Sony’s A7 III Camera Can Track Your Pet’s Eyes

If you have a pet, it’s most likely the light of your life and you’ve probably filled your Facebook profile and Instagram with pictures of it. Sony now plans to let you take even better pictures of your beloved pets thanks to a new firmware update for the A7 III and A7R III cameras.

This new update brings in an AI feature called ‘animal eye detection’ that, when set to continuous tracking focus mode, can focus on your pet’s eyes, making sure they maintain the sharpness for the photo.

Why is this necessary when taking photos of animals? Because it’s not as easy for cameras to detect them since their faces have a completely different geometry than a human’s – the camera will normally focus on button noses (in the case of cats), for example, as it perceives them as eyes instead.

For the moment, the camera only works on cats and dogs but Sony said that “future updates will bring recognition and tracking for other wildlife including birds in flight“, which is, to say the least, very good news for wildlife photographers, be they professionals or amateurs.

And if you say you don’t want better, sharper and overall more high-quality photos of your pet, you’d be lying.