A few nuthatches stopped on my deck yesterday. They were nearly impossible to photograph! Unlike the sparrows, which would manage to stick around for a few minutes, eating the seeds -- these nuthatches would land, grab a seed or two, and then quickly take off again. Within a few seconds of each landing, my shooting time would be over.
What made these shots especially difficult was the manual focus feature on my Sony NEX-6. I like to use the manual focus, especially on birds, to make sure that I'm getting in focus all of the details that I want. I usually check the head -- to get the eyes in focus, or the feathers -- to the point where I can clearly see the stripes or the individual strands of the feathers.
Here's my frustration: When I touch the focus ring, it (usually, though not always!) kicks in Sony's magnification feature on my view screen. This is great. What's even better is the 9.6x magnification button you can push to bring the subject even closer. This helps me to see those details really well. What's not so great is that, while I'm trying to get the exact focus that I want -- on that close-up image, the camera decides to 'kick out' again -- out of the magnification. And -- sometimes the camera doesn't hold the 9.6x magnification long enough for my hand to make it from the button on the back of the camera to the focus ring on the lens. In a game where you only have a few seconds with which to play, this can cost you your opportunity at the photograph that you would like to take. It would be nice if there way to hold the magnification, so that the camera didn't arbitrarily jump in or out again. (Did I miss some kind of firmware update that takes care of this problem???)
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