p.80 #2Portrait and People Image Thread using Sony
Thanks man! I am trying to embrace having magenta hues in the shadows of my photos. It’s hard lol. I shot these with the Sammy 35 1.4. I haven’t sold it yet but it hasn’t been in the bag since I picked up a used 35 GM locally. Thinking I will probably sell the Sammy and my CV 40 and get a Tamron 17-28 or 70-180.
abadger wrote:
Great atmosphere/mood here! I like the processing on it. What combo are you using here? Can’t find the exif.
p.80 #8Portrait and People Image Thread using Sony
I've missed LuminarNeo release (and forgot I bought it a bit), so I gave it a shot today. I have to say that I like the effect of moving some sliders pseudo-randomly for a few minutes :
The sun is fake, yes...
ƒ/1.4 35.0mm 1/1600s ISO500
p.80 #9Portrait and People Image Thread using Sony
j4nu wrote:
I've missed LuminarNeo release (and forgot I bought it a bit), so I gave it a shot today. I have to say that I like the effect of moving some sliders pseudo-randomly for a few minutes :
The sun is fake, yes...
Nice image! Some of what they show for Neo seems impressive but there are lots of complaints already (on DPR) about it being not even close to a finished product. New toys are always fun to play with though! I had never even considered looking at anything from Skylum - until the free version of Luminar 4 appeared recently which to me seems like a phone app more than anything.
Old school - we've always used brushes for sun rays to a much more subtle and customizable degree. The preset FX here is a little much IMO. :-)
p.80 #10Portrait and People Image Thread using Sony
KE_Photo wrote:
Nice image! Some of what they show for Neo seems impressive but there are lots of complaints already (on DPR) about it being not even close to a finished product. New toys are always fun to play with though! I had never even considered looking at anything from Skylum - until the free version of Luminar 4 appeared recently which to me seems like a phone app more than anything.
Old school - we've always used brushes for sun rays to a much more subtle and customizable degree. The preset FX here is a little much IMO. :-)
Thanks!
Yeah, it feels different in use (the emphasis is on automation I guess). I do like the aesthetics of their semi-transparent UI though . There are some things that are interesting, like illumination options imho but I only run Neo once (and was quite happy with the mixture of sliders I came up with ) so I need to play around with it more to see what it's really capable of (i.e. if it is possible to control the "over-the-top" effects to a manageable degree or like in the photo I posted - some edge smoothing between the focus area and background is needed).
I only tried Luminar 3 a couple years ago on a few photos but decided then I prefer the output from CaptureOne. A few months ago I tried LuminarAI but it worked so slowly I gave up. Neo seems to work better but it also has strange hiccups often (like sliders stop having any effect, zooming hangs - and that was only in ~15m I used it so far...). I am gonna give it a couple more tries though, as I want to see how it fares in "regular" processing (e.g. Luminar Sony camera profiles, color management, sharpening, NR I guess should be worse than Topaz/DxO, etc.).
p.80 #11Portrait and People Image Thread using Sony
Luminar Neo is kind of fun and interesting, but I see it more as a toy kind of software for 'instagram' photography. It can make things look subtly better, to much different, to ludicrous, to downright fake. Most of what it does is essentially 'fiction'. If you don't mind this and that's what you're going for, it's very powerful, but it's kind of like using AI to write a novel.
p.80 #13Portrait and People Image Thread using Sony
These two images were taken with the venerable Sony 135mm f/1.8 in A-mount a little bit more than 8 years ago using the A7r via LA-EA4. That was before the the image thread was started and as such, I know for sure that they have not been posted here…Plus, the second image was still in RAW and wasn’t edited until today.
From going through files similar to those above from my early Sony days, I noticed that I took less images back then. Maybe some 50% or so less compared to my recent sessions. The newer Sony cameras, especially the A1 with its superb Eye-AF and silent shutter definitely makes me more trigger happy now relative to back then.
I had a bad habit of not deleting images back then and I noticed that a fair amount was not focused perfectly on the eye and I also noticed that some showed camera/lens movement, especially using a handheld longish and heavy lens, like the 135mm lens here. Again, I put the blame on the lack of Eye-AF feature and on the lack of IBIS in the older cameras. What else could that be ? Looking back, we have come along way in the 8 years using our mirrorless system and I am looking forward to new improvements, albeit more incremental now.
p.80 #14Portrait and People Image Thread using Sony
A7RIV/GM 24-70mm F2.8
Feb 27, 2022 at 10:53 AM
RoamingScott
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p.80 #15Portrait and People Image Thread using Sony
Handed my wife my camera to document me summiting Mt. Scott, and rather liked how I was out of focus in this candid that caught me laughing with her. R3 + 24-105G
p.80 #20Portrait and People Image Thread using Sony
A sampling from a recent maternity shoot.... All shot with the A7RIV + 85 GM and a touch of OCF (AD200+ 42" Westcott HaloMono on the key & AD200+ 7" reflector for backlight on some).
:
? Looking back, we have come along way in the 8 years using our mirrorless system and I am looking forward to new improvements, albeit more incremental now.
by the looks of it it is 'her' ride and you better not mess! 
