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ZEISS DTI thermal imaging cameras. For more discoveries at night, and during the day.

Sony RX10 1V the new boy. (3 Viewers)

Josh,
You may need to play around more to get it all set up, but there are a few things that might address your issues.

Note that the RX10IV did add a My Menu custom page in the main menu (the *star* icon)...that will allow you to save 2 pages of your most used menu items, which will greatly simplify having to dig through many pages of menus. You also have the Fn menu that can save 12 control settings for quick access too - between those two, you should be able to save just about anything you'd need to access without having to deep-menu dive.

On recalling custom settings - note that the camera has 2 levels of memory banks set up - the 3 'MR' positions plus 4 more 'M' positions. The 'M' positions are all stored on the card, and are not as easy to access, but the 3 MR banks are stored on the camera...stick to using those if you switch cards. And there's one easy way to set up access to the MR setting without having to menu dive - you can assign one of your MR banks to a custom recall button. If you want a still bird/BIF switchability, you can set up the camera to operate in 'still' mode, and assign one of your full MR banks set up for BIF to a custom button. When needing to quickly shoot a BIF, just press and hold that button, and immediately all of your settings are overridden and you're in BIF mode - release the button and you're back to regular still bird mode.
My understanding was that you actually CAN store AF mode settings to the MR banks for custom recall - if you set the camera to AF-C on the dial when storing the MR settings, and then when assigning the custom hold recall button, you can turn the switch to AF-S again, and when pressing that custom recall hold button, it will switch to AF-C. I don't have the camera in hand, but it should work that way from what others have told me.

Hope that helps.
 
All seems a bit daunting, is it possible to use in full auto mode and get good shots of BIF or stationary birds without having to fiddle about with the controls. I am a "walkabout" photographer and want to be up for getting a good shot of anything and everything I come across without making adjusments and missing the moment.

My P900 does that for me at the moment,

Den
 
I would think it should be fine for 'auto' use - the AF does even have an AF-A setting, which automatically switches between AF-S or AF-C as it thinks necessary. I'm sure it won't be perfect for BIFs, but no camera in full auto will always get it right...this cam should be as good as any and better than most P&S due to the very fast OSPDAF.
 
pbjosh said:
Hi Steve,

As well, choosing AF-S vs AF-C focus modes (single shot or tracking)
Click to expand...

Many thanks for your inital thoughts. Are these the equivalent of one shot vs sevo in Canon? In recent years I have always kep my Canon on servo, whatever I am photographing.
 
poledark said:
All seems a bit daunting, is it possible to use in full auto mode and get good shots of BIF or stationary birds without having to fiddle about with the controls. I am a "walkabout" photographer and want to be up for getting a good shot of anything and everything I come across without making adjusments and missing the moment.

My P900 does that for me at the moment,

Den
Click to expand...

Hi all I have just dived in and bought this camera, from E-infinity for £1339, received in five working days. Straight out of the box and shooting in AV results look impressive.
 
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Might end up liking this camera quite a lot, enclosed shot taken through the kitchen window about 12 feet away from the feeders, crop and resize as original wouldn't upload.
 
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At dpreview two former Nikon V3 + CX 70-300 users have explained why they now prefer the Sony rx10 iv for birds in flight. What I found particularly convincing were these terns in flight shot by Jack Scholl. - So I'll definitely watch this and other threads on the new Sony camera with great interest. Not jumping ships yet (a bit too expensive for me), but my original long-term plan to go from the V2 to the V3 may change.
 
I need to keep playing with my camera more but per some comments here and on dpreview I have been trying different configurations / methods of shooting. It's a bit of a paradigm shift from the DSLR world of custom settings can set everything. Now I am using a perched bird setup (single shot, center point focus) and leaving the focus on AF-A (auto between AF-S and AF-C). Then I am using one of the custom buttons atop to momentarily recall BiF settings (burst shooting, zone focus) when necessary, and hoping the camera will switch to focus tracking. I need to test this more, particularly how well the camera does on intelligently tracking focus but it does seem a better way to set up the camera. For pelagics or other scenarios where it's basically all birds in flight you just move the camera over to the custom settings for BiF and ping the focus over to AF-C to eliminate doubt I guess.

Just haven't had enough time to really play with this yet.
 
Very much looking forward to hearing your thoughts when you have had more time to play. I know there has been a couple of books written on this camera to supplement the users guide. Any initial gut feeling about whether you are glad you made the purchase and if you feel your SLR gear is going to be staying at home a lot more/sold?
 
I still haven't gotten the chance to play with BiF or really low light stuff yet. However today I heard some small parakeets, sounded like Brotogeris, which is not an expected thing in southern California where I am visiting family. I tracked down a small flock of White-winged Parakeets and took some photos from probably 60m or so. The quality is plenty fine for me. Sure, a 7DII could have eked out a bit more but you're not going to get a cracking shot of a bird that size at that distance. I don't know if it's possible to reduce the size of the focusing reticle for center point focus - many/most of the photos were front focused a touch due to interfering foliage.

Can see the photos here: https://ebird.org/view/checklist/S42517393
 
pbjosh said:
I still haven't gotten the chance to play with BiF or really low light stuff yet. However today I heard some small parakeets, sounded like Brotogeris, which is not an expected thing in southern California where I am visiting family. I tracked down a small flock of White-winged Parakeets and took some photos from probably 60m or so. The quality is plenty fine for me. Sure, a 7DII could have eked out a bit more but you're not going to get a cracking shot of a bird that size at that distance. I don't know if it's possible to reduce the size of the focusing reticle for center point focus - many/most of the photos were front focused a touch due to interfering foliage.

Can see the photos here: https://ebird.org/view/checklist/S42517393
Click to expand...

What PP program do you use as there is a margin for improvement on these which would give a better idea of the cameras capabilities,
I would like to try it on one but need your permission, if not then thats ok.

mike
 
Well I've cracked. I was about to order from Panamoz but they're closed for the Chinese new year. I'll be ordering in two days though.
 

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