[beholder3]

You Tube

You Tube

Surprising that the newest iteration of Sony's 5,000 EUR camera seems so utterly incapable of basic tracking with even this easy subject (bright red thingy in front of white/black background).

[WorksAsIntended]

Well, this video seems rather strange. Sonys tracking usually works way way better than displayed here. Would not be suprised if they just used bad settings for this one.

[Mikesul]

This video is a fuji promotion. Even on the Fuji fan site many noticed that the A7R4 was not set up right. A7R4 focus is only a little behind the A9ii.

[luftfluss]

[beholder3]

This video is a fuji promotion. Even on the Fuji fan site many noticed that the A7R4 was not set up right. A7R4 focus is only a little behind the A9ii.

Any defensive Sony fans can claim what they want, but there is little credibility in this unless we see another video evidence created by a non-Sony-fan which supports the claims that the Sony has at least mediocre tracking, I guess.

[biz-engineer]

Having compared the XT3 to the Sony A7III, I could observe the same thing: Fuji AF tracking was much more responsive than Sony, although according to marketing content found in internet, Sony AF tracking is supposed to be faster...

Having dug into the GFX50 system, I am now very concern about how much bias is being built up online.
For example Ben K. was defending the GFX50 for having the best AF of medium format, while some reviewers claimed GFX50 AF was a hit & miss & even camera freeze at times. And somewhere else Ben K. asking if Fuji are going to make a GFX50 mark II with IBIS and PDAF (read translation: ...because the CDAF only of the GFX50 sucks), and some GFX50 reviewer confirmed that the 645z was quick to AF lock where the GFX50 would fail. It's concerning that a lot of online content can't be trusted unfortunately , especially given how expensive are these camera toys.

I think the perceived AF tracking speed highly correlates with how many marketing dollars are spent to build the perception, and the real AF tracking speed might be different from marketing content lets us believe.

[normhead]

This video is a fuji promotion. Even on the Fuji fan site many noticed that the A7R4 was not set up right. A7R4 focus is only a little behind the A9ii.

Point us to a resource that demonstrates your point.

[WorksAsIntended]

I never had a change to test the Fuji, but the af of the A9 II is superiour to what Nikon dslrs offer (never had a Nikon mslr in my hand outside a store, so no idea about those) and a totally different world to what Pentax offers.

If Fuji manages to be better than this, coudos! They did a great job and I sure hope my next camera is anywhere near this af level.

This guy may be full of it sometimes, but the footage of the af is impressive.
Canon 1DX Mark III vs Sony a9 II Real World AUTO FOCUS Review - YouTube

[normhead]

I never had a change to test the Fuji, but the af of the A9 II is superiour to what Nikon dslrs offer (never had a Nikon mslr in my hand outside a store, so no idea about those) and a totally different world to what Pentax offers.

If Fuji manages to be better than this, coudos! They did a great job and I sure hope my next camera is anywhere near this af level.

This guy may be full of it sometimes, but the footage of the af is impressive.
Canon 1DX Mark III vs Sony a9 II Real World AUTO FOCUS Review - YouTube

I only watched half, but for my use and the way I'd use the camera, Canon all the way. If that video was all I watched, I'd be buying Canon, not only based on the buffer clearing, but on the over all performance. It's better at what i do most.

Based on my own use, I actually wondered if I could do a better job with the Pentax in AF.s than either camera tracking. Subject acquisition in both cameras compared to what I'm used to with Pentax AF.s (K-3 and K-1) seemed moderately fast at best. Definitely for me, not worth 3 times the money.

Honestly, based on it's rep, the Sony fails at some stuff I expected it to excel at, case in point being the camera focusing on the players knee? I mean really? I would have done better with single point AF.s. The canon didn't miss the desired focus point.

[Mikesul]

Point us to a resource that demonstrates your point.

My only point was that the video was clearly a marketing set up by Fuji. The Fuji is probably a great camera. I have no idea about that. I t is a crop vs FF in the video.Remember the fuss here a few years ago about the DP bicycle review of the K-1? The Sony fan boys on Youtube have outlined some of the issues with the video in their comments. I am not a fanboy. 40 year of happy Pentax use still using K-1 silver and Kp. Just sold my K-1ii because I have too many camera but the K-1ii is a great camera. I also have some Sony gear including the A7Riv and the A9ii. Horses for courses.
I only commented because I hate to see this wonderful forum being used to unfairly bash other cameras rather than just for exploring and enjoying Pentax. Nothing wrong with commenting on the perceived advantages of other systems but those comments should be based on significant experience or at least reliable data.
My usual practice is to read these contentious posts but not to comment. I will return to that mode now.

[normhead]

My only point was that the video was clearly a marketing set up by Fuji. The Fuji is probably a great camera. I have no idea about that. I t is a crop vs FF in the video.Remember the fuss here a few years ago about the DP bicycle review of the K-1? The Sony fan boys on Youtube have outlined some of the issues with the video in their comments. I am not a fanboy. 40 year of happy Pentax use still using K-1 silver and Kp. Just sold my K-1ii because I have too many camera but the K-1ii is a great camera. I also have some Sony gear including the A7Riv and the A9ii. Horses for courses.
I only commented because I hate to see this wonderful forum being used to unfairly bash other cameras rather than just for exploring and enjoying Pentax. Nothing wrong with commenting on the perceived advantages of other systems but those comments should be based on significant experience or at least reliable data.
My usual practice is to read these contentious posts but not to comment. I will return to that mode now.

Unfairly bashing might be a bit harsh. The Sony users mentioned that the camera was set up improperly, but that doesn't mean the Sony would do better set up differently. So for myself, that's what I hate. People who haven't done the work sniping at the people who have.

Being critical of the way someone else has done the work only counts if you demonstrate that the camera would work better with a different set up. They claim it's true, but they didn't demonstrate it's true. I will take a demonstration over hearsay any day. Why do you think those guys complaining about the Sony set-up have a case, or aren't merely reacting to their horse coming in second? Without demonstrations its impossible to know what you're looking at?

To my mind if anything holds back the forum, it's people stating as fact what they believe to be true, but that they haven't actually confirmed through any kind of testing.

[WorksAsIntended]

I only watched half, but for my use and the way I'd use the camera, Canon all the way. If that video was all I watched, I'd be buying Canon, not only based on the buffer clearing, but on the over all performance. It's better at what i do most.

Based on my own use, I actually wondered if I could do a better job with the Pentax in AF.s than either camera tracking. Subject acquisition in both cameras compared to what I'm used to with Pentax AF.s (K-3 and K-1) seemed moderately fast at best. Definitely for me, not worth 3 times the money.

Honestly, based on it's rep, the Sony fails at some stuff I expected it to excel at, case in point being the camera focusing on the players knee? I mean really? I would have done better with single point AF.s. The canon didn't miss the desired focus point.

Well, I do not see the Canon being much better here, only slidly, but yeah, the camera is even better. Also quite expensive though. A lot of people got excited about the r5 because of the af performance the 1dxIII offers in live view.
About doing the same on Pentax:
As the face of the player out of the mid far enough that there is no af point on any Pentax many times, I highly doubt you can do anywhere close with the Pentax or any other dslr out there.
I would like to see a Pentax beat this performance, I really would. But I tried both myself and cannot see it being on the same level. However I would love to see if the Fuji is superiour to its competition. That would be great news for future improvements.

[normhead]

Well, I do not see the Canon being much better here, only slidly, but yeah, the camera is even better. Also quite expensive though. A lot of people got excited about the r5 because of the af performance the 1dxIII offers in live view.
About doing the same on Pentax as the face of the player out of the mid far enough that there is no af point on any Pentax many times, I highly doubt you can do anywhere close with the Pentax or any other dslr out there.I would like to see a Pentax beat this performance, I really would. But I tried both myself and cannot see it being on the same level. However I would love to see if the Fuji is superiour to its competition. That would be great news for future improvements.

One I emphasize is most of the time I don't care what you think, I care about what you can demonstrate.

About doing the same on Pentax as the face of the player out of the mid far enough that there is no af point on any Pentax many times, I highly doubt you can do anywhere close with the Pentax or any other dslr out there.

Oh ye of title faith.

You may be right, but I have been told so much nonsense on this forum based on what people think, I don't give anyone the benefit of the doubt any more.
And this is typical, your speaking of no focal point, you can't do the same thing but you could do better. Framing, framing framing, AF.s single point.

[WorksAsIntended]

One I emphasize is most of the time I don't care what you think, I care about what you can demonstrate.

Well, you could start to demonstrate than, because you claim quite a lot too, even though you word it nicely with a pretty "I wonder if" in front. The video shows a close to 1v1 shootage and what I can see is that both cameras do the very same thing most of the time, loosing focus and gaining such at pretty much the same time except for one specific situation.

Oh ye of title faith.

You may be right, but I have been told so much nonsense on this forum based on what people think, I don't give anyone the benefit of the doubt any more.
And this is typical, your speaking of no focal point, you can't do the same thing but you could do better. Framing, framing framing, AF.s single point.

How do you frame using the af when the area of interest is outside the area of af points. And please dont tell me you use mid point and than gain focus and than switch to another framing and it should be still sharp. That does not even work well on most lenses when the subject is not moving, but on a running subject it wont at all. I prefer an ovf, that being the reason I still use one, but the freedom in framing in combination with af is much higher on the expensive milc (and some cheaper ones too). Shooting vertical and the eye being outside the area of focus points is not uncommon with dslrs and if you look at sports fotos, a lot are slightly cropped because otherwhise the focus point would have been not on the face.

The whole thing about a good tracking over the whole image is framing and not concentrating too much on the camera. I know af-s is a very usefull workaround for pretty much every mid to lower high tier dslr where the processor usually is not fast enough for adavanced tracking with dslr af modules (nicely displayed with D850 and D5 for example, where both share the same af module but the pu of the D5 being superiour and therefore having much superiour tracking). There is absolutly nothing wrong with this and you can achieve a lot of good results with this, but being superiour?

There are two things why I do not believe this: Personal experience with the current Pentax, a frequently used D850 and a short time loaned A9 II. But propably even more important as I may have a flawed technique, every professional sports photographer I ever came to know used af-c, and I highly doubt any of those missed the skill to use af-s if it were superiour.


No need to argue too much about the different AF systems, neither you or me will have any influence on where the future is going in this area and I accept you prefer it differently than the guy in the video.

About the original video:

I do not claim Fuji did something in the settings on purpose, but I do recognize an af performance way of the A9 II I know and the differences should be minimal between A7 IVR and the A9 II. The reason can be very different. Bad settings, maybe a very specific scenery where the algorithm fails for a strange reason (I am also quite suprised that both cameras seem to rather track the trousers than the red shirt or face) are two commeing into my mind. The Fuji may be superiour, I have no idea about its performce for now, but this is a strange failure.

[Rondec]

I'll just say that I'm a bit distrustful of Fuji's guys testing other folks equipment. They are paid to literally say "Everyone else's gear but ours is crap." I guess that's fine, but I would trust it more if a third party was doing the shooting and comparison.