I've had an issue when trying to capture our dog running towards the camera using a variety of cameras and lenses, it quite often back focusses and it's often her harness/torso that's in focus rather than her face Initially I just thought it was a case of the Nikon Z7 and then the Sony A7RIV not being able to keep up, but I'm also experiencing it with the Sony A9 Mark II.
Now of course it would be user error but I am pretty au fait with photography, plus when I review the images the focus point is on our dog's face. I use AF-C with back button focus and have tried various focus modes from wide to group to flexible single point etc etc and have tried it with tracking and none tracking modes. I've tried it with animal eye af and without, and I've tried it with tracking sensitivity from 1-5. I always make sure the camera has focus prior to her setting off, and in a series there can be a few shots in focus then it starts to back focus even though the AF point is still on her face and she's nowhere near being too close to focus.
Admittedly it's more apparent with third party f1.4 primes but it does also occur with lenses like the 24-105mm f and 70-200mm f2.8 GM OSS II.
I've come to the conclusion that the camera struggles to focus on our dogs face as it's black and she has dark eyes, and even when static the eye-af rarely picks up on her eyes, often thinking her sticking up ears are her eyes (she's a French Bulldog), however I just wondered if anyone else had any suggestions please?
