I've spent today on a birds-of-prey photography course at Hardwick Hall. FWIW, I was the only A-mount user, with all but two others (Nikon) using Canon.

Anyway, in AF-C with continous advance (high), is it correct the camera only will only release the shutter when it thinks something is in focus (despite keeping your finger down)? I know that in Speed Priority advanced it locks the focus & exposure which wasn't much use for a fast moving bird.

With most Alpha models you can set a menu option to release only when focus is confirmed, or regardless. There's no such item on the Alpha 55 that I can find. That's probably because of the standard and high speed modes. So the answer it - it depends on the camera body and the available settings.

David

Thanks David - is that a typo (Alpha 55) as my camera is an A550.

Chris.

The a550 has the release priority 'shutter' option in the menu. The a55 has not.
So if you have the a550, consider yourself lucky (in that particular regard)

Which menu is it under? I can't find it on my a550...

I used to have an a500 which is mostly the same thing as a550. I surely could get it to shoot at shutter priority, I just can't remember exactly how. But that was dependent of the AF mode. iirc.

P.S. I must be wrong. I think I mixed things up with the a300/350. So your only option is to use continuous advance with AF-S, then it only waits to focus the first frame and continues with focus locked.

I just checked the A500 manual. There appears to be no release priority setting when AF is used with that camera.