I did wonder and as you say tracking autofocus is what most photographers want in the real world. I think it's probably like taking a more modern car for a test drive; most things feel better but only having purchased it and driven for a while do the quirks start to become noticeable
I often think it’s just a perception, with some of the modern mirrorless cameras AF lock on is near instant, I don’t know how much faster it can be than that. Focus speed between near and far subjects can be detected more, however I would hazard a guess this is more down to the lens motors than the camera body.
right..... canon R1 has three subject types (people, animals and vehicles), and people tracking can be further refined by four sports, and you can pre-load up to 10 specific faces to prioritize. it takes a while to configure and learn to use, but you have a good chance of filling a card with 100% usable frames.
On top of a plethera of focus modes (tracking, AF-C, AF-S etc etc) and focus areas (single point, wide, centre etc etc) my A1 II has the following subject detection:-
On top of a plethera of focus modes (tracking, AF-C, AF-S etc etc) and focus areas (single point, wide, centre etc etc) my A1 II has the following subject detection:-
Auto
People (with face memory and face priority select)
Bird/Animal
Bird
Animal
Insect
Car/Train
Plane
You can then choose which eye, or whether that's auto. Then there's
Tracking Shift Rnage
Recognition priority set
Recognition part
Recognition part select
Tracking persistence level
Recognition sensitivity
Animal Detailed settings
Bird details settings
And if this isn't enough you have:-
AF Level for crossing
AF tracking for speed changes
AF transition speed (video)
AF subject shift sensitivity
AF area registration
There's probably a few more bits, but as you can see it's getting ridiculous. Of course some of the things are super handy, but if we continue along this path are we going to get other subject option sub menus such as:-
Birds > Small Birds > Large Birds > Birds of Prey etc. etc.
Obviously with the last bit I'm being a bit facetious but you get my point
One subject that I would like that's missing is Motorcyle/Motorcyle rider, I do believe some other systems have this.
That’s interesting, I’ve got to say the mirrorless I’ve used have been streets ahead in all areas of AF for me, such as lock on speed, subject recognition, subject tracking etc. However, I did only shoot Nikon DSLR and I know they had a history of the AF being distracted by backgrounds. I remember someone on here with a D5 (I think it was) having plenty of discussions about this with Nikon to try and resolve the issue of it focussing on the background when the backgrounds were ‘busy’.
I don't find my Z9 to be any better in this respect. I think perhaps with easier subjects the mirrorless AF AI (subject recognition, etc) performs "better"... but I didn't/don't really have significant issues with DSLR's in those scenarios either (although I really didn't like the D7000 I had for a while, so maybe model dependent).
In my experience, it varies a lot by camera body. My Fuji GFX, for example, has comparatively poor AF performance vs, say, a Canon 1DXM2 DSLR. On the other hand, the Canon R1 is a big step up from the 1DXM2. I understand that mirrorless bodies can't detect the low-light assist beams emitted by flashes (and which were designed for DSLRs), but I have never found that to be a problem.
Yeah, it's not about the focus assist with speedlights. It's about the lack of cross type sensors, and the fact that the DSLR's PDAF system is almost always working with multiple real images that are (almost) always in-focus (as many as six) so it can (often) find subjects in/through distractions much better.
