Sony a9ii & wildlife

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RichardN

RichardN

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I am switching over to Sony and have ordered the a9ii. (used). The a1 looks incredible but is beyond my budget. I'll be using it with the 200 - 600 lens. I'd be interested in any comments/experiences from anyone who has used this combination - pros, cons, tricks, whatever.
Thanks!
Richard
 
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It is an amazing piece of kit. Especially now that you can get a good used price on the body and the lens is probably the best value for performance you can buy for wildlife. The AF in my opinion still bests Canon R5 and Nikon Z9. The only thing it is missing compared to those is the Bird Eye AF but it does have the Animal Eye AF that works on a lot of different species (I've had it work on deer, raccoons, seals). Yes the A1 takes things up another notch but for 95% of wildlife shooting the extra performance of the A1 probably doesn't even matter.

I would also consider picking up the 1.4TC as on the A9 with its 24MP sensor the 200-600/1.4 still provides a really good image (on the higher MP A1 I prefer to crop the bare lens over using the 1.4 but on the A9II I liked using it when light allowed (f/9) and 840mm was needed).

I ran my A9II in Tracking Sensitivity 1 and mostly kept my lens on OSS 1 or OFF for really high shutter speeds and erratic birds like swallows IF.
 
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I used the A9i and 200-600 with 1.4 TC on a recent trip with excellent results. The only issue I found was that the A9 often missed critical focus on low contrast subjects. Quite possibly user error, but something to be aware of.
 
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arbitrage said:
It is an amazing piece of kit. Especially now that you can get a good used price on the body and the lens is probably the best value for performance you can buy for wildlife. The AF in my opinion still bests Canon R5 and Nikon Z9. The only thing it is missing compared to those is the Bird Eye AF but it does have the Animal Eye AF that works on a lot of different species (I've had it work on deer, raccoons, seals). Yes the A1 takes things up another notch but for 95% of wildlife shooting the extra performance of the A1 probably doesn't even matter.

I would also consider picking up the 1.4TC as on the A9 with its 24MP sensor the 200-600/1.4 still provides a really good image (on the higher MP A1 I prefer to crop the bare lens over using the 1.4 but on the A9II I liked using it when light allowed (f/9) and 840mm was needed).

I ran my A9II in Tracking Sensitivity 1 and mostly kept my lens on OSS 1 or OFF for really high shutter speeds and erratic birds like swallows IF.
Click to expand...
One more question - how about the 100 - 400 with TC? Any experience with that combo?
Thanks!
 
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RichardN said:
I am switching over to Sony and have ordered the a9ii. (used). The a1 looks incredible but is beyond my budget. I'll be using it with the 200 - 600 lens. I'd be interested in any comments/experiences from anyone who has used this combination - pros, cons, tricks, whatever.
Thanks!
Richard
Click to expand...
What none of the Sony FFs do reliably, except perhaps the A1, is AF on small static subjects in mid ground.
So if you want record shots of birds for example you're going to be frustrated at times.
 
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Ziggy said:
What none of the Sony FFs do reliably, except perhaps the A1, is AF on small static subjects in mid ground.
So if you want record shots of birds for example you're going to be frustrated at times.
Click to expand...
I have no issues with this if using a suitable AF mode. What do you mean by mid-ground exactly? Is this just a certain distance you have trouble with?
 
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