normie610 wrote:
Do you still need to pull back the highlights in post afterwards?
It depends if the image was over or underexposed. See, ETTR does not always mean overexposed.
In post, I have to lower exposure for some images, in others just the highlights, and in a few I have to boost the shadows. It depends.
The point is to get shadows as clean as possible.
Fred Miranda wrote:
It depends if the image was over or underexposed. See, ETTR does not always mean overexposed.
In post, I have to lower exposure for some images, in others just the highlights, and in a few I have to boost the shadows. It depends.
The point is to get shadows as clean as possible.
How have you found using zebras to monitor for highlights, if you use them? Very accurate?
Fred Miranda wrote:
So far, based on Jim's latest tests, we could summarize it like this:
Silent shutter + uncompressed raw + single shot = 14-bit precision (1/15 sensor scan time)
Silent shutter + uncompressed raw + continuous-mode = 13-bit precision with same noise level as above (1/15 sensor scan time)
Silent shutter + compressed raw + continuous-mode = 12-bit precision and more noise, but we get 1/30 sensor scan time.
A few new notes/corrections
* all uncompressed RAW (both continuous and single, silent or normal shutter) shot is 14 bit, excluding bulb and Long exposure NR (haven't checked about brackets)
* overall there is no such combination as uncompressed 13-bit, "13 bits" is just 14 bit data after compression has thrown away bits. This is 13 bit in shadows and gets "thinner" the higher the luminance.
Fred Miranda wrote:
How about Silent shutter + compressed + single shot?
"13 bit" with caveats explained above.
But as Jim Kasson noted about these limitations: with A7RII we only had 12-bit single with electronic shutter. No continuous, no 14-bit. The step forward is a big one. Does even the A9 do 14 bit continuous with electronic shutter?
Now if we could only confirm the noise levels between silent and mechanical shutter, specially in 14-bit cases. Would be pretty useful for timelapses etc. to shoot with electronic shutter to save thousands of mechanical shutter actuations per shoot. And there is also 2nd curtain acceleration that can potentially affect sharpness a tiny bit, specially if one is shooting continuous it can upset IBIS/OSS a tiny bit for next frame. We're in ultimate hair-splitting here, but why not get every advantage if it does not cost anything.
One more positive finding about A7RIII: flash delay. My Nissin Air radio flashes are super-responsive & 110% reliable whereas with the A7RII I often experienced lag/delay. I can now quite confidently shoot slight movement with TTL.
And since the A7RIII FW separates Wireless Flash toggle from Flash mode (Fill, Rear Sync...) the Nissin Air system can now shoot rear sync etc. too. This was not possible with A7RII.
tn1krr wrote:
One more positive finding about A7RIII: flash delay. My Nissin Air radio flashes are super-responsive & 110% reliable whereas with the A7RII I often experienced lag/delay. I can now quite confidently shoot slight movement with TTL.
And since the A7RIII FW separates Wireless Flash toggle from Flash mode (Fill, Rear Sync...) the Nissin Air system can now shoot rear sync etc. too. This was not possible with A7RII.
Wow, that sounds like a very significant improvement when working with flash. I read about this complaint with the a7rII before.
The rIII is indeed a complex beast and even coming form the A7rII it can be quite a challenge getting to grips with all the new functions and menus so I hate to to think what it must be like for a new A7 user. That said the great thing about the Sony's (as is with most cameras now) is that it is so customisable and between the custom buttons, fn button and the new 'my menu' area you can set it up so that you hardly ever need to dive further into the menus etc. it took me a longtime to get the A7rII set up exactly how I wanted it and it will be the same with this as I continue to experiment with it. Now that I have finally managed to import RAW files into Lr and no longer having to also shoot jpeg I feel that I can get more to grips with the camera. I shot a concert event last night and the addition of continuous shooting in silent mode and the better EVF are two of the things I wanted most from this camera and it live up to expectations in this respect. I wasn't seeing any enormous improvements in AF over the rII but it is early days on this and in any case I still often find that it is quicker and more accurate to use a single focus point and then recompose. I think DR in silent mode higher up the iso scale maybe be slightly better but as too IQ in general I am happy to use the rIII and rII together as I feel that for most things the differences will be minimal but obviously for critical work I would choose the rIII. I have started to experiment with touchscreen focus and I can see that this may well be useful for landscape work when using the LCD and having it set to read from a quarter of the screen while using the EVF may also work well when I get used to it and actually be quicker than using the joystick. As to the joystick in some way I prefer the A7rII with the latest firmware where you can activate the focus box and use the control-wheel four-way buttons as when turned on the focus box turns orange and is much easier to see. In fact this is one of the main issues I am having with focusing on the rIII as at times it can be difficult to see the black focus box in darker areas of the screen and I feel there should be an option to change it's colour.
I'm still waiting for Adobe to come up with the a7riii support, but I managed to shoot some foliage type shots with mine over the weekend. It wasn't a particularly challenging scenario, as it's sunny, but so far I like what I see: the AF with the 55 1.8 was definitely more responsive, locked on faster and while I don't have my a7rii anymore, I think the shutter sounds more damped. The button responsive is also improved, I think. Being able to "lock" pictures with c3 in default is nice. I like that feature on my D500 quite a bit.
The real test for this cam will be how well it can track BIF with the 100-400 GM. Not sure when I'll be able to check that, though.
Btw, has anybody already gotten their hands on the rss L-bracket? I'm still not sure whether to go with a case or a L-bracket this time, but I've decided to add something to the camera to avoid it taking the same beating as my a7rii.
JonathanP wrote:
I just wondered if anyone who has moved from the A7rRii to Riii who wears glasses has noticed any improvement with the view into the EVF. I understand it has more resolution, but wondered if the optics have improved for glasses wearers?
Parariss wrote:
I have an a7rii and wear glasses, but I don't shoot with them on - I adjust the diopter and shoot without them. Even so, I find the eye relief to be short on the a7rii (and also the a6300). I got to handle the a7riii today. My impression is that eye relief is improved, but only very slightly.
DavidBM wrote:
You might be right, but my sense is that there is no improvement. So if there is some, it's indeed very small...
Thanks for the feedback, hopefully I’ll get a chance to try one out before too long - will be interesting to see how the higher resolution helps with manual focus.
Pixel Perfect wrote:
Even using a Nikon D500 after being a Canon user for 20 years was a bit of a curve. It's now feeling more intuitive but the Nikon ergonomics aren't quite as good IMO and it definitely takes longer to set-up the camera than a Canon. The Sony reminds me more of the Olympus experience, lot's of customization, but poor menu system and not sure about the Sony manual, it's seems way too short for such an advanced camera at a paltry 96 pages, but the Olympus manual for my E-M5 was a joke.
Is there a more detailed user guide than the one at Sony?...Show more →
for those who want to mix r2 and r3 shots and use capture one be warned you need to process them separatly.
there is a huge white balance difference. the two cameras behave also very different with auto wb. maybe it is the c1 profile for the r3 but I did not see this going from the r1 to the r2.
so it seems I need to get a second one ;-) but this is no problem for me because this is a fantastic camera and the first one which totally convinces me I did the right thing when I moved from canon to sony !
Matt Grum wrote:
Shooting landscapes, where you want as much in focus as possible. With AF even if you can choose exactly where to focus that doesn't actually help. With MF you can zoom in on something in the distance, start at infinity focus and bring the focus plane forwards until the most distant objects are just starting to soften. That is then your maximum depth of field.
Matt--
In the situation you describe, how much difference do you think there would be between doing what you describe with manual focus versus using the hyperfocal rule-of-thumb and using the AF to focus about a third of the way into the scene?
Mystik wrote:
It's better in green mode. I wasn't impressed with AF performance in advance mode.
I think the a9 is still better in terms of adapted AF performance though
I think the Metabones firmware was updated for AF performance on the A9, but has not yet been updated to optimize AF on the A7r3. So, the Metabones performance (and the Sigma MC-11 performance) should get even better with firmware updates.
Given the volume of sales the A7r3 seems to be headed for, and how well it appears to work with adapted lenses, updated firmware by Metabones and Sigma is very likely.
Anyone using back button focus? Which button? I got to handle an a7riii yesterday and didn't find any of the choices to feel very natural. On the a7rii the AF button forms a very natural grip. Thx
Parariss wrote:
Anyone using back button focus? Which button? I got to handle an a7riii yesterday and didn't find any of the choices to feel very natural. On the a7rii the AF button forms a very natural grip. Thx
Yup. AEL button is assigned to back button focus. AF-On assigned to eye focus....so two back button focus buttons.
tn1krr wrote:
A few new notes/corrections
* all uncompressed RAW (both continuous and single, silent or normal shutter) shot is 14 bit, excluding bulb and Long exposure NR (haven't checked about brackets)
* overall there is no such combination as uncompressed 13-bit, "13 bits" is just 14 bit data after compression has thrown away bits. This is 13 bit in shadows and gets "thinner" the higher the luminance.
"13 bit" with caveats explained above.
But as Jim Kasson noted about these limitations: with A7RII we only had 12-bit single with electronic shutter. No continuous, no 14-bit. The step forward is a big one. Does even the A9 do 14 bit continuous with electronic shutter?
Now if we could only confirm the noise levels between silent and mechanical shutter, specially in 14-bit cases. Would be pretty useful for timelapses etc. to shoot with electronic shutter to save thousands of mechanical shutter actuations per shoot. And there is also 2nd curtain acceleration that can potentially affect sharpness a tiny bit, specially if one is shooting continuous it can upset IBIS/OSS a tiny bit for next frame. We're in ultimate hair-splitting here, but why not get every advantage if it does not cost anything.
So, as long as Uncompressed raw is selected we are getting 14-bits. (except bulb, long exposures and perhaps bracketing)
This goes for Mechanical shutter, Silent shutter, Single or Continuous mode and any other combination.
When using Compressed raw, we can still get 13-bits precision (which means same noise level), by using the Mechanical shutter.
However, when switching from Mechanical shutter to Silent shutter while in Continuous mode and Compressed raw, precision drops to 12 bits. Although this means more noticeable noise in the shadows, it also means sensor scan speed will be 1/30 because of the drop in precision. This is twice as fast and a better combination when using Silent shutter and slow moving subjects.
