I’m back at it again. I’ve got more to say about my new toy, the Sony A7iii. I’ve already written my initial reaction to the camera, but I’ve now used it to film a wedding, and I wanted to talk about one thing: Sony A7iii Center-Lock AF.
Sony A7iii Center-Lock AF
Besides the Canon 70d, I really haven’t had a camera that had decent autofocus in video. Most of them couldn’t really even lock on and the rest weren’t smooth at all, so you got really ugly video. The Sony A7iii is a big upgrade in autofocus for photo and video. I just recently wrote a whole post about all the different Sony autofocus settings, so feel free to go check it out. In short, the Sony A7iii has amazing autofocus. The only issue is you can’t use all the settings in video mode like the Eye AF or the Lock-On Expanded Flexible Spot. These two modes are just ridiculous, but like I said, they don’t work in video.
I was a little disappointed when I saw I couldn’t use those modes, but I have found another mode that still works well. That’s where Center- Lock AF comes in. To get this to work, you turn it on, put the subject in the middle of the frame, and then activate it. From there, the camera will track this subject without you having to do anything.
Awesome but still has issues.
At my wedding last week, I used this for people walking down the aisle and for dances. It’s an easy way to keep focus on a moving subject and it works. My only complaint is that it’s hard to activate it quickly. You have to push a button to turn it on, hit enter to turn it on, put the subject in the middle, and hit enter. To switch subjects, you have to cancel it and do it all over again. I wish there was an easy way to just reassign your target without going through all of that button pushing. I was still able to do it in time for each person walking down the aisle, but it was a struggle.
I really think the Center-Lock AF is going to make our lives a lot easier. There are plenty of times we want to lock in focus. It’s going to help with people moving and also allow us to do more movement shots. We have another wedding tomorrow, so we will be trying it out once again. Hopefully, we will have a video up to view using the Sony A7iii Center-Lock AF soon.