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

JJ! said:
So 50% of shots were not sharp, was that down to the conditions so you think as that’s quite a high ratio?

Some cracking images though!
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I pan at 1/20 to 1/80 tops, so a relatively low hit rate kinda comes with the territory, with a lot of practice I've got pretty consistent but it doesn't take much more than a decent breeze to throw that off. Considering the 20mph wind, sub-zero temperatures and blizzard (and thick gloves etc) I was pretty pleased to get anything. The vast, vast majority of the 20,000 there didn't even bother venturing out around the circuit.

I've read that 1 in 10 is a pretty acceptable panning ratio but I've been practicing at silly shutter speeds for about a decade now (30+ events per year until recently) so I'm much higher than that. I also swear by single shot to really smooth out a pan, but I know general advice is to mash the shutter.
 
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Riz_Guru said:
It’s not an argument, just some of the benefits of mirrorless technology in general :D
Oh and let’s not even start on spending days trying to find tune the AF on lenses ;) lol
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Can't say the a7rii got me anything better than my d750. Chimping? You admitted spending bloody days reviewing and culling on your camera while your subject goes to sleep!

Move the focus point on eye? Heaven forbid you need to actually tell your camera where to focus and nail it. :rolleyes:

Can you actually be bothered to take a camera out and use it? Oh wait.
 
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ukaskew said:
I pan at 1/20 to 1/80 tops, so a relatively low hit rate kinda comes with the territory, with a lot of practice I've got pretty consistent but it doesn't take much more than a decent breeze to throw that off. Considering the 20mph wind, sub-zero temperatures and blizzard (and thick gloves etc) I was pretty pleased to get anything. The vast, vast majority of the 20,000 there didn't even bother venturing out around the circuit.

I've read that 1 in 10 is a pretty acceptable panning ratio but I've been practicing at silly shutter speeds for about a decade now (30+ events per year until recently) so I'm much higher than that.
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Makes more sense now with those shutter speeds!
 
Raymond Lin said:
693 points. I think...
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Sorry... I meant spot metering.

Silly me.

So, can anyone tell me...

Is spot metering limited to the centre of the frame or does it move with the focus point?

With my A7 it's fixed in the middle or at least I've never been able to move it. With my Panny cameras the spot metering moves with the focus point.

Soz for getting it wrong in my last post...
 
woof woof said:
Sorry... I meant spot metering.

Silly me.

So, can anyone tell me...

Is spot metering limited to the centre of the frame or does it move with the focus point?

With my A7 it's fixed in the middle or at least I've never been able to move it. With my Panny cameras the spot metering moves with the focus point.

Soz for getting it wrong in my last post...
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This was fixed starting with the a7r2
 
woof woof said:
Sorry... I meant spot metering.

Silly me.

So, can anyone tell me...

Is spot metering limited to the centre of the frame or does it move with the focus point?

With my A7 it's fixed in the middle or at least I've never been able to move it. With my Panny cameras the spot metering moves with the focus point.

Soz for getting it wrong in my last post...
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Get the a7mk3 mate
 
addicknchips said:
Not for the moment. Although their mechanical shutter in the xh1 is near silent and it’s a lovely thing to use.
Have a couple of shoots this month so can do without having to sell and buy a load of gear in a rush.
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I must be one the few odd people that like a properly loud mechanical shutter like in original A7 or A7R. Its very satisfying to say the least :D
 
nandbytes said:
I must be one the few odd people that like a properly loud mechanical shutter like in original A7 or A7R. Its very satisfying to say the least :D
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When out and about I've never had a problem with the sound of any mechanical shutter even with my 20D which sounded like an anvil being thrown into a tin bath... indoors though it's a different story and I very often prefer the quiet mechanical shutter of my Panny GX80.
 
Like any extreme feature, be that 20fps, large buffer or high ISO etc most people will not need to go to those extremes a lot of the time, if ever. Stay within the extremes with lower fps, and that will benefit the buffer, and also the amount of images that need reviewing. Good job it is not 20fps or 1 shot. ;) A camera that can do very good high ISO will will be better at low - mid ISO than many other cameras, and keep the saturated colours longer as the ISO rises.

Same with the silent shutter, at the moment, most people will not need the silent shutter depending on what they take pics of. Will the tree be spooked in a landscape scene by the sound of a shutter! :eek: ;) So for most, rolling shutter effects may not be problem, (unless they are determined to use the silent shutter just because it is there) at least till the tech gets good enough for it to be not to be a problem in any situation. We may not be there quite there yet judging from some of the images earlier in the thread. ;)
 
newbie1 said:
I’ve recently switched 35L to 35L ii - very happy, and it’s not too big for snaps :)
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Oh, I do it. Took my 5DIV with 35L out most days in Japan, with 50Art and 85L with me too.

hZWecbp.jpg
 
redhed17 said:
Same with the silent shutter, at the moment, most people will not need the silent shutter depending on what they take pics of. Will the tree be spooked in a landscape scene by the sound of a shutter! :eek: ;) So for most, rolling shutter effects may not be problem, (unless they are determined to use the silent shutter just because it is there) at least till the tech gets good enough for it to be not to be a problem in any situation. We may not be there quite there yet judging from some of the images earlier in the thread. ;)
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I've never found rolling shutter a problem but banding is a problem for me when taking pictures indoors with an electronic shutter..

For anyone shooting indoors and needing to be quiet or indeed silent I'd imagine that an A9 would be very tempting as AFAIK it's the only camera to date that is capable of being completely silent and without banding.
 
twist said:
What about the import and preview build..... it still would've taken less time at a lower fps. :p

So you take 800 shots to get how many keepers? Do you really think that you couldn't have gotten a keeper at lower fps and far less culling?
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Sorry I took my time, I wanted to create a video...

Incredible Flying Dog by dancook1982, on Flickr

1 keeper was fine - zero would have been fine too - I at least to wanted learn something about my approach to how I photograph Yuffie running - e.g. i tried the expandable lock on this time instead of wide area.

If I had to shoot dogs all day, I of course would be a bit more sensible in how I shoot - I wouldn't last long at 20 fps the same way I've been photographing Yuffie (like in this video)

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=osYvlxDK8dw


What I did learn is that I would automatically ignore/discard images where she did not fill the frame enough, so need to lay off the shutter in the earlier moments - it can be difficult though as the shutter is quite light and it's easy to take photos when you don't mean to, if not using BBF. (I did not mean to photograph Yuffie jumping at louise's legs)

So yes, 20fps is good for trying to get a good shot, but don't shoot her entire approach.... if I shot less FPS I'd give myself less chance to get a more interesting shot.

I'll be more prepared for when I take her to the beach for a better backdrop...
 
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woof woof said:
I've never found rolling shutter a problem but banding is a problem for me when taking pictures indoors with an electronic shutter..

For anyone shooting indoors and needing to be quiet or indeed silent I'd imagine that an A9 would be very tempting as AFAIK it's the only camera to date that is capable of being completely silent and without banding.
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I am yet to notice banding in my A7RII with silent shutter. I am not claiming it doesn't suffer from it but so far in my usage it's never showed up.

Then again I almost always use mechanical shutter and only use silent shutter as and when necessary.
 
Pick, don't reject, will save yourself a lot more time.

Once you pick the one you like from the series….believe it and trust your judgment and move on. Otherwise you'll be there forever.
 
@dancook what did you think of the A9 images I posted out of interest? I know they are only jpegs but think they could have been better, but then again the light was so bad it’s hard to describe!
 
JJ! said:
@dancook what did you think of the A9 images I posted out of interest? I know they are only jpegs but think they could have been better, but then again the light was so bad it’s hard to describe!
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Can you link to the post? I've lost them.
 
dancook said:
Sorry I took my time, I wanted to create a video...

Incredible Flying Dog by dancook1982, on Flickr

1 keeper was fine - zero would have been fine too - I at least to wanted learn something about my approach to how I photograph Yuffie running - e.g. i tried the expandable lock on this time instead of wide area.

If I had to shoot dogs all day, I of course would be a bit more sensible in how I shoot - I wouldn't last long at 20 fps the same way I've been photographing Yuffie (like in this video)

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=osYvlxDK8dw


What I did learn is that I would automatically ignore/discard images where she did not fill the frame enough, so need to lay off the shutter in the earlier moments - it can be difficult though as the shutter is quite light and it's easy to take photos when you don't mean to, if not using BBF. (I did not mean to photograph Yuffie jumping at louise's legs)

So yes, 20fps is good for trying to get a good shot, but don't shoot her entire approach.... if I shot less FPS I'd give myself less chance to get a more interesting shot.

I'll be more prepared for when I take her to the beach for a better backdrop...
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I totally get it Dan, in some cases it's useful.... but not all the time like some advertise, whichever way you look at it, 2-4x the amount of shots will take 2-4x as long to import, build previews, review and cull.... and if you can't be bothered like Jonney cost you 3tb a month.
 
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JJ! said:
So here we have 2 sets of photos taken from the A9 and D750 @snerkler

Key differences having looked at the data is the A9 was shooting at 1/250 giving a lower ISO. I was meat to shoot at 1/250 after advise on here but went ahead at 1/500 as forgot!

Also A9 exposure was pushed up a bit. Something I didn’t do but should have done.

Also the A9 had the better light and position. I wished I had the D750 at 1/250 to really give a better comparison as think that would have made a big difference.

You can't really tell how bad the light was as both cameras do a good job of making it look lighter than it was!

So first up the A9:

Brendan A9 by Justin Akehurst, on Flickr

Brendan A9 by Justin Akehurst, on Flickr

D750:

Brendan D750 by Justin Akehurst, on Flickr

Brendan D750 by Justin Akehurst, on Flickr

The landscape shots are both iso4000. I’m not convinced the A9 is actually any cleaner, especially as the D750 image is already cropped.
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Still prefer yours, just have nicer rendering to my eyes. Your second needs an exposure boost though imo ;)

Riz_Guru said:
Yes, I think Sony are onto a real winner with this body....... can't fault the price either.
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I’m still waiting to see how it pans out tbh. Pin striping, spots at high ISO and aperture remaining stopped down are all pretty annoying flaws tbh, and that’s all that’s been discovered so far after a few days of release.

Riz_Guru said:
Well a EVF gives you accurate depth of field and exposure output, means less or no need for chimping..... hence saving time? :D
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If you understand your camera and how it meters you don’t really need to chimp tbh. When I’m doing sports there’s sometimes no time to chimp but 99% of the time the exposure’s fine. But if you get an ISO invariant camera you can get away with the odd wrong exposure anyway ;)
 
snerkler said:
If you understand your camera and how it meters you don’t really need to chimp tbh. When I’m doing sports there’s sometimes no time to chimp but 99% of the time the exposure’s fine. But if you get an ISO invariant camera you can get away with the odd wrong exposure anyway ;)
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Exactly. I think he used a shoebox as a camera before his sony.
 
nandbytes said:
I am yet to notice banding in my A7RII with silent shutter. I am not claiming it doesn't suffer from it but so far in my usage it's never showed up.

Then again I almost always use mechanical shutter and only use silent shutter as and when necessary.
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I think the lighting has to be just right or rather just wrong.

I've noticed that if the TV is on in a room it's more likely to happen.

My Panny GX80 seems to have some sort of flicker detection and can automatically switch to electronic or mechanical and luckily the mechanical shutter is quite quiet and no one would notice except in a completely silent room.
 
twist said:
Why would you want to store 800 shots for the sake of 1?
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My Lightroom catalogue is 336,000 images strong :D I rarely delete RAWs - I'm sure i have a bunch of raws that are just completely black from studio sessions where the flash didn't fire or something..
 
dancook said:
My Lightroom catalogue is 336,000 images strong :D I rarely delete RAWs - I'm sure i have a bunch of raws that are just completely black from studio sessions where the flash didn't fire or something..
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All my RAWs are stored on external drives, but only the good ones remain on the computer ;)
 
dancook said:
Sorry I took my time, I wanted to create a video...

Incredible Flying Dog by dancook1982, on Flickr

1 keeper was fine - zero would have been fine too - I at least to wanted learn something about my approach to how I photograph Yuffie running - e.g. i tried the expandable lock on this time instead of wide area.

If I had to shoot dogs all day, I of course would be a bit more sensible in how I shoot - I wouldn't last long at 20 fps the same way I've been photographing Yuffie (like in this video)

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=osYvlxDK8dw


What I did learn is that I would automatically ignore/discard images where she did not fill the frame enough, so need to lay off the shutter in the earlier moments - it can be difficult though as the shutter is quite light and it's easy to take photos when you don't mean to, if not using BBF. (I did not mean to photograph Yuffie jumping at louise's legs)

So yes, 20fps is good for trying to get a good shot, but don't shoot her entire approach.... if I shot less FPS I'd give myself less chance to get a more interesting shot.

I'll be more prepared for when I take her to the beach for a better backdrop...
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I reckon you need to cull more because 56 minutes of that video is a static image ;)
 
dancook said:
My Lightroom catalogue is 336,000 images strong :D I rarely delete RAWs - I'm sure i have a bunch of raws that are just completely black from studio sessions where the flash didn't fire or something..
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I agree with Twist and think that's a bit ridiculous. If you know you've got scrap RAWs, why bother keeping them? Does it take too long to delete when you go through them all?
 
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