The Amazing Sony A1/A7/A9/APS-C & Anything else welcome Mega Thread!

wookie6262 said:
Shot a rugby game with the Z9, Megadap and Sony 400mm F2.8. The focussing isn't doing it for me. The problem is I don't know if that is because I am using adapted glass or just the way it is. I suspect a mixture of both combined with my inexperience. With the A1s pretty much every shot is in good enough focus to use. The Z9 with the adapted 400 can shoot 3 out of focus and then one is very sharp and then it falls out again. I think the A9 iii announcement has probably made my mind up that I will stay with Sony as two of the features I wanted, precapture and very fast frame rates will be included and they will likely be in future flagships too. The other two features I like can be done without the help of teh camera, focus stacks and multiple exposures.
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I’d have thought it’s the adapter, the Z9 won’t only get 1 in 4 shots, I’d expect 99% with native glass.
 
snerkler said:
I’d have thought it’s the adapter, the Z9 won’t only get 1 in 4 shots, I’d expect 99% with native glass.
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Definitely a part of the issue, possibly a major part. I'll try to get a session with the 100-400 native and see how it does. I think we are spoiled with Sony AF. It is just so easy. Nikon appears to have the speed but the AF modes are nowhere near as useful imo and when you are used to tracking it is hard to get back to keeping a static point on a runner. 3D isn't as good as the tracking from Sony and the Auto is lap of the gods in team sports but works fantastically well, at least as good as the A1, when it is a single subject. Very early tests though so different scenarios may through up different results
 
Yet more rain here.

We were going to go out but on hearing and seeing the rain decided not to and it's not just the rain which has stopped now as stepping off road will mean being on saturated ground and mud.
 
woof woof said:
Yet more rain here.

We were going to go out but on hearing and seeing the rain decided not to and it's not just the rain which has stopped now as stepping off road will mean being on saturated ground and mud.
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Rain's stopped here now but very strong winds. I was going to do a slow shutter waterfall but no point as the trees are blowing about too much.
 
snerkler said:
Rain's stopped here now but very strong winds. I was going to do a slow shutter waterfall but no point as the trees are blowing about too much.
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Do one of those stacked photos at f1.2 to get the blurred water/sharp rocks and lose the trees in the bokeh.
 
ancient_mariner said:
Do one of those stacked photos at f1.2 to get the blurred water/sharp rocks and lose the trees in the bokeh.
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The trees are surrounding the waterfall, but it's too late now anyway as I have to go to work soon :dummy:
 
I know it's a different day, different colouring but an interesting comparison nonetheless (IMO) of a couple of shots taken with my iphone last year compared to my A1 of the same area.

EDIT: I don't know why but the iphone pictures appear sharper on here (on my screen anyway), both are exported using the same settings :thinking:


IMG_3314 by Toby Gunnee, on Flickr

IMG_3311 by Toby Gunnee, on Flickr

A1_05588 by Toby Gunnee, on Flickr

A1_05599 by Toby Gunnee, on Flickr
 
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My phone seems to have a mind of its own. Some pictures have a clear point of focus and some don't seem to even when I've had the point of focus over something obvious and focus friendly and pressed the button.

1-20231022_111900[1].jpg

1-DSC03598.jpg
 
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wookie6262 said:
Definitely a part of the issue, possibly a major part. I'll try to get a session with the 100-400 native and see how it does. I think we are spoiled with Sony AF. It is just so easy. Nikon appears to have the speed but the AF modes are nowhere near as useful imo and when you are used to tracking it is hard to get back to keeping a static point on a runner. 3D isn't as good as the tracking from Sony and the Auto is lap of the gods in team sports but works fantastically well, at least as good as the A1, when it is a single subject. Very early tests though so different scenarios may through up different results
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Is the Z9 running the latest firmware, it’s 4.01 I think. The might make a difference.
 
snerkler said:
I know it's a different day, different colouring but an interesting comparison nonetheless (IMO) of a couple of shots taken with my iphone last year compared to my A1 of the same area.

EDIT: I don't know why but the iphone pictures appear sharper on here (on my screen anyway), both are exported using the same settings :thinking:


IMG_3314 by Toby Gunnee, on Flickr

IMG_3311 by Toby Gunnee, on Flickr

A1_05588 by Toby Gunnee, on Flickr

A1_05599 by Toby Gunnee, on Flickr
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cool. I'd go for slightly tighter crop of 2 and 4, because I abjectly object to white and grey skies
 
mav said:
Mark smith on you tube tested the adaptor with the 200-600. He wasnt that impressed. With it .
lot of you tube vids setting the z9 with 2 buttons first with a a box to find the subject then another button to activate the 3d tracking.
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Cheers. He is very good but the adapter and Z9 have moved on a bit since then. I have watched quite a few of the videos suggesting the two button technique. I had a go the first match I shot and didn't think it worked too well for field sports. I've a few different events coming up that are for fun so I can test the camera without a client expecting results and will see how it copes.
 
Just to be ready for if it stops raining I decided to take the Pergear 35mm f1.4 off my camera and mount the TTArtisan 50mm f2. It was almost painful. I think I might be back to a 35mm pretty quickly.

Does anyone else have a lens which you feel should be on your camera to the point you miss it when you mount something else :D At the mo it seems to be 35mm for me.
 
I'm not sure how well this will show on here but if I use a topaz sharpen AI setting other than standard (such as motion blur, too soft etc) the processed image has a very slightly different hue, being slightly more magenta/red. Does anyone else find this?

Topaz left, original right.

Screenshot 2023-11-14 at 19.04.58 by Toby Gunnee, on Flickr
 
snerkler said:
I'm not sure how well this will show on here but if I use a topaz sharpen AI setting other than standard (such as motion blur, too soft etc) the processed image has a very slightly different hue, being slightly more magenta/red. Does anyone else find this?

Topaz left, original right.

Screenshot 2023-11-14 at 19.04.58 by Toby Gunnee, on Flickr
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I can see magenta huge on the left and also taking a reading from an identical pixel from each side sky showed these respective values:

1699989796190.png
 
gman said:
I can see magenta huge on the left and also taking a reading from an identical pixel from each side sky showed these respective values:

View attachment 406613
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What’s that you’re using to analyse? I wonder why it changes the hue?
 
snerkler said:
What’s that you’re using to analyse? I wonder why it changes the hue?
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It's just the latest version Photoshop and using the eye dropper.

I wonder if there's a technical reason behind it, perhaps perception related?
 
gman said:
It's just the latest version Photoshop and using the eye dropper.

I wonder if there's a technical reason behind it, perhaps perception related?
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Thanks.

I wouldn’t have thought so because if you use ‘standard’ sharpening there’s no hue change, at least not to my eyes. I’ll try sending to topaz using different file types and see what that does, by default I use tiff.
 
Is the Sony 50mm f2.8 macro at least half decent? I’m fancying a small lightweight cheap macro lens that I can chuck in my bag and kind of forget it’s there just to be used on odd occasions. Is the Sony 50mm good for this or is the IQ so bad it’s not worth it?
 
snerkler said:
I'm not sure how well this will show on here but if I use a topaz sharpen AI setting other than standard (such as motion blur, too soft etc) the processed image has a very slightly different hue, being slightly more magenta/red. Does anyone else find this?

Topaz left, original right.

Screenshot 2023-11-14 at 19.04.58 by Toby Gunnee, on Flickr
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Personally I just don't see it, but it is very very small image.

You could be changing colour profiles, and perhaps you shouldn't at this point, only when exporting.

It has to be so minor nobody else would notice.

Now, LR denoise does add quite heavy green cast if file is on the noisy side, and I can't say I like that at all.
 
This new photo ai thing can be quite a mess though, and the RAW module is basically laughable. I much prefer older sharpen ai n either focus or motion (normal) mode with very low numbers.
 
LongLensPhotography said:
Personally I just don't see it, but it is very very small image.

You could be changing colour profiles, and perhaps you shouldn't at this point, only when exporting.

It has to be so minor nobody else would notice.

Now, LR denoise does add quite heavy green cast if file is on the noisy side, and I can't say I like that at all.
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I’m not changing colour profiles, and I said different settings using the same software does not cause it (y)
 
snerkler said:
I’m not changing colour profiles, and I said different settings using the same software does not cause it (y)
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can you post some 100% crops what you feed in and what you get. I think TP allows up to 1024, but then they still scale it down so best to go quite small
 
LongLensPhotography said:
can you post some 100% crops what you feed in and what you get. I think TP allows up to 1024, but then they still scale it down so best to go quite small
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I’ll do it tomorrow (if I remember :runaway: )
 
LongLensPhotography said:
can you post some 100% crops what you feed in and what you get. I think TP allows up to 1024, but then they still scale it down so best to go quite small
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Here you go (the topaz is clearly oversharpened in this example but I wasn't intending to use them at this size), it still doesn't show as well as having the full images and going from one to the other. Here it just looks more muted than a colour shift.

EDIT: Wow it's amazing how much TP has softened these, I wish I could figure this out.


Screenshot 2023-11-15 at 07.42.50 by Toby Gunnee, on Flickr

Screenshot 2023-11-15 at 07.43.23 by Toby Gunnee, on Flickr
 
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snerkler said:
Testing different resolutions to see which look best on here.

Edit: For me 1024px wide looks a gnats better than 2048px which looks a gnats better than 3000px but none look great :(

...
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I think it's generally the case that you will get better results from downsizing an image from the original in your editing software than letting a site auto resize for you (be that here on TP, or on FB, etc).
 
It's a bit like playing retro games and then upscaling in a non-native, and non-scale resolution.
 
Faldrax said:
I think it's generally the case that you will get better results from downsizing an image from the original in your editing software than letting a site auto resize for you (be that here on TP, or on FB, etc).
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But that's the thing, the higher res looks worse on here :thinking:
 
snerkler said:
But that's the thing, the higher res looks worse on here :thinking:
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Yes, it will.
The forum will have a maximum resolution for images (1024pc on longest side, I believe)
So if you use LR to export an image at 1024, it will be displayed untouched.
If you export the image at 2048 - the forum software will resize it down to 1024 - but it's likely using a simpler resizing algorithm, and is starting from a 2048 image, both of which will result in a lower quality image than a 1024 image created by LR.
 
When I export my photos to clients, I give them 2 sets.

1 - Full res, whatever the resolution edits comes out as, it's that resolution.
2 - Instagram res, and slight compression added adjusted for Instagram (89%).

A while ago I saw a video on another photographer did a test and he came to a conclusion of a pixel length on the long side and a compression and it's the one I have made a preset for in LR.

So I tell them if they want to share photos by email or Instagram, use the photos from the Instagram folder. That way it saves them headache in resizing and also the photos looks the best that they can.
 
Faldrax said:
Yes, it will.
The forum will have a maximum resolution for images (1024pc on longest side, I believe)
So if you use LR to export an image at 1024, it will be displayed untouched.
If you export the image at 2048 - the forum software will resize it down to 1024 - but it's likely using a simpler resizing algorithm, and is starting from a 2048 image, both of which will result in a lower quality image than a 1024 image created by LR.
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Would that still matter if it was linked from Flickr?
 
snerkler said:
Would that still matter if it was linked from Flickr?
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If you upload a hi-res to Flickr, then link a 1024 from Flickr, it will probably be better than uploading a HiRes direct - because Flickr is likely to have a fairly good resize algorithm.
If you upload a HiRes to Flicker, then link an image above 1024 from Flicker it will suffer the same issues as if you had uploaded the larger image direct (potentially worse, if you exported an image that was smaller than the HiRes, but larger than 1024, as it would have been resized twice).
Of course, theses are all subject to the 'good enough' test - an image may well still be 'good enough' even after resizing, and any loss of quality on resize will be dependant on the specific image and the various elements in it (you can resize an image of a perfect plain white wall however much you like :LOL: ).
 
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