focus changes with new firmware

[davidstock]

I'm trying to figure out how A7RII focus behavior has changed using the new firmware.

Some users report that Sony GM lenses do something new: stopping down slightly to focus with setting effects set to OFF, and only stopping down fully at the time of exposure.

However, neither my Batis 85mm nor my Zony 55mm do that. Both open wide initially, but then stop down all the way. This is similar to the previous behavior, and seems unlikely to provide autofocus improvements for anyone shooting stopped down. PDAF still seems to disengage; continuous autofocus beyond f8 still seems compromised in my early attempts.

But possibly the stop down/focus algorithm has changed? The aperture seems to open wider initially and jump around more.

One major benefit of the new firmware, at least for me, is that manual focus behavior for small aperture photography has significantly improved. Now, with setting effects OFF, both lenses stay stopped down PART WAY during manual focus (around f5.6). This is perfect for manual focus, IMO. It overcomes focus shift (such as what Jim Kasson documented for the Batis and other lenses). At the same time, it allows much brighter viewing and more accurate manual focus than if the lens was stopped all the way down to f9 or beyond. (If you do want to focus all the way stopped down for some reason, you can do that by simply holding down the focus button or shutter release. Or turning settings effect ON, of course.) This new behavior makes manual focus much more useable for my purposes.

I wish autofocus did something similar.

I'd be interested to hear what other users are observing about focus behavior changes with the new firmware and various lenses.

 

[Jeff2013]

I'm trying to figure out how A7RII focus behavior has changed using the new firmware.

Some users report that Sony GM lenses do something new: stopping down slightly to focus with setting effects set to OFF, and only stopping down fully at the time of exposure.

However, neither my Batis 85mm nor my Zony 55mm do that. Both open wide initially, but then stop down all the way. This is similar to the previous behavior, and seems unlikely to provide autofocus improvements for anyone shooting stopped down. PDAF still seems to disengage; continuous autofocus beyond f8 still seems compromised in my early attempts.

But possibly the stop down/focus algorithm has changed? The aperture seems to open wider initially and jump around more.

One major benefit of the new firmware, at least for me, is that manual focus behavior for small aperture photography has significantly improved. Now, with setting effects OFF, both lenses stay stopped down PART WAY during manual focus (around f5.6). This is perfect for manual focus, IMO. It overcomes focus shift (such as what Jim Kasson documented for the Batis and other lenses). At the same time, it allows much brighter viewing and more accurate manual focus than if the lens was stopped all the way down to f9 or beyond. (If you do want to focus all the way stopped down for some reason, you can do that by simply holding down the focus button or shutter release. Or turning settings effect ON, of course.) This new behavior makes manual focus much more useable for my purposes.

I wish autofocus did something similar.

I'd be interested to hear what other users are observing about focus behavior changes with the new firmware and various lenses.

I observed precisely what you observed with the Batis 85 and the FE 55.... darn it.

 

[pdk42]

Is focus shift such an issue that this strategy makes sense? It seems like quite a kludge to fix an edge case.

On a related point, do the A7 cameras still stop the lens down when in settings preview mode? When I briefly tried the A7rii a while back and did some very low light scenes (tripod in a dim church) back to back with my Olympus u43 gear the Sony live view display looked awful compared to the Oly - slow refresh, lots of noise.

The Sony was stopping the lens down whereas the Oly wasn't. If I want to preview DOF, the Oly let's me choose, but there's no option on the Sony.

 

[davidstock]

Is focus shift such an issue that this strategy makes sense? It seems like quite a kludge to fix an edge case.

I agree. Focus shift can be pretty significant in some cases. Apparently some of Sony's best new lenses have issues with focus shift. But for many of us, Sony's "solution" (kludge--good word) created a whole other set of problems.

On a related point, do the A7 cameras still stop the lens down when in settings preview mode? When I briefly tried the A7rii a while back and did some very low light scenes (tripod in a dim church) back to back with my Olympus u43 gear the Sony live view display looked awful compared to the Oly - slow refresh, lots of noise.

It is possible to preview images wide open, but AFAIK only with setting effects OFF (or by manually adjusting the aperture of course). In that setting, as soon as you hold down a focus or shutter release button, the lens stops down, which does allow depth of field preview. Good for the situation you describe; bad for other things...

Some people report that the newest firmware changes the setting effects OFF behavior in certain cases with certain lenses. I'm hoping folks on this list will confirm or deny.

The Sony was stopping the lens down whereas the Oly wasn't. If I want to preview DOF, the Oly let's me choose, but there's no option on the Sony.

--
Paul
Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/paul_kaye

 

[Nephi]

I'm trying to figure out how A7RII focus behavior has changed using the new firmware.

Some users report that Sony GM lenses do something new: stopping down slightly to focus with setting effects set to OFF, and only stopping down fully at the time of exposure.

However, neither my Batis 85mm nor my Zony 55mm do that. Both open wide initially, but then stop down all the way. This is similar to the previous behavior, and seems unlikely to provide autofocus improvements for anyone shooting stopped down. PDAF still seems to disengage; continuous autofocus beyond f8 still seems compromised in my early attempts.

But possibly the stop down/focus algorithm has changed? The aperture seems to open wider initially and jump around more.

One major benefit of the new firmware, at least for me, is that manual focus behavior for small aperture photography has significantly improved. Now, with setting effects OFF, both lenses stay stopped down PART WAY during manual focus (around f5.6). This is perfect for manual focus, IMO. It overcomes focus shift (such as what Jim Kasson documented for the Batis and other lenses). At the same time, it allows much brighter viewing and more accurate manual focus than if the lens was stopped all the way down to f9 or beyond. (If you do want to focus all the way stopped down for some reason, you can do that by simply holding down the focus button or shutter release. Or turning settings effect ON, of course.) This new behavior makes manual focus much more useable for my purposes.

I wish autofocus did something similar.

I'd be interested to hear what other users are observing about focus behavior changes with the new firmware and various lenses.

So they didn't bother to fix one of the most requested and glaring issues with the Sony A7RII?

 

[Jonneymendoza2]

I'm trying to figure out how A7RII focus behavior has changed using the new firmware.

Some users report that Sony GM lenses do something new: stopping down slightly to focus with setting effects set to OFF, and only stopping down fully at the time of exposure.

However, neither my Batis 85mm nor my Zony 55mm do that. Both open wide initially, but then stop down all the way. This is similar to the previous behavior, and seems unlikely to provide autofocus improvements for anyone shooting stopped down. PDAF still seems to disengage; continuous autofocus beyond f8 still seems compromised in my early attempts.

But possibly the stop down/focus algorithm has changed? The aperture seems to open wider initially and jump around more.

One major benefit of the new firmware, at least for me, is that manual focus behavior for small aperture photography has significantly improved. Now, with setting effects OFF, both lenses stay stopped down PART WAY during manual focus (around f5.6). This is perfect for manual focus, IMO. It overcomes focus shift (such as what Jim Kasson documented for the Batis and other lenses). At the same time, it allows much brighter viewing and more accurate manual focus than if the lens was stopped all the way down to f9 or beyond. (If you do want to focus all the way stopped down for some reason, you can do that by simply holding down the focus button or shutter release. Or turning settings effect ON, of course.) This new behavior makes manual focus much more useable for my purposes.

I wish autofocus did something similar.

I'd be interested to hear what other users are observing about focus behavior changes with the new firmware and various lenses.

So they didn't bother to fix one of the most requested and glaring issues with the Sony A7RII?

umm they did.

I have the Batis 85mm lens and i tested this last night in very dim light shooting at f8-f11 and it opened up the lens and grabbed focus.

I am going to do more testing tomorrow in my studio in a real world setting but from my test last night in similar conditions, at f8-f11 on AF-C PDAF was initialised and so was the lens opening up to get AF and then close down to my F8 settings fine

 

[Nephi]

I'm trying to figure out how A7RII focus behavior has changed using the new firmware.

Some users report that Sony GM lenses do something new: stopping down slightly to focus with setting effects set to OFF, and only stopping down fully at the time of exposure.

However, neither my Batis 85mm nor my Zony 55mm do that. Both open wide initially, but then stop down all the way. This is similar to the previous behavior, and seems unlikely to provide autofocus improvements for anyone shooting stopped down. PDAF still seems to disengage; continuous autofocus beyond f8 still seems compromised in my early attempts.

But possibly the stop down/focus algorithm has changed? The aperture seems to open wider initially and jump around more.

One major benefit of the new firmware, at least for me, is that manual focus behavior for small aperture photography has significantly improved. Now, with setting effects OFF, both lenses stay stopped down PART WAY during manual focus (around f5.6). This is perfect for manual focus, IMO. It overcomes focus shift (such as what Jim Kasson documented for the Batis and other lenses). At the same time, it allows much brighter viewing and more accurate manual focus than if the lens was stopped all the way down to f9 or beyond. (If you do want to focus all the way stopped down for some reason, you can do that by simply holding down the focus button or shutter release. Or turning settings effect ON, of course.) This new behavior makes manual focus much more useable for my purposes.

I wish autofocus did something similar.

I'd be interested to hear what other users are observing about focus behavior changes with the new firmware and various lenses.

So they didn't bother to fix one of the most requested and glaring issues with the Sony A7RII?

umm they did.

I have the Batis 85mm lens and i tested this last night in very dim light shooting at f8-f11 and it opened up the lens and grabbed focus.

I am going to do more testing tomorrow in my studio in a real world setting but from my test last night in similar conditions, at f8-f11 on AF-C PDAF was initialised and so was the lens opening up to get AF and then close down to my F8 settings fine

So the FW changed the focus behavior of your lens? Do you have any GM lenses you can try out? What a nice surprise if they fixed the issue. I don't think they did however as it was not mentioned in the FW release notes.

Hope I'm wrong!

 

[toyanucci]

I tested with the zony 55 and set it to f16 with the setting off. It opened to what looks like about f2 to grab focus but gradually went to f16 while I held down the shutter button. I tested repeatedly and got consistent results, opening to get focus then gradually stopping down to the set aperture over a second or so after grabbing focus.

 

[OFremen]

I tested with the zony 55 and set it to f16 with the setting off. It opened to what looks like about f2 to grab focus but gradually went to f16 while I held down the shutter button. I tested repeatedly and got consistent results, opening to get focus then gradually stopping down to the set aperture over a second or so after grabbing focus.

But the Sony 55 lens was always opening up and then closing down to take the pic....only the newer lenses like the 50mm 1.4 and 24-70 2.8 were doing the annoying thing of staying closed down even when settings effect was off

So testing with the 55 isn't useful to see if they changed the firmware?

 

[osv]

Is focus shift such an issue that this strategy makes sense? It seems like quite a kludge to fix an edge case.

On a related point, do the A7 cameras still stop the lens down when in settings preview mode? When I briefly tried the A7rii a while back and did some very low light scenes (tripod in a dim church) back to back with my Olympus u43 gear the Sony live view display looked awful compared to the Oly - slow refresh, lots of noise.

that's called "wysiwyg"... you can't do it with native oly lenses, because they hold the aperture open all the time, you don't see what the picture will actually look like.

if you want to defeat it with sony, and get a fake bright evf, go into the menu and turn "setting effect: OFF"

with "setting effect: ON" you get a constant preview of the actual DOF, all the time.

--
dan

 

[Nephi]

I tested with the zony 55 and set it to f16 with the setting off. It opened to what looks like about f2 to grab focus but gradually went to f16 while I held down the shutter button. I tested repeatedly and got consistent results, opening to get focus then gradually stopping down to the set aperture over a second or so after grabbing focus.

But the Sony 55 lens was always opening up and then closing down to take the pic....only the newer lenses like the 50mm 1.4 and 24-70 2.8 were doing the annoying thing of staying closed down even when settings effect was off

So testing with the 55 isn't useful to see if they changed the firmware?

Correct. The problem is with GM lens in particular. Not sure about Batis lenses and others. I just know the GM lenses exhibited this behavior.

Can anyone test?

 

[osv]

Is focus shift such an issue that this strategy makes sense? It seems like quite a kludge to fix an edge case.

I agree. Focus shift can be pretty significant in some cases. Apparently some of Sony's best new lenses have issues with focus shift. But for many of us, Sony's "solution" (kludge--good word) created a whole other set of problems.

he doesn't own a sony, and he doesn't understand how sony works.

olympus is entirely different from sony, it fails at real wysiwyg.

On a related point, do the A7 cameras still stop the lens down when in settings preview mode? When I briefly tried the A7rii a while back and did some very low light scenes (tripod in a dim church) back to back with my Olympus u43 gear the Sony live view display looked awful compared to the Oly - slow refresh, lots of noise.

It is possible to preview images wide open, but AFAIK only with setting effects OFF (or by manually adjusting the aperture of course).

why would you want to preview images wide open, if you are shooting stopped down? that's not wysiwyg, it's like shooting with a dslr.
the most desirable behavior is to have the aperture fixed at the setting you'll be shooting, then open up the aperture either all the way, or most of the way, for focusing only, then stop down to take the shot.

 

[davidstock]

I tested with the zony 55 and set it to f16 with the setting off. It opened to what looks like about f2 to grab focus but gradually went to f16 while I held down the shutter button. I tested repeatedly and got consistent results, opening to get focus then gradually stopping down to the set aperture over a second or so after grabbing focus.

I'll try this in real world situations. But the problem with this behavior up until now was:

1. It stayed stopped down, dark and CDAF-only for all subsequent exposures in continuous exposure mode, so it therefore was unreliable for studio, etc.

2. It wasn't very precise in single mode either, since it was trying to refine focus with CDAF and low light and high depth of field as it stopped down. It's possible that this works better with the new firmware than it did with the old. I plan to test this.

 

[pdk42]

The Oly gives you WYSIWYG for exposure with the aperture wide open. That means the display is pretty clean. Then if you want to see DOF preview you can additionally stop the lens down. That will make the display most just like the Sony of course.

 

[osv]

The Oly gives you WYSIWYG for exposure with the aperture wide open.

only when you are shooting wide open.

anything else is the camera interpreting the scene, it's not wysiwyg.

there have been a lot of complaints about inaccurate wysiwyg with olympus cameras, because of this.

That means the display is pretty clean.

sony has that, with "setting effect: OFF"... but it's not wysiwyg either.

sony ff sensors are cleaner in low-light, which makes wysiwyg in the evf possible.

Then if you want to see DOF preview you can additionally stop the lens down.

as in, there is a momentary button for dof preview? because that's the only way; at all other times, with olympus, the aperture is held open until the shot is taken.

That will make the display most just like the Sony of course.

possibly, see above... i think that the concept of "dof preview" is a dslr construct, it doesn't generally exist on e-mount, because sony ff shows the actual dof all the time, with "setting effect: ON", you don't have to do anything to see what the shot really looks like, it's wysiwyg.

--
dan

 

[pdk42]

I'm keen to get to the bottom of this - if I've got it wrong it would be good to be put right..

- OK, so say we're taking the same shot using the A7rii plus 35/2.8 and the E-M1ii plus the 17/1.8. It's a dark church interior but there are some bright areas from some lamps that I want to ensure aren't blown.

- I set both cameras in A mode, ISO fixed at 200.

- I have a dial programmed for exp comp and my plan is to use WYSIWYG and the exposure under/over indicators (zebras) to help me avoid blown highlights.

- I set the aperture to f8 and spin the exp comp dial until the highlights show just under clipping level. The meter shows 2s exposure (it's dark).

- Both cameras show the exposure preview just fine (WYSIWYG). I can see the under/over exposure indicators and the general brightness of the resulting photo.

- On the Oly, the lens remains wide open and the display remains clean with a good refresh rate. I can compose the shot without difficulty. The camera is calculating the displayed brightness/exposure of the resulting shot based on the difference between the light it's measuring with the lens wide open and the aperture I've selected. If I want to see DOF I pressed the DOF preview button. The display gets noisy, but I can live with that if all I'm doing is checking DOF (which TBH I hardly ever do - it's not accurate enough on the camera's display).

- On the Sony, the lens is stopped down to f8 and the light on the sensor is now 4.5 stops dimmer which makes the display noisy and the refresh rate drops significantly. When I try to recompose I have to wait for the display to catch up. If I zoom into areas of the image (e.g. to check focus) then it gets ugly with lots of noise.

It seems to me that so long as the calculation is being done correctly then the Olympus scheme is better.

 

[lattesweden]

olympus is entirely different from sony, it fails at real wysiwyg.

My E-M1 and E-M5mkII have a button basically at the same spot as Sony has the lens release (M43 lens release is on the opposite side), that you can push in and hold and you will get the working aperture view with the correct DOF. Basically exactly as the old film SLRs worked except that the view finder doesn't go darker (but becomes more noisy due to the amplification). So you can get Wysiwyg on Oly as well but to my knowledge you need to hold the button in, there is no way to have it on always like Sony does it.

 

[davidstock]

Stopped-down autofocus (past f8) seems significantly improved by the new firmware, at least in single focus mode. Faster, more definite and more precise. It may be that, compared to before, there's more PDAF being performed as the lens stops down. This, along with the new manual focus behavior, are both welcome.

On the other hand, continuous autofocus still seems poor when stopped down, since the aperture stays fully closed to taking aperture after initial acquisition. I don't understand why Sony isn't giving us the option of focusing wide open, or even at f5.6, as with manual focus.

 

[osv]

olympus is entirely different from sony, it fails at real wysiwyg.

My E-M1 and E-M5mkII have a button basically at the same spot as Sony has the lens release (M43 lens release is on the opposite side), that you can push in and hold and you will get the working aperture view with the correct DOF. Basically exactly as the old film SLRs worked except that the view finder doesn't go darker (but becomes more noisy due to the amplification). So you can get Wysiwyg on Oly as well but to my knowledge you need to hold the button in, there is no way to have it on always like Sony does it.

so you can look into the lens, and see the aperture actually closing down? that would be a good sign, but i don't know if that's the end of it.

here are examples of how the olympus evf fails to display the correct darkness, to match the ambient lighting... this is not wysiwyg behavior, and i don't know if the dof button changes it:

https://www.dpreview.com/forums/thread/3941170

https://www.mu-43.com/threads/em1-lcd-evf-not-displaying-true-exposure.58936/

https://www.dpreview.com/forums/thread/4085566#forum-post-58729587

--
dan

 

[osv]

I'm keen to get to the bottom of this - if I've got it wrong it would be good to be put right..

all you have to do to confirm this is to look into the lens, and see that the aperture is held open all the time.

e-mount does not do that, afaik.

as an olympus owner, you should already be aware of the complaints about the evf not being wysiwyg-capable, for example with the OM-D EM 5 Mark II in this thread link below... notice also how one poster says that it's not accurate even with an old manual focus legacy lens:

"Interestingly, i am able to replicate exactly what the OP has done, using my OM50 1.8. Shooting wroth the aperture wide open, in shutter priority, ISO set to low or 200. There is absolutely no clear indication, other than the -_- symbol next to shutter speed indicator blinking, that the image will be underexposed.

To the OP: you either have to shoot in M mode as indicated, to let you know to change shutter speed or set ISO to auto, with the top range being adequately high. Even then, under exposure is a possibility."

https://www.dpreview.com/forums/thread/3941170

--
dan