Animal Eye AF - firmware for Sony A6400

[rpcrowe]

Sony has just released the expected Animal Eye-AF firmware update for the A6400. I will be installing it this afternoon and, am excited to use it in shooting my dog portraits.

I have averaged a hundred or so dogs each year for portraits and this should make things even easier. The A6400 has honed in on the eyes of some of my dogs even without the "official" animal Eye-AF. When it did, it made dog portraiture a lot quicker and easier...

DO I NEED IT? NO! I didn't ABSOLUTELY NEED auto focus on my camera either and I skipped a whole generation of Canon film SLR cameras with autofocus. But when I began to use AF, I really liked it. I am guessing that Eye-AF is going to be a standard, just like auto focus is generally a standard for DSLR and Mirrorless cameras these days...

However, it seems like the update of firmware for Canon DSLR cameras is easier because I can download the new firmware to a memory card, insert in into the camera and update, The Sony update in directly from the computer to the camera. I have read of some problems in updating Sony cameras so I think that I will wait and see how successful other photographers are in updating the A6400...

[rpcrowe]

FE 70-200mm f/4.0 G OSS, wide open at 71mm

The new firmware makes it a lot easier to photograph my dogs with full time Animal Eye AF locking in automatically on the animals eyes.

I have to admit though, I find it easier to update my Canon DSLR camera firmware through the memory card than to upgrade the Sony A6400 directly from the computer via a proprietary USB cable (apparently the proprietary cable is a bit different from a standard generic cable). It wasn't that intuitive for me. In fact it took me two tries before the firmware was correctly updated.

But, once I had it updated it ls a lot of fun to use and very quick...

A handy way to use this feature is to get your camera low, viewing on the LCD that is tilted o allow low shots. While it is normally difficult to ensure that the eyes are in focus when viewing an LCD a distance from my eyes, as long as the face is in the frame. the eyes will be in focus with Animal Eye-AF.