Sony A7IV focusing issues

[kulmmii]

I've been reading online about Sony A7IV focusing issues lately. Front and miss focusing issues.

I have used my A7IV and 135mm 1.8 GM couple of days now and have been shooting outdoors mainly running dogs but also stationary subjects. It seems that bird EYE AF works pretty flawlessly. With dogs and humans eye AF tends to front focus a lot. Focus frame display on camera and on computer shows that it should be on the eye but focused area is on the eye lashes or to somewhere else instead of the eye IRIS like it was on A7III. 

Coming from A7III world that never happened to me but with A7IV I can't trust how it (EYE AF) works. 

I mainly use AF-C but I have tried with multiple different focus area modes. 

[kulmmii]

This image is not taken by me but I got it from a Facebook group where several people have issued this problem. In that image it shows that the focus should be on EYE but instead of that it is on the hat. 

[kulmmii]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Fg725igrk4  Here some people have complained about the same thing. 

[kulmmii]

Steve Duchesne:

It's also happening on humans. Here's another example of bad focusing for animals.
Mine never hits the iris even though the green square was spot on the eye. Tried every settings possible and it just doesn't work.
The only way I can get focus on the eye is with manual focus or deactivacting eye AF and then using small spot AF.

Image taken by Steve Dushesne:

[meshal]

i got the same problem, i tried tracking zone, wide , spot.. all got same result

 too many out of focus pictures specially when activate Eye AF.

this one was with a7iv 200-600+1.4x  at 840mm f13 s 1/1000.

[kulmmii]

I contacted Sony and my local reseller about this thing! Here you can see first with A7C and then A7IV. With A7C eye AF is sharp everytime but with A7IV it is not. Same lens used and same environment and same subject.. etc. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TAPC31wD7eQ

[schildzilla]

In the German community many users including me seems to be affected by another Eye-AF related problem.

The problem is, that the Eye-AF (human, bird, animal) is malfunctioning completely and only normal AF is available. It's like the complete Eye-Af-algorithm is making a nap sometimes and don't want to get disturbed.

This happens from one moment to the other even under still very good light conditions at the outside except if the sun is shining, at static subjects like portraits, with nothing disturbing around or within the faces.

No matter which field, or AF-S, AF-C, Tracking or whatever is selected, the Eye-AF often cannot even find an eye.

This problem is weird as it does not happen with my a7R III and it happens at least with the Sony 135mm 1.8 GM, a 35mm GM, the Tamron 150-500mm (only with birds), Tamron 35-150mm and Sigma 85mm 1.4 DG DN which is on the AF level of the 135mm 1.8 GM.

Other users also had the problem with other lenses, so it's not a lens or lens-manufacturer problem.

I've never seen such a phenomenon with my other 4 DSLMs that also have Eye-AF.

Also it's hard to force-reproduce the phenomenon, but it seems to more likely happen if the light is below sunlight.

[Bat_Rick]

Hi folks,

Did all of you update the firmware version to 1.20?

[Aleksi123]

Same issue here with eyeaf. It usually focuses on eyebrow or lashes. Also having problems with eyeaf in backlit scenes as it seems to back focus.

[HannahEd01]

Hey Aleksi123, did you update your camera? What's the current version??