Wouldn’t it be nice if you had the option to pull focus on your favorite Sony mirrorless camera and jump between different focus points in the frame without utilizing any additional follow focus systems or even touching your fly-by-wire Sony lens whatsoever?
Well, it turns out that you can easily do so by optimizing the AF feature of your Sony A6300, A6500 or A7R II camera in a second. Jason Vong has found this workaround literally by chance while working on a project lately. Nevertheless, this trick seems to be a real no-brainer for all Sony shooters who want to get quick and seamless results when pulling focus on the fly. Here’s how you can do it too.
First, access the main menu of your Sony mirrorless camera and navigate to page 4 of the first tab. Then choose the AF drive speed and simply set it to Slow. Next, hit the record button and move the AF point on the LCD screen to that area in your frame where you want to rack focus to and subtly hit the shutter button. That’s it!
As Jason points out, the biggest limitation of this trick is that you can’t control and adjust the actual drive speed in various increments. Nevertheless, the Slow option should yield some excellent results on most occasions, plus it can nail your focus a lot more precisely than pulling it manually instead.
Furthermore, some users report that you can apply this trick on the Sony A7S II as well, even though there’s no option to change the AF drive speed. You can also try this out by simply skipping to move the AF point from one subject to another, but keep in mind that results on this particular model may vary.
It’s also worth noting that after focusing on an initial object and then moving the focus square to rack object, you have to turn off focus area to activate the auto-focus. If you already own one of those Sony cameras, feel free to share the results you can get once you use this neat trick.
[source: Jason Vong]
B&H Order Links:
Sony Alpha a6300 Mirrorless Digital Camera (Body Only)
Sony Alpha a6500 Mirrorless Digital Camera (Body Only)
Sony Alpha a7R II Mirrorless Digital Camera (Body Only)
Sony Alpha a7S II Mirrorless Digital Camera (Body Only)
Disclaimer: As an Amazon Associate partner and participant in B&H and Adorama Affiliate programmes, we earn a small comission from each purchase made through the affiliate links listed above at no additional cost to you.
Claim your copy of DAVINCI RESOLVE - SIMPLIFIED COURSE with 50% off! Get Instant Access!
Tanks for the tip that run very well on my a7rii. But it Will be very cool if sony work on that controlled Af with point A, point B and time depandent. It seems not so complicate to implement this fonction into software and our lenses by wire could be cool.