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

hughlle said:
I’d say in the case of Fuji it is because the dials on the top are quite definitive. You know exactly what you’re changing. They’re nothing more than what they state they are. I’ve not used my Sony recently enough to remember what unlabelled wheel or custom button does what. That is my issue with Sony. Yes, if you use things enough, it is muscle memory, but what about those who don’t, or switch between multiple brands etc. I love my Fuji for that reason, yet it still has too many custom buttons I forget, and for that I love my Leica even more. Customization has its pros and also its cons.
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One thing about the Fuji's I liked is there's no modes on a top dial. You do effectively have modes but not on a PASM dial on top of the camera. I did like that it's just the niggles that got to me. Sony have niggles too of course.
 
snerkler said:
Yeah I can understand why people like them, and yes it is nice to have them labelled, but ISO and shutter speed are used all the time so surely you remember where these are ;) :p

I get that having multiple custom buttons can be confusing but you can choose to use these or not (y)
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I rarely use them. So when I do, I forget. And I imagine I am the norm, not the minority. Aperature priority, and if it isn’t right, then adjust manually. I’d put money down and say that the vast majority do not shoot manual. Cameras are good enough that 99% of the time there is no need
 
woof woof said:
For me there is joy to be had in the process and in the tools, in selecting and owning good ones and in using them well.
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I don't disagree, and I feel that a good effective tool is pleasing to use, whether that's a sharp chisel for cutting a hinge groove in a door frame or a brushless cordless drill that I can carry outside and just use freely. But to a large degree the camera just fades into the background for me, possibly because I use it more often than tools these days, and I just expect it to work.
 
I think this subject is very much a 50/50.

In the same way that the 'camera vs photographer' thing goes - gear does matter ;) * well. about 50% of the time ;)

But for me, the final result and IQ are pretty important generally. Yes, I know when I use the X100f I'm not going to get the performance of the A7riii. But, for me, I also think the gear needs to be enjoyable to use. Luckily, I enjoy using all the gear I have - I wouldn't own it otherwise - but I do use them for different situations most of the time :)
 
ancient_mariner said:
I don't disagree, and I feel that a good effective tool is pleasing to use, whether that's a sharp chisel for cutting a hinge groove in a door frame or a brushless cordless drill that I can carry outside and just use freely. But to a large degree the camera just fades into the background for me, possibly because I use it more often than tools these days, and I just expect it to work.
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All good tools should get out of the way to some degree and so should camera kit and I do think that my Sony kits gets out of the way more than any other digital camera I've had but that doesn't mean I haven't enjoyed the selection process and it doesn't mean that I shouldn't think "this is nice" and enjoy the experience of using it, because now and again I do.

These days computers and phones are just things to me and I derive no enjoyment from them at all, TV's too and white goods I suppose but everything else from pens to watches and cars and on to tripods and lenses and even cameras have to provide some enjoyment and even... pride in ownership.
 
Wow, what happened this afternoon - slow Friday for everyone?!

In all seriousness, I found the debate on gear and image quality a bit odd given it stemmed from a post on an older camera. I get both sides of the argument - I believe we are all striving to take photos we love and I do believe image quality is component of that. I also know that I have to work less hard to get keepers with my A1 than I would with my A100.

But all the Sony cameras I've owned have had good image quality. A100, A700, a900, A77, A99, A7iii, A7Riii, A9 and now A1

So, a little challenge :)

Some images below from my archives, each from a different Sony camera, but all images I like. So how do you rank the image quality? Let's say 1 is the best and 5 is the worst, what's your 1-5 of A,B,C,D,E?

A


B


C


D


E


edit at 23:25 on 10/01 :1) initial screenshot approach didn't really work, so found out how to strip metadata and hopefully this works. 2) replaced E with some more foreground detail and rotated B so it would share at same dimensions.

edit at 23:57 on 10/01 : if you click on the image it'll take you through to the image on my website, where I've enabled downloading upto 2048 pixels on the long edge - I know there's pixel peepers among us

Answers tomorrow night!
 
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hughlle said:
I rarely use them. So when I do, I forget. And I imagine I am the norm, not the minority. Aperature priority, and if it isn’t right, then adjust manually. I’d put money down and say that the vast majority do not shoot manual. Cameras are good enough that 99% of the time there is no need
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I'm not sure I'd agree with these figures, however my comment was regarding Fuji users preferring the manual dials and I was saying that most cameras have these just in a different location (y)
 
hughlle said:
I rarely use them. So when I do, I forget. And I imagine I am the norm, not the minority. Aperature priority, and if it isn’t right, then adjust manually. I’d put money down and say that the vast majority do not shoot manual. Cameras are good enough that 99% of the time there is no need
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I shoot manually all the time so I'm very much in the minority :rolleyes:
 
mstphoto said:
I shoot manually all the time so I'm very much in the minority :rolleyes:
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I’m predominantly manual mode but Auto ISO, however I do shoot full manual for certain things. Landscapes it’s aperture priority with base ISO.
 
hughlle said:
I rarely use them. So when I do, I forget. And I imagine I am the norm, not the minority. Aperature priority, and if it isn’t right, then adjust manually. I’d put money down and say that the vast majority do not shoot manual. Cameras are good enough that 99% of the time there is no need
Click to expand...

snerkler said:
I'm not sure I'd agree with these figures, however my comment was regarding Fuji users preferring the manual dials and I was saying that most cameras have these just in a different location (y)
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Funnily enough, I use my Sony bodies with it's generic dials (aperture on most of my lenses though) in manual mode much more often than my X100f in manual mode with it's actual direct dials :)

But I generally use Av more than manual also so.....
 
I mostly use my cameras in aperture priority mode. I occasionally use manual mode when it's a more unusual scenario where I need to set everything manually and on the RX1R most of the time because in auto iso it sets the shutter speed way too high at 1/80 in aperture priority.
 
snerkler said:
I’m predominantly manual mode but Auto ISO, however I do shoot full manual for certain things. Landscapes it’s aperture priority with base ISO.
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Funnily enuogh I'm exactly the opposite - landscapes (e.g. tripod) in manual, everything else aperture priority, generally with Auto ISO. Though I have noticed my behaviour changing because of the lock on the A1 exposure wheel. I've always been annoying with knocking that damn knob by accident so was thrilled to get a body that locks it. But now it's so tricky to declick the lock with one hand to then use the dial, that I almost never use it. I used to use exposure comp. instead of manual I guess
 
JohnMcL7 said:
I mostly use my cameras in aperture priority mode. I occasionally use manual mode when it's a more unusual scenario where I need to set everything manually and on the RX1R most of the time because in auto iso it sets the shutter speed way too high at 1/80 in aperture priority.
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Do you mean too low/slow John? 1/80 would IMO be too low/slow for many subjects including people/living things.
 
woof woof said:
Do you mean too low/slow John? 1/80 would IMO be too low/slow for many subjects including people/living things.
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No too high, it's a 35mm lens on the RX1 so 1/40 would be the expected value for the default auto iso. I tend to use it in very low light so when I'm already at F2 and iso 6400, 1/80 is wasting a stop of light I very much need so I have it set to manual where it's usually at 1/40 and I can drop it lower easily enough.
 
JohnMcL7 said:
No too high, it's a 35mm lens on the RX1 so 1/40 would be the expected value for the default auto iso. I tend to use it in very low light so when I'm already at F2 and iso 6400, 1/80 is wasting a stop of light I very much need so I have it set to manual where it's usually at 1/40 and I can drop it lower easily enough.
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Oh. I see. For me 1/40 or so is possible to hand hold especially with the electronic shutter let alone stabilisation but pointless if the subject will move causing blur. For anything with people or animals and even other things I take pictures of double digit shutter speeds are effectively useless as they'd lead to blur not caused by camera movement but by subject movement.
 
I find it's quite manageable taking pictures at 1/40 and on Thursday night was taking pictures of people at 1/20, I usually need to take more photos than usual but can normally get usable images. There's just no choice when there's little available light and already at the widest aperture and maximum iso.
 
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woof woof said:
Oh. I see. For me 1/40 or so is possible to hand hold especially with the electronic shutter let alone stabilisation but pointless if the subject will move causing blur. For anything with people or animals and even other things I take pictures of double digit shutter speeds are effectively useless as they'd lead to blur not caused by camera movement but by subject movement.
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1/40's a doddle on a 35mm with current IBIS, however as you say if the subject is moving that's a different matter (y)
 
JohnMcL7 said:
I find it's quite manageable taking pictures at 1/40 and on Thursday night was taking pictures of people at 1/20, I usually need to take more photos than usual but can normally get usable images. There's just no choice when there's little available light and already at the widest aperture and maximum iso.
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Max ISO for me is 25,600 as I'd rather take the picture than not take it. Other than ISO I think this all hangs on four things.

1. How steadily you can hold the camera and how much movement the camera introduces as it fires the shutter.
2. How much people move even when posing and trying to be still as even a slight movement will introduce blur.
3. How big the subject is in the frame.
4. How closely you look.

snerkler said:
1/40's a doddle on a 35mm with current IBIS, however as you say if the subject is moving that's a different matter (y)
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I find that very often people move slightly even when posing but as above if this is visible or not in the picture depends. Unfortunately I can't resist looking closely so double digit shutter speeds rarely work for me. They may work as a whole picture viewed normally but I'll know that the motion blur is there and in that case the picture will probably be deleted or more likely just taken with a higher shutter speed.

This reminds me of what I posted yesterday... "At the time I had the SLR I took a lot of pictures at gigs and was limited to 1/xx with ISO 1,600 film if I was lucky and of course there was grain and motion blur but to be honest no one ever pointed this out to me."

I think no one noticed because the prints were small and often motion blur was lost in the grain anyway, These days with digital I think it's easier to spot as the files are cleaner and probably viewed at a larger size and we can zoom in without having to find a magnifying glass :D
 
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woof woof said:
Max ISO for me is 25,600 as I'd rather take the picture than not take it. Other than ISO I think this all hangs on four things.

1. How steadily you can hold the camera and how much movement the camera introduces as it fires the shutter.
2. How much people move even when posing and trying to be still as even a slight movement will introduce blur.
3. How big the subject is in the frame.
4. How closely you look.
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That doesn't change the fact you cannot increase your shutter speed when at iso 25,600 and the lens's widest aperture, I'd love to be able to have a three digit shutter speed but when you barely scrape 1/40 of a second then that's what you have to work with. It's one of the reasons I like using a bigger sensor since you can get usable photos in circumstances a mobile phone can barely get anything.

Furthermore even when light is slightly better and I can get the shot 1/40 or less then I'm not going to waste a stop of light going up 1/80 as the camera wants to.
 
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JohnMcL7 said:
That doesn't change the fact you cannot increase your shutter speed when at iso 25,600 and the lens's widest aperture, I'd love to be able to have a three digit shutter speed but when you barely scrape 1/40 of a second then that's what you have to work with. It's one of the reasons I like using a bigger sensor since you can get usable photos in circumstances a mobile phone can barely get anything.

Furthermore even when light is slightly better and I can get the shot 1/40 or less then I'm not going to waste a stop of light going up 1/80 as the camera wants to.
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Do you see motion blur at these settings?

I do take some low light wide aperture shots and indeed I've just looked at one at f1.4, 1/13 and ISO 26,500. I did keep it but there is motion blur despite the subject, Mrs WW, trying to be still. I have to say that most of mine at that speed do get deleted. I do agree with taking pictures in difficult conditions. I'd much rather do that than not take any.
 
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Yes, when I'm taking pictures of a group of people if someone takes a side step or makes a gesture it will be blurred so I'll usually just rattle off more shoes than I normally would and I'll get keepers I'm happy with.

I was shooting with a 20mm lens for the first time this week and forgot to adjust the auto iso settings so took everything at 1/20. The group shots and other static sits were fine but when the bikes are moving there was too much blur although like you say, I'll still keep them. I've been using the rx1 for a while now but hoping to start taking a bigger camera with me more often after the excellent think tank recommendation in this thread.

Certainly with the dog and some other subjects that sort of shutter speed would be pointless but it's mostly fine for the sort of shots I use the little rx1 for.

Speaking of max iso I was remembering the A7Sii which I think has some ridiculous value for max iso, I was having a look at dxomark and see they put it quite a bit behind the A9:

www.dxomark.com

Sony A7S II vs Sony a9 vs | DXOMARK

www.dxomark.com www.dxomark.com

Maybe it was only good for low light video
 
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I do the same, if I think things are difficult I take a few pictures but what I usually do if there's motion blur is keep one for the memories and delete the rest. I think I must try and relax a bit though as it doesn't take a side step for me to see blur, I'll see it in minor head, hand or eye movements.
 
Tricky01 said:
Wow, what happened this afternoon - slow Friday for everyone?!

In all seriousness, I found the debate on gear and image quality a bit odd given it stemmed from a post on an older camera. I get both sides of the argument - I believe we are all striving to take photos we love and I do believe image quality is component of that. I also know that I have to work less hard to get keepers with my A1 than I would with my A100.

But all the Sony cameras I've owned have had good image quality. A100, A700, a900, A77, A99, A7iii, A7Riii, A9 and now A1

So, a little challenge :)

Some images below from my archives, each from a different Sony camera, but all images I like. So how do you rank the image quality? Let's say 1 is the best and 5 is the worst, what's your 1-5 of A,B,C,D,E?

A


B


C


D


E


edit at 23:25 on 10/01 :1) initial screenshot approach didn't really work, so found out how to strip metadata and hopefully this works. 2) replaced E with some more foreground detail and rotated B so it would share at same dimensions.

edit at 23:57 on 10/01 : if you click on the image it'll take you through to the image on my website, where I've enabled downloading upto 2048 pixels on the long edge - I know there's pixel peepers among us

Answers tomorrow night!
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CAMERA LENS COMBOS (not in order of pics in case this tempts anyone to play the game)

A100 Minolta AF 70-210mm F4.5-5.6 [II]
a700 and Minolta/Sony AF 24-105mm F3.5-4.5 (D)
A900 and Sony 70-300G
A77 135 CZ
a99 24-70 cz
 
woof woof said:
Do you see motion blur at these settings?

I do take some low light wide aperture shots and indeed I've just looked at one at f1.4, 1/13 and ISO 26,500. I did keep it but there is motion blur despite the subject, Mrs WW, trying to be still. I have to say that most of mine at that speed do get deleted. I do agree with taking pictures in difficult conditions. I'd much rather do that than not take any.
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I must admit this was a bit lucky as I hadn't been paying attention to my settings, as a result shutter speed was 1/40 and not a bit of blur in sight (fortunately).


A1_9538 Re-Edit by Toby Gunnee, on Flickr
 
There was a thread on here asking for help with C-AF issues on their A7SII which was doing a weird pulsing effect, I checked on mine and it did exactly the same which I think is due to it only having CDAF so it has to keep going past the focus point to make sure focus is where it thinks it is. I uploaded the video to youtube to link here but it was unlisted however this week someone added a comment to the video saying they had the same issue and had I resolved it. I'm a bit puzzled how they were able to find the unlisted video though, I did a search for A7SII C-AF error and I did find the thread which contains the video however I'd think anyone that found that thread would see from the replies the behaviour is normal. I replied to them explaining it's a result of C-AF and asking how they found the video but they didn't reply.

I can't think of any other way they'd have found the video but it also seems strange they'd have looked through that thread and not taken any of it in?

As an odd coincidence I was having trouble with a Fuji camera this week that was oddly pulsing and not locking focus, I checked the settings but they looked ok. I had another look today and realised I'd misread them and for some reason the camera had indeed somehow changed to C-AF which should have been instantly recognisable.
 
snerkler said:
I must admit this was a bit lucky as I hadn't been paying attention to my settings, as a result shutter speed was 1/40 and not a bit of blur in sight (fortunately).
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Good, but I'd guess that's at least in part because she's used to posing?

People can use whatever setting they want or are stuck with and good luck but personally I try to stay away from double digit shutter speeds as I'm mostly going for a frozen picture unless deliberately including blur. If I am stuck at double digits I try to take more than one, just in case but as above, maybe I am being too critical as what I see few other people will see, apart from you lot on here, obviously, because you're all at least part geek too :D

Another thing which I haven't done for years which is good at double digit shutter speeds is using a flash to freeze the subject whilst the background is more ambient. I can't remember the exact settings but it might have been something like 1/20 and ISO 400 with the built in flash turned down a bit. Something like that. That used to freeze people, as I remember.
 
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JohnMcL7 said:
There was a thread on here asking for help with C-AF issues on their A7SII which was doing a weird pulsing effect, I checked on mine and it did exactly the same which I think is due to it only having CDAF so it has to keep going past the focus point to make sure focus is where it thinks it is. I uploaded the video to youtube to link here but it was unlisted however this week someone added a comment to the video saying they had the same issue and had I resolved it. I'm a bit puzzled how they were able to find the unlisted video though, I did a search for A7SII C-AF error and I did find the thread which contains the video however I'd think anyone that found that thread would see from the replies the behaviour is normal. I replied to them explaining it's a result of C-AF and asking how they found the video but they didn't reply.

I can't think of any other way they'd have found the video but it also seems strange they'd have looked through that thread and not taken any of it in?

As an odd coincidence I was having trouble with a Fuji camera this week that was oddly pulsing and not locking focus, I checked the settings but they looked ok. I had another look today and realised I'd misread them and for some reason the camera had indeed somehow changed to C-AF which should have been instantly recognisable.
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I found both my A7RV and A1 struggled in a studio shoot last year, pulsing and struggling to find focus. A couple of days later I figured out what the issue was, and it was because I was using AF-C at small aperture (f11) in a dark room. For a split second the lens opens up but then stops down to chosen aperture and stays stopped down as long as you are focussing. A way to get around this is to use AF-S as it will open up the aperture to gain focus. Of course, if focussing on a moving subject it will require you to keep reaquiring focus.
 
the_accidental said:
Heh, as someone that used to do some teaching I’ll say a lot of otherwise intelligent people are perfectly capable of looking/reading things and not taking any of it in! :rolleyes:
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I used to call it the "drone effect".

Too many lecturers have useful information to impart but fail to realise that you have to keep the listeners' attention. I had a colleague who was a talented juggler. He would break up his sessions every ten minutes or so, by demonstrating his skill with various objects. Then he would carry on with the presentation, having refreshed the audience's interest.
 
hughlle said:
I rarely use them. So when I do, I forget. And I imagine I am the norm, not the minority. Aperature priority, and if it isn’t right, then adjust manually. I’d put money down and say that the vast majority do not shoot manual. Cameras are good enough that 99% of the time there is no need
Click to expand...
I always shoot manual, I could not imagine any situation where I would use auto.
 
snerkler said:
I found both my A7RV and A1 struggled in a studio shoot last year, pulsing and struggling to find focus. A couple of days later I figured out what the issue was, and it was because I was using AF-C at small aperture (f11) in a dark room. For a split second the lens opens up but then stops down to chosen aperture and stays stopped down as long as you are focussing. A way to get around this is to use AF-S as it will open up the aperture to gain focus. Of course, if focussing on a moving subject it will require you to keep reaquiring focus.
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This is on the older generation of Sony body with no PDAF so it will do this pulsing even wide open in good light since it can't tell which direction it is out of focus.

I was thinking about your aperture issue recently when trying to understand why my Z8 doesn't seem to work well with the flash which I'd initially put down to not being able to use the illuminator on the flash. I noticed the D750 keeps the aperture wide open and stops it down the same time as the mirror moves up but the Z8 from what I can see is keeping the lens stopped down even on AF-S. I thought I was onto something but when I tried shooting wide open it didn't seem to be helping.
 
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JohnMcL7 said:
This is on the older generation of Sony body with no PDAF so it will do this pulsing even wide open in good light since it can't tell which direction it is out of focus.

I was thinking about your aperture issue with the Nikon Z8 and flash though, I noticed the D750 keeps the aperture wide open and stops it down the same time as the mirror moves up but the Z8 from what I can see is keeping the lens stopped down even on AF-S. I thought I was onto something but when I tried shooting wide open it didn't seem to be helping.
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I don't have a Z8 :thinking:
 
JohnMcL7 said:
I reworded it, I meant your issue with the Sony cameras and my Z8.
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Ahh I see. it seems a number (if not all) mirrorless behave this way and I can only assume it's something to do with on sensor AF vs a separate sensor module :thinking:
 
A rusty old thing (not me.)

A7 and Voigtlander 35mm f1.4.

DSC07781.jpg
 
Don't know if its of any interest to anyone but I've just listed two lexar 80gb CF express type A cards in for sale.
 
Another G lens coming?

Sony will announce a new G lens in February? | sonyalpharumors

Another sources told me that Sony is likely to release a new "G" lens in February. And it is related to this lens and this lens. What do you make out of this info? ;)
www.sonyalpharumors.com www.sonyalpharumors.com

I think I'd like to see a 28, 35 or 50mm F1.8 G of similar build and optical quality to the 20mm f1.8 G or a 28 or 35mm mini f2.5/f2.8 G. If it's anything else I doubt very much I'll be interested.

Anyone hoping for anything?
 
woof woof said:
Anyone hoping for anything?
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I have more than enough lenses right now.

It's interesting how having lenses that just perform really well has stopped me wanting more, and I've even started wondering about getting rid of the others that I picked up.
 
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