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

woof woof said:
I found this interesting...

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hH9VBrx3rnY


I really don't like his style as I thought he deliberately pushed all the exposure sliders to the right to create what looked to me to be over exposed in large areas pictures with maybe too much saturation at times too, but what do I know? He's the pro and I'm just a happy snapper.

Anyway. In this vid he explains that he does this to highlight the subject rather than have distracting things like detail in the sky take attention away from the subject. It's a view and I can see his point and I can see the appeal but detail rich skies area relative rarity for me so it's hard for me to deliberately remove detail from them.

Any views on this style?
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This is basically how I shoot. Modern cameras have so much "dynamic range" that 90 percent of the time you can just expose for the subject and then play in post with the rest. The subject is what matters to me, so I typically make sure that pops out in a way that feels natural.

I've never felt James' photos are overexposed. I remember seeing comments on his vids back when he shot with m43 gear along the lines of "a 35mm sensor would let you recover the skies", reducing his photos to a technical exercise. Likewise, plenty of street photographers go the other way, exposing to protect every highlight and put them in the mid tones, at the expense of lots of blacks, which adds drama and simplifies a photo that may be too busy.

One of mine where recovering the sky reduced the impact of the photo. In my final edit for print there is much less detail and colour in the sky than below and it does make the photo stronger I feel.

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Yesterday I noticed these artefacts in the bokeh which I thought must be a dirty sensor.
Screenshot 2023-12-04 at 09.14.20.jpg


I checked the sensor and it was particularly bad with some REALLY stubborn spots on it. I cleaned it, checked it with the loupe and did a white wall test and it looks crystal clear yet these artefacts remain in the bokeh, any idea what they are? The lens is clear.

Screenshot 2023-12-04 at 09.09.01.jpg

White wall test
Screenshot 2023-12-04 at 09.09.45.jpg
 
I'd be amazed if you saw sensor contamination wide open or anything like it. I think what you're seeing is more likely to be tiny imperfections or contamination on or in the glass somewhere.

I've only once seen contamination wide open and that was with my Panasonic GM5 which had contamination under the sensor glass. It's not impossibly that your Sony has contamination under the glass I suppose but my guess would be the lens. Could you try a bokeh test with another lens and see if the results are different?
 
woof woof said:
I'd be amazed if you saw sensor contamination wide open or anything like it. I think what you're seeing is more likely to be tiny imperfections or contamination on or in the glass somewhere.

I've only once seen contamination wide open and that was with my Panasonic GM5 which had contamination under the sensor glass. It's not impossibly that your Sony has contamination under the glass I suppose but my guess would be the lens. Could you try a bokeh test with another lens and see if the results are different?
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Something along those lines. It could be tiny oil droplets from aperture blades etc. Personally I wouldn't worry about it too much; just clone them out and move on.

However I have to say that extreme close / macro focus does reveal sensor dust a lot earlier, as if the lens become much more stopped down. It is good idea to keep it relatively clean.
 
woof woof said:
I'd be amazed if you saw sensor contamination wide open or anything like it. I think what you're seeing is more likely to be tiny imperfections or contamination on or in the glass somewhere.

I've only once seen contamination wide open and that was with my Panasonic GM5 which had contamination under the sensor glass. It's not impossibly that your Sony has contamination under the glass I suppose but my guess would be the lens. Could you try a bokeh test with another lens and see if the results are different?
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Appears with both the 35mm and 50mm
LongLensPhotography said:
Something along those lines. It could be tiny oil droplets from aperture blades etc. Personally I wouldn't worry about it too much; just clone them out and move on.

However I have to say that extreme close / macro focus does reveal sensor dust a lot earlier, as if the lens become much more stopped down. It is good idea to keep it relatively clean.
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It's odd as they're seen wide open yet on a stopped down white wall test there's nothing. The bokeh shots were at min focus distance then moved back to get the bokeh balls.
 
I'd expect droplets of oil to appear on a white door test if the lens is stopped down.

I think this could likely be in the lens itself and just as onion rings are in the lens and revealed wide open these are being revealed wide open too.

Just my guess but if the stopped down door test is clean what else is left other than something/somethings in the lens?
 
snerkler said:
It's odd as they're seen wide open yet on a stopped down white wall test there's nothing. The bokeh shots were at min focus distance then moved back to get the bokeh balls.
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Do the test at min focus distance like at f/13 or so.

If you use lightroom go into clone tool and check visualise spots checkbox and pull the slider to the right. That will show you all the nasties :)
 
woof woof said:
I'd expect droplets of oil to appear on a white door test if the lens is stopped down.

I think this could likely be in the lens itself and just as onion rings are in the lens and revealed wide open these are being revealed wide open too.

Just my guess but if the stopped down door test is clean what else is left other than something/somethings in the lens?
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shining a torch through the lens gives the idea how horrible it is inside of your near pristine lens. Do it if you want to know the uncensored truth. However it doesn't lead anywhere good. You may never find a perfect - perfectly clean consumer lens.
 
This was taken with my Voigtlander 35mm f1.4 and it shows very similar spots if you look very closely.

1-DSC04967.jpg
 
LongLensPhotography said:
Do the test at min focus distance like at f/13 or so.

If you use lightroom go into clone tool and check visualise spots checkbox and pull the slider to the right. That will show you all the nasties :)
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I think it needs to be done again, the shot was at 12800 ISO so it's just picking up on the noise :LOL:

Screenshot 2023-12-04 at 11.15.42.jpg


1;1

Screenshot 2023-12-04 at 11.14.46.jpg
 
This is how I do a contamination test.

Set the lens to minimum aperture, f16 or whatever.
Set focus to infinity.
Set ISO to 100.
Point the camera at a white door.
If the shutter speed is too long up the ISO until a reasonable shutter speed is obtainable.
(Something like 4 or 8 seconds is easily enough, you don't need 20 seconds or anything like it.)
Press the shutter.
Whilst the shutter is open move the camera about, left to right or up and down or in a circular pattern.
(The point of this is to stop any detail on the door being recorded sharply.)

You should end up with a grey featureless picture unless you have some sensor contamination and if you do it should appear quire clearly.

If contamination appears try the inbuilt cleaning option, if that doesn't work try a Rocket and if that doesn't shift it a wet clean or some type of contact clean is needed.
 
IIRC it's not unusual to see small artefacts in bokeh balls. Take a look at some lens reviews for examples. No idea why though.
 
woof woof said:
This is how I do a contamination test.

Set the lens to minimum aperture, f16 or whatever.
Set focus to infinity.
Set ISO to 100.
Point the camera at a white door.
If the shutter speed is too long up the ISO until a reasonable shutter speed is obtainable.
(Something like 4 or 8 seconds is easily enough, you don't need 20 seconds or anything like it.)
Press the shutter.
Whilst the shutter is open move the camera about, left to right or up and down or in a circular pattern.
(The point of this is to stop any detail on the door being recorded sharply.)

You should end up with a grey featureless picture unless you have some sensor contamination and if you do it should appear quire clearly.

If contamination appears try the inbuilt cleaning option, if that doesn't work try a Rocket and if that doesn't shift it a wet clean or some type of contact clean is needed.
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I normally do a blue sky but I've not see one of those for a while ;) I do normally try for ISO 100 but it's very dark and gloomy today.
 
Even indoors in the evening I can do a white door test at ISO 800. If you need a light on you can always correct the wb if it gets in the way and even boosting the exposure post capture should still make the test valid.
 
If anyone is using CS2023 or anything like it I have a question in the printing section... but it could have been in the post processing section...

www.talkphotography.co.uk

Help printing multiple pictures on one page in CS2023.

I used to be able to do this but I've either forgotten or it's vastly different to how I did it in CS5. What I want to do is size pictures and then print two or more different pictures on one sheet of A4. Sounds simple but my mind has gone :D I would just do it in the windows picture...
www.talkphotography.co.uk www.talkphotography.co.uk
 
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woof woof said:
If anyone is using CS2023 or anything like it I have a question in the printing section... but it could have been in the post processing section...

www.talkphotography.co.uk

Help printing multiple pictures on one page in CS2023.

I used to be able to do this but I've either forgotten or it's vastly different to how I did it in CS5. What I want to do is size pictures and then print two or more different pictures on one sheet of A4. Sounds simple but my mind has gone :D I would just do it in the windows picture...
www.talkphotography.co.uk www.talkphotography.co.uk
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I use qimage which is brilliant for this type of thing
 
wookie6262 said:
I use qimage which is brilliant for this type of thing
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As I couldn't work out how to do it in CS2023 I printed one picture at the correct size and then took the paper out and put it back through to print a second. Later I found how to place multiple pictures on one piece of paper and size them accurately with Faststone Image Viewer. There's also the option of right clicking on multiple selected pictures and selecting print under windows which gives quite a few print size options, the closest to what I wanted being 4 pictures on a page each at 13x9cm which to be honest would have done but I was in pedantic made by then :D

I would like to be able to learn how to do it under CS2023 if it is possible and not too much trouble. Googling hasn't helped.

I left the prints overnight and trimmed and framed them today and Mrs WW is very happy. She's giving them as Christmas prezzies.
 
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On the subject of obsessing over things...

I told Mrs WW about the Pergear 35mm f1.4 issues and that I'd written to Pergear and she laughed and said "No one cares except you. You're the only one."
 
woof woof said:
On the subject of obsessing over things...

I told Mrs WW about the Pergear 35mm f1.4 issues and that I'd written to Pergear and she laughed and said "No one cares except you. You're the only one."
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I woudl care too ;)
 
Yes. But I've come to accept that me and people like me aren't exactly.... normal people.

Normal people don't care about things I care about. One non photography example... I hate to see a TV with the picture in the wrong mode and if it is I just can't follow what's on, all I can see is that it's in the wrong mode. Other "normal" people don't seem to notice or care. I can't understand that. How conscious are they? :D
 
woof woof said:
Yes. But I've come to accept that me and people like me aren't exactly.... normal people.

Normal people don't care about things I care about. One non photography example... I hate to see a TV with the picture in the wrong mode and if it is I just can't follow what's on, all I can see is that it's in the wrong mode. Other "normal" people don't seem to notice or care. I can't understand that. How conscious are they? :D
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I'm with you on that too, it jumps out at me and I can't understand why it doesn't for others :thinking:
 
Oh Dear.

Writing to Pergear about their aperture settings was frustrating as the reply I got could have been written by a five year old replying to someone else's email.
 
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woof woof said:
I can see the appeal but I tend not to want to move too far from reality as a big part of it for me is capturing a memory and then there's the whole living in the NE thing... where skies are very often just a grey/white featureless nothingness and to push things that way and lose whatever colour and detail are there just feels... wrong to me.

I'd watched a few of his vids before and not noticed what he's doing until on one of his walkabout vids I saw the end result next to what was seen at the moment of taking and in its reality.
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It's an interesting one for me. I see people with distinctive editing styles which I like, but when I try similar myself and I see the image changing away from what I remember and the edit starting point my brain rebels and tells me it's wrong. That said, his editing to remove distractions from his vision through luminance/saturation is interesting and something I will experiment with,
 
Cupotea said:
It's an interesting one for me. I see people with distinctive editing styles which I like, but when I try similar myself and I see the image changing away from what I remember and the edit starting point my brain rebels and tells me it's wrong. That said, his editing to remove distractions from his vision through luminance/saturation is interesting and something I will experiment with,
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That's a big issue for me as mostly I'm trying to capture a moment and a memory to replay later and as I mentioned before nice feature rich skies and the chance to include them in a picture are something of a rarity for me and I'm reluctant to deliberately remove detail in fact I often do the opposite and select the sky and process it so that detail is preserved.

I can see the appeal of both accuracy and art and I suppose there's a bit of each in us all.

He's a good photographer, no question, and after seeing that vid I now understand what he's doing and why better but I just can't see myself trying to do the same thing or if I do not to the extend he does it.
 
woof woof said:
That's a big issue for me as mostly I'm trying to capture a moment and a memory to replay later and as I mentioned before nice feature rich skies and the chance to include them in a picture are something of a rarity for me and I'm reluctant to deliberately remove detail in fact I often do the opposite and select the sky and process it so that detail is preserved.

I can see the appeal of both accuracy and art and I suppose there's a bit of each in us all.

He's a good photographer, no question, and after seeing that vid I now understand what he's doing and why better but I just can't see myself trying to do the same thing or if I do not to the extend he does it.
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I like both, sometimes I want an accurate record but sometimes I want more aesthetically pleasing. Depends what I'm shooting and what mood I'm in ;)
 
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