The A9iii and 120fps....

[Uncle Kevriano]

Afternoon. I just made comment on a post elsewhere, where the poster was bemoaning the fact that getting the exact focus point right was harder on the A9iii then the A1, even when shooting at 120fps. His subject was a static bird.
I got laughed at for saying that anything above 20fps was complete overkill for wildlife, especially a static bird (unless you like culling 119 photos for every second of shooting). The only application I can conceivably think of for those insane frame rates is in sports photography, where you might want that exact moment of a ball being hit for example.
Who thinks I'm wrong then? I think people consider that it's the be all and end all to blast away in the hope that they nail a few shots, there is no skill in that, and the guy clearly isn't getting the results he wants anyway!

 

[Tim Mayo]

The one thing that stops me shooting more motocross at my local track is the culling afterwards. I only shoot at 10 fps with my A1 and even with being careful I can still end up with 1500 odd shots in a couple of hours. I'd lose the will to live shooting at 120fps! The only time I recall finding 30 fps useful was when shooting a kingfisher diving at a paid hide so I could grab the exact frame it hit the surface of the water. There will be times that much higher frame rates are useful but certainly not for static birds. I often shoot in single shot mode if I don't care about catching them in flight.

 

[Unframed Dave]

My default is 30fps. I dread the necessary culling. I try and operate my camera like a kalshnikov, i.e. bursts of 3. Doesn't always work, but I try.

Anyway, 120 for me is too much and I wouldn't ever use it.

 

[Richard A]

I have an A7R5 which can only shoot 10 frames/sec and I rarely use that. For a static bird I’d be on low or mid and only for a few frames. As above, when I have used continuous high, it’s been in bursts also. More like an M16 than an AK47 though.

 

[iamdlewis]

I got laughed at for saying that anything above 20fps was complete overkill for wildlife, especially a static bird

A static bird yes, for a feeding swallow/swift 30fps is great and may actually not be fast enough. Like everything in photography it depends on what you are looking to capture.

These are 3 consecutive frames at 30fps.

• ILCE-1
• Sony FE 200–600mm F5.6–6.3 G OSS (SEL200600G)
• 600.0 mm
• ƒ/8
• 1/4000 sec
• ISO 400

• ILCE-1
• Sony FE 200–600mm F5.6–6.3 G OSS (SEL200600G)
• 600.0 mm
• ƒ/8
• 1/4000 sec
• ISO 400

• ILCE-1
• Sony FE 200–600mm F5.6–6.3 G OSS (SEL200600G)
• 600.0 mm
• ƒ/8
• 1/4000 sec
• ISO 400

If I am taking that at 20fps, maybe the bug is closer to the mouth or maybe I never see the bug at all. I know that when I am going for this the more frames I can shoot the more likely I am to get the shot I want.

Here is another fun sequence:
You get this image with 20fps & 30fps

• ILCE-1
• Sony FE 200–600mm F5.6–6.3 G OSS (SEL200600G)
• 600.0 mm
• ƒ/6.3
• 1/4000 sec
• ISO 8000

You get this image with 30fps

• ILCE-1
• Sony FE 200–600mm F5.6–6.3 G OSS (SEL200600G)
• 600.0 mm
• ƒ/6.3
• 1/4000 sec
• ISO 8000

You get this image with 10, 20 & 30fps

• ILCE-1
• Sony FE 200–600mm F5.6–6.3 G OSS (SEL200600G)
• 600.0 mm
• ƒ/6.3
• 1/4000 sec
• ISO 8000

2 of those images I am like "ah that's cool" and 1 of those images I have a large print of.

If I am shooting mammals I am probably not going to be using more than 10fps unless I am anticipating some kind of action and then I'll move to 20 or 30fps depending on what I am anticipating. If I think Impalas are about to run off I'll go to 20fps for a quick burst. If I see two are fighting and about to crash I'll be at 30fps.

So is saying anything over 20fps overkill a silly thing to say? I believe that it is without a doubt a silly thing to say.

 

[AlphaWorld]

Afternoon. I just made comment on a post elsewhere, where the poster was bemoaning the fact that getting the exact focus point right was harder on the A9iii then the A1, even when shooting at 120fps. His subject was a static bird.
I got laughed at for saying that anything above 20fps was complete overkill for wildlife, especially a static bird (unless you like culling 119 photos for every second of shooting). The only application I can conceivably think of for those insane frame rates is in sports photography, where you might want that exact moment of a ball being hit for example.
Who thinks I'm wrong then? I think people consider that it's the be all and end all to blast away in the hope that they nail a few shots, there is no skill in that, and the guy clearly isn't getting the results he wants anyway!

For a static bird, it depends on what you are trying to capture:

• capturing bird on perch - even 20fps could be argued to be overkill - how many frames of "bird perched on twig" do you want?
• capturing bird leaving perch and taking flight, I'd probably set 30, but might consider mashing the C5 button (which I have set to 60)

I tried turning it down to 10fps, but that means I get one or two frames of precapture before the bird is out of sight. I need a higher frame rate to try to get a good shot of outstretched wings - I have plenty of shots of birds with their wings close to their bodies

When I'm hoping to catch the bird take flight, I have the shutter button at half press (I know - should train myself to use AF ON), running images through the precapture buffer, and when the bird takes off, I full press to capture the images in the precapture buffer. That's one way I think high frames rates can be useful for bird photography.

I rarely enable 120fps, but I'm never shooting from a hide - I might consider it for that. Or maybe hummingbirds - I've not had a chance yet to photograph them.

To answer your question, I think you are both right and wrong . Right in that I think that photographer may not be using the camera well. Wrong in that I think there is a place for high frame rates in bird photography (and yes, it's not to simply blast away at 120fps ),

 

[Paul stuart]

well it is all in your own control most with a9iii shoot 60fps becuase of to many images but it is easy to ramp up when needed ,but the big but is the a9iii has the best sony auto focus ,so it is not all plain sailing due to the better tech of the global shutter which makes total sense ,and really nothing to do with algos ,as my a7r5 has simimlar algos to A1ii but could never compete due to sensor read out speed and mechanical shutter v stacked sensor it works well enough though ,my view would be get a sigma 200mm f2 and sigma 500mm f5.6 your laughing because the 15- 18fps max is the factoring limit stick it on pre capture your good to go in 95% of cases ,to be honest i use 20fps for the majority or 10 fps on my A1 due to the image quality at 30fps takes a hit not that i notice this either if i am honest ,and really it is if you feel wildlife is panacea of photography ,i call it sony for event wedding portrait studio and travel ,canon for sports ,nikon for wildlife ,just the way they are geared some crossover i know .https://youtu.be/UYv1uLhuw80

 

[AlphaWorld]

well it is all in your own control most with a9iii shoot 60fps becuase of to many images but it is easy to ramp up when needed ,but the big but is the a9iii has the best sony auto focus ,so it is not all plain sailing due to the better tech of the global shutter which makes total sense ,and really nothing to do with algos ,as my a7r5 has simimlar algos to A1ii but could never compete due to sensor read out speed and mechanical shutter v stacked sensor it works well enough though ,my view would be get a sigma 200mm f2 and sigma 500mm f5.6 your laughing because the 15- 18fps max is the factoring limit stick it on pre capture your good to go in 95% of cases ,to be honest i use 20fps for the majority or 10 fps on my A1 due to the image quality at 30fps takes a hit not that i notice this either if i am honest ,and really it is if you feel wildlife is panacea of photography ,i call it sony for event wedding portrait studio and travel ,canon for sports ,nikon for wildlife ,just the way they are geared some crossover i know .https://youtu.be/UYv1uLhuw80

It's not the image quality that suffers at 30fps on an A1 II, it's that the files have to be lossy compressed.

You made me look it up - I wasn't sure if we could set a speed of 15fps - I thought the A9 III did 5, 10, 20, 30, 60, 120, but no, it does 15fps, too.

I wonder if that's deliberate?