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Fun With Sony Cameras

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fotografz

Well-known member
Re: Fun with the Sony A7 and A7r series

I had a lot of fun today. I did a shoot of our local bishop - they need images for the parishes, for press publications, all sorts of things. Dress was from casual to very full clericals with several shades between, expressions had to range from very friendly through pastoral to questioning. Locations were all indoors and I shot most with natural light and some with on-camera bounce as slight fill.

I used two A7Rs. One had a hand grip on and a 55 F1.8 and one had no grip and a 24-70 F4 OSS. I swapped out this for the 35mm F2.8 for a small number of shots.

I used Face Detect for most of them, and most were at or close to wide open. Out of 331 shots I found precisely three that weren't acceptably sharp and about four that were only 'good enough'. The rest were utterly perfect. Shutter speeds ranged from 1/30th upwards.

I have never had a camera that let me place focus exactly where I want it and which nailed it again and again and again. I have never had such a high hit rate on an indoor shoot, often in quite dark chapels and corridors. And I have rarely felt so relaxed whilst shooting something that matters, because it quickly became clear from the LCD that the shots were coming out to the quality I needed. I don't do many portraits because I'm frankly not much good at them, but this was a nice experience! Certainly a lot more fun than a few years back when I had a gig to do official portraits of the last Archbishop of Canterbury and I took along a Phase Back on a DF body for indoor natural light shots, which would have worked had not the largest and darkest storm cloud in the world come over during my 15 minute slot. I ended up using a 5DII and a lot of prayer...

Can't share any yet until there is client approval. But some I really like a lot!
Tim, hope you can post some of these … this is right up my alley, and your post here is encouraging. I'd like very much to reduce my DSLR/SLT kit and end up with just a pair of these smaller mirror-less Sonys and eventually just 4 lenses … the three current ones, and a longer FE prime of some sort when they get to it.

I also would love to better understand how you have the A7R settings configured (face detect focus and swift placement of the focus point), I've been distracted by other life events as of late, and haven't had much time to "play and learn".

Thanks,

Marc
 

Don Libby

Well-known member
Re: Fun with the Sony A7 and A7r series

Tetons beyond Jackson Lake, Sony A7r, 24-70 (44mm) f/16 1/200 ISO 50



The boss did this...
 
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Godfrey

Well-known member
Re: Fun with the Sony A7 and A7r series

A few from Saturday's walk with the Elmarit-R 19mm series I.









All: Sony A7 + Leica Elmarit-R 19mm f/2.8 series I

This and the Nikkor 18mm produce pretty extreme wide angle for me. It takes a while for my mind to come around to seeing in such FoVs. I'm not quite there yet, but getting more comfortable.

The Elmarit 19 produces some lovely rendering qualities, as does the Nikkor 18. They have a look which is quite different, however. The Nikkor is a bit better on corner/edge sharpness, the Elmarit separates mid-tones a little better. Both benefit greatly from a sturdy tripod—I feel that I need a very sturdy tripod as much or more with an ultra wide lens as I do with a long telephoto, and that it's actually harder to get the most out of an ultra wide (need more pixels, more careful framing, etc.).

fun fun fun ...
 

tashley

Subscriber Member
Re: Fun with the Sony A7 and A7r series

Marc, I will share some soon I hope.

Here's how mine are both set up - it suits me really well but other people might want other configurations to highlight features they use more. Also, I've never really done a sit-down analysis of the optimal configuration, I've just iterated towards something I find easy.

Control Wheel; ISO
AEL Button; AEL Hold
AF/MF button (how I leave the switch orientated most of the time); AF/MF toggle
Cn 1; Focus Settings
Cn 2; Focus Mode
Cn 3; Steady Shot
Center button; Eye AF
Left Button; Drive Mode
Right Button; Smile/Face Detect
Down Button; Focus area

So what I do is this: I leave the AFMF/AEL switch generally in the UP position.

This means that when I press the button in the centre of it, I switch from AF to MF.

When in AF, pressing C1 lets me use the dial as a cursor to move the focus spot around.

When in MF, pressing C1 lets me magnify the MF area and the dial allows me to move it around.

After a while this gets to be very fast. I will generally use Face Detect with Small Single Spot AF left on centre by default but if face detect struggles, moving the AF spot to the desired face will usually get it to lock on. You can use Face Detect in Zone and Wide, but I much prefer to be in DMF mode with small single spot.

Eye detect is actuated by pressing and releasing the centre button of the main dial when Face Detect is active and the shutter is half pressed. For most shots face detect alone is enough. Face detect also makes quite certain that the AF system won't 'see' something behind the desired subject, a problem that even the small single spot sometimes falls victim to.

I also have the Function Button programmed with a set of useful, often needed items.

I find the setup to be very fast and most importantly, accurate. It takes a bit of practice but I like it! The one thing I would say is that using the battery grip in order to gain a vertical shutter release does compromise the speed at which I can operate the system of flicking the single small AF point around the field quickly. But I'm even getting used to that. Practice makes somewhat competent!

HTH
Tim




Tim, hope you can post some of these … this is right up my alley, and your post here is encouraging. I'd like very much to reduce my DSLR/SLT kit and end up with just a pair of these smaller mirror-less Sonys and eventually just 4 lenses … the three current ones, and a longer FE prime of some sort when they get to it.

I also would love to better understand how you have the A7R settings configured (face detect focus and swift placement of the focus point), I've been distracted by other life events as of late, and haven't had much time to "play and learn".

Thanks,

Marc
 

Guy Mancuso

Administrator, Instructor
Re: Fun with the Sony A7 and A7r series

A few from Saturday's walk with the Elmarit-R 19mm series I.









All: Sony A7 + Leica Elmarit-R 19mm f/2.8 series I

This and the Nikkor 18mm produce pretty extreme wide angle for me. It takes a while for my mind to come around to seeing in such FoVs. I'm not quite there yet, but getting more comfortable.

The Elmarit 19 produces some lovely rendering qualities, as does the Nikkor 18. They have a look which is quite different, however. The Nikkor is a bit better on corner/edge sharpness, the Elmarit separates mid-tones a little better. Both benefit greatly from a sturdy tripod—I feel that I need a very sturdy tripod as much or more with an ultra wide lens as I do with a long telephoto, and that it's actually harder to get the most out of an ultra wide (need more pixels, more careful framing, etc.).

fun fun fun ...
Given that most of your glass is DSLR lenses a lot of Leica R there is no reason why ( except money of course) not to have a A7r in your kit as well for these moments. Obviously money spent but when those pixels of the A7r really gets you there. Something to ponder, I think we will see more 24mpx cams from Sony but maybe not so fast to see another 36 mpx replacing the A7r. I only say this since your are heavily R loaded and its really nice having that A7r as that is the one I mostly shoot myself. Just a thought and since you are not using any AF but manual focus and no flash gear with regard to sync your not going to see a functional difference but just have more horsepower. If I was manual all the time and not needing the speed than I would probably have a second A7r instead. Heck you could almost get one for dirt cheap with a trade, instant savings with a FE lens and sell off the lens. Might want to look into that whole trade up deal going on.
 

mazor

New member
Re: Fun with the Sony A7 and A7r series

nice shot Godfrey it is a lovely wide angle lens which seems to be able to isolate subjects easily with pleasing bokeh.
 

Godfrey

Well-known member
Re: Fun with the Sony A7 and A7r series

Given that most of your glass is DSLR lenses a lot of Leica R there is no reason why ( except money of course) not to have a A7r in your kit as well for these moments. Obviously money spent but when those pixels of the A7r really gets you there. Something to ponder, I think we will see more 24mpx cams from Sony but maybe not so fast to see another 36 mpx replacing the A7r. I only say this since your are heavily R loaded and its really nice having that A7r as that is the one I mostly shoot myself. Just a thought and since you are not using any AF but manual focus and no flash gear with regard to sync your not going to see a functional difference but just have more horsepower. If I was manual all the time and not needing the speed than I would probably have a second A7r instead. Heck you could almost get one for dirt cheap with a trade, instant savings with a FE lens and sell off the lens. Might want to look into that whole trade up deal going on.
Money is part of it ... buying the A7 body-only (at a deal rate since it was a new body from a split-up kit package) saved me $1000 to get into one and experiment with these lenses. At the time it wasn't clear that it would really work as desired, and if it hadn't I'd have simply sold it and the whole lot of lenses to simplify things.

I'm convinced now that the A7 works as I desired.

I'm not in a photo business anymore, I don't have to rush nor do I need backup. The cost of an A7r (or a second A7) body is not a problem. Whether to buy an A7r or a second A7 is a matter of what I want to do with it, and whether the diversity and capabilities of what I already have are sufficient to my desires.

Meanwhile, I am slowly learning the lenses on this body, and I like what the A7 creates with them. :)

G
 

pegelli

Well-known member
Re: Fun With Sony _____

Usually I don't like to see the microphone in front of a singer's face, but somehow here it all works together very well, expression, scene, the way she holds it. Great shot John, and a nice B&W conversion.
 

philip_pj

New member
Re: Fun with the Sony A7 and A7r series

This photo is from the a7r out of a Contax 100mm f3.5. It's handheld at f8, low ISO and fast shutter speed, shot in a gale. I like to scope out places I pass so the extra detail works great for that. It is a typical result from handholding for landscapes with this combo, standard capture sharpening only. The crest in the crop is (I estimate) 4000-5000 metres - they have run electricity everywhere but no one will be using the road for a while.
 

W.Utsch

Member
Re: Fun with the Sony A7 and A7r series

Firenze, Italy
Duomo
from San Miniato al Monte






Duomo
from the first floor of the Campanile





Zeiss ZE 18/3.5 (Canon), Metabones Smart III​
 

iiiNelson

Well-known member
Re: Fun with the Sony A7 and A7r series

A few random small sized JPEG snaps (sent to my iPhone and processed in VSCOcam for testing purposes) with the Rokinon 14, Voigtlander 35/1.2 Nokton II, and the 55 FE. The full sized shots in camera are obviously much much better.







 

Don Libby

Well-known member
Re: Fun with the Sony A7 and A7r series

There's an old truck in Driggs ID that we've seen for several years just sitting on the side of the road slowly getting more forlorn looking with each passing season. Passing it yesterday we decided it was time to take its portrait.


Sony A7r FE24-70 (50mm) f/6.3 1/200 ISO 50 cropped to suit

A little "behind the scenes" with me knee deep in snow.



And this is what I captured...


Sony A7r FE35mm f/8 1/125 ISO 50 cropped to suit

Don
 
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