Wow, Using Canon 6D as of now but planning to shift to Sony A iii very very soon… When you’ve got your focus point on your subject, the Expand Flexible Spot will “expand” if needed outside of the focus point to grab focus. The good and the bad is that Zone covers a large area. The Center Focus Area leaves the focus point in the middle of the frame, and that’s about it. Not all cameras are created equal. Basically, it’s an autofocus mode, but it does allow you to manually focus after the autofocus has locked in. It just jumped back and forth and sounded like a dying giraffe. I know I started off really confused about all the different things I could do with Sony's Autofocus system, but now I’m loving my Sony camera and its amazing autofocus! ISO: The “Auto” setting usually works pretty well, but it is not as flexible as the Auto ISO feature on Nikon and Canon DSLRs. Sony cameras do have face detection, so it will probably lock onto the correct person. Using a resolution of 1024 long edge and 300 pixels per inch resolution is quite adequate on social media. There are 9 different areas or zones, so you can have more control over where to focus. AF is essential to me, so right out of the box, what setting should the Sony A7ii be set at?? If you find this happening, you could use the, once you are in focus (mine is set to the AEL button). how to use this rotating button? In this article, I want to provide some information on what settings I use and explain what some of the important settings do. Hopefully, by the end of this you’ll have a better understanding of Sony’s Autofocus Settings. Center Lock On is more of a special feature than a focus area. You can also do the same thing with the following modes if you just put focus point in the center, and then you’d still have the option to move it if needed. The Canon 6D is a good camera. I think it’d make more sense to let you manually focus at any point instead of having to wait. Get out of auto and get control of your camera using tried-and-true recipes. It just doesn’t work when there’s not a lot of contrast. With all that said, make sure you test out the Sony body and lenses in Continuous AF before you go out and try to use it in a real shoot. The Sony A7iii was sold out everywhere when it launched, so it’s clear that a bunch of people are jumping ship and switching over to the Sony world. Sony has several autofocus settings to choose from, so it can be kind of confusing on what each does and when to use each mode. Also, choosing a fast shutter speed of 1/1000 sec or faster will help you to capture the subject more crisply and clearly. best thing ever invented if u ask me, I never used the Canon 600d, but the 6d is a good camera. Exposure Compensation: 0.0, I prefer to use the rear bottom dial for accessing exposure compensation instead. The other big difference is the way it works. If you own a Sony camera, I hope this has demystified some of it for you and now you have a better idea of what everything does and when to use it. Overall, I think this mode is good for beginners. Z6ii vs. Z7ii which has better tonal gradation? Sony camera is one of the best one because they producing best lenses of cameras. PL provides various digital photography news, reviews, articles, tips, tutorials and guides to photographers of all levels, By Nasim Mansurov 145 CommentsLast Updated On August 2, 2019. Vijay, Then simply turn the focus ring until you see the coloured outline of the zone you want in focus. One tool I find handy is I use custom settings to set my ael button to zoom. As for focusing the lens, set your camera to auto focus. When you activate AI-Focus, the camera will find the eyeball. I personally prefer to keep that function in the C1 button, but you can change it to one of many other available functions through the camera menu, as explained below. Once you get there, you’ll notice you have 4 options to choose from. : Shows what’s on the card, Setting reset: will reset the camera settings or reinitialize the camera. Recently, Sony has made some big leaps in the autofocus world with the Sony A9 and now the Sony A7iii. DMF: The Sony A6100 focuses on your subject and allows you to fine-tune your focus area further using the manual focus ring on the lens. You can set Auto ISO Minimum and Maximum, but there is no place to set a minimum shutter speed or override the default formula of shutter speed = focal length. This option can be a little hard to find. Dial/Wheel Ev Comp: Wheel – since the lens aperture is controlled with the dial, I like to use the rear dial for exposure compensation. All of their current options, including the a6000 and a5100, have it as well as some of their older NEX models. Sony comes fully equipped with two powerful tools for manual focusing. I find this very helpful because I deal with a lot of movement in the wedding world, and it’s also great for sports or kids photos or anything that’s constantly moving. I usually have this on the back button AEL, as explained above. As long as you have a camera that works for you, that’s all that matters. The Flash button is a physical button that opens up the pop-up flash – it is not programmable like other buttons. Hi Sony A7ii camera buyer, I just bought this same Sony, out of the box from Best Buy & I cannot see how to use AF Auto Focus with the Sony 28-70mm provided lens? When Should You Use Manual Focus. This is the feature that is changing the photography world and getting people to jump over to Sony. We’re done with the Focus Modes, so I now we move on how to select focus. THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR EXPLAINING HOW SONY WORK. Not a problem. All of this looks really neat and fun, but will the knife really cut through a shoe? 8. It does what. For portraits, I set the camera to AF-A focus mode, ISO to Auto, and tweak other relevant settings. In this area, you can now select a large chunk of the frame to focus on, but the camera will still help select focus in that area. I bought this Sony primarily to add audio mics to the camera, to improve the sound, but I still need auto focus. The black wheel next to the viewfinder only changes the diopter strength of the viewfinder. This is useful for photographers using old manual lenses, with an adapter, or those filming videos. Select AF Micro Adj. In Aperture Priority and Manual modes, for example, the dial is used to adjust lens aperture, while in Shutter Priority mode, it changes the camera shutter speed. I don’t plan on using manual focus for photography, but Sony does have a really cool feature related to manual focus. It’s been around for some time because I have it on the Sony A7Sii as well. It never locked focus. For one, the focus rings on the Nikon lenses that I own are really bad. It’s good because you don’t have to move the spot around a lot, but it’s bad in that you still don’t have complete control. This way it won’t change focus until you release the Focus Hold button. The Sony is pretty horrible with focusing, the Rokinon is good, and the Zeiss is the best. This means that if the subject does move a little or you do, the camera should adjust. I could see this being useful for product photography or landscapes, but if you have that kind of time to adjust things, you could always just do it all manually from the beginning. Out of the two, I’ve found this focus area to work well on my Sony A7iii. For a front focus issue, select (+) increment values. Unfortunately, Continuous AF isn’t great all the time. Back button focus makes it easy to swap between auto and manual focus. The Sony A6000 has a rather simple and uncluttered top plate. Vijay. Here is how the back of the camera looks: At the top right side of the camera you will find the AEL button (Auto Exposure Lock), which is conveniently located where your right thumb would normally be. With all that said, make sure you test out the Sony body and lenses in Continuous AF before you go out and try to use it in a real shoot. Z6 II vs Z7 II – which one is better for enthusiast, Image Size: Default (24M), grayed out on RAW, Panorama: Size -> Standard (only visible in Panorama mode), Panorama: Direction -> Right (from Left to Right, visible in Panorama mode), Movie Record Setting: 24p 17M (FH). This is an extremely nice feature, but because there is all the button pushing to get it to start, I’d still stick with the Lock-On AF Expand Flexible Spot. Please do keep in mind that while these work for me, it does not mean that everyone else should be shooting with exactly the same settings. Thank you for a clear aid to using the a6000. Let’s go through these real quick: Drive Mode: I mostly keep it at “Single Shooting”, but sometimes switch to Self-Timer when photographing on a tripod to avoid camera vibrations. Can people share the camera settings & custom button organisation for using manual lenses with the Sony a6000? Once you get there, you’ll notice you have, Unfortunately, Continuous AF isn’t great all the time. This is what I used at a wedding last week during the reception??? I totally agree that the Menu is very poorly organized, mis-labeled and confusing. I have a 12mm Rokinon (Samyang), but also a Yashica ML 50mm F1.7 and a Yashica ML 300mm F5.6. I really enjoy using manual focus with my A6000. It does what Lock-On AF Expand Flexible Spot does but in a different way. I just held it down. When you choose manual focus on the sony a5100 you can choose to have the zebra function on or off. Happy shooting. What really would be difficult for me is manually focusing every shot. I just picked up the A7iII yesterday, I am looking forward to trying out all the differentAF modes and taking some action shots of my black Labrador retriever. No, there were sometimes it focused on the eyelashes or a piece of hair, and it did struggle with quicker moving subjects, but overall, I’m impressed and plan on using Eye AF as much as I can. Release w/o Lens: Disable – do not allow firing the camera without a lens. Our a6000 takes pictures at 6000×4000 which looks terrific when printed or on your computer screen. Is there some other setting overriding Raw? this one was a good lengthy and impressive article. So this mode kind of solves the issue I mentioned earlier about the camera not allowing you to manually focus while in another mode. Take a picture and examine the results. Join expert photographer John Greengo for a fast-track introduction, and unlock your camera’s full potential. It didn’t lock on very well and couldn’t keep up with the subject. Before we get into all the Sony autofocus settings, I want to warn you that there some things that can cause problems. Sometimes Continuous AF will jump off the subject because it is constantly trying to stay focused. The wide mode can be useful in several situations. To the right of the AEL button, almost on the side of the camera, you will find a red button that is used for recording videos. The main downfall of Flexible Spot is getting it to work. Depending on your camera, it might be under the Camera and 3rd page or in the Sony A7iii, it’s now under the first Camera and 5th page. Focus Magnifier: Used for zooming in while focusing manually. I just got my A7 iii coming from a Nikon D750 and one thing I noticed is that during continuous AF single shot, there is a huge delay from pressing the shutter button to taking sequential shots. The camera does the rest of the exposure calculation work quite well. FINDER/MONITOR: Auto – will automatically switch between viewfinder and LCD. He is recognized as one of the leading educators in the photography industry, conducting workshops, producing educational videos and frequently writing content for Photography Life. I don’t normally trust a camera to help out or make decisions, but I found that when I select the general focus point, the camera does help me out. IMPROVE PHOTOGRAPHY LLC IS A PARTICIPANT IN THE AMAZON SERVICES LLC ASSOCIATES PROGRAM, AN AFFILIATE ADVERTISING PROGRAM DESIGNED TO PROVIDE A MEANS FOR SITES TO EARN ADVERTISING FEES BY ADVERTISING AND LINKING TO AMAZON.COM. We often see people reaching out with various problems with their Sony a6000 and when you dig a little deeper, these issues usually stem from some commonly found problems with the a6000. First time using camera – where is the Eye AF setting or does this automatically happen in Auto? ... Enhances the outline of in-focus ranges with a Peaking Level specific color when focusing manually. With Flexible Spot, you control exactly where the focus goes. All you have to do is access “Shooting Menu 7” in the camera menu, then save your settings in one of the three memory banks. The Sony 50mm F1.8 was the worst. AF w/ shutter: On – if you want to focus and recompose, set it to Off and use the AEL button on the back for AF On as explained earlier, S. Auto Img. Thanks for reading! Written with newbie photographers in mind, this beginners manual will focus on the key elements of how to take great photos with the Sony A6000. WE ALSO PARTICIPATE IN AFFILIATE PROGRAMS WITH BLUEHOST, CLCJ, SHAREASALE, AND OTHER SITES. Imagine you have a group of people talking. DMF is one of the Focus Modes on the Sony A6000 and A6300 cameras. It never locked focus. Laurie. The camera determines focus by picking the object that is either closest to the camera, in the center of the frame, or a face if there is one present. And if you put it against your body, the camera will indefinitely try to acquire focus. At the start I mentioned a few scenarios when manually focusing your lens is a good idea, but let’s look at them in a little more depth. Creative Style: Standard. You’d have to go in and change the focus mode. The first choice to make is how the camera is going to focus. This focus area takes Expand flexible spot, but then it will lock-on and follow the subject once you have started focusing. Focus Magnif. Once you choose the subject, you don’t have to hold down the focus button. THanks a lot for giving a detailed description of each and every thing. The Menu button located right next to it obviously opens up the camera menu – that’s where you make changes to the camera. You wrote a very good information with latest info;; I used sony a68 is best camera of photography Will that stuff really fix a hole in a boat? Jul 1, 2017 Sony a6000: How to Use Manual Focus Lens (Meike 35mm f1.7) Jul 1, 2017 June 2017 3. Some cameras will be missing some of these features and modes and some just work better than others. Peaking highlights the outlined area of your image that is in focus in either Red, Yellow or White. Moving the spot around also takes time, so there have been times I missed a shot because I couldn’t get the focus point there quickly enough. I’m a beginner and want to take wedding pictures this weekend. It just jumped back and forth and sounded like a dying giraffe. When selecting it, you can hit left or right to choose between three sizes. Within that big area, you still might have more than one thing. I have to manually focus when I do video, and it can really be a struggle. Superduper easy, I use both digital magnification (when using a tripod) and the peaking. I locked on to my son and fired off about 8 or 9 frames. I can control that with Flexible Spot. Read more about Nasim here. As I said earlier, if you don’t want to mess around with controlling the focus point or you just aren’t quick enough at selecting a focus point, wide can be helpful. I am really liking this site and now I am a regular user to this and do visit it daily. Things like how you program it to do back button auto focus, magnification to check and focus, etc. Faces) – works pretty well for registering and tracking faces, Scene Selection: grayed out in Aperture Priority, but will show a bunch of scenes when in Scene mode, Movie: Grayed out in Aperture Priority mode. Sony a6000 Moon Settings – Intro. I usually toggle between two presets – for Landscapes and People. Other times it did find a face and worked well. Continuous AF is what most people will use because it tries to keep things in focus continuously. Learn how to setup your Sony a6000 for portraits, sports, landscapes, nature, animals and more. I really can’t imagine being a photographer 40 or 50 years ago. Focus Area. Lots of menu options to go through, with different functions thrown under random menus. This is it! This mode is helpful in situations where you know you don’t want the focus to change. Autofocus is at its worst in low light conditions. I enjoy this new a6000, but the 200m lens (amazon kit) is difficult to focus. Zone – Select from nine zones on the monitor on which to focus. thanks, very informative i want to know about thefunction of button next to view finder. The C1 function button next to the camera on/off switch / shutter release by default is used for changing the Focus Mode. Lock-on AF ( (MENU → → page 5 → Lock-on AF) Lock-on AF allows the camera to lock on a subject and follow focus when your subject moves. Thank you for the article it was very easy to follow. If you’re looking for the simplest autofocus area and you don’t want to deal with controlling the focus point, Wide mode is for you. Just for the short time I’ve been using the Sony A7iii, I can say it much better than the Canon. Before going into the camera menu, let’s first get started on the exterior controls. If your not new to the Sony Camera system, then you still might learn a thing or two 😉 Most of the Sony cameras are similar as far as the focus modes go, but if you are coming from another brand like Canon, Nikon, Fuji, or Olympus for example, the focus features are very different. Shooting Tip List: has some good info for beginners. When you start to turn the focus, the focus assist automatically kicks in, making the image zoom in so you can make sure you are in focus. This would also work well in situations where your subject is by itself like portraits of one person or product photography. This option can be a little hard to find. Some cameras will be missing some of these features and modes and some just work better than others. Thanks Bryan, great article, does it have Single point Auto Focus. I hope you found this article useful. Even the menu system of Olympus cameras, which I find to be rather complex to navigate through, is more organized in comparison. Could be a lot of reasons… Are you relying only on the lcd screen image to determine that the picture is in focus? It made things difficult. The article is great and very detailed, easy to understand, I also read many other articles and I found your article has helped me a lot of information, thank you for sharing. Print or … When I switched to the Sony A7iii and the Zeiss 85mm, though, Continuous AF was amazing. The multi-functional navigation dial on the back of the camera is very useful and can be used to navigate through the camera menu, make quick exposure changes, as well as access specific functions by pressing each of the four corners. By default, the A6000 opens up the In-Camera Guide. If you or your subject moves a few inches forward or backward after the focus is locked, your focus might be off. It will also touch on some of the more technical tips to push your skills a little further. Get the most out of your new Sony A6000 with this complete step-by-step walkthrough of the camera’s features. This setting will automatically detect if you are using the viewfinder and try to focus. thanks. The … In other situations though, like if you have multiple people, Wide AF might not work because it might select the wrong face and you have no way of controlling it. Although we do usually try to stick to that kind of article where we focus on one single question or topic, today’s article is going to be a little different. Wide – The camera focuses over a wide area allowing instant AF response to a subject, even off centre. Regards, Best of luck! Keep it up You can follow him on Instagram and Facebook. This makes it more involved than Lock-On AF Expand Flexible Spot. AF-C: The Sony A6100 will continuously focus on any movement when you half-press the shutter button. Once you set your camera to Aperture Priority mode, you just use this right dial to tweak the lens aperture (for shallow or large depth of field). Great explanation. Allows picking one of the three presets. Extract. I also give a quick overview of how to use exposure compensation in combination with Auto ISO to brighten or darken the exposure when using manual mode. When in movie mode, I usually pick Aperture Priority as well, SteadyShot: On – keep this turned on. I rarely ever shoot video, but when I do, I use the setting that consumes least amount of memory, Picture Effect: Off (grayed out in RAW mode). I have been told the black wheel next to the viewfinder should be used to focus each lens, but this wheel is difficult to turn. The reason it can be very frustrating is if you are using external flash and the camera on manual then you cannot see any image on the screen because it will be too dark. If you want to know how to manual focus on the a6000, first make sure to switch the AF mode to MF (Manual Focus). I researched carefully and quickly decided that a mirrorless camera was a good travel camera and a better option than a DSLR for me. First, use settings tab 3 to enable “Release W/O Lens”. sony is the biggest company best known for tv, camera, mobile, headphone and many others gadgets. The same goes for Eye AF. Although you can modify and customize the function menu when the button is pressed, I personally find the default values to work quite well. When the camera is not in Playback mode, the C2 serves as another programmable function key. Iso to auto, and it had some issues with Continuous AF setting or does automatically. Gon na hate you keep doing your work Spot around, I like to keep “ Airplane mode on... Magnification to check and focus, magnification to check and focus, it pick. Pick what works best for you 've been mostly pleased with the wide autofocus mode, it! 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