Photo sharing: Sony Alpha

[fractal]

Havoc,

This lens and my Sony Zeiss 24mm 1.8 require so little LR work I have to keep myself from doing "too much". Beautiful files.

I must say, the charm and challenge of manually shooting sports is starting to fade. I wonder what this lens with the LA-EA4 adapter on the A6000 would do. Since the AF is coming from the adapter I would guess it wouldn't be any faster than on the NEX-7; Is that right?

The perfect camera for this lens may be the A77ii (at least for sports).

The Nikon 300mm f/4 does look sweet. Can you rent it and have some of the rental cost go towards purchase if you decide to buy?

 

[havoc315]

Havoc,

This lens and my Sony Zeiss 24mm 1.8 require so little LR work I have to keep myself from doing "too much". Beautiful files.

I must say, the charm and challenge of manually shooting sports is starting to fade. I wonder what this lens with the LA-EA4 adapter on the A6000 would do. Since the AF is coming from the adapter I would guess it wouldn't be any faster than on the NEX-7; Is that right?

The perfect camera for this lens may be the A77ii (at least for sports).

The Nikon 300mm f/4 does look sweet. Can you rent it and have some of the rental cost go towards purchase if you decide to buy?

Yes, the AF would come from the adapter. The a77ii would be great with the lens. The a7ii + adapter would be pretty nice too, because at least you would get stabilization. The adapter should give you decent AF except.... When I think about it... Not sure if you can micro adjust AF with the adapter. For top sharpness, I think I micro adjusted it slightly. Irrelevant in manual focus. You can micro adjust on the a77, a77ii, and a99. If you're going to do a lot of sports shooting, the a77ii is a fantastic camera.

Lensrentals.com let's you apply rental cost to purchase. But probably not until the lens has been around for a while, and they are over priced for used. And if I'm going to spend that much on a lens, I might want new with a 5 year warranty.

 

[HPS3]

Nice shots Fractal! What was you hit ratio if you were to guess? I think manual focusing is fun but only sometimes. I hate it for moving targets.

 

[HPS3]

Havoc and Fractal, I'm pretty sure you can micro adjust with the LAEA2/4 adapters.

 

[fractal]

Nice shots Fractal! What was you hit ratio if you were to guess? I think manual focusing is fun but only sometimes. I hate it for moving targets.

Harry,

Thanks! - approx hit ratios;

Using the flip screen and focus peaking (no EVF) was 25% for action shots and 75% for "slower movement".

With the EVF and focus peaking it was approx 50-60% for action shots and near 100% for slower movement.

There were also shots I never took because I couldn't capture focus fast enough. With fast action shots, about half the time I never pressed the shutter button because of that.
I was often wishing I had AF. If I had my SEL 50mm I would have put that lens on and just shot the near side action for at least part of the game.

The biggest problem with using the screen was the peaking would highlight too much of a range and it became a bit of guesswork. With the EVF, one gets almost a 3D view ( especially when using a wide aperture ) and the peaking seems to reflect the "field of view" much better thru the EVF.

Thanks for the info on the adapters. Are you still enjoying the a7ii?

 

[HPS3]

Maybe because it's full frame, but I find the peaking on the A7 series less accurate and usually just resort to turning it off. The dof is so narrow that even though it looks in focus it's not. I wish that Sony would make some cheaper AF lenses like CaNikon. I'll take a 50 1.8 and 85 f1.8 for around $500 combined, maybe even cheaper used. The focus accuracy is also not the best.

 

[fractal]

Maybe because it's full frame, but I find the peaking on the A7 series less accurate and usually just resort to turning it off. The dof is so narrow that even though it looks in focus it's not. I wish that Sony would make some cheaper AF lenses like CaNikon. I'll take a 50 1.8 and 85 f1.8 for around $500 combined, maybe even cheaper used. The focus accuracy is also not the best.

I don't see why they couldn't make a few cheap non-stabilized primes for about $250 each. The SEL 50mm 1.8 is $299 with OSS. With stabilization now in the camera I think having "cheap" prime options would make sense and would also encourage more users to step up from APS-C.

 

[havoc315]

Maybe because it's full frame, but I find the peaking on the A7 series less accurate and usually just resort to turning it off. The dof is so narrow that even though it looks in focus it's not. I wish that Sony would make some cheaper AF lenses like CaNikon. I'll take a 50 1.8 and 85 f1.8 for around $500 combined, maybe even cheaper used. The focus accuracy is also not the best.

I agree on peaking. With the a99, it often didn't even show up. Might be the full frame difference.

Sony, for a-mount and now e-mount, has historically taken a path of affordable lenses for aps-c, but only premium lenses in full frame.
For example, even a-mount... They have a $1500 Zeiss 50/1.4, and a $450 50/1.4, but no cheap 50/1.8.
They only have a Zeiss 16-35/2.8, no cheaper alternative ultra wide. No f4 zooms.

Switching to Nikon, I was actually surprised by the degree that my perspective on lenses changed. None of my current lenses have any Sony equivalent in a-mount, and only a bit of equivalence in FE mount. (18-35, 24-85, 50/1.8, 70-200/4, and I'm hoping to find a way to afford the new 300/4).

 

[Hockeyman]

Finally took the flash out for a spin . . . . didnt turn out so well, lol.

 

[havoc315]

Finally took the flash out for a spin . . . . didnt turn out so well, lol.

Care to elaborate?

 

[Hockeyman]

Care to elaborate?

For starters its an older Minolta so Im only able to use the flash in manual. I had the camera in manual as well, ISo 100, Shutter around 200, and floated around between f4 and f1.4. The place we were at was on the dark side with a really high ceiling so I had the flash at 92ft (I think) and was trying to bounce it off the ceiling with some luck. I was using a little piece of wax paper as a cheapo diffuser that fell off halfway thru but didn't seem to do much anyways.

 

[havoc315]

For starters its an older Minolta so Im only able to use the flash in manual. I had the camera in manual as well, ISo 100, Shutter around 200, and floated around between f4 and f1.4. The place we were at was on the dark side with a really high ceiling so I had the flash at 92ft (I think) and was trying to bounce it off the ceiling with some luck. I was using a little piece of wax paper as a cheapo diffuser that fell off halfway thru but didn't seem to do much anyways.

You don't need to diffuse when you bounce -- You're only weakening the light. The ceiling or wall does the diffusing for you.

A high ceiling is very hard to bounce off. You're better off bouncing off a wall if that's possible. You can also just use a DIY bounce card.

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/533606255820834804/

Not sure how well a non-ttl flash plays with the EVF. Your flash is still best used as simply a means to fill the shadows... Instead of as main light.

I've been experimenting more with off camera flash... My apologies for a non-Sony image in this thread:

DSC_4326.jpg by Havoc315, on Flickr

 

[Hockeyman]

You don't need to diffuse when you bounce -- You're only weakening the light. The ceiling or wall does the diffusing for you.

A high ceiling is very hard to bounce off. You're better off bouncing off a wall if that's possible. You can also just use a DIY bounce card.

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/533606255820834804/

Not sure how well a non-ttl flash plays with the EVF. Your flash is still best used as simply a means to fill the shadows... Instead of as main light.

I've been experimenting more with off camera flash... My apologies for a non-Sony image in this thread:

DSC_4326.jpg by Havoc315, on Flickr

It was difficult to bounce of the walls, we were at a restaurant that was full of arcade games and bounce house that lined the wall.

What I see in the EVF is by far not what I get for a finished product, that's for sure.

Now how would I use it as a fill flash? Just turn down the power level and shoot away?

 

[HPS3]

Mike, one thing with flash, I find it better to turn off the live view preview setting. Like Havoc said, make yourself a bounce card and fold the top forward when you can't bounce it. I don't think I've ever bounced without some form of flag on the flash so I'm not wasting the light behind me.

With a manual flash it's a lot of trial and error until you get the hang of the power settings.

 

[havoc315]

It was difficult to bounce of the walls, we were at a restaurant that was full of arcade games and bounce house that lined the wall.

What I see in the EVF is by far not what I get for a finished product, that's for sure.

Now how would I use it as a fill flash? Just turn down the power level and shoot away?

Set your exposure based on the ambient light -- not sure how the Sony live view/EVF behaves with an old manual flash attached. So I'd set your exposure with the flash OFF. Then turn on the flash and shoot away, adjusting the power up/down until you get the effect you want. Either bounce the flash, use a diffuser or some sort, or use a bounce card (whether homemade or purchased).
Some people use a diffuser along with bouncing, but I generally find you're wasting too much light that way -- you're better off with just a good bounce.

Remember, when you bounce a flash, your bounce target is really becoming the new light source. So for example, bouncing to the right side of the ceiling, will create an appearance that the subject has a light over their head, to the left. Since we expect lights to come from the ceiling or side, this is a more natural presentation.

Now in terms of purely fill flash.. If you judge your exposure based on the manual settings, by filling in just a bit of extra light to bring out the shadows, you dramatically improve noise performance. High ISO shots WITH flash look substantially better than the same ISO taken without flash. Noise mostly resides in shadows, so lift those shadows a little bit, and greatly reduce the noise.

 

[fractal]

Snapped this a few years back with my NEX-3.

 

[fractal]

trying to keep thoughts of Summer in my head...

 

[fractal]

In line for Stormrunner at Hershey Park.

 

[fractal]

Local forecast is for 1-3 inches of the white, fluffy stuff today.

I'd rather be in the Keys.

 

[fractal]

Got 8 inches of snow dumped on us overnight.