GracieAllen
Member
Before I go into a long, boring example, does anyone here know of a way to have the Alpha 1 get the spot metering information from the focus point that the tracking is using?
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Alpha 1, synchronizing spot metering with tracking focus point?
- Thread starter GracieAllen
- Start date
Glenn Barber
New Member
You can set the Exposure to the Spot focus point - but when tracking and shooting sequences I think it only uses the first acquired point of focus and doesnt adjust as the subject moves accors the frame.. For birds in flight and other items tracked accross the frame - this is why I end up in manual mode for exposure.
GracieAllen
Member
thanks for the reply.
A scenario: You're in a location with a lot of different birds within a few feet of each other. And it's BUSY. LOTS of switching between birds where you have very little time to play with the camera. You're in manual mode using Auto-ISO. You're photographing a black anhinga, in small spot focusing with standard spot metering. Suddenly, out of the corner of your eye you see a great egret stand up and reveal her chicks. You switch to that subject and the tracking put the focus on her eye. You very quickly recompose by moving the camera slightly. When you do so, the tracking keeps the focus on the eye, but the ORIGINAL focus point (the RED rectangle) and spot metering (the black circle around the red rectangle) move OFF the body of the bird to a dark patch of leaves a couple inches away. You shoot, and have an egret that's 2 stops overexposed and not recoverable. YES, you COULD have "quickly" moved to the joystick and tried to shove the original focus point BACK onto the bird's body, but while you're doing that she starts sitting back on the nest and the shot is lost.
It's not a unique scenario. I've had it happen with a bunch of birds in dark blue water. You're shooting a little blue heron, and have to move quickly to an egret with a fish, to catch the shot in the sub-second before the bird swallows, the tracking puts the focus on the eye, the "spot metering" ISN'T on the bird, and you shoot while metering the dark blue water instead of the blinding white bird.
I didn't THINK there was any configuration or setting that would have the Alpha 1 use the actual location where the tracking focused, but I was hoping I was wrong.
A scenario: You're in a location with a lot of different birds within a few feet of each other. And it's BUSY. LOTS of switching between birds where you have very little time to play with the camera. You're in manual mode using Auto-ISO. You're photographing a black anhinga, in small spot focusing with standard spot metering. Suddenly, out of the corner of your eye you see a great egret stand up and reveal her chicks. You switch to that subject and the tracking put the focus on her eye. You very quickly recompose by moving the camera slightly. When you do so, the tracking keeps the focus on the eye, but the ORIGINAL focus point (the RED rectangle) and spot metering (the black circle around the red rectangle) move OFF the body of the bird to a dark patch of leaves a couple inches away. You shoot, and have an egret that's 2 stops overexposed and not recoverable. YES, you COULD have "quickly" moved to the joystick and tried to shove the original focus point BACK onto the bird's body, but while you're doing that she starts sitting back on the nest and the shot is lost.
It's not a unique scenario. I've had it happen with a bunch of birds in dark blue water. You're shooting a little blue heron, and have to move quickly to an egret with a fish, to catch the shot in the sub-second before the bird swallows, the tracking puts the focus on the eye, the "spot metering" ISN'T on the bird, and you shoot while metering the dark blue water instead of the blinding white bird.
I didn't THINK there was any configuration or setting that would have the Alpha 1 use the actual location where the tracking focused, but I was hoping I was wrong.
Glenn Barber
New Member
FWIW - I been shooting lately raw as base ISO with live view turned off - correcting 3+ stops in ACR and a little noise cleanup with Topaz - and getting great results.
GracieAllen
Member
ISO-invariance is a good thing! I haven't gotten so far as to shoot at 100 all the time, but I HAVE turned down the limits on Auto-ISO. I used to let it go as high as needed, but during the recent trip to Florida I tried limiting it to 100-1600. That's worked well. I was just hoping I'd missed something in all my searching, and there WAS a way to make the spot metering more useful by having it use the actual focus spot... Mostly, most of the time, the camera works well, as long as I don't get a subject with a bright area that blows out the highlights.
RE Alpha
Member
When using the A1, DPReview (the original), stated that the A1 has ISO invariance on 100-400 and 500-102,400. That may help a bit.
www.dpreview.com
When it comes down to the original question, it seems that Sony could do with either a fix or a choice how you would like the spot metering to behave I guess.
Sony a1 review
The Sony Alpha 1 is Sony's flagship mirrorless camera for, well, just about anything. With a 50MP sensor, it gives you tons of resolution, but it also lets you fire off burst images at 30 fps for fast action sports. Add in 8K video capture and you have a really impressive package.
www.dpreview.com
When it comes down to the original question, it seems that Sony could do with either a fix or a choice how you would like the spot metering to behave I guess.
GracieAllen
Member
Yeah, I was hoping there was something in the configuration I'd missed... Now I'm scratching my head, trying to understand why you'd set up a camera so it DOESN'T do the metering where it's focusing BY DEFAULT - you SHOULD be able to HAVE it meter elsewhere, but in general isn't the point of spot metering and spot focusing is to get the exposure correct where the camera is focusing? It's how every Nikon I use(d) worked - put the camera in spot meter instead of Matrix, and it metered where it focused. 'Course they didn't have tracking...