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A6000 arrives tomorrow...

tashley

tashley

Subscriber Member
Well, the A6000 is here but I'm afraid it's about as much use as a chocolate fireguard to me: the included manual is really just a Quick Start guide and it refers you to Sony support website, which gleefully informs me that support for the camera is coming soon.

The crux of this is: which focus area modes does AF-C work in if you want tracking? I have read that it only works in wide area mode. There's nothing in the manual that I can see, but there does seem to be some form of continuous focus in Wide, Area, Centre and Single spot modes though I imagine that Wide is needed (as I have read) for tracking performance. Trouble is, you can't dictate what it thinks is the subject.

I will explore in some proper depth but with no instructions it ain't easy. First test,the famous 'running dog' test with the 55 F1.8, failed to find any setting that could track to any useful degree at all.

Otherwise everything seems OK, focus is very fast and accurate on static subjects, the JPEGS look horrible and LR doesn't read the RAW yet, whereas Sony's IDC does its usual weird stuff on them and is to be avoided.

Mine arrived with a large and unshakeable blob of dust on the sensor (a first for me with Sony) and I have to say that unless you have fingers like chopsticks, getting the memory card out is going to really annoy you.

More later.
 
tashley

tashley

Subscriber Member
Makes no difference as far as I can see, but still testing. If you use single point it can't track to outside that point and if you use one of the wider modes, you can't determine what it should be locking onto unless you're using face detect and there's a face. Sometimes it will track a subject which it initially finds, if it is contrasty or has a brighter colour than the rest of the frame, but often it will just fail. I reserve judgement until I have found some decent instructions but for now, it smells like some marketing puff and some carefully selected pre-testers who only used the sorts of subjects on which it works (bright doll on gray background background, for e.g.)
 
tashley

tashley

Subscriber Member
Here's an example of what I am talking about. When framing the image below using WIDE area and AF-C, the system locks onto the balloons but if you sweep the camera gently from side to side it loses interest in them and starts looking at a patch of grass nearby.

 
tashley

tashley

Subscriber Member
And just for sh*ts and giggles, as the vulgar expression goes, here are links to two RAW files saved into DNG with no sharpening. Take the one with the boat and give it appropriate sharpening. When I do that, I get a strange effect on the wall behind the subject, sort of like sand ripples on the beach, even though that wall is totes smooth.

http://tashley1.zenfolio.com/img/g645725606-o374332360.dat?dl=2&tk=LOBK7nmRf_uzC7o0s2fKvjYk0gQGvxJrUiytAZ0-hjU=

And here's one that shows how effective AF-C is at tracking something when it stops moving. Pretty good.
http://tashley1.zenfolio.com/img/g553683544-o374332360.dat?dl=2&tk=pc_Pa-rpuPKon7mE__6N0k8EjHmy7L_s7Z1lCdnbRXI=
 
k-hawinkler

k-hawinkler

Well-known member
tashley said:
Here's an example of what I am talking about. When framing the image below using WIDE area and AF-C, the system locks onto the balloons but if you sweep the camera gently from side to side it loses interest in them and starts looking at a patch of grass nearby.

Click to expand...

Thanks Tim. That's exactly what the E-M1 would do with AF-C, namely continuous focusing on whatever you currently point the camera at, but no tracking. The E-M1 has another mode, namely AF-C Tr, that would keep the focus on your initial focus object, the balloons in this case and track them. I wonder what the corresponding setting is for the A6000?

With the E-M1 I have tracked cars going up a road on a hill. The camera was on a tripod. The focus point set to the extreme left. When a car entered that area I half pressed the shutter until the camera achieved focus. Then I kept the shutter button pressed down and saw a yellow focus box around the car, travelling across the viewfinder and taking images. It also was important ahead of time to set how many images per second one would want to take as eventually the camera will run out of buffer for too high a frame count per second.
 
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B

bipbip

Member
tashley said:
With respect, those two links prove my point entirely: the first leads to the Chocolate Fireguard manual (looks useful from a distance, is not very useful close up) and the second link just goes to the Sony website with nothing about the 6000. I can't find anything anywhere more useful online, either...
Click to expand...
Sorry.
I thought the 48 page version would be the one you might be looking for as the 'Chocolate Fireguard' version I took to be the 'Help Guide' at only 1.27 Mb ...
The second link, although copied and pasted correctly is typical of corporate sites then rerouting to what they consider important, not the customer's wishes; thus the "http://www.sony.co.uk/support/en/product/ILCE-6000#Manuals" link leading to their main entry page and one having to go through all the clicks thereafter ...
The larger centre link of 31.51 Mb is not worth the wait as it's the same manual in several different languages.
 
tashley

tashley

Subscriber Member
Thanks, got that, will have a read later... I know Sony's website is famously bad (SAR have been doing a series of 'spot the mistake' articles) but making people treat the manual as the centrepiece of an Easter Egg Hunt seems egregiously daft...
 
tashley

tashley

Subscriber Member
One little learning: Guy's advice from yesterday is correct according to the manual but in real life it only works if you are NOT in flexible Spot setting for AF area: in that setting, pressing the control wheel centre button, which should make the tracking frame appear, instead makes the flexible spot yellow/moveable.

In Wide, Zone and Centre it works as advertised but if you are a flexible spot shooter you'll need to use Lock on AF ON (start with shutter) or you won't be able to make the tracking frame appear. You might be able to alter this behaviour with custom control settings but as-shipped, it doesn't work in the way the manual states.

Now to go and see if it works!
 
Guy Mancuso

Guy Mancuso

Administrator, Instructor
Tim good input I did not realize the flexible spot did not work like that. I remember seeing a yellow box on my A7 and could never get it back when I first got it it. Now I know why. I have yet to read the bloody manuals.:banghead:
 
T

tn1krr

New member
Hello, a forum newbie here :) I've had my A6000 for some days now and have tested the AF-C/tracking a bit. Bought the camera for AF-C/tracking/locking/burst in decent light, I have the A7R for pretty much everything else. The longest lens I have is the FE 55/1.8 though my FE 70-200/4 OSS should be here in about a week.

Anyway, I agree on the analysis on lock on AF. If you focus on a static subject and move camera it has tendency to go looking for something else. On the moving subjects it seems to be a bit happier keeping the lock: I tested the FE 55 wide open with lock on shutter + flex spot large on the side of a road and when I locked the car in a distance it was followed quite nicely until it passed me within a few meter despite being a multilane road during rush hour so there was plenty of background "noise" to confuse the lock. Lock was maintained quite nicely from one corner of the frame to another. I tested the burst shooting both 6 and 11 fps and pretty much each and every frame was in focus, but with FE 55 even wide open that is not really a that huge an accomplement.

One thing I was not super happy about lock on AF was its tendency to "go big". Even with flex-spot small it picked huge objects like a whole 18 wheeler. But I quess that is sort of nature of the best and for keeping the tracking on specific point lock-on AF needs to be disabled and smaller target tracked manually while the camera maintains focus. This was just a short test, I sneaked out of our office almost immediately when the courier brought me the camera only to be sent back by the nasty wind chill some 20 minutes later.
I'll be banging my head on this further when the FE 70-200 arrives, the FE 55 is not really an action lens.
 
Guy Mancuso

Guy Mancuso

Administrator, Instructor
Yea like to see what it really does with the long zoom. That's where I need the tracking is models walking down a runway which I shoot about 15k images in a couple days so focus tracking is real important for this gig. Or even my ZA 135 1.8 which becomes a 190 1.8 on this body. Yum
 
tashley

tashley

Subscriber Member
I should have the 70-200 f4 soon so I'll report back. Probably too slow for runway work though...
 
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