"New" Sony a9 - 26 Mar 2019

I had no trouble installing the new Firmware 5.0 for the Sony a9 yesterday. Having the correct USB cable was important, as was running the pre-setup for the Mac installation. The firmware took about 15 minutes to install and produced a "new" Sony a9. That is, all of the menus were reset to factory settings. Luckily, I knew ahead of time that this would happen and made sure to write down my menu settings.

The important change was the improved subject tracking and the continuous Eye-AF that is set to ON by default. The Focus Area mode Lock-On AF: Flexible Spot S,M,L was replaced by the new Tracking: Expand Flexible Spot options. This new and improved subject tracking is the big news of the upgrade, and it is the real deal.

I stopped by the marina on the way home from work to test the camera. The Herring and Ring-billed Gulls were roosting in the partly-frozen marina and I used them as subjects to test how the camera would handle birds flying through and behind poles and signs. I was more than impressed.

I tracked one Herring Gull as it flew behind a large sign. At 20 fps the camera kept the bird in focus even as it passed behind the sign for several frames. When it emerged it was completely in focus and continued in focus until I released the shutter 141 frames later.

Here is a clip of 141 consecutive frames I converted into a GIF (I could not slow down the frame rate, however; sorry):

One thing I did notice about 5.0 that I have to adjust to; the Tracking: Expand Flexible Spot and Tracking: Flexible Spot S,M,L modes do not allow me to use Focus Standard when mapped to the joystick button. So, I'm using Tracking: Wide assigned to my AF-On button and Focus Standard assigned to the Joystick button and AEL button. Now, I can quickly swap between Tracking and Center focus with just a rock of the thumb. C2 is mapped to Focus Area so I can switch to Expand Flexible Spot if I desire.