L0n3Gr3yW0lf
All-Pro
- Location
- Somerset, UK
- Name
- Ovi
Hello, as I gather experience from my time with my Sony a7R II, I am slowly learning its quirks and limitations. At first, I was very impressed with the AF performance of the camera but as I use it in more varied situations and with different lenses the experience is getting more "colourful".
I have had a few situations where the camera has become an impediment to getting the images I needed. Here are a few of those:
1) I was at work and we had a music party organized for the birthday of a couple of individuals, the light for the scene was not my choice, the space while large it was pretty crowded and I had limited mobility and composition options, the light was (to a varying degree) 1/125th (fixed) at f 2.8 (fixed) for ISO 3.200 (at best) to ISO 25.600 (at worse). The C-AF from the Tamron 28-75mm f 2.8 Di III VXD G2 was very slow and difficult, often pulsating and hunting, the Face Detection was working but not reliably and Eye-AF has never activated through about two hours (and 300 pictures) event. While I know it's a 3rd party lens that will never be as good as Sony G/GM lenses the Tamron should perform to 90-95% of Sony's given how close Sony and Tamron work together and have access and share information. There were quite a few moments that I wish I didn't lose all the pictures because of being out of focus.
2) Most of the pictures I can make of my dog is her running towards me or away from me (because if she stops she dies ... I think ... maybe she was born on the bus from Speed, 1994). In this situation all 3 lenses (Sony FE 50mm f 1.8, Tamron 28-75mm f 2.8 Di III VXD G2, Tamron 150-500mm f 5-6.7 Di III VC VXD) can not give me a good hitrate on C-AF. I am lucky to get one close enough, extremely rare in perfect, focus. The camera's pedestrian 5 FPS is not helping the situation either since it's even less of a chance to get more images in focus. It can get quite frustrating as she loses patience after running at me but we take too long to move from the spot because I can't get an image right.
3) The camera is abysmal in Single AF, I have seen it struggle for more than 5 seconds on a brightly lit subject in direct daylight to get focus on all 3 lenses. Most times if I need a flower shot I switch to Manual Focus to make sure I get the shot. I have never experienced any camera this bad and I have used and owned 11 cameras.
Now I understand that this situation is predicated solved by buying a newer model with better AF and I will get there at some point, can't afford the cost of it this year. That gives me time to decide what would be the better option. I plan on owning mostly Tamron and possibly Sigma and/or Samyang lenses BUT if I get a good enough AF boost I can consider Sony G lenses for the portrait/action moments (though I can't justify the cost of G Master lenses, not when I am not making money from the images).
The types of photography that I am going to do will be portraits and events (mainly for my job as a support worker for adults with learning disabilities) in low light and with no control over light (flash photography is out of the question as some of the people suffer from epileptic seizures on a daily basis), action/pet photography (mainly outdoors, for now) as I want to build up experience and focus on this as a professional photographer and hopefully build a business out of it.
Of course, my dream camera would be a Sony a1 but that's a very very far away dream ... like 10 years of waiting for a decent used copy under 2.500 £ dream.
I have been thinking and being tempted by the Sony a7R IV because the Tamron 150-500mm f 5-6.7 that I bought was on the premise that I have a very large amount of pixels to crop in to make up for the lack of teleconverter and 500mm limitation. But the Sony a7 IV may be a better option just for portrait, event, action and pet photography while still getting 33 MegaPickle Ricks for a good amount of cropping and printing large. And as much as I tried to think about the Sony a9, even with all the firmware updates it received that brought it very close to the Sony a1, those 24 MegaPickle Ricks are hard to trade for 61 or even 42. Real-Time Eye-AF tracking AND animal Eye-AF tracking would be very helpful in all the situations ... and more than 5 FPS shooting?
I have had a few situations where the camera has become an impediment to getting the images I needed. Here are a few of those:
1) I was at work and we had a music party organized for the birthday of a couple of individuals, the light for the scene was not my choice, the space while large it was pretty crowded and I had limited mobility and composition options, the light was (to a varying degree) 1/125th (fixed) at f 2.8 (fixed) for ISO 3.200 (at best) to ISO 25.600 (at worse). The C-AF from the Tamron 28-75mm f 2.8 Di III VXD G2 was very slow and difficult, often pulsating and hunting, the Face Detection was working but not reliably and Eye-AF has never activated through about two hours (and 300 pictures) event. While I know it's a 3rd party lens that will never be as good as Sony G/GM lenses the Tamron should perform to 90-95% of Sony's given how close Sony and Tamron work together and have access and share information. There were quite a few moments that I wish I didn't lose all the pictures because of being out of focus.
2) Most of the pictures I can make of my dog is her running towards me or away from me (because if she stops she dies ... I think ... maybe she was born on the bus from Speed, 1994). In this situation all 3 lenses (Sony FE 50mm f 1.8, Tamron 28-75mm f 2.8 Di III VXD G2, Tamron 150-500mm f 5-6.7 Di III VC VXD) can not give me a good hitrate on C-AF. I am lucky to get one close enough, extremely rare in perfect, focus. The camera's pedestrian 5 FPS is not helping the situation either since it's even less of a chance to get more images in focus. It can get quite frustrating as she loses patience after running at me but we take too long to move from the spot because I can't get an image right.
3) The camera is abysmal in Single AF, I have seen it struggle for more than 5 seconds on a brightly lit subject in direct daylight to get focus on all 3 lenses. Most times if I need a flower shot I switch to Manual Focus to make sure I get the shot. I have never experienced any camera this bad and I have used and owned 11 cameras.
Now I understand that this situation is predicated solved by buying a newer model with better AF and I will get there at some point, can't afford the cost of it this year. That gives me time to decide what would be the better option. I plan on owning mostly Tamron and possibly Sigma and/or Samyang lenses BUT if I get a good enough AF boost I can consider Sony G lenses for the portrait/action moments (though I can't justify the cost of G Master lenses, not when I am not making money from the images).
The types of photography that I am going to do will be portraits and events (mainly for my job as a support worker for adults with learning disabilities) in low light and with no control over light (flash photography is out of the question as some of the people suffer from epileptic seizures on a daily basis), action/pet photography (mainly outdoors, for now) as I want to build up experience and focus on this as a professional photographer and hopefully build a business out of it.
Of course, my dream camera would be a Sony a1 but that's a very very far away dream ... like 10 years of waiting for a decent used copy under 2.500 £ dream.
I have been thinking and being tempted by the Sony a7R IV because the Tamron 150-500mm f 5-6.7 that I bought was on the premise that I have a very large amount of pixels to crop in to make up for the lack of teleconverter and 500mm limitation. But the Sony a7 IV may be a better option just for portrait, event, action and pet photography while still getting 33 MegaPickle Ricks for a good amount of cropping and printing large. And as much as I tried to think about the Sony a9, even with all the firmware updates it received that brought it very close to the Sony a1, those 24 MegaPickle Ricks are hard to trade for 61 or even 42. Real-Time Eye-AF tracking AND animal Eye-AF tracking would be very helpful in all the situations ... and more than 5 FPS shooting?