Lens needed for good portrait and bokeh SONY A6400

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Darck1

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Dan
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Hi all

i just purchased the SONY A6400 with 16-50mm included in the kit.
After i shoot a few pictures i can say that i’m a bit disappointed of the quality. Not much sharpness , not the best colours and i cannot get any bokeh/bluer effect on portraits, I can say that my Iphone 12 Pro Max does better photos .

So my question is, what lens should i buy ,to get better Portraits , bokeh/blur and nice colours .I must say that i use the camera for overhead video unboxing as well.(YT)
Thanks
 
I’ve got the 50mm GM. I expect it to be fab on crop sensor. Bokelicious
 
I found myself in exactly the same situation as you after buying a Sony A6000 and it ended up parked at the back of a cupboard for about a year. I would get yourself a cheap M42 to Sony e mount convertor and a Helios 44 lens or many other M42 lenses with a large aperture ( smaller number = larger aperture ), this has the advantage of very very cheap costs for a massive range of lenses ( £5 and up) but first give the standard lens a good go. My Sony A6000 was also very unimpressive, unsharp and the colours are terrible as standard. I altered the settings of mine, press fn on the right of the LCD screen go to creative style ( 5th across on bottom row) select vivid then press iso, select contrast at 0 saturation at -1 and sharpness at -1. This improved mine no end and I'm getting much better looking images from it ( I'm hoping the A6400 and the A6000 have the same menu system). It really was naff /disappointing as standard ,my little old point and shoots made it look silly. The standard lens just doesn't have a big enough aperture to get really nice bokeh ! Try using it in manual mode ( M on top wheel) or A ( aperture priority) as the auto settings are equally terrible as it's original setup. Not sure how skilled you are but best Bokeh will be a achieved with the standard lens by setting the top wheel in A use the top right wheel ( no markings) and turn the aperture down to 3.5. press iso on rear then scroll up and down till it is on auto iso then press the centre of the iso/disp wheel at back to select auto iso as the setting. Remember you will have to reset aperture for other photos to suit the situation. Unfortunately it will be a steep learning curve after using a phone as you have to be able to choose your settings to best suit what type of photos you are trying to get which requires you to have a bit of photographic knowledge to get the best from your camera. If you put the effort in your photos will blow away anything from a phone. There is a good source of information on this thread Sony Thread
 
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What's the budget? That will help a little.

It's a crop sensor camera so bokeh is a little compromised compared to full frame. Budget option include the Samyang 75 f1.8, 85 f1.4, Sigma 50 f1.4 ART. More expensive are Sony GM 50 f1.2, 85 f1.4, perhaps the Tamron 70-180 f2.8.

HTH
 
Darck1 said:
Hi all

i just purchased the SONY A6400 with 16-50mm included in the kit.
After i shoot a few pictures i can say that i’m a bit disappointed of the quality. Not much sharpness , not the best colours and i cannot get any bokeh/bluer effect on portraits, I can say that my Iphone 12 Pro Max does better photos .

So my question is, what lens should i buy ,to get better Portraits , bokeh/blur and nice colours .I must say that i use the camera for overhead video unboxing as well.(YT)
Thanks
Click to expand...

I know nothing about video so the comments below may not be relevant.

I'm a bit phased by the comment about colours. You shooting JPEGs or raw? Maybe if you're not doing so you should shoot shoot raw and processing for best effect but even with JPEGs I assume there are some in camera adjustments you could make. Certainly if your iphone takes better photos I think there's something definitely off and you're not getting the best out of the camera.
 
Lovely but you've got a relatively small subject relatively close to the camera and big in the frame. Increase the camera to subject distance for a portrait and the dof will change.

f5.6 (assuming that's what the 16-50mm is at at 50mm) APS-C should give some scope for shallow DoF but if it gives enough scope is down to personal preference.
 
does depend on your budget but I'd advice looking at something like the sigma 56mm f1.4 to start with.

I have used the iPhone 12 but I have used the iPhone 11. I feel the "bokeh" or the blurring effect is rather artificial.
Lenses render things differently and your bokeh and it character is based on a number of factors from optics to the background to the aperture etc.
A phone's "bokeh" basically just turns most things to buttery mush which isn't realistic to start with and looks somewhat artificially done which it is.
 
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ancient_mariner said:
What's the budget? That will help a little.

It's a crop sensor camera so bokeh is a little compromised compared to full frame. Budget option include the Samyang 75 f1.8, 85 f1.4, Sigma 50 f1.4 ART. More expensive are Sony GM 50 f1.2, 85 f1.4, perhaps the Tamron 70-180 f2.8.

HTH
Click to expand...
I would say about £200
woof woof said:
I know nothing about video so the comments below may not be relevant.

I'm a bit phased by the comment about colours. You shooting JPEGs or raw? Maybe if you're not doing so you should shoot shoot raw and processing for best effect but even with JPEGs I assume there are some in camera adjustments you could make. Certainly if your iphone takes better photos I think there's something definitely off and you're not getting the best out of the camera.
Click to expand...



I shoot on JPEG as I don’t edit photos on laptop,just something light on my iphone..
I use the camera on Auto ,i did not changed to much settings..only JPEG,SuperFine Photo, 4K , and thats all.

nandbytes said:
does depend on your budget but I'd advice looking at something like the sigma 56mm f1.4 to start with.

I have used the iPhone 12 but I have used the iPhone 11. I feel the "bokeh" or the blurring effect is rather artificial.
Lenses render things differently and your bokeh and it character is based on a number of factors from optics to the background to the aperture etc.
A phone's "bokeh" basically just turns most things to buttery mush which isn't realistic to start with and looks somewhat artificially done which it is.
Click to expand...
My budget around £200
 
So far i’v got those recommendations

Sigma 56mm F1.4

Sigma 50mm F1.4

Sigma 16mm F1.4(this one is the most recommended??!!!)



Samyang 75 f1.8, 85 f1.4,



Sony GM 50 f1.2, 85 f1.4
 
Darck1 said:
So far i’v got those recommendations

Sigma 56mm F1.4

Sigma 50mm F1.4

Sigma 16mm F1.4(this one is the most recommended??!!!)



Samyang 75 f1.8, 85 f1.4,



Sony GM 50 f1.2, 85 f1.4
Click to expand...

OK, £200 budget is going to be tricky if you want AF.

Sigma 56 f1.4 goes for around £339 used - MPB have a bunch.
Sigma 50 f1.4 ART will be more than that used.
Sigma 16mm is not suitable for portraits unless you want to severely distort the subject.
Samyang 75 f1.8 - Wex have a used one for £259 https://www.wexphotovideo.com/samya...09b0b076f3f3a0062ca2659241f54ee&utm_source=aw
Samyang 85 f1.4 AF is outside your budget. The manual focus version goes for around £200 used, but will be a challenge to use well (I had one - excellent lens)
Sony GM of any kind blows your budget several times over.

There's also a Samyang 45 f1.8 for £180 in the classifieds, but you probably don't have access yet. In any case it's a bit short for portrait work, even on crop.

Darck1 said:
After i shoot a few pictures i can say that i’m a bit disappointed of the quality. Not much sharpness , not the best colours and i cannot get any bokeh/bluer effect on portraits, I can say that my Iphone 12 Pro Max does better photos
Click to expand...

This is a somewhat different question, and you may not like the answer. Your camera outfit is extremely capable, and if the colours are poor and the images not sharp then unless it's faulty, the problem may be a combination of operator and failure to post-process adequately. There's a lot of craft in creating sharp, well exposed images, and your phone will try to 'take over' to ensure your pictures look as good as possible with no more input from you than simply pointing the lens and pressing the button. If that's how you want photography to be then you would be much better off selling the camera now and putting the money to the next iPhone upgrade. If you're willing to learn the craft then your images will benefit hugely.

:)
 
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Darck1 said:
After i shoot a few pictures i can say that i’m a bit disappointed of the quality. Not much sharpness , not the best colours and i cannot get any bokeh/bluer effect on portraits, I can say that my Iphone 12 Pro Max does better photos
Click to expand...

This is a somewhat different question, and you may not like the answer. Your camera outfit is extremely capable, and if the colours are poor and the images not sharp then unless it's faulty, the problem may be a combination of operator and failure to post-process adequately. There's a lot of craft in creating sharp, well exposed images, and your phone will try to 'take over' to ensure your pictures look as good as possible with no more input from you than simply pointing the lens and pressing the button. If that's how you want photography to be then you would be much better off selling the camera now and putting the money to the next iPhone upgrade. If you're willing to learn the craft then your images will benefit hugely.

:)
 
Darck1 said:
So far i’v got those recommendations

Sigma 56mm F1.4

Sigma 50mm F1.4

Sigma 16mm F1.4(this one is the most recommended??!!!)



Samyang 75 f1.8, 85 f1.4,



Sony GM 50 f1.2, 85 f1.4
Click to expand...

I use the Sigma 16mm f1.4 and 56mm f1.4 all the time, excellent lenses. I think the Sigma 50mm f1.4 is for full frame but could be wrong. You can buy the Sigma f1.4 16mm, 30mm and 56mm respectively £279, £219 and £289 brand new. The 30mm will give you the equivalent of 45mm if you wanted to get close to 50mm.
 
Darck1 said:
I would say about £200




I shoot on JPEG as I don’t edit photos on laptop,just something light on my iphone..
I use the camera on Auto ,i did not changed to much settings..only JPEG,SuperFine Photo, 4K , and thats all.


My budget around £200
Click to expand...

To me it looks like you're possibly not getting the best out of the camera. I don't usually shoot JPEG and I just don't know what options the A6400 has but I'd be shocked if it doesn't have some inbuilt JPEG colour, noise and sharpening tweaks plus there's white balance to consider too and I wonder what settings the camera is selecting in Auto?

Spend your money if you want but before you do I think you should at least try and get to grips with the camera and getting the best out of it as if you just try to buy your way out of this you may end up spending money and still being disappointed about something.

I recommend trying to understand your camera and trying to get the best out of it before buying anything else. I recommend doing two things before spending any money...

Firstly have a look through the menu and see if you can alter the colours to suit your taste but even then I'd recommend reading up and understanding white balance or ideally shooting raw and processing for best effect.

Secondly and for bokeh and thin depth of field I recommend using your 16-50mm at 50mm and whatever its widest aperture is. Possibly f5.6. You may need to switch to aperture priority to do this. You should also understand the effect framing, camera to subject distance and the subject to background distance have on depth of field. Yes, a f1.4 will get you shallower depth but probably wont do much for your dissatisfaction with the colours. Understanding what's going on and why will very possibly help a lot. IMO.

Good luck going forward.
 
I hate using a PC connected with photography Dan, the last thing I want to have to do is sit on the PC after spending some enjoyable time out with the camera, It would just trash the experience for me ( I know others see it differently) So you can get really good .jpegs straight from camera but not if you use it in auto, I nearly chucked mine away because I found it so disappointing and was worried about selling it as I thought I may be passing on a faulty camera to someone else. If you do the adjustments I mentioned above it will improve the colours and sharpness but if it's like my Sony A6000 it will be really poor in auto. There are plenty of videos on YouTube which are worth looking at.

Here is a few photos of my setup for using the very cheap older lenses the one in the last photo cost me £3 but doing it this way does mean you have focus for your self and make some of the settings on the actual lens, I personally find this easier. A cover for the camera is well worth getting the one on mine cost less than a tenner and does cover the whole camera from knocks and bangs ( Top half not shown in my photos) If you do really feel like you need more lenses this a very cheap method of doing so but I think you need to master the camera first.

Camera adapter and old type lens
ca.JPG

Adapter mounted on camera in the same way the standard lens does

cb.JPG


and then the lens just screws into the adapter ,again though this setup would require you to have a fairly good knowledge of photography.

cc.JPG
 
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BADGER.BRAD said:
I hate using a PC connected with photography Dan, the last thing I want to have to do is sit on the PC after spending some enjoyable time out with the camera, It would just trash the experience for me ( I know others see it differently) So you can get really good .jpegs straight from camera but not if you use it in auto, I nearly chucked mine away because I found it so disappointing and was worried about selling it as I thought I may be passing on a faulty camera to someone else. If you do the adjustments I mentioned above it will improve the colours and sharpness but if it's like my Sony A6000 it will be really poor in auto. There are plenty of videos on YouTube which are worth looking at.

Here is a few photos of my setup for using the very cheap older lenses the one in the last photo cost me £3 but doing it this way does mean you have focus for your self and make some of the settings on the actual lens, I personally find this easier. A cover for the camera is well worth getting the one on mine cost less than a tenner and does cover the whole camera from knocks and bangs ( Top half not shown in my photos) If you do really feel like you need more lenses this a very cheap method of doing so but I think you need to master the camera first.

Camera adapter and old type lens
View attachment 325141

Adapter mounted on camera in the same way the standard lens does

View attachment 325142


and then the lens just screws into the adapter ,again though this setup would require you to have a fairly good knowledge of photography.

View attachment 325143
Click to expand...
I will try your recommended settings asap and i will see if i can get better photos. I have the same concept like you and I don’t have the time to spend on pc to edit photos.(unless you make a living from this).
Thanks all
 
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