So that would be number 1 , instead of 3 (?). More “sticky” (?). I know, I should set my menu to English...instead of stupid translation (Dutch here).
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VisionLight
Veteran Member
Thanks for the link. I will read through that thread. (I'm surprised it did not come up in my search). I thought the options might be within the Wide choice like they are for the tracking choices. For my own workflow I had changed from #3 - Standard to #1 -Locked On and greatly increased my hit rate. I'll try #5 - Responsive (and Wide) to see what happens. Thanks again.
VisionLight
Veteran Member
I find Sony's general descriptions of the more high end features to be very cryptic for a Sony newbie. So test, test, test is the name of the game as well as getting kind peoples' help here. I have been using #3 for portraits and it has been working very well. I have also set Sensitivity to MyMenu and have MyMenu as the default to ease thru my testing.
I' m not new to Sony. Changed my A7RII for the IV. With that menu it' s mostly a one time experience. When you have set everything for your kind of shooting, there' s hardly any reason to dive into the menu again. Coming from the A7RII I do not find the Sony menu terrible; most important matters (to me), are set in a short time and familiar. It' s only when they add new features and possibilities, I have to learn again.
I tend to leave it to 3 as well. Although I read from another user, that 1 is (much) more sticky, I did not notice this immediately. It' s possibly more sticky in tracking, in situations where there is a lot of background contrast and also with other people in the frame.
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VisionLight
Veteran Member
With #1- Locked On in Tracking: Flexible Spot M, I was able to obtain 5 pin sharp excellent hits plus 3 very good highly usable hits in a 13 image burst. This was with the subject quickly moving up then down to different vertical points on the screen (I kept it centered horizontally). As others make different suggestions, I will try them all. I'm considering the "fun" of a new camera.
Thanks for the pointers. By manual, I assume you meant the exposure side.
And speaking of manual, I also tried manual focus: I took one picture with auto focus, assuming (and verified for that one shot) that gave me the "infinity". I then switched to manual focus and didn't touch the focus ring. And this made things worse overall in terms of focusing. So I guess there is no such thing as definitive "infinity" even though the objects I'm shooting are really far far in the sky?
Thank you ! I would expect 3 to have (at least) comparable results...maybe beter (?). That' s what I would have to find out.
I' m looking forward to reading your experiences here.
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Glenn Barber
Guest
Yes - with long lenses, I think infinity is the moon or something like that. I've also tried manual focus at infinity with less than perfect results.
With the very big planes at 1000 feet or more away, at 5.6 you can see where the focus hits and other parts slightly OOF.
Perhaps if you stop down to F11??
With the very big planes at 1000 feet or more away, at 5.6 you can see where the focus hits and other parts slightly OOF.
Perhaps if you stop down to F11??
Nic e cone you got! You need the 200-600, LOL. I have both the 100-400 and the 200-600, I used the A6400 and the A7RIII before, I have the A7RIV now but the airshow season is over for me in our region. 600mm can be too short sometimes, but 200mm can be too long for formation shots with long/curvy smoke trails or the burst formation. Nothing is better the the Sigma 60-600 in term of range but the AF with adapter is obviously not as fast as the native lenses.This weekend October 5th and 6th is the Airshow at Huntington Beach CA
Today, Friday was warmup day, But there was lots of great action.
Get there early, it runs from about 10:30AM to late afternoon.
Weather was very good, especially morning and mid day
Standing on the edge of the water, I shot my A7R4 with the 100-400 in APS-C mode and a lot of time I wished for a bit more reach. But there are shots where I needed to zoom out to 200 or wider. 150-650 would be perfect,
I easily burned thru 128GB with high speed captures and spent a fair amount of time deleting shots. Id suggest a 256GB and two batteries,
I shot at 1/2000th and sometimes should have been faster. Unlike my prior A7R3 ,the A7R4 never missed focus. Lots of fun..
Heres a nice crop - more tomorrow...
F-35 Breakout
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Glenn Barber
Guest
I have the 1.4 TC, which would have given me 140 to 570 but had not used it before on the A7R4 for something like this, and once I was positioned beachside I didn't want to have to switch lenses in blowing sand and salt mist. I thought about coming back on Sunday but couldn't get out of the house soon enough to get decent parking.Nic e cone you got! You need the 200-600, LOL. I have both the 100-400 and the 200-600, I used the A6400 and the A7RIII before, I have the A7RIV now but the airshow season is over for me in our region. 600mm can be too short sometimes, but 200mm can be too long for formation shots with long/curvy smoke trails or the burst formation. Nothing is better the the Sigma 60-600 in term of range but the AF with adapter is obviously not as fast as the native lenses.This weekend October 5th and 6th is the Airshow at Huntington Beach CA
Today, Friday was warmup day, But there was lots of great action.
Get there early, it runs from about 10:30AM to late afternoon.
Weather was very good, especially morning and mid day
Standing on the edge of the water, I shot my A7R4 with the 100-400 in APS-C mode and a lot of time I wished for a bit more reach. But there are shots where I needed to zoom out to 200 or wider. 150-650 would be perfect,
I easily burned thru 128GB with high speed captures and spent a fair amount of time deleting shots. Id suggest a 256GB and two batteries,
I shot at 1/2000th and sometimes should have been faster. Unlike my prior A7R3 ,the A7R4 never missed focus. Lots of fun..
Heres a nice crop - more tomorrow...
F-35 Breakout
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I shot a few airshows with the A7RIII and the 100-400 (plus T1.4 TC sometimes). The A7RIII is ok. I got plenty of sharp picture:I have the 1.4 TC, which would have given me 140 to 570 but had not used it before on the A7R4 for something like this, and once I was positioned beachside I didn't want to have to switch lenses in blowing sand and salt mist. I thought about coming back on Sunday but couldn't get out of the house soon enough to get decent parking.Nic e cone you got! You need the 200-600, LOL. I have both the 100-400 and the 200-600, I used the A6400 and the A7RIII before, I have the A7RIV now but the airshow season is over for me in our region. 600mm can be too short sometimes, but 200mm can be too long for formation shots with long/curvy smoke trails or the burst formation. Nothing is better the the Sigma 60-600 in term of range but the AF with adapter is obviously not as fast as the native lenses.This weekend October 5th and 6th is the Airshow at Huntington Beach CA
Today, Friday was warmup day, But there was lots of great action.
Get there early, it runs from about 10:30AM to late afternoon.
Weather was very good, especially morning and mid day
Standing on the edge of the water, I shot my A7R4 with the 100-400 in APS-C mode and a lot of time I wished for a bit more reach. But there are shots where I needed to zoom out to 200 or wider. 150-650 would be perfect,
I easily burned thru 128GB with high speed captures and spent a fair amount of time deleting shots. Id suggest a 256GB and two batteries,
I shot at 1/2000th and sometimes should have been faster. Unlike my prior A7R3 ,the A7R4 never missed focus. Lots of fun..
Heres a nice crop - more tomorrow...
F-35 Breakout
Here is a show with the A7RIII and the 100-400 (+1.4TC sometimes):
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www.flickr.com
Here is my last one with the A7RIII and the new 200-600:
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www.flickr.com
I go to 6-7 airshows a year. Can't wait to try out the A7RIV with the 200-600 next year.
Ooh yes - stupidly, I never thought to enlarge it! Excellent shot by the way.You are absolutely right - looking at the picture full size I can see the aircraft name under the number 1 on the tail.I don’t think anybody answered yet - I believe it’s a Grumman Bearcat. I feel a bit weird for answering though... :-DHere's a shot I recovered which was almost two stops underexposed, its close to 100% crop. Anybody know what this is??
Blue Angels Memorial Flyby
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Glenn Barber
Guest
Wow - what a fabulous portfolio. Thanks for sending the links.
How do you usually setup your camera for an airshow?
This is the last airshow around here for a while, I may try out the 1.4 TC with the local birds. Thinking about the 200-600 - but need to recycle a few things first.
How do you usually setup your camera for an airshow?
This is the last airshow around here for a while, I may try out the 1.4 TC with the local birds. Thinking about the 200-600 - but need to recycle a few things first.
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Glenn Barber
Guest
Thanks - this was from a very tiny crop that was about 2 stops under exposed. I was surprised I could recover it. Still a touch noisy.Ooh yes - stupidly, I never thought to enlarge it! Excellent shot by the way.You are absolutely right - looking at the picture full size I can see the aircraft name under the number 1 on the tail.I don’t think anybody answered yet - I believe it’s a Grumman Bearcat. I feel a bit weird for answering though... :-DHere's a shot I recovered which was almost two stops underexposed, its close to 100% crop. Anybody know what this is??
Blue Angels Memorial Flyby
Thank you. I know some folks use aperture priority for jets. I am the odd ball in this one. I usually use shutter speed priority with auto ISO (1/2000, or 1/1000 for large slow bombers or cargo jets). As someone pointed out, shooting prop. planes is far more challenging if you try to keep the shutter speed low enough to capture the prop. motion like this one:
I had to low the ISO to 50 for this shot otherwise the F stop may get too high.
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Glenn Barber
Guest
I had some comments on that - one person mentioned having a custom function that would switch the shutter speed for planes.
How do you like the 200-600 vs the 100-400? I'm giving this some thought.
If you are crazy enough like me for airshows, there will be a show in SF this coming weekend. Sometime I drive 8 hours round trip to see airshows.
I am keeping the 100-400 mostly for landscape, foliage, semi macro stuff. In terms of sharpness, you won't be able to tell the difference.
For airshows:
100-400 pros: light, compact, 100mm at the wide end can be useful for some formation shots, cons: 400mm is not long enough, obviously, zooming in/out is not as quick as the internal zooming of the 200-600. To me, the easiness of zooming in/out quickly is very very important for airshows as jets can approach from afar to close distance in split second. That's why when I was shooting Nikon I prefer the Sigma 150-600 Sports, which has the push/pull zooming, a lot quicker than turning the zoom ring. The Sony 200-600 can zoom from 200 to 600 or from 600 to 200 in a very very short throw, that's even quicker than the push/pull zooming.
In my opinion, for birds and airshows, the 200-600 is a better choice. I had been waiting for Sony to make this lens for two years.
PWPhotography
Forum Pro
Guess everyone has different customization. Due to the fact ISO 50 cannot be added into auto-ISO which is annoying. I configured two dial models in A9 - dial 1 for prop-driven planes (ISO 50, Tv or shutter priority) and dial 2 for jet planes (auto-ISO, M-mode with default f6.3 (a bit stop down from f5.6 with FE 100-400 GM so a bit sharper) and 1/2000. Then I also have an Install-Recall mode for dial 2 setting when I shoot in dial 1 position in case a jet plane suddenly flying in, as moving dial position costs at least 2-sec delay. Such as this one it's already F11 under ISO 50, otherwise aperture will jump to F16 under ISO 100 where PDAF stop working (the FW 5 of A9 had not released then), diffraction will be more obvious and tiny dusts will be amplified further. I have some photos (tone of more have not been ported over and most of them taken by Canon gear in last decade).
https://www.flickr.com/photos/55485085@N04/albums/72157697486950524/with/42819318241/
https://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/63174938
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