The search continues! I had a similar journey to your A9 recently. Like you, I bought a camera a lot more up to date than my usual gear with hopes the AF would allow me to shoot a wider range of subjects than my normal reliance on single point AF allowed. It was an X-T5 and its AFC was comically bad; in my hands at least! Looking forward to seeing what dog-catcher system you deploy next. Nice images at the end though!
Thanks for the positive comments. I also contemplated a newer Fuji but reports of AF issues put me off the system so I've gone somewhere now that I never thought I would go (canon).
@@ChrisEdgecombePhoto Will be interesting to see how your canon experience is. Seems we are on a a Similar journey there too. I have an R8 now and also have a very cheap R100 to double up the focal lengths of my R mount lenses. Oddly, I probably use the R100 more as it’s so tiny and light with the 28mm lens on it.
I found M43 depth of field improve AF accuracy a lot. So, even M43 systems don't have the best AF-C, they still can produce sharp focus photos at f/1.8 when I took photos while driving car at 120km/hr with a small Panasonic GM5 and mZuiko 45mm f/1.8. I didn't shot the dog, but for birding, my Sony A1 hardly missed a shot with my 70-200 GM II. I think you should borrow cameras and their native pro lenses for testing. Zeiss 24-70mm f/4 is not a good lens, not as sharp as the others. You should use 24-70 GM II or 24-50 f/2.8 G or 20-70 f/4 G, lenses are also important to AF performance.I really wish Sony add the 2x crop so I can take M43 photos alike on a full-frame system so I can fully use my full-camera like a 1.5X cropped or 2X cropped camera. Good luck to you for your camera finding journey. Look like you need an OM1 MK II. :)
I used the 85mm f1.8 for the dog action shots, 24-70 was just for general walk about use. Thanks for watching. The next camera I have tried (Canon R8) is so far doing well, don't want yo go back to m43 just yet, I'd like to see a bit more life and innovation first.
Interesting thoughts but I have a completely different experience with my A9 which I bought used 5 years ago. I simply love it. However I only use native Sony lenses, I haven't tried 3rd party lenses or adapting my Canon EF glass or any other lenses (I recently got a 5DC, 5DII and a 1D IV in the last couple of years). I am still on Firmware 5.0 by the way, haven't updated to the last one. Also A9 has the second base ISO at ISO 640. So between ISO 100 and 640 don't set the in-between ones (200-320, etc) I also had an A7RIII, lovely images and rendering but the 42mpixels required me to crank up the shutter speed a lot in order to get a non-blurred image. I sold that a year ago. Don't regret my decision, I will probably get an A7RV at some point if I want the high megapixel count. My main lens on the A9 was the 24GM 1.4 or the 20mm 1.8 G.
I did have the native 85mm f1.8 which was supposed to be fast at autofocus but I think the Sony as other cameras have done just struggled with my subject matter. On the other hand, the camera I have now (Canon R8) does work much better in this regards. Thanks for the comment.
@@PadPoet I haven't done a comparison yet but I don't think they are as good/natural as those from the 5dc, regardless of what profile I use. I didn't dislike the A9s colours but I'm not 100% sold on the R8 colours yet; sometimes they can look a little sickly.
@@ChrisEdgecombePhoto Indeed, I hear this a lot. Canon colour science is good nowadays but not as great as it used to be. On the other hand Sony has improved this a lot, it's very good on the new e-mount bodies (A7IV, A7RV and the later cameras) On the subject of ISO noise, experiment with DxO PureRAW, it's a game changer in removing noise.
@@PadPoet Noise isn't that much of an issue (I came from m43), I was working on an image last week and just noticed a bit of noise and the ISO was 10000!!! Lightroom AI noise reduction good enough for me.
