Sony makes eye-tracking AF for animals official

Sony has announced a firmware update for the a9, a7R III, and a7 III with many new features.  Probably the most interesting one for NSN users is the introduction of eye AF for animals.  Sony's Eye AF capability for people, which is far beyond other manufacturer's eye AF, has been one of the biggest features differentiating their AF system.  This is the first attempt by any manufacturer to bring this capability to wildlife and animals.

More info here:
https://alphauniverse.com/stories/sony- ... e-updates/

Quoted from the Sony Press Release:
"With this new firmware version 5.0, Sony’s acclaimed α9 camera will receive advanced “Real-time Eye AF,” the latest version of Sony’s acclaimed Eye AF technology. This exciting new capability employs AI-based object recognition to detect and process eye location data in real time, resulting in improved accuracy, speed and tracking performance of Eye AF. In all autofocus modes, the camera can automatically detect the eyes of the subject and activate Eye AF with a half press of the shutter button, and the camera will seamlessly track the eyes at all times when in AF-C mode. The new firmware will also enable photographers to select the preferred eye (left or right) of their subject as the focus point."

I then goes on to say that this will be extended to animals in June with ver. 6

Later it says that the same mode will be made available on the a7 III and a7R III

I don’t know if this is true, but here it says the update for the a9 will be in March and for the a7r lll and a7lll will be in April. Supposedly from the live stream.

https://www.thephoblographer.com/2019/0 ... -tracking/

Joe

Read the official Sony release I linked above. It says v. 5 which includes eye tracking AI improvements in March. Version 6 which includes animal eye tracking in Summer...

"Version 6.0 firmware for the α9 camera will add Eye AF for animal eyes (i), an exciting new feature for wildlife photographers that will enable interval shooting functionality for creating time-lapse movies. The new system firmware update version 5.0 is scheduled for launch in March 2019, and version 6.0 is scheduled for Summer 2019."

E.J. are you aware of whether Sony will be doing anything re Focus Stacking via a firmware update for their latest cameras?
Seeing that more cameras now have focus stacking capability it's about about time that Sony addresses this shortcoming IMO.

signgrap wrote:E.J. are you aware of whether Sony will be doing anything re Focus Stacking via a firmware update for their latest cameras?
Seeing that more cameras now have focus stacking capability it's about about time that Sony addresses this shortcoming IMO.

They published an extensive list of upgrades coming in two cycles over the next six months but that is not on there

OK in light of no update for focus stacking coming in the foreseeable future, I'd like to improve my focus stacking workflow when using an a7R III.
I live in the east, photograph in PA/NJ/NY area mostly, which means no grand western vistas, rather closer more intimate landscape images. While on occasion I do pano stitching I rarely combine stacking and stitching. Never have been happy with the results although recently got a nodal slide pano rail which may help improve the results. I use Zerene Stacker.
What I have been doing is to use auto focus (camera on tripod) - move the focus point (in single shot small) vertically/progressively into the frame with each shot. Having more focus points/captures near camera with wider separation as point moves further from camera. In simple terms having more focus points/captures with longer glass and fewer with wide glass. Typical glass used would be 25, 35, 55, 90mm prime lenses. The most noticeable problem I encounter is having too few images to stack having miscalculated the number of focus points/images needed.
Suggestions for improvement greatly appreciated.
Are there any easy to use Android apps that would take human error out of the equation?

I did a search and found this:
https://www.traumflieger.de/shop/Foto-T ... :2608.html
I imagine the above would work in a studio but not in the field.

Thanks

Dick, since you are asking about Sony I presume you use a camera that has focus points located throughout the entire frame.  Here's how I do it on the a7R series.  I identify what in the scene is closest to the sensor and then place the AF sensor on that but rather than taking the shot at that point right away, I move the AF sensor vertically (not horizontally) to the top of the frame and take the first shot.  I then start coming down the frame with the AF point, as long as it is still over an area that is not closer, I'll skip that spot.  But once things start getting closer, I take a shot at every AF point as I come down the frame to the point where the AF is on the point where I initially determined was my closest point.  Sure I may have some extra frames but that's better than not having enough.

An alternate way to do this in good light is to turn the AF into DMF mode with focus peaking on and just move the AF point or the manual focus ring through the range so that every part of the frame received peaking with plenty of overlap.

It is so much easier on systems that automate this!

I wish they included a way to select a different color for the focus frame/indicator. For some reason, I have more trouble seeing it on the a7 mIII than on the mII...

Nonetheless, an impressive feature upgrade!

Joerg

To say that Sony's press release created mass confusion as to what features will be available when in what cameras is an understatement.  This video demystifies it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPwMBqVkBAI

In short, for animal eye AF which is what most here would care most about, the a7R III and a7 III get it in March, the a9 gets it in "summer", the a6400 gets it as soon as you can buy the camera in February.

E.J. Peiker wrote:Dick, since you are asking about Sony I presume you use a camera that has focus points located throughout the entire frame.  Here's how I do it on the a7R series.  I identify what in the scene is closest to the sensor and then place the AF sensor on that but rather than taking the shot at that point right away, I move the AF sensor vertically (not horizontally) to the top of the frame and take the first shot.  I then start coming down the frame with the AF point, as long as it is still over an area that is not closer, I'll skip that spot.  But once things start getting closer, I take a shot at every AF point as I come down the frame to the point where the AF is on the point where I initially determined was my closest point.  Sure I may have some extra frames but that's better than not having enough.

An alternate way to do this in good light is to turn the AF into DMF mode with focus peaking on and just move the AF point or the manual focus ring through the range so that every part of the frame received peaking with plenty of overlap.

It is so much easier on systems that automate this!

E.J. Thanks for the explanation. 
Yes I'm using  a7RIII.
Just to make sure this old brain of mine is interpreting your description correctly I'd like to restate your method.

Establish the nearest subject you want sharp by moving the AF point there.
Then using the focus joystick move the AF point (in Single Shot, AF-S; Focus Area Small) to the top of the image (or the upper most part of the image that contains a focusable object) - take the shot.
Now move the AF point one step down using the joystick - take the shot.
Continue repeating the process down the image till you reach the near subject you wanted sharp.
Make sure NOT to place the focus point on an object that is nearer than the original near AF point; e.g. a low hanging branch when moving the AF point down the image before you get to the near subject you originally established. 
When the camera is in a landscape (horizontal orientation), to my count there are 16 AF steps that you can move the AF point to with the joystick. So there would be a maximum of 16, sometimes fewer images that can be taken with the camera in landscape orientation using this method. 

signgrap wrote:

E.J. Peiker wrote:Dick, since you are asking about Sony I presume you use a camera that has focus points located throughout the entire frame.  Here's how I do it on the a7R series.  I identify what in the scene is closest to the sensor and then place the AF sensor on that but rather than taking the shot at that point right away, I move the AF sensor vertically (not horizontally) to the top of the frame and take the first shot.  I then start coming down the frame with the AF point, as long as it is still over an area that is not closer, I'll skip that spot.  But once things start getting closer, I take a shot at every AF point as I come down the frame to the point where the AF is on the point where I initially determined was my closest point.  Sure I may have some extra frames but that's better than not having enough.

An alternate way to do this in good light is to turn the AF into DMF mode with focus peaking on and just move the AF point or the manual focus ring through the range so that every part of the frame received peaking with plenty of overlap.

It is so much easier on systems that automate this!

E.J. Thanks for the explanation. 
Yes I'm using  a7RIII.
Just to make sure this old brain of mine is interpreting your description correctly I'd like to restate your method.

Establish the nearest subject you want sharp by moving the AF point there.
Then using the focus joystick move the AF point (in Single Shot, AF-S; Focus Area Small) to the top of the image (or the upper most part of the image that contains a focusable object) - take the shot.
Now move the AF point one step down using the joystick - take the shot.
Continue repeating the process down the image till you reach the near subject you wanted sharp.
Make sure NOT to place the focus point on an object that is nearer than the original near AF point; e.g. a low hanging branch when moving the AF point down the image before you get to the near subject you originally established. 
When the camera is in a landscape (horizontal orientation), to my count there are 16 AF steps that you can move the AF point to with the joystick. So there would be a maximum of 16, sometimes fewer images that can be taken with the camera in landscape orientation using this method. 

Yeah that about covers it.  Just a couple of comments, especially when on the background, say you are shooting a mountain in the distance and the whole top half of the shot is the distant mountain, there is no need to take a shot after the farthest one, until you get to the point where the background starts coming towards you.  As for your comment about the branch - that would be your closest point so that is where you would set initial focus and then proceed with the process from the top of the frame to the bottom of the frame as described.  BTW, the only reason I suggest photographing the farthest object first is because the magnification changes slightly as you go through the focus range and this way the stacking software won't produce an out of focus edge all the way around the photograph.  This by the way is the weakness of the Fuji and Nikon auto-stacking system, they start at the closest point and go out to the farthest so after stacking there is often a soft OOF "frame around the image" that needs to be manually cropped (from an ease of use in the field standpoint though, Fuji's is the best).  The only auto system that I am aware of that goes from farthest to closest is the Phase One auto-stacking feature and it is no accident that they developed their system with the folks at Helicon Focus so they got it right with regard to how stacking software handles things.

E.J., Once again you provide extremely helpful info 
Thank you

Sample gallery with beta 5.0 update:

https://www.dpreview.com/samples/970847 ... rmware-5-0

Joe