread, Tracking will sometimes grab a distraction and never let go. Non-tracking may bounce over to a distraction for a frame or two but then will re-acquire the moving subject. Tracking will often just lock on that distraction for the entire BIF sequence and you miss it all.
This past weekend the Violet-green swallows arrived back in town. Wide (non-tracking) did the trick as it always does for me....
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arbitrage
Well-known member
Yes, I shoot all my images in Compressed (lossy), Release priority. Lossless and Uncompressed are documented by Sony to max at 20 so that should be a hard limit. I wouldn't mind using Lossless if Sony had an automatic switch to Compressed when I turn the drive mode to the 30FPS setting but I don't feel like switching compression modes when I want 30 on the fly.
FB101
Well-known member
Gorgeous! That’s my personal challenge for 2022, SIF (swallow in flight), I have never owned a camera capable of catching those up to now so I am going to give it a try this year
And I will use non tracking based on your experience!
That’s interesting that you use tracking mostly for static subjects. I will have to give that a try. So you were saying for birds and flat you typically use wide or zone with good results?
arbitrage
Well-known member
The reason I use Tracking for perched birds is that I use it either out of Small Flex Spot or Expand Flex Spot spot so I can really target into the area where the bird or head of the bird is but then Eye AF will take over and I can recompose freely.
For flight I use non tracking Wide and Zone. Sometimes I’ll experiment with Tracking and it certainly can work well in the right situations. Certainly with the A1 Tracking for BIF works a lot better than it did on A9 series.
I’ll give that a try the next time I’m out. I mostly use small spot on perched birds as well.
Excellent shots! Love the expressions and that background is jaw-dropping!
It's interesting when it comes to tracking / non-tracking, I've had kind of the opposite experience. I started off using the a1 mostly in non-tracking and zone. It worked well, but when I switched to Zone Tracking for BIF, it seemed like I had a higher keeper rate (not by much though - it's close). I kind of feel like zone + tracking gives me the best of both - when tracking works, it's great, when it doesn't it acts like regular zone (which is rare - tracking usually takes over pretty quickly). And, as you say, it does seem like eye detection is slightly better with tracking. Still, it's not good for every BIF situation.
Also, I too use tracking with static birds - and many mammals - all the time as well. It really frees you up for composition and it almost always jumps right to the eye. I also like to use tracking when a bird is about to take off. I get tracking to stick to the bird and as long as I can successfully follow it, it's usually a success.
At any rate, I think it's a testimony to the camera - it works really well in many configurations. I think what works best can vary from shooter to shooter simply based on their field techniques and it's great that the camera can produce consistent results for so many.
Here are some examples. The first three are using Zone Tracking and the kingfisher was with non-tracking. It all seems to work
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And this was a slightly older shot using just Zone with eye detection on (non-tracking)
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LTK
Well-known member
Presume you guys leave BEAF priority on with BIF even when just using wide or zone none tracking ?
arbitrage
Well-known member
LTK
Well-known member
Thanks , I've noticed since the latest FW updates it seems to recognise some BIF better now although some it still just doesn't seem to pick up at all. Hopefully with later FW updates they'll keep improving it . Funny thing is when it does recognise them and if it nails it the sharpness and details of the eye is quite impressive. With the non tracking Zone I find it grabs the birds well even when the BEAF isn't activated but don't seem quite as good as the ones BEAF grabs . I'm still using the 200-600 so try to get BIF as close s possible
clementstevens
New member
Amazing shot Bravo