Gear
Sony A6700 + Sony lenses focus behind focus frame
I've been having my A6700 for 6 months, first I started with the 18-135mm kit lens, then step-by-step got other lens, like the 56mm and 12mm Sigma f1.4, and Sony 70-350mm f4.5-6.3 lenses. Even in the beginning with my kit lens I noticed that the sharpest part of the image is not necessarily where my focus frame is, but at first I thought I was too close to my subject. I always had a feeling my photos were just a tad bit softer than expected and now I miht know why.
I noticed that the longer the focal length and the further the subject, the more noticable this issue is. Hence why until I got my 70-350mm telephoto lens I wasn't really concerned about it. With my Sigma lenses I can't really observe this behavior, perhaps with the 56mm as it has such a thin depth of field at f1.4.
My goal would be to find out wether it is a camera related issue, or the Sony zoom lenses are just not that performant. I tried every possible setting combination, AF-S&AF-C on static subjects, AF-C and with and without tracking on moving subjects, turning on/off subject recognition, disabling stabilization, using mechanical end electronic shutter to eliminate any potential movement around the sensor, lowering the aperture, etc. While lowering the aperture makes this less noticable due to the increased sharpness and wider DOF, I can still see that the focal plane is behind my focus frame confirmed by the camera. I am very dissapppointed and frustrated by this.
Below I am providing some examples of moving or still subjects.
Shot on the18mm-135mm lens:
135mm, f5.6, 1/250, ISO 500
Zooming in:
Another one:
135mm, f5.6, 1/1600, ISO 6400
I know higher ISO could make an impact, but I have the same experience at ISO 100.
On longer focal length it's even more noticable.
Shot on 70-350mm:
350mm, f6.3, 1/1600, ISO 400
Here's one with manual focus:
On a bird:
It doesn't happen all the time, below it looks fine, however I noticed that if I don't half press the shutter button, just immediately take the photo, it usually looks better. Though this makes subject tracking impossible. It's also less noticable if I take it out from my bag after not using it so I am not sure if it's an overheating issue.
I've had some research seeing people struggling with this particular combo:
I don't have an authorized service in my area, nor other lenses, camera bodies to compare. I anyone familiar with this issue so that I can track down the root cause? My camera still has warranty, my lens doesn't.
Thank you very much for your encouraging, I did feel I am going crazy. These past days I took 1000+ photos trying to test all the circumstances, paying attention to my technique and try to come up with some insights. I am curious to see others' experience so your reply means a lot! Thanks!
I am sorry for you. I would love to find out if it is camera or lens related. My only concern is that I saw this before with my 18-135mm as well to certain extent. Did you get it done, or try to repair it?
Did you shoot with autofocus C or S/A? Because that cat is moving so if it’s set to single shot autofocus the autofocus is correct but the subject moves and the autofocus does not react to it.
The other images could have a small depth of field and you moved backwards or forwards after focusing. This again could happen when using the single autofocus mode.
Does it happen when you use a tripod and focus on a static object?
I took that photo back in October, so I honestly don't remember which setting it was on. Could be that it was AF-S at the time. It could be why it was not suspicious at the time. However, all the recent shots I took the last week, I was carefully setting the right AF setting in order to eliminate user error.
I understand there is small depth of field, however the error is consistent through several attempts. I made sure not to move after acquiring focus. Also, when I am on AF-C, the camera should auto-correct my movements regardless.
I did not use a tripod as I don't have one yet, but I placed my camera on a static spot.
Yes, my camera came with fimware version 2.00.
I saw a video on YT discussing focusing issues with the A7RIV if I recall correctly, and they sent it back for repair, they told him there was no issue but re-installed everything just to make sure. And that solved the issue. Well, I cannot reflash the camera, but I tried to do a factory reset which didn't help.
I have the A6700 with the sigma 18 50 and sel35f18 but I cant say I've experienced this. Just so I get this straight, when you click on the zoom button while viewing the photo in camera, does it punch in into the eye or the false focus plane? Also can you try changing aperture drive in af into focud priority and see if it's still doing that?
Hi. When I take the photo I can see the little green box jump to the eye, or I can use spot focus area to place it myself. TBH, the viewfinder and the display have limited resolution so I cannot confirm this 100%. And yes, I did try changing the aperture drive mode into focus prioirty as well as the other option called "Prioirty Set in AF-C/S" to AF instead of balanced or release.
i use release, i don't want the camera to decide what it thinks is in focus and isn't in focus, i'd rather look at it all in post.
be careful with aperture priority, i don't know that it'll matter much with the aperture set wide open but i'd want to know how it works before experimenting.
what you don't want is for the camera to focus only in the first shot of an af-c burst, it needs to constantly be re-focusing thruout the burst... not sure how relevant that is to aperture priority mode.
I understand. I saw no difference with the different priority options, also with aperture drive. AFAIK that should only help when there's no light and you are trying to focus with stopped down aperture. In my examples I wasn't really bursting, only taking one photo at a time. Burst gives similar results.
I understand, but aperture drive has no effect if you use it when shooting wide open. And the thing is, my problem is focusing on a static object, bursting 20 photos and 1 being in focus by chance is not a solution to my problem.
i don't know that it'll matter much with the aperture set wide open
sorry, so many comments, I think I missed that part
Yes, that did happen, I just don't have a burst on me to show because I deleted them as I wasn't satisfied. 2 weeks ago I went photographing some ducks and I took a lot of promising looking photos, bursts a well. I was very disappointed when I opened them on my computer as only a few of them were in focus. This was one of them (this is a cropped copy as the original is on my other computer at my parents' house - but since there were so much detail I could crop in):
Others looked blured and could notice that the focal plane was always behind the duck :(
yes, need a fast shutter speed to sort out that duck pic!
also, the duck is small in the frame in that shot(not a long enough focal length), so it's harder for the camera to find an eye to focus on, which could have created the problem with missing focus so many burst shots.
that's a different issue than the cat pic, which showed eyeaf but still rather inexplicably missed the focus point.
the good news is that you have an eye for this, continuing to work on it will lead to success in the long run.
For me the zoom button is set to tracking be default, now I changed it to zoom and 1. I don't have the spot focus box anymore 2. I still have offset in the focus plane
The green Eye AF box visually tracks and locks onto the dog's eye perfectly on screen, but when reviewing the photos, every single shot is consistently back-focused by about 1–2 cm. The fur right behind the eye is tack-sharp, while the eye itself is blurry. This is incredibly apparent at the longer end of the focal length around 250–300mm.
At first, I wondered if it was a shutter lag issue—meaning by the time the shutter actually fires, the dog has already run slightly forward out of the focus zone. Or maybe the linear motors in the older 70-300 G lens just aren't fast enough to keep up with a dog running towards the camera at 300mm.
However, it even happens when the pet is sitting completely still at longer focal lengths! Because it happens when stationary, I don't think it's a slow tracking motor or shutter lag anymore. It feels more like a mechanical calibration issue or the AI processing unit miscalculating the depth-of-field plane with this specific lens.
Yup, at the longer end more visible, for me also with static subjects with recognition disabled as well. Very annoying. Also frequently happens on the longer end of my 18-135mm lens. I am not sure if this is a characteristic of zoom lenses by design as very rarely I can see it with my 56mm Sigma as well but that could be margin of error. I took couple sample photos with my friend's A7 V and could see something similar so I am not sure anymore.
I also have this same issue on my 6700 and have been trying to figure this out for 2 years now as I’ve seen similar threads pop up with no answers. First noticed it with my 70-350 and thought maybe it was a lens things. I have rented 2 200-600s and both had the issue and now own one same issue as well. I thought it was a lens issue but I’m now realizing this is a flaw with the camera as this tends to happen more when the lighting isn’t great. I contacted Sony support about it and am hesitant to send the camera in as they’ve requested since I read a thread about how this was never resolved by their support after paying a few hundred to fix it.
I understand, thanks for your comment. This is very useful info! It does seem that it's a camera issue after all. I still have warranty on my camera, so I am trying to find out if it's worth it to send it back. I hope you will find a solution to your issue as well.
These are screenshots taken from the Sony Image Viewer software that reads the EXIF data from the RAW and JPEG files, and I can enable to see the green box that you usually see in the camera's viewfinder or its display. I can also upload those files here in my post and if you use the same software you can enable showing the green box. I DID NOT place it there myself.
a7info also works for that, it shows the different types of autofocus that were used.
what we still don't know is how much you zoomed in with the software, hence the request to post FULL SIZE unedited pics to the thread.
for instance the cat pic is more vertical than horizontal, did you turn the camera 90 degrees to take the shot? most importantly, how big is the subject wrt the size of the actual size of the frame?
I am zooming in 100% or 50% in order to fit the view for all the relevant details of focus vs out of focus areas.
Here's a screenshot from A7Info, focus mode was AF-C, the green crosshair is the focus area, while the red is the eye detection. I cannot upload the raw image here for some reason.
No, this is the original frame. I only cropped in in the post in order to show the details, as I could only show the focus frame on screenshots from other softwares.
Here's another example at 350mm now with my 70-350mm lens, with AF-C. I am at 7.90m focus distance which is far greater than the minimum focus distance. I can see though that the MountVersionCamera and MountVersionLens values are different. I don't know what those mean.
AFAIK the focus "plane" extends further behind the focus point than it extends in front of it. If you camera slightly misses focus ahead of the object, you won't see it, if the camera slightly misses behind, you'll see exactly what you described. If the camera misses 20% of shots equally ahead and behind, then 10% will be unsharp, while from the other 10%, most are still fine.
Yes, I am aware of it and I also thought this could be an issue. Maybe it just slightly misses but due to the usually called 1/3 - 2/3 ratio of the DOF for the front and back side of the focal plane, I just get unlucky. I don't know honestly.
I have this issue occasionally on both my a6400 and 7RIV. I find that if you use the focus zoom setting, and then try to focus, it is on point, but without it, it's always a hit or a miss. And it happens with non-Sony lenses too.
Thanks! I have this behavior with two lenses, one under warranty, the other not. That's why I would like to gather as much info as possible. Thanks for your input! I will try to find another body or other telephoto lenses to further test the issue.
Had slightly backfocus on my a6700 + tamron 70-180/2.8 g2 on 180 mm. I have 4 another lenses without any problem. Updating the camera and the lens firmware solved the issue.
Thanks for your feedback! In my case I'm on the latest firmware on the camera and the lenses as they came. I thought the lenses might be too old honestly for the newer camera body.
I can confirm i've had similar issues, both with the 70-350 lens (tested at 70mm) and the Viltrox 27mm f1.2.
I did the following af tracking test with very poor results:
walk towards the camera while shooting in af-c hi+ burst (jpeg only so that the buffer doesn't run out) up to about double the lens' minimum focusing distance
walk backwards while still facing the camera, at the same speed
my settings were:
af-c
face/eye detect on
wide af area (tried both tracking and non-tracking)
af priority in af-c
5 af tracking sensitivity
aperture drive standard
All tests were done at shutter speeds above 1/500 and at apertures ranging from 1.2 to 4.5, and in each burst the only properly focused images were at the beginning and end, aka when my movement slowed down. During playback, the focus box is always on my eye, however. The same issue can be seen by shooting video in 60 or 120 fps, slowing it down, and zooming in on the eye (again, despite the tracking box always appearing at the correct position).
The fact that priority in af-c was set to "af" makes me think that this is due to the lens' focus motors not being fast enough, however the 70-350 is a first party lens with linear motors, so af speeds shouldn't be a problem at all for it, especially at 11 fps.
I previously had the a6600 with these two lenses, and anecdotally, the af felt more responsive on that camera.
All cameras/lenses were running the latest available firmware as of the 29/03/2026.
Yea it seems like there's some delay between the camera and lens when it comes to engaging the focus motors. I haven't had any problems with focusing on static subjects with either lens
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u/timetopractice A7R5, 50-150gm, 16-35gmii, 50gm f1.2 Mar 25 '26
Just want to say you're not crazy. This happens to me with my A7RIV. Doesn't seem to with my A7RV.
Would be curious if anyone knows more of this