My new camera body: SONY A1 ii

What a dream machine!

My SONY A1 Mark ii arrived after about 3 months of waiting. Got to get on that wait list sooner! I WAS able to purchase this before any tariffs were enabled so I got it for the original list price. 

The camera is much like my SONY A7 iii. I feel I had outgrown that camera in several ways. I like the doubling of pixels in RAW for one. I have watched several good videos on customizing the SONY A1 and a few new ones for thge A1 ii. It helped me understand a lot about the camera and its capabilities.

I got this camera as my eye was beginning to heal from the torn retina experience. So it was slow going and I feel that a lot of my camera work is a bit slower because of how my eyes have changed in the past 2 years. I have to use reader glasses to see things up close when wearing contacts. That is kind of frustrating, but I remain positive about how my eyes have changed... What can I do - it's a part of aging.

Anyway the big thing I wanted to try to get better with was shooting wildlife since we were going on an African safari in June so I needed to be ready for lots of action! I found customized settings and videos that discussed how to be ready for wildlife pghotography. Taking the time and learning how to get quickly to these settings helped me a lot in the field (I'm writing this in November 2025, months after the safari and reflecting on a lot of these experieinces now).

One of the coolest features of this camera body of the A7 iii is the super flexible read monitor with its fully articulating twist and angles it can move around with. 

My sexy SONY A1 ii 



I assigned specific customizations to M1 M2 and M3 for the camera. M1 was set specifically for fast moving subjects like I might encounter.
M1: WILDLIFE: ISO 3200, F4.0m 1/3200 sec,  AWB, Lo multi-shooting, silent, AF on with animal/bird subject detection.
M2: SUNSET/SUNRISE: ISO 160, F4.5, 1/400 sec, AWB, CONT/Bracketing, PEAK ON (in case I go manual focus), No subject detection
M3: MILKYWAY: ISO 6400, F2.8, 8 sec, 4200K, 5 second delay, PEAK ON. Steady shot off (I'll be suing a tripod), then I'll have to switch over to MANUAL focus as well.

I love having these settings already to go. I can still change them on the fly, but these are great starting points.

I've modified the menus as well. That gives me quick access to some other things like using the internal intervalometer and stuff like that. 

I also customized the buttrons to have quick access to other features. One of these is C2 which I've set to toggle between APS-C and full frame to help with shooting something at a distance and getting the object the way I want in the viewfinder.

Here is a short list of a few situations I have not figured out:
  • Turning off the orange auto-focus sensor for night shooting. (Electrical tape covers it up). 
  • A lot of things with using Video and shooting in video mode... (see my Whidbey Island post for more musings about video shooting).
  • A bulb setting limitations abd how to use it with an external intervalometer.


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