Sony A7 IV Autofocus Guide and Test. All autofocus settings for the Sony A7 IV explained

today i'm talking about the autofocus on the sony a74 one of the best autofocus systems i've ever used i'm going to be putting it through some tests as well as discussing all the settings and features to help you get the most out of your a74 i've made videos on the sony a74's numerous video settings and memory card compatibility and the autofocus on the sony a74 is another reason it's such a great camera starting from the very top is focus mode simply just auto focus and manual focus it's worth mentioning that if you keep this set to af and change between manual and autofocus on the lens itself the camera will automatically switch as well but if you set your camera to manual focus and keep your autofocus on your lens sony support mentioned that this could cause damage to the focus gears on the camera or the lens if you have pressed the shutter and engage the focus system autofocus transition speed this is how fast the autofocus will shift between two focus points the scale goes from slow one to fast seven this is how fast seven is very quick while this is very slow and smooth one a middle three is still quite fast but much smoother and not as jarring and i'm controlling this all using spot focus by tapping on the sony a7 screen there's tap and then there's also track focus that you can cycle through at the top here they both work really great as you can see the focus box just stays glued on the selected subject if you don't want to be using touch functions you can use the joystick to move the focus point this is also a transition speed of 7. autofocus shift sensitivity this determines how long before the autofocus kicks in when the subject moves out of the focus area and it ranges between a locked one and a responsive five setting one holds focus for about four and a half seconds three looks like just over one second and five is basically instantaneous af assist is next and it's a new feature brought into sony's full-frame mirrorless cameras when af assist is on it allows you to manually pull focus on the lens from one subject to another once focus engages on the new subject autofocus takes over and keeps them as the new focus target featuring my little munchkins annie and leela there are five focus areas wide zone center fix spot small medium and large and expand spot focus wide uses all of the sony a74's 759 focus points you can see when i turn around it recognizes my face and starts tracking right away as i walk closer to the camera focus stays completely locked on my eye even when i move to the edge of the frame and into a darker area it keeps working right up until i exit the frame picking me right back up as i walk back into the shot it's crazy to see that at a razer thin plane of focus of wide open at 1.4 my eye is 100 in focus i wanted to test how wide works when there is no face for the a74 to recognize it seems that the algorithm favors the center of the frame as you can see the af doesn't kick in with me waving my arm on the side but once i catch it by putting my hand in the middle it seems to stay locked on really well even when i move my hand to the absolute edges this is zone focus it's a large area of focus that you can move to nine different areas this one and the other focus boxes all work the same anything inside will be prioritized even if a face is in the frame outside the focus box it's cool to see the a74 recognize that i'm there but only focuses on what's in the zone once i pop into the box the af grabs my eye very quickly this is really helpful for when you're trying to isolate a subject in the zone center fix is just a smaller box that stays locked on in the middle no matter how close you get to the box it doesn't grab focus unless you actually enter it focus spot has small medium and large boxes but unlike center fix the box can be moved around the frame with the joystick i shot this example with the sony a7s3 but as it shares the same af system with the a74 i thought i would mention that i had some issues with autofocus pulsing using the larger focus box i had the focus box on the farther microphone on the left and i wanted the closer microphone to come in focus as i rotate it i didn't notice the pulsing until i had the clip in my editor so i reshot it using the small focus box which let me be more precise with what was in the focus zone and it seemed to reduce the pulsing last is expand spot which prioritizes the center box but if it doesn't detect anything in the middle box focus will move to the outer box focus area limit lets you change which of the five focus areas show up in your quick menu turn off the ones you don't want to use so you don't have to cycle through them focus area color lets you change between red and white and circulate focus lets the focus area pass through the end of the screen and onto the other side which works sideways as well as up and down af frame move amount changes how far the focus box moves per input on the joystick looks like it's about twice as far for the large setting face and eye priority is the setting that as the name states prioritizes faces and eyes you can also change the eye subject between human animal and now birds as well these focus modes work for photo and video you can change which eye is prioritized left right or auto with auto it will choose which eye is closest to the camera the face i frame display is the setting you want to have on to have the gray box show which eye focus is targeting registered faces let you prioritize focus on the faces that are saved in the camera which could be helpful in crowded situations it only lets you turn it on and off in video mode but if you go into photo mode it reveals the register option it looks like you can save up to eight at a time focus map is another new feature which creates this fairly busy scene but really helps you visualize what's in focus it also color codes what is out of focus in the foreground which is shown in red and blue for what is out of focus in the background the more out of focus the darker each color is moving on to focus magnifier you can use this to punch in on your subject to make sure focus is exactly where you want when you're in manual this is a very useful tool i use all the time with one and four times magnification options it's great that the a74 has this but i wish i could punch in just a little bit farther i came from the nikon d780 and when i set it up for the exact same scene and 50 millimeter focal length i get significantly more reach with the nikon being able to extend magnification farther really helps with nailing focus and i seem to have a harder time making sure i'm perfectly in focus in manual when i'm using the sony a74 focus magnification time you can set between two and five seconds or no limit this means it will automatically pull back to full view after that period of time i personally prefer no limit and finally the last few are more focus assist settings in manual mode there's focus peaking that you can turn on here but i have it set to my function button and you can change the peaking amount with low having a thinner threshold for what it considers in focus while high has a wider range and finally focus color you can choose between red yellow blue or white so those are the autofocus settings on the sony a74 and as i mentioned earlier i've created a video settings guide for the a74 as well as a memory card compatibility guide which you might find useful thank you very much for watching and i hope you have a fantastic day take care you

Channel: Tymek Stolarz

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Id: BwB8TJcEiZI

Length: 8min 4sec (484 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 17 2022