This will be a short post. I just want to put this question behind us. I’ll summarize my observations.
The tracking and eye tracking does work on the A-mount motor-less lenses. But the autofocus on these lenses cannot keep up with an even moderately fast moving object. Even a person walking toward the camera will have a very low keeper rate. With a rapidly moving animal like a dog running it’s hopeless. The software is doing its part but the mechanics of the autofocus system is just too slow to keep up.
Now I happen to want to use it for something much less demanding. For butterflies, bees and hummingbirds the animal is hovering or flitting inside a very small area and this allows the lens to reacquire focus quickly enough to be useful. But this is a much less demanding application of the tracking program. It is sort of the exception to the failure of these lenses to track.
I’ll be performing more tests once the weather over here improves on hummingbirds and butterflies with the tracking program. But I felt it was important enough to break this information out separately.
Not too much of a surprise. A lightening fast autofocus is a system and it stands to reason that changing elements of a complex system to elements not designed for that system would lead to a less than optimum result.
I agree. I think I’ll try my 200-600 on this A7R IVA and see if I notice any advantage over my A7 III. One thing this experiment has taught me is that I need to learn a lot more about the A7 III’s tracking capability. It can make somethings easier for sure.