Question regarding Sony A1ii, 100mm macro and HVL-F60RM2 - not being able to focus

[Snowy]

Hello everyone, I have a question regarding the above setup. In near darkness, when trying to photograph tree frogs at night, the red AF illuminator on the camera turns on, however, because of the length of the lens, much of the red light is obscured from the centre of the image I’m trying to capture. There doesn’t seem to be (or at least I can’t find) any sort of AF assist feature on the flash unit, so the lens will often hunt and not achieve focus - or am I missing something? Am I expecting too much? Camera is set to AF-S, and DMF is off.

Any ideas, tips or guidance that anyone can offer will be great!

TIA

 

[Slug]

I use manual focus with a hand held torch for nighttime set up.

 

[iamdlewis]

Does the flash have (and just can't think of the term at the moment) but a way to just turn the light on at a lower power to allow for focusing and then when you take the photo it triggers the full power flash? (Staging light?)

Also kind of a silly question but have you taken the lens hood off for this type of work?