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New A900

Terry

New member
Since Guy semi publicly outed me, I will confess that there is a box with my name on it containing an A900, 24-70, 135 and flash currently out for delivery wandering the streets of SF on a UPS truck (all 14 lbs. of it).

I actually did download and read read the manual last night. It was surprisingly written for people who could have very little photgraphy knowledge but then also seemed light on detail!

Any hints or tips on useful settings would be appreciated.

Marc, since I don't use C1 yet, anything special for these files in LR is greatly appreciated. Any, settings for sharpening would also be great.
 

Eoin

Member
Congrats Terry, it was only a matter of time after you held the 135. Glad to see you got it as well. Enjoy!
 

douglasf13

New member
Since Guy semi publicly outed me, I will confess that there is a box with my name on it containing an A900, 24-70, 135 and flash currently out for delivery wandering the streets of SF on a UPS truck (all 14 lbs. of it).

I actually did download and read read the manual last night. It was surprisingly written for people who could have very little photgraphy knowledge but then also seemed light on detail!

Any hints or tips on useful settings would be appreciated.

Marc, since I don't use C1 yet, anything special for these files in LR is greatly appreciated. Any, settings for sharpening would also be great.
Congrats on the new system. You'll love it! :) Like was mentioned above, Shelby's wedding pic thread has a lot of tips. Here are some relatively "RAW accurate" jpeg settings:

- turn off DRO completely
- AdobeRGB
- neutral CS
- contrast -3 (i use -1 ZONE instead, but that's not necessary for now)
- saturation -1
- brightness -3
- custom WB (uniWB)

With the above settings, you should find that spot metering detailed highlights at +3 EV works well. Or, you can spot meter middle grey at +.5 EV

If you're using LR, remember that it does some baseline exposure and other things. In order to set up ACR/Lightroom to show a relatively accurate RAW histogram, you'll need to flatten the tone curve to linear, set brightness and contrast to zero and add around -0.35 EV (hidden baseline exposure correction) for a900 files to get pretty close. If you import A900 images into LR at its standard settings, and your shots don't look overexposed, then you'll know that you're probably underexposing at capture. Enjoy the new cam!
 
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picman

Member
Since Guy semi publicly outed me, I will confess that there is a box with my name on it containing an A900, 24-70, 135 and flash currently out for delivery wandering the streets of SF on a UPS truck (all 14 lbs. of it).

I actually did download and read read the manual last night. It was surprisingly written for people who could have very little photgraphy knowledge but then also seemed light on detail!

Any hints or tips on useful settings would be appreciated.

Marc, since I don't use C1 yet, anything special for these files in LR is greatly appreciated. Any, settings for sharpening would also be great.
And so the 900club grows and grows! Good luck with the new toys. The manual, as most manuals these days, is not good. I got Gary Friedmans pdf book, it is a bit overkill in my opinion but at least it has a lot of info.

Cheers, Bob.
 

jonoslack

Active member
Congratulations Terry.
I really hope you'll be very happy with it, and if you want a nice new bag to go with it, I know someone in France who'll make you one!

Enjoy!
 

fotografz

Well-known member
The 135/1.8 is what sucked me in also ... I held it when it first came out ... and I knew it was just a matter of time.

Welcome to the club.
 

Terry

New member
Thanks Charlie, Dale, Eoin, Bob,Jono and Marc,
I don't know that I am worthy of having 24mp at my disposal to make bigger prints of my work but, it should be a lot of fun. Will try and shoot side by side with the D700 this weekend.

Once comfortable with the system I will round things out with the Signa 12-24 and the 70-300.

Doug- typically I am only shooting RAW. Are your settings then useful for judging the output on the screen? Thanks for the LR info. I may have some more questions over the weekend but it is always exciting working with new gear. Although, I think I need to slow down on the excitement factor!

Guy, doesn't get thanks on this thread as he loves to be the instigator to get people to spend on new toys that he lusts after.
 
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ptomsu

Workshop Member
Since Guy semi publicly outed me, I will confess that there is a box with my name on it containing an A900, 24-70, 135 and flash currently out for delivery wandering the streets of SF on a UPS truck (all 14 lbs. of it).

I actually did download and read read the manual last night. It was surprisingly written for people who could have very little photgraphy knowledge but then also seemed light on detail!

Any hints or tips on useful settings would be appreciated.

Marc, since I don't use C1 yet, anything special for these files in LR is greatly appreciated. Any, settings for sharpening would also be great.
Enjoy it!

Sure a wonderful tool - and I want to play with it in AZ :)

You can get my 5D2 meanwhile :D
 

Terry

New member
Enjoy it!

Sure a wonderful tool - and I want to play with it in AZ :)

You can get my 5D2 meanwhile :D
Thanks Peter look forward to meeting you. The first workshop I did with Jack and Guy everyone shot M8s. Oh have things changed over the last couple of years!
 

Guy Mancuso

Administrator, Instructor
Actually we will have 2 Sony A900 users if Shelby comes,1 D3x user, M8 user, Canon user and Hassy and Phase users as well. Pretty diverse set of folks and I love it. Having different systems around is very good for the users and the workshops we can see what each system can do and a few friendly shoot outs never hurt anyone. LOL
 

douglasf13

New member
...Doug- typically I am only shooting RAW. Are your settings then useful for judging the output on the screen? Thanks for the LR info. I may have some more questions over the weekend but it is always exciting working with new gear....
Sure thing. Those camera settings I mentioned get the A900's in-camera histogram about as close as any I've seen to what the actual RAW histogram, although it's still not perfect. Depending on you RAW converter, you may have to adjust some import settings in that as well (like the LR settings I mentioned.) Feel free to PM me with questions. :thumbup:
 

douglasf13

New member
Actually we will have 2 Sony A900 users if Shelby comes,1 D3x user, M8 user, Canon user and Hassy and Phase users as well. Pretty diverse set of folks and I love it. Having different systems around is very good for the users and the workshops we can see what each system can do and a few friendly shoot outs never hurt anyone. LOL
I can't make it to the June workshop, but I'd really like to try for the next. Looks like a blast!
 

Guy Mancuso

Administrator, Instructor
Doug not having the A900 i am looking at these setting to match up to the LCD and what scale is this like 1-5 or 1-10 . Reason I ask is when I see numbers like -3 for contrast and minus - 3 for brightness makes me wonder. Seems a little drastic especially contrast and brightness. Seems that is just knocking it down quite a bit and when I looked at this Cam it seemed pretty good the LCD except I did not process the files or look at the raws. Just curious



- turn off DRO completely
- AdobeRGB
- neutral CS
- contrast -3 (i use -1 ZONE instead, but that's not necessary for now)
- saturation -1
- brightness -3
- custom WB (uniWB)

I am assuming this also relates to LR viewing of the Raw does this change when using another RC program. I know for instance my Phase files in LR are about 1.5 stops darker than C1 so I guess the second part to the question does this change with different RC as well or hold with others.
 

BackToSlr

New member
Since Guy semi publicly outed me, I will confess that there is a box with my name on it containing an A900, 24-70, 135 and flash currently out for delivery wandering the streets of SF on a UPS truck (all 14 lbs. of it).

I actually did download and read read the manual last night. It was surprisingly written for people who could have very little photgraphy knowledge but then also seemed light on detail!

Any hints or tips on useful settings would be appreciated.

Marc, since I don't use C1 yet, anything special for these files in LR is greatly appreciated. Any, settings for sharpening would also be great.
Congrats Terry! Enjoy your new toy.

Small tip. I always find the screen to be too bright. I have adjusted the brightness setting to -5 (lowest, i used to get to influenced by the screen brightness, not the actual exposure). You can do this quickly by keeping the "Display" button (on the left rear panel) and turning any of the control dials (front or back).

Cheers,

n
 
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