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A7rII Continuous AF hunting at f11 or higher

bdp

Member
I noticed what I see as a problem with continuous AF hunting on my A7rII today.

Today I was shooting outside in bright sun at f11, continuous AF. I noticed the focus would hunt back and forth, even on a clearly contrasty subject. However if I changed the aperture to f8, the focus stops hunting and has no trouble locking on.

This was with the Sony Zeiss 35mm f1.4.

Has anyone else been bothered by this behaviour? Not sure if it's just since the latest firmware update, because I normally shoot close to wide open.

To me this is bad. What if I wanted to shoot someone walking towards me at f/11? Most of the shots would be soft.

Hopefully this will be fixed in the upcoming firmware update. I have attached an iPhone video of the behaviour here: https://youtu.be/QkzPR9xtMIg


Any workarounds? I've tried playing with various camera settings but it makes no difference.


Ben
 

k-hawinkler

Well-known member
I noticed what I see as a problem with continuous AF hunting on my A7rII today.

Today I was shooting outside in bright sun at f11, continuous AF. I noticed the focus would hunt back and forth, even on a clearly contrasty subject. However if I changed the aperture to f8, the focus stops hunting and has no trouble locking on.

This was with the Sony Zeiss 35mm f1.4.

Has anyone else been bothered by this behaviour? Not sure if it's just since the latest firmware update, because I normally shoot close to wide open.

To me this is bad. What if I wanted to shoot someone walking towards me at f/11? Most of the shots would be soft.

Hopefully this will be fixed in the upcoming firmware update. I have attached an iPhone video of the behaviour here: https://youtu.be/QkzPR9xtMIg


Any workarounds? I've tried playing with various camera settings but it makes no difference.


Ben
Did you use AF-S or AF-C? For the video scene AF-S should work okay.
AF-S always uses CDAF, AF-C uses PDAF up to f/8, higher than that CDAF AFAIK.
That's when the camera hunts for focus easily in AF-C mode. :banghead:
 

bdp

Member
Did you use AF-S or AF-C? For the video scene AF-S should work okay.
AF-S always uses CDAF, AF-C uses PDAF up to f/8, higher than that CDAF AFAIK.
That's when the camera hunts for focus easily in AF-C mode. :banghead:
It was in AF-C mode, shooting stills. I know that in this case my subject wasn't moving and I could have had it in AF-S, but I always left my Canons in Continuous AF mode to allow for any movement by me or my subject when hand holding. The fact that my subject in this case was stationary makes it even more annoying that the Sony hunts back and forth for a while, even in a sunny high contrast situation. I could forgive it if it happened in a dark room or on a smooth surface with no contrast, but this is ridiculous.

Ben
 
It was in AF-C mode, shooting stills. I know that in this case my subject wasn't moving and I could have had it in AF-S, but I always left my Canons in Continuous AF mode to allow for any movement by me or my subject when hand holding. The fact that my subject in this case was stationary makes it even more annoying that the Sony hunts back and forth for a while, even in a sunny high contrast situation. I could forgive it if it happened in a dark room or on a smooth surface with no contrast, but this is ridiculous.

Ben
Have you ever used Automatic AF?

(Automatic AF):
[Single-shot AF] and [Continuous AF] are switched according to the movement of the subject. When the shutter button is pressed halfway down, the product locks the focus when it determines that the subject is motionless, or continues to focus when the subject is in motion.
During continuous shooting, the product automatically shoots with Continuous AF from the second shot.
 

bdp

Member
Hi Ario,

Thanks for the suggestion. I have tried that mode but to be honest I haven't found it to be very reliable. Especially compared to using AF-C to compensate for me moving (when shooting handheld) as opposed to the subject. Continuous AF combined with back button focus is usually the way I like to work and it just always keeps my subject in focus, whether I move a bit or my subject moves. So I really like to use that mode all the time. Luckily I usually shoot more wide open than f11 so this little Sony quirk shouldn't bother me too much.

Ben
 
Hi Ben, I also use back button AF as you do but in combination with the Automatic AF since when I discopvered this mode, and I am pretty satisfied. Previously I was also using back button AF/Continuous AF as my standard mode.
 
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