We’ve Updated Our Sony a1 II Review’s Autofocus Section

The Sony a1 II is the first camera that the company stated had enhanced abilities at focusing on humans in low contrast situations. And we took really big note of that in our review and even in our updates. As of now, three different journalists have added updates to our Sony a1 II review. But recently, we had the chance to test the camera with the new Sony 100-400mm f4.5 G Master for sports. And we’ve got some new updates.

The below text is an addendum that we’ve added to the autofocus section of our Sony a1 II review. You can find the full review here.

Autofocus Update June 2026

The Sony a1 II has previously performed very well at focusing in low light on people for the event photography that we’ve done. But even then, I’d say that it wasn’t good enough. In a previous test, Gear Editor Feroz Khan used it for tracking horses in fairly low light and found the camera to do a great job. Reviews Editor Alberto Lima also noted that the camera did well at autofocusing on people with noticeable amounts of melanin in their skin at a church event.

Sony should indeed be praised on the work that they’ve done; but the company needs to go even further. And the company that really showed this to me is Nikon.

The above images were shot on the Nikon Zf and the 7Artisans 135mm f1.8 when shooting soccer. Now consider this: my Nikon Zf has a mist filter on the sensor to give it that hazy look and even when using a third-party Chinese-made lens that isn’t paying a license that we know of to Nikon, it was able to focus on people of color in low light sometimes even at f1.8 and get them in focus.

Yet the Sony a1 II sometimes has trouble at doing this for sports photography. We’re updating this section specifically with findings from the 100-400mm f4.5 G Master review where we found the autofocus sometimes didn’t do all that well with people of color in low light.

The camera tends to prioritize lighter subjects. For the record, I was shooting in AF-C, medium continuous burst, and with zone tracking. I tried this in both vertical and horiztonal modes and still, I felt like the Sony a1 II failed me in times when I thought that a Nikon Z9 would’ve given me exactly what I wanted.

On social media, photographers and influencers tend to ding Nikon. But the truth is that these memes don’t make any sense when the gear works the way that it’s supposed to work. Sure, it didn’t for many years. But I’d trust Nikon cameras before almost anything else these days. In fact, at this point, all of the reviewers here at the Phoblographer own and use Nikon cameras. We also all have at least one Sony body; but we unanimously agree that Nikon does a much better job here for photography. In the world of sports photography, this shouldn’t be happening at all. Sony should really work on even more improvements on this.