Sony Lounge Thread MKIII (All Sony cameras welcome)

vinmunoz wrote in post #18523070
i can't believe i went this far ignoring histogram. i saw those before and i know why it's important. there's many pro who advices to use histogram but i ignored it. Strobes mess up exposures. i'm tired to having good looking exposures at the back of the camera but when imported in LR, it will go like -3EV after a quick seconds.

I had a shoot yesterday and they are all go underexpose in LR after a few seconds. I learned that LR will show an "Optimized Jpeg" for a couple of seconds and then display the raw. I reviewed all the images today by looking at the histogram and the histogram is right, they are all underexpose.

Now I tested an on-camera flash(bounced to the left wall) with being mindful of the histogram and i got perfect exposure on my subject. I intentionally underexposed the background.

as you can see, all the sliders are in zero.

R3+24-105 at 10mm

**The second one is a more balance exposure. Again using histogram

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Hosted photo: posted by vinmunoz in
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forum: Sony Digital Cameras

The camera histogram is based on the preview jpeg. Lr histogram is based on the neutral raw images as presented by Lr. The "Optimized raw" that you see when you import is just the camera generated jpeg preview image, that is replaced by the Lr render upon import. Histograms are useful when you know how to read them, but for high contrast or low key images a light meter is a better tool.

navydoc wrote in post #18523178
I'm probably misunderstanding the question but do you have "Live View Display" on or off? Here's Mark Galler's comments on that feature.

http://www.markgaler.c​om …-setting-effect-on-or-off

Gene liveview is automatically turn off when using strobe and there's no way you can turn it on.

you don't even need to turn it off like what Mark Galer did in studio or with any strobe outdoor or even speedlight, it turns off automatically.

xpfloyd wrote in post #18523183
Now that’s interesting. I often wonder why my Lightroom view is underexposed when my shots had been fine on the camera review

For clarification....this is just my experience. I learned it the hard way back with canon and first dslr's. I kept looking at the shot on the back of the camera and things looked fine. I'd then take the RAWs to LR and they were way underexposed. Then I started reading about ETTR and using the histogram.....snug it up to the right and problem solved! No need to raise the exposure in post. Just tweak to taste.

There is also a bunch of science on how to change picture profile parameters in camera to get the most accurate representation from the histogram, i.e dial the contrast back, etc. I think someone here made a little comment about this technique a while back.

Scatterbrained wrote in post #18523232
The camera histogram is based on the preview jpeg. Lr histogram is based on the neutral raw images as presented by Lr. The "Optimized raw" that you see when you import is just the camera generated jpeg preview image, that is replaced by the Lr render upon import. Histograms are useful when you know how to read them, but for high contrast or low key images a light meter is a better tool.

for low key you should still see a spike for that little light that illuminate your subject.

i've read about the histogram based on jpeg in camera but as you can see from my shots, the sliders are all on zeros, i did not change anything so that means somehow the jpeg histogram is still accurate.

Vinz, what are your EVF and rear LCD brightness settings? The temptation is to set both of those high because things look better when everything is bright, but it can give you a false sense of the exposure if trying to gimp or use live-view to get a sense of the exposure.

i'm settled with histogram now. it's more reliable. and also for me zebra can be annoying sometimes. my brightness is -2 i guess but you can see the histogram on the fly when adjusting but only with ambient light. with strobe, you should look at histogram after the shot. thank you though for the responses.

idsurfer wrote in post #18523237
For clarification....this is just my experience. I learned it the hard way back with canon and first dslr's. I kept looking at the shot on the back of the camera and things looked fine. I'd then take the RAWs to LR and they were way underexposed. Then I started reading about ETTR and using the histogram.....snug it up to the right and problem solved! No need to raise the exposure in post. Just tweak to taste.

There is also a bunch of science on how to change picture profile parameters in camera to get the most accurate representation from the histogram, i.e dial the contrast back, etc. I think someone here made a little comment about this technique a while back.

Mark Galer suggested that tweaking the contrast back in creative style but his purpose was for the zebra to not come out prematurely.

Any R3 users notice the significant color science update?

I was shooting AWB last night, at a notoriously bad place that has mixed lighting, some tungsten LED's and cooler flourescents. Testing out AWB std, ambient, and white, and I think that std turned out best for all the lighting conditions, at least on the screen it looked better. The R3 seems to nail artificial lighting + people very well, without even tweaking the awb bias.

i can feel it too. it looks awesome. portrait have warmer tones now.

Charlie wrote in post #18523263
Any R3 users notice the significant color science update?

I was shooting AWB last night, at a notoriously bad place that has mixed lighting, some tungsten LED's and cooler flourescents. Testing out AWB std, ambient, and white, and I think that std turned out best for all the lighting conditions, at least on the screen it looked better. The R3 seems to nail artificial lighting + people very well, without even tweaking the awb bias.

WB still isn't perfect in terms of temperature, but I haven't found the need to adjust the tint slider so far, so I guess its a win there?

vinmunoz wrote in post #18523236
Gene liveview is automatically turn off when using strobe and there's no way you can turn it on.

you don't even need to turn it off like what Mark Galer did in studio or with any strobe outdoor or even speedlight, it turns off automatically.

You may be right Vinz but when I switch the flash on and off, whether I have "Live View Effects" switched to on or off, the results are the same. The only difference that I see is the shutter speed changes from 1.6 sec. to 1/60th when the flash is turned on (using Aperture Priority mode).

I've only done a quick visual of the LCD to check this.

vinmunoz wrote in post #18523240
for low key you should still see a spike for that little light that illuminate your subject.

i've read about the histogram based on jpeg in camera but as you can see from my shots, the sliders are all on zeros, i did not change anything so that means somehow the jpeg histogram is still accurate.

A low key image is an image that has the bulk of it's histogram on the left, you can't really tell via the histogram if you've got the exposure right or if you just have some sort of specular highlight. If the image has no bright specular highlight then there will be no spike on the right.
The jpeg histogram shows you the values of the jpeg you're looking at, of course it's accurate, for the jpeg you're viewing. If all the sliders are at 0 and the image is fine, that means you're happy with you're exposure, yay!
Now move a slider and watch the histogram change. If you find yourself constantly having to make exposure adjustments in post then certainly using the live histogram would be helpful too. I usually shoot with the live histogram on to make sure I'm not clipping highlights or shadows, but I don't use it when using strobes, as I prefer the light meter. BTW, you can just "grab" the histogram in Lr to make slider adjustments, rather than using the sliders, just "grab" the area of the histogram you want to adjust and "slide" it around.

The fe35 f2.8 discussions are timely as I've decided to give the lens a shot again.

I think if I were to pick out what is 'wrong' with this lens, its that it seems Sony designed this thing with absolute edge to edge sharpness in a small a package being the only consideration in the optical design. It's really sharp, but has a really clinical rendering. I don't think f2.8 is that big of a deal as casual shooting usually involves being pretty close to your subjects so you get some nice subject isolation from the subject distance....its just a really flat looking lens, and I don't get that sense when shooting other lenses at 35mm f2.8.

I wouldn't use this for 'serious' environmental portraits, but none of that is really a big deal for casual shooting and you can add whatever magic you want in post.

Outside of the rendering, I've always thought it was a really good lens for what it is. Here are a couple of the random things I'd shoot with the lens...I want to play with it a big more so more to come.

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/22HU​gxT

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/22HU​i3X

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/EAEG​BW

For the 35/2.8 size and weight trump everything. I've had that little wonder with me everywhere I've gone with
the a9 or a7Rii just because I can slip in in a pocket and be non the worse.

Here's another from the party last night---OK it's not portraiture, snapshots maybe, but regardless here's my girl
Poofadora at ISO 10k.
I Primed via DXO, cropped in LR, pulled up levels a tad in PScc

mystik610 wrote in post #18523272
The fe35 f2.8 discussions are timely as I've decided to give the lens a shot again.

I think if I were to pick out what is 'wrong' with this lens, its that it seems Sony designed this thing with absolute edge to edge sharpness in a small a package being the only consideration in the optical design. It's really sharp, but has a really clinical rendering. I don't think f2.8 is that big of a deal as casual shooting usually involves being pretty close to your subjects so you get some nice subject isolation from the subject distance....its just a really flat looking lens, and I don't get that sense when shooting other lenses at 35mm f2.8.

I wouldn't use this for 'serious' environmental portraits, but none of that is really a big deal for casual shooting and you can add whatever magic you want in post.

Outside of the rendering, I've always thought it was a really good lens for what it is. Here are a couple of the random things I'd shoot with the lens...I want to play with it a big more so more to come.

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/22HU​gxT DSC03400 by Carlo Alcala, on Flickr

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/22HU​i3X DSC03449 by Carlo Alcala, on Flickr

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/EAEG​BW DSC03337 by Carlo Alcala, on Flickr

“Flat looking”. Exactly what my criticism of the FE 35mm 2.8 has always been. And shouldn’t be true of any lens with a Zeiss sticker on it.

Still, the lens does have very nice advantages and Charlie has done us a service in convincingly defending it. I wouldn’t want it as my only 35mm, but as a super light lens that can nearly turn your a7x into an rx1, it’s very appealing.