Jemini wrote:
I believe your comment about AF. The otter shots are absolutely stunning. But did some of the bufflehead and sanderling shots have burned whites? It could very well be my monitor (which is an NEC pro monitor and been using for few years). It's not easiest subject on a bright sunny day I know..
I use 109+ zebras and none were clipping with that setting. But they are on the edge of clipping. In LR they look okay to me but maybe once out on jpeg they are losing a bit.
But the other thing is with the first set I was at 1600 ISO. All the latest cameras' DR are about equal at 1600 ISO.
EDIT: just had a 2nd look at those first couple buffies....yeah they do look a little hot around the collar They may have clipped. Very early on the birds in front of me were in shade and when I whipped up to try and grab the buffies whipping by/in I frantically cranked the SS up but maybe not enough.
Geoff, what do you think about the AF with 200-600 compared to A9II? I can't afford 400/2.8 or 600/4 soon. But want to see if I'm going to get a huge upgrade to AF compared to A9 (assuming A9II is similar to A9) using 200-600. I'm aware of all other advantages. Just curious about AF for wildlife action..
arbitrage wrote:
I use 109+ zebras and none were clipping with that setting. But they are on the edge of clipping. In LR they look okay to me but maybe once out on jpeg they are losing a bit.
But the other thing is with the first set I was at 1600 ISO. All the latest cameras' DR are about equal at 1600 ISO.
EDIT: just had a 2nd look at those first couple buffies....yeah they do look a little hot around the collar They may have clipped. Very early on the birds in front of me were in shade and when I whipped up to try and grab the buffies whipping by/in I frantically cranked the SS up but maybe not enough....Show more →
Thanks for taking the positive side of criticism. You are right. The whites are not completely gone, but at the edge. The last image in the first set has little bit of blooming. I didn't notice they were at higher ISOs. Make sense.
Hillrg` wrote:
After a few hours shooting with the A1 two things stand out for me: the WB seems much better and panning is easier. This Harlequin is full frame at 840mm. As you know, as they pass you have to pan faster to keep up. When a duck is this close it is near impossible (at least for me) to keep the duck centered, partly due to latency in the viewfinder. Heck, normally I'm happy if it is in the frame at all. ;*) I was shooting 30fps with the viewfinder at 240hz. I'm still not sure if the 240hz helps, but do know it sure doesn't hurt.
Another one image that is not that of a bird... but Downtown LA after sunset. The cloud formation is just awesome and so colorful. I took some vertical panos covering more sky but the workflow without LR is very clunky...
Jemini wrote:
Geoff, what do you think about the AF with 200-600 compared to A9II? I can't afford 400/2.8 or 600/4 soon. But want to see if I'm going to get a huge upgrade to AF compared to A9 (assuming A9II is similar to A9) using 200-600. I'm aware of all other advantages. Just curious about AF for wildlife action..
I need to test it a bit more. I think bare lens the 200-600 was working really well. That Hoody IF was a sequence of 20+ shots and it only missed one or two. I had some issues with the 1.4TC but I think most were heat haze related. I'll let you know more as I discover more over the next three days of shooting.
Hillrg` wrote:
After a few hours shooting with the A1 two things stand out for me: the WB seems much better and panning is easier. This Harlequin is full frame at 840mm. As you know, as they pass you have to pan faster to keep up. When a duck is this close it is near impossible (at least for me) to keep the duck centered, partly due to latency in the viewfinder. Heck, normally I'm happy if it is in the frame at all. ;*) I was shooting 30fps with the viewfinder at 240hz. I'm still not sure if the 240hz helps, but do know it sure doesn't hurt.
You may not have been seeing 240Hz. The Help Guide/Manual says that the Frame rate is restricted when in ES and continuous shooting. So I don't think we are getting 240Hz anyways.
I don't like how it backs out to 0.7x mag in that setting anyways so I left mine on High for today.
One odd thing is that I thought if you shoot 30FPS that the EVF was supposed to back out to 0.7x but mine was staying at 0.91x even at 30FPS. I double checked that I was in Compressed RAW (lossy) so that I was really getting 30FPS. Even turned on Audio signals to make sure I could hear the difference between 30 and 20.
GMPhotography wrote:
Some good shots showing some detail. Thanks
Trying to get a sense of this new sensor
The birds are good but sometimes I'm seeing over sharpening on some shots.
If you click through to my Flickr page you can see all my shots from this thread in full res. You can click once or twice onto each image in my Photostream to see the detail. Or you can click the Download Button and View All Sizes to see the full resolution. FM upload makes the shots look like mush relative to how they look in LR or on Flickr. I do like to sharpen though so it may be too much for your taste. Also most of these are cropped, cropped and cropped some more
I can’t wait for your overview/comparison with the R5. A friend of mine tries to convince me that the R5 is better value for money and A1 doesn’t have the big WOW factor to justify the price. Obviously i disagree and as I have invested in a lot of Sony GM lenses, I’m not going to switch and lose a lot of money. So the A1 is the way to go for me. I just don’t need to have any doubts in the back of my mind.
From what I have read so far BEAF is on par with R5 and this is only firmware 1.00, thus further improvement is expected. Secondly, you mentioned that the keeper rate in bursts is very high.
A more comprehensive comparison would be really appreciated, when you are ready to make it.
arbitrage wrote:
If you click through to my Flickr page you can see all my shots from this thread in full res. You can click once or twice onto each image in my Photostream to see the detail. Or you can click the Download Button and View All Sizes to see the full resolution. FM upload makes the shots look like mush relative to how they look in LR or on Flickr. I do like to sharpen though so it may be too much for your taste. Also most of these are cropped, cropped and cropped some more
arbitrage wrote:
The one's in the second set were shot in crop mode and then cropped some more.
LR says they are 6.7, 9.9,7.8 and 8.2MPs
The female buffy in my first set is only 5.6MP left out of 50
Thanks for the info. I just processed some tight crops from 24MP of female Buffleheads taken last month and found out my shots were about $ 5.3K behind .
cheers,
gil
I can’t wait for your overview/comparison with the R5. A friend of mine tries to convince me that the R5 is better value for money and A1 doesn’t have the big WOW factor to justify the price. Obviously i disagree and as I have invested in a lot of Sony GM lenses, I’m not going to switch and lose a lot of money. So the A1 is the way to go for me. I just don’t need to have any doubts in the back of my mind.
From what I have read so far BEAF is on par with R5 and this is only firmware 1.00, thus further improvement is expected. Secondly, you mentioned that the keeper rate in bursts is very high.
A more comprehensive comparison would be really appreciated, when you are ready to make it.
...Show more →
"A friend of mine tries to convince me that the R5 is better value for money and A1 doesn’t have the big WOW factor to justify the price"
Really? Many here just concentrate too much on BIF photography. The camera offers a lot more than this and it should be clear right now giving the many discussions here (which concentrate a bit too much on BIF ;-)).
Doesn't that count, too? Events, sports? What about the E-shutter performance, NO other manufacturer has so far? Flash sync in M-shutter or flicker detection + flash in E-shutter? Read out of 1/235s in E-shutter? Number AF calculation/s? FPS? Video modes and overheating performance....
A camera is more than just a single application. Nevertheless, the R5 is great value for the money and would be very high on my list in case of looking out for a system without being invested in a system and not earning my money with a specific brand. Wanting the best and extra performance always costs more.
I would add to the above the 12-bit/ low dynamic range files the R5 takes with electronic shutter. A1 even with compressed raw on 30fps has a penalty of only 0.11EV according to the recent Dpreview article.
Holger wrote:
"A friend of mine tries to convince me that the R5 is better value for money and A1 doesn’t have the big WOW factor to justify the price"
Really? Many here just concentrate too much on BIF photography. The camera offers a lot more than this and it should be clear right now giving the many discussions here (which concentrate a bit too much on BIF ;-)).
Doesn't that count, too? Events, sports? What about the E-shutter performance, NO other manufacturer has so far? Flash sync in M-shutter or flicker detection + flash in E-shutter? Read out of 1/235s in E-shutter? Number AF calculation/s? FPS? Video modes and overheating performance....
A camera is more than just a single application. Nevertheless, the R5 is great value for the money and would be very high on my list in case of looking out for a system without being invested in a system and not earning my money with a specific brand. Wanting the best and extra performance always costs more. ...Show more →
arbitrage wrote:
If you click through to my Flickr page you can see all my shots from this thread in full res. You can click once or twice onto each image in my Photostream to see the detail. Or you can click the Download Button and View All Sizes to see the full resolution. FM upload makes the shots look like mush relative to how they look in LR or on Flickr. I do like to sharpen though so it may be too much for your taste. Also most of these are cropped, cropped and cropped some more
Great shots as always! But, you get great shots with whatever you shoot with. I might have missed it, but was the eyeAF exactly on the eye for these shots or was it on the head for some?
Holger wrote:
"A friend of mine tries to convince me that the R5 is better value for money and A1 doesn’t have the big WOW factor to justify the price"
Really? Many here just concentrate too much on BIF photography. The camera offers a lot more than this and it should be clear right now giving the many discussions here (which concentrate a bit too much on BIF ;-)).
Doesn't that count, too? Events, sports? What about the E-shutter performance, NO other manufacturer has so far? Flash sync in M-shutter or flicker detection + flash in E-shutter? Read out of 1/235s in E-shutter? Number AF calculation/s? FPS? Video modes and overheating performance....
A camera is more than just a single application. Nevertheless, the R5 is great value for the money and would be very high on my list in case of looking out for a system without being invested in a system and not earning my money with a specific brand. Wanting the best and extra performance always costs more. ...Show more →
cpe1991 wrote:
Great shots as always! But, you get great shots with whatever you shoot with. I might have missed it, but was the eyeAF exactly on the eye for these shots or was it on the head for some?
I don't know. Sometimes the Eye AF showed up for the buffleheads, sometimes it was just my dancing dots of Zone AF like I get with A9II. The A1 allows focus point display in Playback (and in Sony software) and I turned it on in camera. The focus point was sometimes on the eye for flight shots but I don't trust focus point displays to be accurate. The proof is in the final images and the tack sharp on the head/eye was up there with the very best I've used (ie the A9/A9II). Is it better than the A9II? I don't know. I had the impression that it was a slightly better hit rate than the A9II but they are both so high in this type of good light and high SS that it is sort of meaningless.
One sequence that impressed me was the Hooded Merganser IF....mostly because I didn't even see it coming, I saw it out of the corner of my eye and I just spun really erratically to aim for it. I didn't even have my eye fully planted in the EVF, was sort of looking half in the EVF, found the bird and just fired...the hit rate was like 90% for just some erratic poor panning on my part.
For all the non-flight stuff the Eye-AF was right on the eye...the focus display indicator was also right one the eye in almost all of them. Foraging Dunlin was like sticking like glue. Not surprising as Dunlin was one species even the unsupported A9II could pick up the eye on.
All I ever wanted out of this camera was higher MPs with A9 AF or better. That is what I got and as soon as I test this in lower light, then the A9II will likely hit the B&S unless I still feel its lower MP sensor will be useful in lower light. I'm really hoping I will be happy with just the A1 as it really will simplify things for me.
They may have clipped. Very early on the birds in front of me were in shade and when I whipped up to try and grab the buffies whipping by/in I frantically cranked the SS up but maybe not enough.
Mr Hill.
. These are all cropped. 
