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AF-A - Can't Figure It Out

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Richard McDougal

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I've got a question about this that has been bothering me for a while.

As described in the A55 user's manual AF-A mode is supposed to function like this:

"The [Autofocus Mode] is switched between Single-shot AF and Continuous AF according to the movement of the subject. When you press and hold the shutter button halfway down, if the subject is motionless, the focus is locked and if the subject is in motion, the camera continues to focus".

I've never yet been able to tell the difference between AF-S and AF-A on my A55... it always performs like AF-S as far as I have been able to tell. If the subject moves at all after the camera has locked it doesn't attempt to refocus.

My father has a Nikon 60D and when in AF-A mode you can clearly see that the camera will switch modes and refocus if the subject is in motion. This all happens fairly quickly.

What am I missing here?
 
AF-A is a hybrid mode that can be configured in one of two ways:

1) As an auto focusing mode that will switch between AF-S and AF-C depending upon the motion of the subject. I find it a little frustrating as you end up trying to second guess what the camera is going to do.

2) As a manual focussing override following auto focus lock. IMO, DMF is the more useful of the two configurations as it allows you to tweak the focus after you have gained AF lock. This is particularly useful with zoom lens and is the setting that both my A700 and A77 are at 90% of the time.
 
Yemble said:
2) As a manual focussing override following auto focus lock.
Click to expand...
Unfortunately he has an A55, so that option doesn't exist.

I too found AF-A pretty useless. The one reason I sometimes had it on for on my previous cameras is because when you're in burst mode it switches to AF-C automatically. If you leave focus on AF-S it locks focus on first frame, so to have continuous focus during burst you need to switch to AF-C, which I would always forget. AF-A gave me "pretty much always AF-S" in single shot mode, and AF-C automatically in burst mode. I however went back to switching manually after it decided several times to AF-C when I wanted AF-S due to unsteady hand or such.

On the A77 it's a no-brainer, I set it to DMF right away and will leave it there.

--
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kilrah/
http://www.youtube.com/user/kilrahvp
 
Kilrah said:
Yemble said:
2) As a manual focussing override following auto focus lock.
Click to expand...
Unfortunately he has an A55, so that option doesn't exist.

I too found AF-A pretty useless. The one reason I sometimes had it on for on my previous cameras is because when you're in burst mode it switches to AF-C automatically. If you leave focus on AF-S it locks focus on first frame, so to have continuous focus during burst you need to switch to AF-C, which I would always forget. AF-A gave me "pretty much always AF-S" in single shot mode, and AF-C automatically in burst mode. I however went back to switching manually after it decided several times to AF-C when I wanted AF-S due to unsteady hand or such.

On the A77 it's a no-brainer, I set it to DMF right away and will leave it there.
Click to expand...
Wow, I never realized that the A55 did not have DMF, I had assumed that all Sony DSLRs had this Minolta born tech built in (DMF was on my KM 5D). That is a shocking revalation !
 
Yes, unfortunately the A55 doesn't have DMF.

Has anyone used the Nikon AF-A implementation? It seems much better (minus DMF) than the AF-A implementation the A55 uses.
 
and you can count them on one hand: A77, A100, A700, A850, A900
Yemble said:
Kilrah said:
Yemble said:
2) As a manual focussing override following auto focus lock.
Click to expand...
Unfortunately he has an A55, so that option doesn't exist.

I too found AF-A pretty useless. The one reason I sometimes had it on for on my previous cameras is because when you're in burst mode it switches to AF-C automatically. If you leave focus on AF-S it locks focus on first frame, so to have continuous focus during burst you need to switch to AF-C, which I would always forget. AF-A gave me "pretty much always AF-S" in single shot mode, and AF-C automatically in burst mode. I however went back to switching manually after it decided several times to AF-C when I wanted AF-S due to unsteady hand or such.

On the A77 it's a no-brainer, I set it to DMF right away and will leave it there.
Click to expand...
Wow, I never realized that the A55 did not have DMF, I had assumed that all Sony DSLRs had this Minolta born tech built in (DMF was on my KM 5D). That is a shocking revalation !
Click to expand...
 
Yemble said:
Kilrah said:
Yemble said:
2) As a manual focussing override following auto focus lock.
Click to expand...
Unfortunately he has an A55, so that option doesn't exist.

I too found AF-A pretty useless. The one reason I sometimes had it on for on my previous cameras is because when you're in burst mode it switches to AF-C automatically. If you leave focus on AF-S it locks focus on first frame, so to have continuous focus during burst you need to switch to AF-C, which I would always forget. AF-A gave me "pretty much always AF-S" in single shot mode, and AF-C automatically in burst mode. I however went back to switching manually after it decided several times to AF-C when I wanted AF-S due to unsteady hand or such.

On the A77 it's a no-brainer, I set it to DMF right away and will leave it there.
Click to expand...
Wow, I never realized that the A55 did not have DMF, I had assumed that all Sony DSLRs had this Minolta born tech built in (DMF was on my KM 5D). That is a shocking revalation !
Click to expand...
Someone please just quick tell me what DMF stands for -

--
Gary Eickmeier
 
Seriously...?

Direct Manual Focus
 
al. said:
and you can count them on one hand: A77, A100, A700, A850, A900
Click to expand...
I know that Sony went through a phase of dumbing down their DSLRs, but I am genuinely shocked to learn that DMF was dropped from the five series, given that it was in the KM five series (aka. the Sony A100). Lucky then that I upgraded to the seven series when the A700 first came out.
 
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