Sony New Sony (A9 Mk1) User - My Experiences/Annoyances

Maybe try and rent one of the GM primes or zooms and test them for 3 days. My own experience with an entir ecosystem of cameras is that some features and capabilities are more reliable and dependable with their too range lenses (I know, it's unfair). With Sony A7 IV I only had the Tampon zooms and the Sony budget primes (including your wonderful 85mm f 1.8).

More recently I have better success when using the Oly 12-40 and 40-150 Pro lenses then I had with the Oly 45mm f 1.8 or 60mm f 2.8 Macro.
It's what pushes me to getting the Oly f 1.2 primes in the future.
No one should have to use a GM lens to get results, and I shoot 'Tampon' lenses, as you put it, regularly. I also shoot Samyang, Rokinon, and Minolta A-Mount. I have exactly 2 Sony lenses, neither one a GM. I prefer Tamron, to be perfectly honest. If you aren't getting results with them, there's something else wrong.

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DSC00562 by Shotglass Photo, on Flickr
 
No one should have to use a GM lens to get results, and I shoot 'Tampon' lenses, as you put it, regularly. I also shoot Samyang, Rokinon, and Minolta A-Mount. I have exactly 2 Sony lenses, neither one a GM. I prefer Tamron, to be perfectly honest. If you aren't getting results with them, there's something else wrong.

View attachment 474123DSC00562 by Shotglass Photo, on Flickr
Sorry about the Tampon, it's autocorrect being very discriminatory against Tamron, see:
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I admit that I push the AF, lenses and the camera to the limit in the scenarios where I don't feel happy with sometimes (not all the time), which is dogs running towards me and birds in flight in difficult light. The Dogs subject recognition feels the most important for me for what I want to do.
 
I just stumbled on this thread tonight. I love the comments, agree with the OP's initial assessment, and appreciate the tips and tricks others are posting.

The a9 is my one and only MILC. Everything else is Pentax. The Sony was and is intended to be my action camera: Sports, dance, gymnastics, tht sort of stuff. It's not for portraits, or wildlife or landscapes.

I really do want to warm up to it, but it's a struggle with the menu structure designed in a 3rd grade classroom, and the difficulty I've had in quickly switching to different modes. Pentax is simple and sensical. The older Sony menu is not. Reading through the wonderfully helpful comments in this thread I'm going to make it my goal to give it a serious second-chance. It's too capable to just be left at home.

Glass-wise I have a Viltrox 16, Tamron 24, Samyang 35-150, Tamron 150-500, and a Monster Adapter for the amazing little Pentax Limiteds mounted to my a9. Lens selection isn't any hindrance. The Monster was a big part of my decision to go with Sony.

Thanks guys. This is a really helpful community
 
I just stumbled on this thread tonight. I love the comments, agree with the OP's initial assessment, and appreciate the tips and tricks others are posting.

The a9 is my one and only MILC. Everything else is Pentax. The Sony was and is intended to be my action camera: Sports, dance, gymnastics, tht sort of stuff. It's not for portraits, or wildlife or landscapes.

I really do want to warm up to it, but it's a struggle with the menu structure designed in a 3rd grade classroom, and the difficulty I've had in quickly switching to different modes. Pentax is simple and sensical. The older Sony menu is not. Reading through the wonderfully helpful comments in this thread I'm going to make it my goal to give it a serious second-chance. It's too capable to just be left at home.

Glass-wise I have a Viltrox 16, Tamron 24, Samyang 35-150, Tamron 150-500, and a Monster Adapter for the amazing little Pentax Limiteds mounted to my a9. Lens selection isn't any hindrance. The Monster was a big part of my decision to go with Sony.

Thanks guys. This is a really helpful community
I shot the A7 IV and A7R III simultaneously, two different menus, the old and the new, simultaneously. It took less than a week to become familiar with both. Now that I have two with the same menu, I honestly don’t see any advantage one way or the other. It’s like anything else, the features you use all the time you can get to quickly. Those that you don’t take a few seconds to find.
 
Further tests today, this time in better light. I think with IBIS off and Focus Area set to Zone: Tracking I was getting a little better results, my hit rate in sequences of runs was about 55-70% depending on the light; maybe that is good enough? I do find though that perhaps the minimum focus distance of the 85mm f1.8 is a little limiting at times (0.8m). But, compared to the Oly 12-40 Pro f2.8 lens I used to use, it's mfd is only 0.2m.
 
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Further tests today, this time in better light. I think with IBIS off and Focus Area set to Zone: Tracking I was getting a little better results, my hit rate in sequences of runs was about 55-70% depending on the light; maybe that is good enough? I do find though that perhaps the minimum focus distance of the 85mm f1.8 is a little limiting at times (0.8m). But, compared to the Oly 12-40 Pro f2.8 lens I used to use, it's mfd is only 0.2m.
Using AF C at such close distance 0.8-1.5 meters is extremely taxing on any AF system at 85mm and f 1.8 ... If you want to fill in the frame you may be better off with a 70-200mm f 4 or f 2.8 lens (Tamron and Sigma would fit the bill).
And it's not just about the DoF physical distance betwee what is Shar and what is not sharp, the longer the focal length the greater the separation where the AF can understand what's in focus and what is our of focus (less chance of distractions).
 
Further tests today, this time in better light. I think with IBIS off and Focus Area set to Zone: Tracking I was getting a little better results, my hit rate in sequences of runs was about 55-70% depending on the light; maybe that is good enough? I do find though that perhaps the minimum focus distance of the 85mm f1.8 is a little limiting at times (0.8m). But, compared to the Oly 12-40 Pro f2.8 lens I used to use, it's mfd is only 0.2m.
Really, a hit rate of 55-70% on any moving target is more than just acceptable. Our most experienced birders here often quote figures of 2-3% ...

Maybe your expectations are a little unrealistic, Chuck, for the reasons that Ovi has explained.
 
Really, a hit rate of 55-70% on any moving target is more than just acceptable. Our most experienced birders here often quote figures of 2-3% ...

Maybe your expectations are a little unrealistic, Chuck, for the reasons that Ovi has explained.
I was watching a lot of Mark Galer stuff before committing to the A9, he had sequences of running dogs (and other subjects) in focus 100% of the time using the Sony A9 at 20fps on wide tracking to boot which I have never had any success with.
 
I was watching a lot of Mark Galer stuff before committing to the A9, he had sequences of running dogs (and other subjects) in focus 100% of the time using the Sony A9 at 20fps on wide tracking to boot which I have never had any success with.
Have you looked at what lenses he is using because that can make a difference, unfortunately.
 
I was watching a lot of Mark Galer stuff before committing to the A9, he had sequences of running dogs (and other subjects) in focus 100% of the time using the Sony A9 at 20fps on wide tracking to boot which I have never had any success with.
Chuck, with all due respect, I would love to see his file number sequences ...

He may be magic man, for all I know. We have some staggeringly good photographers on this forum who would never make such a claim. I'm certainly not one of them, I might add! But 100%? Not likely, IMHO.
 
Chuck, with all due respect, I would love to see his file number sequences ...

He may be magic man, for all I know. We have some staggeringly good photographers on this forum who would never make such a claim. I'm certainly not one of them, I might add! But 100%? Not likely, IMHO.
Mine rate would be under 50% with non PRO lenses and about 70% with PRO lenses, if I shoot 25 and 50 FPS I get more keepers by sheer quantity but the hit rate will drop.
On Sony my keeper rate was high (about 80%) but amount of pictures I had was quite low for 10 FPS. For fast dogs it means you need multiple runs/tries to get a decent variety if body position and reaction.

That's the advantage of having a high FPS camera even if the autofocus is not as good. But I never got 100% pin sharp in focus unless it was a very easy scene (bright light, shot from the side with clear and clean background, low FPS).
 
@L0n3Gr3yW0lf Yeah, Ovi.

I keep thinking of birders who can take a rainbow lorikeet coming straight at them at 50-100 kmh. But, they only get about 1% or so in focus. I'm still in awe of them!
Every subject is different and should be treated differently. Add on top the variability of light and composition and anything that moves can be a challenge.
I can understand and I do desire a high success rate for focus accuracy, be it wildlife, birds or pets.

As I have mentioned in the past, I have shot my dog (as well as a few others) in different situations and stressed the AF system of both Sony and Olympus/OM.
High contrast is a constant struggle when the dog has different shades of fur, especially both dark and bright shades (my dog has silver, gold, brown and dark grey hair). Dark and pure black dogs are a whole different challenge because you have to expose for their fur and you will invariably blow out everything else so your only choice is underexpose by at least 2 stops (because most cameras have 1 to 1.5 stops of highlight recovery at best). If your camera doesn't have good High ISO or good light gathering capability (even st base ISO) then when you bright out the exposure to balance the dark fur turns more noisy instead of inky blacks.
All of this affects the AF performance because it depends on the contrast and the light you expose the camera for, if you shoot stopped down you introduce time for the aperture to close down when exposing the image and opening up when AF needs to change to get more light.
Also consider the dogs physiology, they have narrower heads and long noses (most of them that is), the eyes are more difficult to track when they run because they move their heads up and down with pointing their noses up and down so they get in the way of the AF and can cover the eyes. If the AF can't recover when the eyes are exposed they you lost images.
Humans are different, with flatter face doesn't have as drastic focus changes and DoF can cover it better. I'm sure you know how shallow DOF is on 35mm FF at f 1.8 ... For dogs even f 2.8 on M4/3 can be difficult at times.
If you do want to cover a dog's entire face (ears and nose) in focus then you have to work with very small aperture, f 8 and f 11 which is added difficulty for an AF system in less ideal light.

I welcome and hope to see more improvements in Subject detection for dogs and pets. The more accurate and in focus pictures the better and I'm fine if it means dealing with more pictures to sort.
Sony is getting closer but their high performance cameras are not that affordable for me right now (A1 and A9 Make III). Canon seems to do very well (I never shot with them before). OM is not as competitive as the others but from what I have seen (I haven't shot with the other brands) they are a bit better.
 
An edited picture from tests out and about today. I'm still on the fence, I was expecting a better hit rate with the A9 and more accuracy on the eyes; results today were still around the 50/60% no matter the differing settings I used. Would an OM-1 (and the 12-40 Pro or 40-150 f2.8) produce a better hit rate and more animal eye AF attributes?

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An edited picture from tests out and about today. I'm still on the fence, I was expecting a better hit rate with the A9 and more accuracy on the eyes; results today were still around the 50/60% no matter the differing settings I used. Would an OM-1 (and the 12-40 Pro or 40-150 f2.8) produce a better hit rate and more animal eye AF attributes?

View attachment 474427
That's a great shot.

It's probable you've seen this from Mirrorless Comparison. This is for birds, which isn't a dog running at you, but is similar with regard to action. According to this the camera is capable of 96% in that use, which is really only 7% ahead of the OM-1. For that matter there's only 9% difference in the top 11 cameras. If you look at the blue column, there's only 3% separating them in the 'usable, but not perfect focus' rating. the A9 calculates AF at 60 FPS. At some point you're splitting hairs.

IMO, what you need is more time with the camera, and maybe try some different lenses. Not necessarily 'better' lenses, just some different FLs than a portrait lens.

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I've posted before that the A7 IV using an old Minolta Maxxum 80-200/2.8 APO G lens was able to capture cars moving at racing speeds with 95% accuracy, or 19 frames out of 20 in focus. The A7 IV is a lot slower than the A9, and I was told repeatedly that the old screw-drive lenses weren't capable of this, yet I've experienced it more than once. I've also experienced utter failure with maybe only a 20% hit rate using modern E Mount lenses.
 
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An edited picture from tests out and about today. I'm still on the fence, I was expecting a better hit rate with the A9 and more accuracy on the eyes; results today were still around the 50/60% no matter the differing settings I used. Would an OM-1 (and the 12-40 Pro or 40-150 f2.8) produce a better hit rate and more animal eye AF attributes?

View attachment 474427
Well, it depends (unfortunately). I haven't used the Sony a9 so I can't speak to it's performance so I am coming from Sony a7 Mark IV (which does 20 AF calculations per second instead of 60 like a9 but it has newer processor and AI algorithms, for whatever that's worth).
With Sony a7 Mark IV I had 8 out of 10 pin sharp focus wether it was Sony FE 85mm f 1.8 or Tamron 70-180mm f 2.8 (Mark I) but I had very few choices in body positions (like floppy up ears, or tongue out, or front paws up, or all paws off the ground, etc) . Which made me shoot 3 to 5 bursts with my dog and in the summer she would get tired quickly, in the winter she would lose interest in running and playing after one hour (instead of 2 or 3).
With Olympus OM-1 I get many more shots of the body position I want and decent in focus (about 70% ... So if I shoot 25 FPS for 5 seconds I get 125 images of which 87 images are sharp and that's a higher chance of getting the image I want). At 50 FPS you can get even more options but I wouldn't use that unless it's an extremely fast dog (like jumping Border Collie and dog sports competitions).
As for pin sharp Eye Tracking I don't think Olympus OM-1 is better or the same as Sony. To be honest the images you shared so far are quite acceptable for me (especially for personal use) and even for professional use.

One thing to make sure you know first is that some lenses on Sony will be able to give you a look/rendering that no Micro Four Thirds lens will give you ... Especially for similar price and performance.
For example the fastest telephoto lenses you can get are Olympus 45mm f 1.2 PRO and Panasonic Leica 200mm f 2.8 that have outstanding AF performance (which you would want to keep up with a fast dog at 25 and 50 FPS). Though Panasonic lense are capped at 25 FPS max.
The Olympus 40-150mm f 2.8 PRO can give you similar DoF and look at f 2.8 and 150mm to the Sony FE 85mm f 1.8 wide open but you are at 3 times the distance for similar result. The Autofocus keeps up well at 25 FPS in almost all circumstances and at 50 FPS in better and best light.

I wish there was a simpler answer but, unfortunately and the truth is that, you need to look at a system holistically to guage the performance you need. I'm saying this out of painful learnings from switching fully from Sony to Olympus last year.
I wanted to trade IQ for performance and features that (only at an affordable price) Olympus can give: Pro Capture, 25 and 50 FPS with C-AF and Blackout Free, Animal and Bird Subject Detection for shooting dogs in action (sports or playing).

I have yet to test the Olympus 45mm f 1.2 PRO but that's my first priority next year. I have tested the OM-1 on (depending on the light available):
*Olympus 12-40mm f 2.8 PRO: Excellent
*Olympus 40-150mm f 2.8 PRO: Exceptional
*Olympus 100-400mm f 5-6.3: Average to Bellow Average
*Olympus 45mm f 1.8: Excellent to Average
*Olympus 60mm f 2.8 Macro: Good (full AF Limiter Range) to Excellent (Far AF Limiter on)
*Sigma 56mm f 1.4 DC DN Contemporary: Average to Bellow Average
 
Well, it depends (unfortunately). I haven't used the Sony a9 so I can't speak to it's performance so I am coming from Sony a7 Mark IV (which does 20 AF calculations per second instead of 60 like a9 but it has newer processor and AI algorithms, for whatever that's worth).
With Sony a7 Mark IV I had 8 out of 10 pin sharp focus wether it was Sony FE 85mm f 1.8 or Tamron 70-180mm f 2.8 (Mark I) but I had very few choices in body positions (like floppy up ears, or tongue out, or front paws up, or all paws off the ground, etc) . Which made me shoot 3 to 5 bursts with my dog and in the summer she would get tired quickly, in the winter she would lose interest in running and playing after one hour (instead of 2 or 3).
With Olympus OM-1 I get many more shots of the body position I want and decent in focus (about 70% ... So if I shoot 25 FPS for 5 seconds I get 125 images of which 87 images are sharp and that's a higher chance of getting the image I want). At 50 FPS you can get even more options but I wouldn't use that unless it's an extremely fast dog (like jumping Border Collie and dog sports competitions).
As for pin sharp Eye Tracking I don't think Olympus OM-1 is better or the same as Sony. To be honest the images you shared so far are quite acceptable for me (especially for personal use) and even for professional use.

One thing to make sure you know first is that some lenses on Sony will be able to give you a look/rendering that no Micro Four Thirds lens will give you ... Especially for similar price and performance.
For example the fastest telephoto lenses you can get are Olympus 45mm f 1.2 PRO and Panasonic Leica 200mm f 2.8 that have outstanding AF performance (which you would want to keep up with a fast dog at 25 and 50 FPS). Though Panasonic lense are capped at 25 FPS max.
The Olympus 40-150mm f 2.8 PRO can give you similar DoF and look at f 2.8 and 150mm to the Sony FE 85mm f 1.8 wide open but you are at 3 times the distance for similar result. The Autofocus keeps up well at 25 FPS in almost all circumstances and at 50 FPS in better and best light.

I wish there was a simpler answer but, unfortunately and the truth is that, you need to look at a system holistically to guage the performance you need. I'm saying this out of painful learnings from switching fully from Sony to Olympus last year.
I wanted to trade IQ for performance and features that (only at an affordable price) Olympus can give: Pro Capture, 25 and 50 FPS with C-AF and Blackout Free, Animal and Bird Subject Detection for shooting dogs in action (sports or playing).

I have yet to test the Olympus 45mm f 1.2 PRO but that's my first priority next year. I have tested the OM-1 on (depending on the light available):
*Olympus 12-40mm f 2.8 PRO: Excellent
*Olympus 40-150mm f 2.8 PRO: Exceptional
*Olympus 100-400mm f 5-6.3: Average to Bellow Average
*Olympus 45mm f 1.8: Excellent to Average
*Olympus 60mm f 2.8 Macro: Good (full AF Limiter Range) to Excellent (Far AF Limiter on)
*Sigma 56mm f 1.4 DC DN Contemporary: Average to Bellow Average
Excellent summation of the issues, Ovi.

And also thanks to Tim (@Brownie ) for the information provided.

Upshot is really that it doesn't matter if the gear is "perfect", it still requires skill, knowledge, technique and practice on the part of the user to bring it to an acceptable final result.
 
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