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76 Quick Guide for the Impatient User
figures it out, it shows you the subject it has selected by outlining it with
two-line rectangular border.
Now move the camera left and right, up and down and watch as the two
white rectangles track your subject through the frame. Now press the
shutter release button halfway and the camera will only use focus points
that are within the white rectangle.
Depending on the size of your subject, contrast with background, light
level, and how quickly you move the camera, the A77 II might track the
subject with ease, or it might get confused and lose track of the subject.
(Try it on various subjects and see which ones track well. Not all will,
depending on a lot of variables. This is an important characteristic to get to
know.)
What happens if your tracked subject goes outside the frame? The camera
will still remember it and keep searching for it to re-enter the frame for
"several seconds". After that, it forgets and you have to start again. (The
"several seconds" seems to be highly variable – in some of my tests, it
would forget after three. With other tests that involved faces (pictures in a
picture frame to be exact), it would remember seemingly forever, even after
I turned the camera off then on again. I should make a video showing this
variance of behavior with several kinds of subjects.)
What happens if it forgets, or simply can't track the subject? Then the
camera reverts to the default behavior, which is to focus on the closest
focus point that has contrast.
For this example we used the Center Lock-on AF feature instead of the
Lock-on AF in the Focus Area menu because in Center Lock-On AF mode
the camera shows you the subject it’s tracking via the double rectangles.
The Center-Lock AF feature works very well tracking a person in video
mode.
Now let's talk about the OTHER Lock-On AF mode, the one designed for
stills. To enable it, we'll undo the settings we made earlier:
• Set MENU 7 Center Lock-on AF to OFF
• Set MENU 3 Focus Area to the bottom option, LOCK-On
AF and move the joystick Left or Right to choose Lock-on AF
Center.
Contents of this book Copyright © 2014 Gary L. Friedman. All rights reserved.
