How To Set up the Sony a7 III Eye Autofocus

If you have never experienced how cool Sony’s eye autofocus feature is, then you need to check this out. Once it is enabled, you will find when you are photographing people, you will rarely miss a shot because of missed autofocus.

Some Sony users like to use eye autofocus in single AF mode, but I suggest that you should use it in continuous autofocus mode by keeping the AF-ON button depressed. In this article I will walk you through how to set up your Sony a7 III menus so that you can test them out for yourself.

When your camera is set to continuous autofocus, you have the choice of setting the shutter priority release to autofocus or balanced emphasis. When you have it set to autofocus priority the shutter, will not release until accurate focus is achieved.

You should also set the autofocus sensitivity to responsive and make sure you have eye detect and face set to on. The reason for having face detect on is if your subject is moving quickly and your camera loses focus on your subject's eye, your camera will switch to face detect, which also does an excellent job.

Once you have these settings enabled, choose a custom button for the eye autofocus feature. You can use any button you wish, but I suggest using either AF-ON or AEL, which are both on the back of the camera. Once you have chosen your custom button, all you have to do is keep the button depressed and it will track a moving subject's eye.

If you have ever tried to track a portrait subject with a single autofocus point on other camera brands, then you know hard it is to track someone's eye with accuracy the same way that you can with Sony's eye autofocus feature. Try these settings out, and let me know in the comment section below how they work out for you.

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Craig Beckta's picture

Craig Beckta is a portrait and fashion photographer based out of Halifax, Nova Scotia. Craig currently has over 160 photography and videography tutorials on YouTube.

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