Disappointed with the Sony again

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I have just returned from a trip to Whitby and again am disappointed with the results from the Sony A6000. I took about 250 photos of various things sometimes taking a photo with my phone for comparison , some with manual long lenses and some with the stock Sony lens, most were took in aperture priority with a varing aperture to suit the scene but I think only two or three were any good,a very bad percentage I think you will agree, they were either miss focused or incorrectly exposed with both the manual lenses and the kit lens. This has got to the point that I really don't wish to use the Sony as on the occasions when I have took it out my time has been wasted which is frustrating at least. The phone on the other hand appeared to take better images at least where I could fill the frame. Here are two examples of the same shot with the two devices both have been edited. Do I get rid of the Sony ?

PHONE SHOT

A.jpeg


Sony

c.jpg
 
Sony picture looks better
+1.
Sony is a lot sharper, better colours and pops a lot more.
The phone shot is oof to my eyes and lacks pretty much all that the camera provides.
 
Phone
phone.jpeg

Sony

sony.JPG
 
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Prefer the Sony, the phone image looks like some automatic sharpening has been applied, definitely looks like more detail in the Sony.
 
I think what we are seeing is that your phone is doing alot to your image to make the photos look more appealing. The result is over worked photos that don't look natural.
 
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The second phone photo is awful, Sony is OK and could be tarted up a bit to look better
 
For me the foreground is better on the Sony but the back ground appears very blurred particularly on the first two images , the Sony when taking images of things near to the camera does really well ( in fact I would say it's superb ) but is poor at longer distances. I don't expect great images from the phone especially as it's a budget device. But as I tend to like images straight from camera rather than spending ages messing with them the Phone or one of my other cameras seems to do better with .jpegs. I don't generally use RAW format as the operating system I use only supports one or two programs/apps which will work with raw images plus it just seems to take far too much of my time to mess with them. I accept that the phones images aren't as good as the Sony but don't think they are that far advanced straight from camera. When I took the Sony shot in the second set of images ( the one with the fence) the Camera was on a tripod which was not tall enough to clear the fence this was not the required shot but I left it on the tripod as I was about to move but took the shot for comparison only.
 
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For me the foreground is better on the Sony but the back ground appears very blurred particularly on the first two images , the Sony when taking images of things near to the camera does really well ( in fact I would say it's superb ) but is poor at longer distances. I don't expect great images from the phone especially as it's a budget device. But as I tend to like images straight from camera rather than spending ages messing with them the Phone or one of my other cameras seems to do better.

That's because your phone has a tiny sensor, everything is in focus. To match that you need to stop the aperture down appropriately. The camera isn't really the issue, it's user error. You can also send photos directly from your camera to phone and use an app to edit it.
 
Yup - the phone's processing is intended to add 'wow' factor. The Sony's is intended to look accurate, leaving you to make it look good/bad yourself.

The OoF ruins through the whalebone arch is due to improper aperture selection. (Which matters more for the larger sensor and not-at-all for the phone's tiny sensor.)
 
For me the foreground is better on the Sony but the back ground appears very blurred particularly on the first two images , the Sony when taking images of things near to the camera does really well ( in fact I would say it's superb ) but is poor at longer distances. I don't expect great images from the phone especially as it's a budget device. But as I tend to like images straight from camera rather than spending ages messing with them the Phone or one of my other cameras seems to do better.

Bold bit - as I just mentioned. Do some reading on DoF, watch some YT tutorials. With bigger sensors it's vital to understand.
 
For me the foreground is better on the Sony but the back ground appears very blurred particularly on the first two images , the Sony when taking images of things near to the camera does really well ( in fact I would say it's superb ) but is poor at longer distances. I don't expect great images from the phone especially as it's a budget device. But as I tend to like images straight from camera rather than spending ages messing with them the Phone or one of my other cameras seems to do better.
Where did you set the Sony's focus point, on the fence? Plus if you want garish images why not set the camera up to provide them?

Not the best but only two clicks and a border

c_pe.jpgsony_pe.jpg
 
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Focus point could be an issue as photos taken with the manual lenses seemed to do much better. The aperture when using either set of lenses was normally f11 or f16 with a few on the Sony Lens tried at F22. The colours I prefer may be a result of using Film as my prefered look was fairly well saturated.
 
My son has the A6000. It's not a bad camera imo for the little I've used/tried it & the results he has from it.

I appreciate he's only 13 & not really into photography that much but most since the milky way stuff is A6000 - https://www.instagram.com/klratcliffe1811/

The phone shots are certainly over edited though whereas I agree the Sony files look like they are hardly touched to bring the best out of them.
 
To get the best from the big camera RAW is going to help tremendously especially in a scene with bright cloud and relatively dark land.
I would of thought the A6000 would at least equal my RX100v which is a delight to use on scenes like these
 
Focus point could be an issue as photos taken with the manual lenses seemed to do much better. The aperture when using either set of lenses was normally f11 or f16 with a few on the Sony Lens tried at F22. The colours I prefer may be a result of using Film as my prefered look was fairly well saturated.

What lens are you using with the 6000? F22 will definitely suffer from diffraction, I'd try to stick to around f11. Obviously the focus isn't right, so try focussing a third of the way into the scene.
If you like punchy images, then you're best spending time learning to shoot for that in mind. A little of the highlight is blown in the sky so expose slightly under and you'll have plenty of room to develop with lots of detail. The file isn't good for working with but a quick basic edit shouldn't take long.
 
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Get rid of the phone. Phones cameras are designed to flatter and make everyone a photographer.

Spend the time learning to use the camera correctly.
 
The phone on the other hand appeared to take better images at least where I could fill the frame. Here are two examples of the same shot with the two devices both have been edited. Do I get rid of the Sony ?

I don't think this is a Sony issue so if you're thinking about getting a Canon, Nikon or Fuji or anything else I'd forget it as I think you'll only go through the same pain.

As far as I know you've posted a number of threads about troubles with this kit and forgive me if I'm wrong but I think you came from a film background and if so you could already have an understanding of the basics including the relationships between aperture, depth of filed, ISO and exposure and so on and so should be able to apply some of this knowledge to digital. However, you seem to have been having issues for some time.

All I can suggest is that you look at the results other people are getting with similar equipment, note the settings and techniques used and spend time, maybe a lot of time, taking pictures and practicing and looking at the results and seeing if you can become happier with the gear and the results you get. If not there's nothing wrong with giving up on dedicated cameras and using a phone. That's what many people seem to be doing and what counts is you're enjoyment and happiness with the results you get.

Good luck with this, whatever you decide to do.
 
Looking again, the #1 difference is that the sun's out for the Whitby/whalebone shot, so the subject (town+ruins) contrast is better. After that, this extra contrast has given the phone's HDR routines something to exploit. And that small-sensor DoF benefit gives the phone photo effortless front-to-back sharpness.

The (to me) cartoon-like rendering of the HDR is OTT.
 
@BADGER.BRAD unfortunately I think a lot of this is down to not understanding your equipment. As already stated the iphone will have massive DOF so everything is in focus, with larger sensors you need to use the appropriate settings and focus point to achieve large DOF. Also, the phone has had aggressive in camera processing vs subtle processing in the Sony. Also, when using apertures as small as f22 you are going to lose some image quality due to lens diffraction.

My best advice would be to learn about hyperfocal length/distance and also look into your camera settings to achieve SOOC jpegs that suit your tastes.
 
I would agree with you all that a lot of it's not understanding the equipment, I don't get much time to myself and rarely get out for photography only trips which means the camera is rarely used then when I do come to use it there are that many settings and menus that I forget what I'm doing with the thing, With film and vintage cameras I have three settings, focus on what I want to be in focus look at the scene and use sunny 16 to work out exposure calculating it with an aperture that will suit the scene. I can do this very fast , if I use the camera in auto it blows the highlights using exposure compensation to cope with this means I have to use a PC or the images are very dark. I guess I'm also expecting too much of the cameras ability to produce perfect straight out of camera images.
 
I know what you mean about the plethora of menus, settings & controls on a modern camera, Brad, but this is the case whatever the make, and the answer is to take charge and make a shortlist of modes / settings that suit the way you work. The rest you can largely ignore. This way you don't have to worry so much over every shot.
 
I would agree with you all that a lot of it's not understanding the equipment, I don't get much time to myself and rarely get out for photography only trips which means the camera is rarely used then when I do come to use it there are that many settings and menus that I forget what I'm doing with the thing, With film and vintage cameras I have three settings, focus on what I want to be in focus look at the scene and use sunny 16 to work out exposure calculating it with an aperture that will suit the scene. I can do this very fast , if I use the camera in auto it blows the highlights using exposure compensation to cope with this means I have to use a PC or the images are very dark. I guess I'm also expecting too much of the cameras ability to produce perfect straight out of camera images.


Spend some time with the camera and its manual so you can set it up to give you the results you want. Use aperture priority so you can get the DoF you want, try to keep the shutter speed higher than the reciprocal of the 35mm equivalent focal length (so at 50mm [for example], try to stay at 1/60th or faster on a full frame body and [probably] 1/125th on a crop - depending on your own steadiness of hand) and let auto ISO deal with that aspect of the triangle. You'll need to decide which you want - blown highlights or some computer work - your camera might have inbuilt HDR which might give acceptable results.
 
I would agree with you all that a lot of it's not understanding the equipment, I don't get much time to myself and rarely get out for photography only trips which means the camera is rarely used then when I do come to use it there are that many settings and menus that I forget what I'm doing with the thing, With film and vintage cameras I have three settings, focus on what I want to be in focus look at the scene and use sunny 16 to work out exposure calculating it with an aperture that will suit the scene. I can do this very fast , if I use the camera in auto it blows the highlights using exposure compensation to cope with this means I have to use a PC or the images are very dark. I guess I'm also expecting too much of the cameras ability to produce perfect straight out of camera images.
If you don't have time to learn the camera then there's no problem going back to basics. If you're used to film cameras then apply the same technique as you did then, ie set your camera to manual mode and manually set the ISO (no different to the ISO you had to set for your chosen film), choose your aperture and then use the sunny 16 rule to work out your shutter speed.

You can get excellent SOOC jpeg results but everyone's tastes are different which is why you can change the contrast, saturation, sharpness etc etc of the jpegs. This shouldn't take long to change, just a matter of finding it in the menus. Also if you prefer the way the iphone images look then maybe try shooting your sony in the HDR mode.
 
I guess I'm also expecting too much of the cameras ability to produce perfect straight out of camera images.

Yep! Baked in JPEG settings are not going to come close to the way film processes your images on your old camera. You need to learn to edit the RAWs to get the best out of the camera.
 
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Yep! Baked in JPEG settings are not going to come close to the way film processes your images on your old camera. You need to learn to edit the RAWs to get the best out of the camera.

Yeah, also, processing on a computer is way faster/cheaper/easier than developing film.
 
I would agree with you all that a lot of it's not understanding the equipment, I don't get much time to myself and rarely get out for photography only trips which means the camera is rarely used then when I do come to use it there are that many settings and menus that I forget what I'm doing with the thing, With film and vintage cameras I have three settings, focus on what I want to be in focus look at the scene and use sunny 16 to work out exposure calculating it with an aperture that will suit the scene. I can do this very fast , if I use the camera in auto it blows the highlights using exposure compensation to cope with this means I have to use a PC or the images are very dark. I guess I'm also expecting too much of the cameras ability to produce perfect straight out of camera images.

Nothing has changed in digital...in fact you are missing the one HUGE advantage mirrorless has over DSLRs....When in manual mode on a mirrorless camera, what you see on the screen/EVF is EXACTLY the exposure you will get when you press the shutter. No guessing or chimping required. You won't get that using Aperture priority or shutter priority as you are still relying on the cameras metering system to work out what it thinks is a "good" exposure. From manual mode, you can dial in the aperture for your depth of field (since you have a crop I'd say no more than f11 otherwise you'll really suffer from diffraction as some have already said) and the shutterspeed (do you need to show motion or freeze it?) from here you can adjust the ISO (always aim for the lowest...the only time I'd ever raise it above the base is if I needed it to get the shutterspeed higher when hand holding and didn't want to sacrifice aperture (or was already at max aperture).

Since you are shooting landscapes, take your time...don't rush...and really think about the photos you are taking. You'll see better results almost instantly if you put a little thought into it :)
 
Can the A6000 display the histogram on the LCD whilst shooting? The A7 allows it in the bottom right corner. I don't go into any menu's whilst shooting. Av or manual mode using the histogram and LCD and manual focus. Simple.
 
Focus point could be an issue as photos taken with the manual lenses seemed to do much better. The aperture when using either set of lenses was normally f11 or f16 with a few on the Sony Lens tried at F22. The colours I prefer may be a result of using Film as my prefered look was fairly well saturated.

f22!!

Honestly don't get rid of the the Sony, spend the money you will loose on software that can process RAW and learn how to the use the camera. May sound a bit harsh but definitely a case on a blaming the tools.
 
I know photography means different things for different people, but half the enjoyment for me is spending that bit of time at the computer playing around with knobs and sliders! It's definitely a learning curve but and enjoyable one, and for shots like that the op has posted, not alot of time would need to be spent on them... No drastic editing.

What I've also learnedover the last few years is that less is more. Some of my early edits looked very much like the phone photos, but tasteful editing is far more subtle so no need to hdr everything.
 
Nothing has changed in digital...in fact you are missing the one HUGE advantage mirrorless has over DSLRs....When in manual mode on a mirrorless camera, what you see on the screen/EVF is EXACTLY the exposure you will get when you press the shutter. No guessing or chimping required. You won't get that using Aperture priority or shutter priority as you are still relying on the cameras metering system to work out what it thinks is a "good" exposure. From manual mode, you can dial in the aperture for your depth of field (since you have a crop I'd say no more than f11 otherwise you'll really suffer from diffraction as some have already said) and the shutterspeed (do you need to show motion or freeze it?) from here you can adjust the ISO (always aim for the lowest...the only time I'd ever raise it above the base is if I needed it to get the shutterspeed higher when hand holding and didn't want to sacrifice aperture (or was already at max aperture).

Since you are shooting landscapes, take your time...don't rush...and really think about the photos you are taking. You'll see better results almost instantly if you put a little thought into it :)

You still get the live exposure preview in Aperture and Shutter priority modes, and can use exposure compensation to adjust as required.
Since we are talking landscapes, shutter speed is not a priority, so all you are doing by shooting manual is making the settings more difficult to enter - as you have to manually get it to the right sort of value before adjusting it to suit the desired image, rather than having the camera automatically get it to the right sort of value (it's programmed good exposure) then tweaking.
 
Today I took the camera out on a dog walk and decided to use it in manual mode as suggested by a couple of you, I set ASA at 400 and then tried using the sunny 16 rule as I would with my manual film cameras the first thing I noticed was it was over exposing a little ( I've always over exposed film a little to give me a bit more leeway for error) so I tried one stop down and it resulted in better exposure sticking to this the first thing I noticed was there was colour in the sky (but the images were a title dark) where in the past there would not have been. I tried a number of shots in forestry and on open farm land using the settings I would have used in the film cameras + one stop and they all seemed to work o.k ( not fantastic of course because these were setting worked out in my head after viewing the scene) This seemed to work with the Sony lens and the other two adapted lenses ( I much prefer these lenses with mechanical settings ) I also changed the auto focus setting with the Sony lens using ( and I forget the name for it) The centre focus setting where you put the centre of the lens over what you want to be in focus then hold the shutter part way down and then re frame. This also made a difference as before it seem to focus where it fancied. Using the manual lenses still seems to result in a sharper image but because of the crop factor it is sometimes difficult to get things in the frame. So at least using it in manual seems to work better. The images did not look to bad but I have had to up the shadows to make them look right so a shot straight from camera is still not possible under most circumstances, the dynamic range of the camera seems poor compared to film although it is supposed to be quite good. I tried a few shots in auto mode in a church just documenting a fairly local murder
story which was written on paper ( to read later) and these have turned out quite well this fairly close up use seems to be where the camera likes to be under it's own settings. The colours also appear a little on the pastel side of normal. The shots were just of random things as I walked around so not great to look at but I'm a little more pleased of the results although I'm still not 100%. Hopefully just using manual will mean that the camera settings will remain the same each time I use it rather than forgetting a setting I had left it in last time.
 
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You still get the live exposure preview in Aperture and Shutter priority modes, and can use exposure compensation to adjust as required.
Since we are talking landscapes, shutter speed is not a priority, so all you are doing by shooting manual is making the settings more difficult to enter - as you have to manually get it to the right sort of value before adjusting it to suit the desired image, rather than having the camera automatically get it to the right sort of value (it's programmed good exposure) then tweaking.

Totally this. The beauty of mirrorless is what you see is what you get, in all modes. It’s the easiest format to nail the exposure. Going manual is not going to give you any better results, if anything it will just over complicate the process if you are not fully conversant with your camera and meter. Use aperture priority and concentrate on getting the exposure and focus nailed.
 
Today I took the camera out on a dog walk and decided to use it in manual mode as suggested by a couple of you, I set ASA at 400 and then tried using the sunny 16 rule as I would with my manual film cameras the first thing I noticed was it was over exposing a little ( I've always over exposed film a little to give me a bit more leeway for error) so I tried one stop down and it resulted in better exposure sticking to this the first thing I noticed was there was colour in the sky (but the images were a title dark) where in the past there would not have been. I tried a number of shots in forestry and on open farm land using the settings I would have used in the film cameras + one stop and they all seemed to work o.k ( not fantastic of course because these were setting worked out in my head after viewing the scene) This seemed to work with the Sony lens and the other two adapted lenses ( I much prefer these lenses with mechanical settings ) I also changed the auto focus setting with the Sony lens using ( and I forget the name for it) The centre focus setting where you put the centre of the lens over what you want to be in focus then hold the shutter part way down and then re frame. This also made a difference as before it seem to focus where it fancied. Using the manual lenses still seems to result in a sharper image but because of the crop factor it is sometimes difficult to get things in the frame. So at least using it in manual seems to work better. The images did not look to bad but I have had to up the shadows to make them look right so a shot straight from camera is still not possible under most circumstances, the dynamic range of the camera seems poor compared to film although it is supposed to be quite good. I tried a few shots in auto mode in a church just documenting a fairly local murder
story which was written on paper ( to read later) and these have turned out quite well this fairly close up use seems to be where the camera likes to be under it's own settings. The colours also appear a little on the pastel side of normal. The shots were just of random things as I walked around so not great to look at but I'm a little more pleased of the results although I'm still not 100%. Hopefully just using manual will mean that the camera settings will remain the same each time I use it rather than forgetting a setting I had left it in last time.

To be perfectly honest, I think you need to get away from treating it like a film camera - it is a digital camera. While the theory of using the exposure triangle is the same, you can't take hard rules that you used to get results with a film camera and transpose them to a digital camera and expect everything to be perfect.

It's been said a few times in this thread that you can see the exposure prior to taking the picture, so there is no need to just over expose by 1 stop. All that will do is give you an over exposed shot. Also, a digital sensor having a good dynamic range doesn't mean every shot will be perfect SOC, it just means all the information is captured so that you can edit a shot which is exposed correctly with detail across the spectrum.

To play devils advocate, it sounds like you're a little bit stuck in the film mindset and I think you are going to struggle until you see the Sony for what it is and start utilising it's advantages.
 
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