How does this work again…?!

I’ve been using a Sony a1 for over a year now, so I feel like the time has come to talk about the autofocus settings. I used to have a series of Nikon DSLRs (the D800, D810 and D850), and I’d never used a mirrorless camera before. However, it was pretty easy to learn, and even now I’m still amazed by the sharpness of the images.

Set-up

Where to begin? Well, one thing that might immediately bother new mirrorless camera users is working out which settings to use in the first place. That’s fair enough, and I was a bit worried myself that I wouldn’t be able to make a confident choice from all the different options. I was due to go on a trip to Arviat on the Hudson Bay to see the polar bear migration last November, and I didn’t have much time to set up my camera and practise using it correctly.

In the end, though, I managed to find a very useful video by Mike Lane on YouTube. He went through all the Sony a1’s menu options and recommended the best settings for wildlife photography. That was a useful starting point, and I also watched a few videos by Mark Galer and Steve Perry from Backcountry Gallery.

If you want an exhaustive list of all the settings, I suggest you watch the videos for yourself and/or read my incredibly informative and well-written post on Sony a1 settings! In the meantime, here’s a summary of the main points.

Autofocus Mode

To set the autofocus mode on the Sony a1, you have to turn one of the dials on the left of the top plate. (Different mirrorless cameras obviously have different dials, buttons and other controls, so you’ll have to look those up for yourself.)

I always use AF-C (Continuous Autofocus), and you should probably do the same. AF-C continuously updates the focus hundreds of times a second, which is what you want. It doesn’t matter if your subject is stationary—nothing is ever really stationary, and all anyone who’s ever tried photographing animals will know that they can move very suddenly, quickly and unpredictably!

The main alternative is AF-S (or Single Shot Autofocus), which only focuses once. This might be fine for portraits of stationary animals or birds, but any slight movement means you’ll lose focus.

Some cameras have an AF-A (Automatic Autofocus) mode that is intended to choose the ‘right’ approach for any particular shot, switching on the fly between AF-S and AF-C. However, I’ve yet to see a camera that knows what I’m thinking, so I’d steer clear of that one…!

Back Button Focus (BBF)

Just about all modern cameras switch on the autofocus system when you half-press the shutter button, but that’s not ideal if you’re a wildlife photographer—especially if you have a DSLR. It’s slightly different with mirrorless cameras, but I still recommend using it.

For a start, I feel more comfortable doing what I’ve always done, and that’s not to be ignored. Many DSLR users have used BBF for donkeys’ years, so it would feel awkward to change after buying a new mirrorless camera. It would also require an adjustment period, and that means you wouldn’t get such good shots.

The argument for NOT using BBF with a mirrorless camera is that you just don’t need to. The autofocus area covers just about the whole frame, so you never need to ‘focus and recompose’ as you do with DSLRs. You can also keep the autofocus system engaged by half-pressing it all the time and only pressing the shutter fully when you want to take a shot. Finally, you can free up your right thumb to operate another control.

However, I think the autofocus and shutter release commands should remain separate—if only because you want one button to do one thing, not focus, lock exposure and take a picture!

There are still occasions when you might want to lock the focus (and exposure), such as in tricky lighting or when shooting through grass or leaves, and that’s impossible without Back Button Focus. It’s also not a good idea to use focus points near the edge of the frame because the resolution and contrast of most lenses fall off. That means you should still focus and recompose for the best results—especially if you want to avoid the time-consuming process of moving the focus point from one side of the frame to the other.

I’m also more confident that the autofocus system will work full-time when shooting a series of action shots with BBF. It may be that modern mirrorless cameras can maintain focus even without that, but, annoyingly, I haven’t been able to find the answer to that question.

Focus Area

Mirrorless cameras like the a1 have focus areas rather than focus points. You can choose the size and location of the area where the camera will try to find focus.

If you have a clean background, the Wide (or full-frame) setting might be fine, but if you’re trying to shoot a leopard through the branches and leaves of a tree, you’ll probably be better off with either Zone or Spot. This helps the camera by reducing the number of possible locations for your subject.

The Expanded Spot area has the added benefit of searching the adjacent focus points in the frame if the central point loses focus.

I only use Zone and Expanded Spot, which means I can use the C1 custom button to toggle between them and switch off the other possibilities in the menus. The reason I do that is to speed up the autofocus process: with only two options, you can change from Zone to Expanded Spot at the press of a button without having to cycle through all the options.

Tracking

Watch the Birdies, taken with my Sony a1

Every focus area is matched by an equivalent Tracking option, so you could theoretically leave yourself both tracking and non-tracking focus areas to choose from. However, I can’t really see the point of that. You need the fewest possible options available so that you can reach the one you want the fastest.

It’s true that the Sony a1’s frame rate is supposed to drop from 30 fps to 20 fps if you choose a tracking option. However, Steve Perry has identified a handy workaround. If you set up the AF-ON button to switch on tracking as well as start the autofocus, you can still reach 30 fps. There are very few occasions when you positively don’t want the camera to use tracking, but Steve leaves himself that option by setting up the AEL button to start autofocus but not tracking.

Eye AF

Real-time eye detection and tracking is one of the main features of the Sony a1. Other cameras such as the Nikon Z9 and Canon R3 or R5 all have it, but Sony’s version is still probably the best—especially now that the A7R V lets you combine human, animal and eye tracking and can now track vehicles, planes and even insects!

Eye AF is incredibly powerful, and Sony has made sure that it takes priority over the limitations of the focus area. In other words, if the a1 detects an eye outside the focus area it’s supposed to be concentrating on, it will automatically switch to the eye without having to be ‘told’ to do so.

The only annoyance with the Eye AF implementation on the a1 is that you have to choose which eyes to look for: either Human, Animal or Bird. That might not sound like a big deal if the result is more speed and accuracy, but there’s no icon in the viewfinder to tell you which mode you’re in, and it’s very easy to forget! That means you take shots using the wrong mode, or you have to cycle through the options to make sure you have the right one—by which time the bird might literally have flown!

I limit the eye detection options to Animal and Bird and use my C2 button to toggle between them. However, it’s still annoying, and I hope Sony soon brings out new firmware that will let me delegate that decision to the camera.

Custom Buttons

Rock, Tree, Leopard, taken with my Sony a1

One of the great joys of mirrorless cameras such as the a1 is their ability to let you customise just about every button and dial. This is a huge advantage as it makes common operations very easy to access, and I particularly love the three presets on the main dial. These let me switch quickly between ‘portrait’, ‘action’ and ‘slow pan’ modes depending on how the action unfolds in the field.

When it comes to the autofocus possibilities, it’s important to set up custom buttons for the focus area and the eye detection mode. Beyond that, the need for any more customisation isn’t especially urgent. However, feel free to check out Steve Perry’s videos on the subject if you want a more comprehensive approach.

Verdict

And that’s about it! Once you have the correct set of settings, you can play around with them as you please and optimise them for your particular brand of photography. I’ve been on trips to Canada, Antarctica and Botswana (twice) in the past year, and I thought I could ‘set it and forget it’, sticking with just one set of custom options. However, every situation is different, and I found myself changing the default shutter speed for my three main dial presets almost on every game drive!

The point is that customisation saves a huge amount of time and effort, letting you make rapid changes to your set-up without having to take your eye away from the viewfinder. It may only be a fraction of a second saved, but that can be the difference between getting the shot and not!

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Capture the Moment!

Mirrorless Autofocus Settings