Sony A7x lounge

Vixen89 wrote in post #17608961
Hi guys,

Sorry to confuse you earlier! I can focus peak like how Puckman and BrandonSi mentioned but what I was looking for was this (go 0:37 into the video) and I meant those lines. https://www.youtube.co​m/watch?v=BZFtPKgBM0U I tried to focus peak and my photos are still..a little OOF even using MF zoom assist. It's a bit frustrating because I'm basically blind but I heavily rely on AF. After hearing bout focus peaking, I was confident I could continue using my Canon lenses on the Sony body. Here I'm using the Sigma ART and A7s with a Commlite adapter for the first time and didn't nail focus well. I'm sure it's me and not the camera. Would those highlighted lines help me at all or should I just give up? I really liked this little A7s it doesn't hurt my wrists after a 12 hr+ event! Thanks again for the help; I haven't used my A7s much since I got it; too frustrated to carry on. <<

Here is a photo of my cousin, his eyes aren't in focus; they were soft when I PP'ed this but I kept the photo cause I thought it was cute:

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/uowv​ws 1 by Vixen Nguyen, on Flickr

Also, what in the world does Zebra do jocau?

OK, I think I see what you're talking about, and the problem is that video vs the real world. In that video, the red dots appear to be in lines simply because the electrical component thing he's focusing on has 'lines' of components for the camera to focus on. I assume you'd see the same effect if you tried to focus on a sideways newspaper, chess board, etc..

The red dots are just showing you what's in focus.. when you're focusing along a 2-D plane like that in that video, with lots of contrast, you'll see the area in focus much more clearly. People are far from 2-D planes and have less contrast than an electrical board or page of text, so the dots are less prominent in many cases.

If you were to focus on the tip of your cousin's nose, just the tiniest bit would turn red, because that's all that's in focus. In reality there is still a plane of focus (actually more of a spherical shape) in space around his nose that's in focus, but there is nothing but air occupying that space, so the red dots are not going to show up. Basically focus peaking works by detecting contrast on a surface, and if there isn't an surface in the area of focus, it's not going to just project a grid of red dots into thin air.

Hope that makes sense!

I think Brandon nailed the explanation. But I wanted to add one more thing: Are you using the focus magnification to aid you in focusing? Basically, you can set a custom button to "zoom in" on a particular area (let's say, the subject's eye).
So, first, you'd use focus peaking normally to MF roughly (as you mentioned, the red dots/lines can be a bit deceiving if the thing you're focusing on is not a perfectly flat plane with great contrast on it). So peaking gets you in the general neighborhood.
Then you use the focus magnification to zoom in your live view or EVF and you fine tune the focus to where your cousin's eye is perfectly sharp.
That's my process for stationary, or near-stationary subjects.
Things in motion are much harder to focus on, obviously. That's where AF is king.

David Arbogast wrote in post #17609019
From all I have seen both 16-35mm lenses are very good. The Sony FE 16-35mm is very strong from 16-28mm, but fades a bit more (compared to the Canon model) from 28-35mm. Overall I regard the Canon model as better (but not leaps and bounds better) and if sharpness throughout the zoom range was a primary concern I would go with it over the Sony FE 16-35mm. On the other hand, the FE 16-35mm is lighter/smaller (due to not needing the adapter!) and has good AF with all a7* models and probably still better AF even on the a7R II.

If you're mostly interested in using a 16-35mm more on the wider end (which is true for me), then both are excellent choices and maybe the "less-fuss/no-adapter" nod goes to the Sony.

how do you hyperlocal focus on the sony. I'm not seeing a distance scale

KayakPhotos wrote in post #17609127
how do you hyperlocal focus on the sony. I'm not seeing a distance scale

What lens are you using? Your lens needs to be able to communicate with your camera body in order for the camera body to display a scale. Native FE mount lenses should do this, and I would guess EF lenses with an adapter that has electrical contacts.

If you're just using a 'dumb' adapter and an old manual lens, you use the distance scale on the lens itself. If the lens doesn't have one, you're SOL unless you want to bust out the measuring tape and a calculator..

Wow this lens is very light for its size!

It feels like its even lighter than my 16-35 sony

Very interesting lens, you can pull the focus ring to MF, and if you press it sets the camera automatically to AF. Never done macro before so my first shots dont look good hah.

davidfarina wrote in post #17609167
Wow this lens is very light for its size!

It feels like its even lighter than my 16-35 sony

Hosted photo: posted by davidfarina in
./showthread.php?p=176​09167&i=i183893217
forum: Sony Digital Cameras

How do you feel about this lens so far? I'm tempted to pick one up...

BrandonSi wrote in post #17609141
What lens are you using? Your lens needs to be able to communicate with your camera body in order for the camera body to display a scale. Native FE mount lenses should do this, and I would guess EF lenses with an adapter that has electrical contacts.

If you're just using a 'dumb' adapter and an old manual lens, you use the distance scale on the lens itself. If the lens doesn't have one, you're SOL unless you want to bust out the measuring tape and a calculator..

I've used mostly adapted lenses, so I've always just used the scale on the lens. If I remember right this is displayed in the viewfinder though. I've been using almost all manual with this camera so far.

KayakPhotos wrote in post #17609127
how do you hyperlocal focus on the sony. I'm not seeing a distance scale

That's a good question, I hadn't considered that. I use hyperfocal most of the time for my landscapes. I wonder how this functions with the FE 16-35 with no focus distance scale?

KayakPhotos wrote in post #17609169
How do you feel about this lens so far? I'm tempted to pick one up...

Well i had it in my hands for 10 minutes now so i cant say much. Ive shot some quick shots at relatively high iso because i needed more light, not the best thing to judge the performance of a lens. But the feel and handling so far is incredible. The finish is smooth, the controls very well thought out and it feels just right on the A7R. It weights far less compared to what i expected, and therefore is very well balanced on my A7R.

I will post some more serious shots later!

BrandonSi wrote in post #17609060
OK, I think I see what you're talking about, and the problem is that video vs the real world. In that video, the red dots appear to be in lines simply because the electrical component thing he's focusing on has 'lines' of components for the camera to focus on. I assume you'd see the same effect if you tried to focus on a sideways newspaper, chess board, etc..

The red dots are just showing you what's in focus.. when you're focusing along a 2-D plane like that in that video, with lots of contrast, you'll see the area in focus much more clearly. People are far from 2-D planes and have less contrast than an electrical board or page of text, so the dots are less prominent in many cases.

If you were to focus on the tip of your cousin's nose, just the tiniest bit would turn red, because that's all that's in focus. In reality there is still a plane of focus (actually more of a spherical shape) in space around his nose that's in focus, but there is nothing but air occupying that space, so the red dots are not going to show up. Basically focus peaking works by detecting contrast on a surface, and if there isn't an surface in the area of focus, it's not going to just project a grid of red dots into thin air.

Hope that makes sense!

This does make sense but how do you guys nail focus in on the eyes? When I tried that I usually would get the cheek or the nose; again I'm sure it was my fault for not understanding focus peaking. My camera is set to show yellow dots on the focus peaking but did you see how there was a whole area covered in the yellow in the video? That's the setting I can't get to show up on my A7s (although I don't even know if it helps with focusing at all). It's just all greyed out on the Focus Mode settings; I only get AF-S and not AF-C/DMF/MF to activate.

Puckman wrote in post #17609082
I think Brandon nailed the explanation. But I wanted to add one more thing: Are you using the focus magnification to aid you in focusing? Basically, you can set a custom button to "zoom in" on a particular area (let's say, the subject's eye).
So, first, you'd use focus peaking normally to MF roughly (as you mentioned, the red dots/lines can be a bit deceiving if the thing you're focusing on is not a perfectly flat plane with great contrast on it). So peaking gets you in the general neighborhood.
Then you use the focus magnification to zoom in your live view or EVF and you fine tune the focus to where your cousin's eye is perfectly sharp.
That's my process for stationary, or near-stationary subjects.
Things in motion are much harder to focus on, obviously. That's where AF is king.

Oh yes I was using the focus magnification, it's set on my C1 button. Sadly, my MF skills are terrible!! I had my cousin hold his pose for a little bit so I could take the photo.

**

Little off topic, but what are you guys doing to conserve battery life? I set it on airplane mode and noticed about a 20% drop in battery within an hour just messing with the settings. Is that normal or should I invest in an extra set?

Thank you again. ><

I think with MF assist enabled, the distance scale shows up in the viewfinder when you manual focus.

That macro 90 looks nice. I have yet to see anyone on the forums post about it. So I'm very excited that you got one, DavidF. Looking forward to your reviews/first impressions and some sample photos. I'm tempted to pick up this lens and sell my Canon 100/2.8 macro as soon as I've heard/seen more about it.

Why would you sell the canon one? Is has IS on your A72 right?

Isn't it really good optics wise?

BrandonSi wrote in post #17609060
OK, I think I see what you're talking about, and the problem is that video vs the real world. In that video, the red dots appear to be in lines simply because the electrical component thing he's focusing on has 'lines' of components for the camera to focus on. I assume you'd see the same effect if you tried to focus on a sideways newspaper, chess board, etc..

The red dots are just showing you what's in focus.. when you're focusing along a 2-D plane like that in that video, with lots of contrast, you'll see the area in focus much more clearly. People are far from 2-D planes and have less contrast than an electrical board or page of text, so the dots are less prominent in many cases.

If you were to focus on the tip of your cousin's nose, just the tiniest bit would turn red, because that's all that's in focus. In reality there is still a plane of focus (actually more of a spherical shape) in space around his nose that's in focus, but there is nothing but air occupying that space, so the red dots are not going to show up. Basically focus peaking works by detecting contrast on a surface, and if there isn't an surface in the area of focus, it's not going to just project a grid of red dots into thin air.

Hope that makes sense!

Yeah I don't know if this is the case with Vixen or not, but I got into photography well into the age of autofocus...as such my mind was always wrapped around subject framing being a 2 dimensional thing, with focus being a matter of 'making a point on your subject sharp'. MF, even with focus peaking, forces you to think about framing your subject in 3 dimensions: placement of the subject on the frame on the x and y axis, and placement of your subject within the focal plane along the z-axis. The cool thing about focus peaking is that you see the focus plane moving backwards and forward along the z axis as you turn the focus ring. With a flat surface, you’ll see a line of colored pixels moving backwards and forwards with the focus ring.

At times I’m not a fan of MF focus assist, because it’s so hard to visualize the focal plane at 100% crop that it can actually be harder make minute adjustments to the focus. I suggest spending sometime practicing with focus peaking without MF assist. There’s a definitely a learning curve, but once you get a knack of framing your subject 3 dimensionally it becomes second nature, and it’s even quite possible to manually track moving subjects.

Charlie wrote in post #17609203
Why would you sell the canon one? Is has IS on your A72 right?

Isn't it really good optics wise?

I dunno. The Sony lens looks pretty cool. And it would have native AF.
The 100 (non-L) macro Canon that I have is pretty good yes. A bit on the larger side. I thought it might be nice to go with a native and smaller lens. But I didn't realize what they were charging for it. $1100? I think I can hang on to my Canon macro lens for now.