Photo sharing: Sony Alpha

[havoc315]

Hey guys I have a buddy who just picked up an A77 and is getting some weird exposure issues when firing in continuous, he thinks he was in P mode and spot metering and noticed the first shot kept coming out way over exposed but the rest turned out fine. Also the EXIF data was the same for all of them. You guys heard of this happening and maybe know why?

Tell him to disable electronic first curtain.

On some lenses, when shooting at high shutter speed, the aperture doesn't stop down fast enough with EFC, causing over exposure. (So far, I haven't had that problem though).

 

[Hockeyman]

Tell him to disable electronic first curtain.

On some lenses, when shooting at high shutter speed, the aperture doesn't stop down fast enough with EFC, causing over exposure. (So far, I haven't had that problem though).

Thanks Adam. I've never run into that before either and didn't know what to tell him the reasoning behind it could be. Good to know though

 

[havoc315]

Thanks Adam. I've never run into that before either and didn't know what to tell him the reasoning behind it could be. Good to know though

The a55 doesn't have an EFC. It's an issue with the newer SLTs. But only some lenses in some situations. They basically weren't designed to change aperture that fast. I strongly suspect it's your friends issue.

 

[Hockeyman]

The a55 doesn't have an EFC. It's an issue with the newer SLTs. But only some lenses in some situations. They basically weren't designed to change aperture that fast. I strongly suspect it's your friends issue.

Well that explains why ive never had that issue I bet that is what is going on with his. He took his A77 out for the first time this weekend to Seaworld so im anxious to see his photos and what he came away with.

Now will turning of the EFC have any adverse affect on his shooting at all?

 

[havoc315]

Well that explains why ive never had that issue I bet that is what is going on with his. He took his A77 out for the first time this weekend to Seaworld so im anxious to see his photos and what he came away with.

Now will turning of the EFC have any adverse affect on his shooting at all?

Longer shutter lag and louder shutter -- basically the equivalent of the a55 shutter lag and shutter noise. (And shortens the life span of the mechanical shutter since it is being used twice instead of once).

My advice for your friend -- and you when you get your a99 -- stick with the EFC on, and only shut it off it it's giving you an issue. The manual says to turn it off with Minolta lenses, but it's been working fine with my old lenses.

 

[havoc315]

I do hate the snow, but some honest feedback... do we prefer the jpeg SOOC, or the processed RAW?

The jpeg:

untitled-26.jpg by Havoc315, on Flickr

The RAW:

untitled-25.jpg by Havoc315, on Flickr

 

[KAT4DISNEY]

Hey guys I have a buddy who just picked up an A77 and is getting some weird exposure issues when firing in continuous, he thinks he was in P mode and spot metering and noticed the first shot kept coming out way over exposed but the rest turned out fine. Also the EXIF data was the same for all of them. You guys heard of this happening and maybe know why?

Also is it updated to the latest firmware?

 

[Hockeyman]

I do hate the snow, but some honest feedback... do we prefer the jpeg SOOC, or the processed RAW?

The jpeg:

untitled-26.jpg by Havoc315, on Flickr

The RAW:

untitled-25.jpg by Havoc315, on Flickr

The RAW by far

 

[Hockeyman]

Also is it updated to the latest firmware?

I mentioned that to him as well and he said it is up to date. He took some test shots with EFC turned off and he said that seemed to do the trick so far. He is heading to Busch Gardens tomorrow to cover the new ride they are building and will be able to get some real world testing out of it then.

 

[zackiedawg]

I couldn't say if I like the RAW or JPG better, honestly - without two other considerations...1. what did the scene look like to your eye? I like to capture what I see, so if that street looked like it was colored by moonlight, and had more true blues and greens and the snow looked white, then I'd like the RAW better, but if the sodium vapor streetlights made the snow look more yellow to the eye, and you couldn't visually distinguish the greens due to the cast of the lights, then I'd like the JPG better. And 2. If the JPG had been exposed to not blow the highlights down the center of the road, I'd like it better - the RAW obviously gets the highlights much more controlled, which with the JPG would have required a bit more diligence when shooting to make sure they weren't blown. That's my honest opinion!

 

[Hockeyman]

I couldn't say if I like the RAW or JPG better, honestly - without two other considerations...1. what did the scene look like to your eye? I like to capture what I see, so if that street looked like it was colored by moonlight, and had more true blues and greens and the snow looked white, then I'd like the RAW better, but if the sodium vapor streetlights made the snow look more yellow to the eye, and you couldn't visually distinguish the greens due to the cast of the lights, then I'd like the JPG better. And 2. If the JPG had been exposed to not blow the highlights down the center of the road, I'd like it better - the RAW obviously gets the highlights much more controlled, which with the JPG would have required a bit more diligence when shooting to make sure they weren't blown. That's my honest opinion!

See I thought the RAW looked a little more natural with the JPEG having more of that yellow coloring you mentioned. To me the RAW also shows the details a tad better along with the coloring and highlights.

 

[havoc315]

Thank you both for the feedback. The jpeg is basically SOOC but it applied the "night" picture effect plus some extra contrast. It did leave the whole image a bit warmer.
In the raw, I chose to go with a cooler white balance because I wanted the white snow to be white. I added some vibrance to bring out the green of the trees. And I brought down the highlights. I also did my best to fix a green and purple ghost in the middle of the image. (Shot with my 50 macro... Undeniably sharp but did leave ugly ghosts in this example).

How did it look in real life? Probably somewhere in between. But I don't object to making things look better than they do in real life, lol.

But I have been trying to play more with the a99 jpeg modes.... With their picture effects, I can't easily replicate the same image by adjusting the raw. So trying to decide if/when there are times that the jpeg is actually as good or better than my own post processing.

 

[fractal]

Finally got a few decent diving shots with the NEX-7...

 

[zackiedawg]

How did it look in real life? Probably somewhere in between. But I don't object to making things look better than they do in real life, lol.

But I have been trying to play more with the a99 jpeg modes.... With their picture effects, I can't easily replicate the same image by adjusting the raw. So trying to decide if/when there are times that the jpeg is actually as good or better than my own post processing.

I think this is where photography moves beyond right-vs-wrong, or where advice on how to shoot and process ends and the artist's own personal desire kicks in. I certainly don't feel that someone's preference for 'corrected' white balance or my own preference for 'true-to-my-vision' white balance are right or wrong...just personal preference. I've always been fond of color cast in light - so 'correcting' white balance to restore true whites is not something I typically prefer - if a scene is lit by a setting sun, it looks yellow or orange or red even to the eye when standing there - so that's the color cast I prefer to keep in my whites. If I'm standing under moonlight, whites tend to look more blue - so I like to keep them that way. And various lighting styles (fluorescent, sodium vapor, incandescent, etc) all cast their own colors onto a scene - a page I'm reading on white paper may not look white to my eye because of the influence of the color the bulb is casting. So I've always preferred to capture the image how I felt I was seeing it, even if not technically or measurably correct (ie: white is white). Others much prefer to see all of the colors true at all times - they don't like the color cast influence that different bulbs and different lighting cause, so they rid the scene of that artificial influence and prefer to see whites in their true color, and all other colors of the palette correctly rendered without the color cast changing them. Again, no right or wrong - just artistic preferences!

Indeed, JPG is if anything a little more difficult to get right - strange as it sounds...because you do not have as much latitude to fix it up later, JPG requires a bit more attention to settings, a bit more work before you shoot to consider the limitations of processing afterwards, needing to control highlights and set white balance as desired, and even use some of the JPG-exclusive tools to make up for what you can't do later, like HDR stacking. With RAW, as long as you don't mind spending the time working on the shot, you don't have to think about as many things at the outset of the shot - you have much more room to reign in highlights, can set white balance later, and can process the same shot for highlights and shadows and do your own HDR blending...RAW requires more time and work afterwards on the computer, but by the same measure can allow one to spend less time thinking out the settings and the shot beforehand. Not to say that all RAW shooters don't choose the right settings and plan out their shots, but RAW shooters COULD be more careless if they wanted to and still get good results later, whereas JPG shooters have to get it right initially to get good results.

 

[havoc315]

I think this is where photography moves beyond right-vs-wrong, or where advice on how to shoot and process ends and the artist's own personal desire kicks in. I certainly don't feel that someone's preference for 'corrected' white balance or my own preference for 'true-to-my-vision' white balance are right or wrong...just personal preference. I've always been fond of color cast in light - so 'correcting' white balance to restore true whites is not something I typically prefer - if a scene is lit by a setting sun, it looks yellow or orange or red even to the eye when standing there - so that's the color cast I prefer to keep in my whites. If I'm standing under moonlight, whites tend to look more blue - so I like to keep them that way. And various lighting styles (fluorescent, sodium vapor, incandescent, etc) all cast their own colors onto a scene - a page I'm reading on white paper may not look white to my eye because of the influence of the color the bulb is casting. So I've always preferred to capture the image how I felt I was seeing it, even if not technically or measurably correct (ie: white is white). Others much prefer to see all of the colors true at all times - they don't like the color cast influence that different bulbs and different lighting cause, so they rid the scene of that artificial influence and prefer to see whites in their true color, and all other colors of the palette correctly rendered without the color cast changing them. Again, no right or wrong - just artistic preferences!

Indeed, JPG is if anything a little more difficult to get right - strange as it sounds...because you do not have as much latitude to fix it up later, JPG requires a bit more attention to settings, a bit more work before you shoot to consider the limitations of processing afterwards, needing to control highlights and set white balance as desired, and even use some of the JPG-exclusive tools to make up for what you can't do later, like HDR stacking. With RAW, as long as you don't mind spending the time working on the shot, you don't have to think about as many things at the outset of the shot - you have much more room to reign in highlights, can set white balance later, and can process the same shot for highlights and shadows and do your own HDR blending...RAW requires more time and work afterwards on the computer, but by the same measure can allow one to spend less time thinking out the settings and the shot beforehand. Not to say that all RAW shooters don't choose the right settings and plan out their shots, but RAW shooters COULD be more careless if they wanted to and still get good results later, whereas JPG shooters have to get it right initially to get good results.

On color cast..... It really depends on my mood. A golden/red setting sun color cast is something I may try to enhance... even make it stronger than it was in real life.

Other times.. such as ugly indoor tungsten lights... My eyes perceived "white = white"... so I prefer to get rid of the color cast.

In this case... The color cast was from the street lights. Whether the yellowish of the street lights looks pleasing, or whether the truer whites look better, is subjective of course. But I was still looking for feedback, lol.

You are totally right of course about RAW v jpeg. What is getting me.... With older cameras, I could almost always make the RAW look like the jpeg, if I wanted to. With some of the picture effects on the A99, it's not a simple matter of adding some saturation and contrast and getting the same result. Some of the picture effects look *different* in a way not easy to replicate.

Let me get opinions on this RAW + JPG combination. A portrait of my kids and their cousins. The JPG was basically done with the "portrait" picture effect, I think I had some extra sharpening as well. The RAW I processed myself.

I honestly can't decide whether I like the RAW or the JPG more:

JPG:

untitled-47.jpg by Havoc315, on Flickr

RAW:

untitled-46.jpg by Havoc315, on Flickr

Just looking for honest opinions..... The JPG "portrait" effect softened the whole image and added more warmth. Does that enhance the portrait in your opinion? Or did it make the whole image a bit too warm?
I'm torn myself. One minute, I look at it, and really love the jpeg version. (And consider always doing my portraits in jpg as long as I get the WB right). Then I look at it a second time, and it looks too orangey/warm for me.

 

[zackiedawg]

I like what the portrait setting is doing with the slight softening effect, which I think often does flatter a portrait of most people, and I like the slightly warmer color tones overall...but I also do agree that it's just a touch too warm/saturated for my taste. I find with many of the JPG picture settings, the best overall setting for me is usually with saturation turned down to -1 rather than 0...this pulls the saturation down just a touch, but leaves the color and tonal curve and contrast, as well as the slight softening effect in the portrait setting, alone. I usually shoot in Vivid mode, which also would be way too strong for me left to native settings, but Vivid with saturation at -1 and sharpness at -1, contrast at 0, works just right for me in most situations.

 

[havoc315]

I like what the portrait setting is doing with the slight softening effect, which I think often does flatter a portrait of most people, and I like the slightly warmer color tones overall...but I also do agree that it's just a touch too warm/saturated for my taste. I find with many of the JPG picture settings, the best overall setting for me is usually with saturation turned down to -1 rather than 0...this pulls the saturation down just a touch, but leaves the color and tonal curve and contrast, as well as the slight softening effect in the portrait setting, alone. I usually shoot in Vivid mode, which also would be way too strong for me left to native settings, but Vivid with saturation at -1 and sharpness at -1, contrast at 0, works just right for me in most situations.

Thanks, I'll have to try that!

I use vivid for my in-camera HDR jpegs.

 

[Hockeyman]

My buddy is at BGT now covering the Falcon Fury drop ride event and just messaged me saying his A77 is still having the over exposure issue on the first shot. He turned off the EFC and still doing it. Any other ideas?

 

[havoc315]

My buddy is at BGT now covering the Falcon Fury drop ride event and just messaged me saying his A77 is still having the over exposure issue on the first shot. He turned off the EFC and still doing it. Any other ideas?

Nope, but get more details. What lens? What aperture and shutter speed?
AF-C or AF-S? Is he shooting the 12 fps with exposure locked or is he using the hi drive setting?

All his single shots are coming out ok?

His lens may just have a sticky aperture. But lets get more info.

A temporary fix that should work-- have him shoot in A-priority, high drive. Setting aperture wide open (and thus using S and ISO to get the right exposure)

 

[Hockeyman]

Nope, but get more details. What lens? What aperture and shutter speed?
AF-C or AF-S? Is he shooting the 12 fps with exposure locked or is he using the hi drive setting?

All his single shots are coming out ok?

His lens may just have a sticky aperture. But lets get more info.

A temporary fix that should work-- have him shoot in A-priority, high drive. Setting aperture wide open (and thus using S and ISO to get the right exposure)

He said he has been shooting and tried a little bit of everything as far as settings go but also has giving him issues using single shot. He is now indoors and said it seems to be fine now. He was going to try some other settings and try in manual also and see how it does.