My daughters are off to Japan for the oldest daughter’s graduation. When she turned 21 I gave her an A6700, a few lenses and a Godox IT30Pro. She has taken a dozen images in the intervening ten months. Now she wants a brief bit of instruction. I’ve got her sorted with auto-ISO and exposure compensation and I think I will just have her use Auto mode when using flash and an understanding of flash exposure compensation. My question for A6700 owners is, what should I set as the highest ISO to be used in Auto-ISO mode?
No post processing such as SOOC jpegs? I’ll go with ISO 3200. However, I shoot mostly RAW and max I could go is 12800 using denoise filter either with Adobe, DXO PL 9 Elite or Topaz AI.
jojib wrote:
No post processing such as SOOC jpegs? I’ll go with ISO 3200. However, I shoot mostly RAW and max I could go is 12800 using denoise filter either with Adobe, DXO PL 9 Elite or Topaz AI.
Yes, I’m looking at RAW and using the AI noise reduction in Lightroom Classic.
When I had mine, I did some testing and found 10000 ISO to be the max highest I'd let the camera set it to when in auto ISO. Lightroom had to correct it a bit with its denoise filters, but it worked out solid for my use case which was mostly street photography - including low light. During some astro shooting, I pushed it higher but couldn't get the results I was looking for. But to also be fair, I was fairly new to shooting astro at the time.
I have mine set 100 to 6400 but but as I tend to use my A7Riv in dimmer interiors, only have a few interiors in the 4000 to 5000 range and seemed fine using DxO or Lightroom denoising. I also did a couple of outdoor holiday garden light displays some of which got to iso 6400, too. None using flash. Might want to to do some test runs to see what works for the two of you, and some refresher/practice?
What lens or lenses are you thinking of using? A faster prime might help some. A quick glance back shows those few outings were with the 18-135.
The highest ISO one is willing to use on a cropped sensor camera can be calculated from the same for a FF camera, as these relate by the square of the crop factor.
For example, suppose the "useable" highest ISO is 6400 on FF camera, then on an APS-C camera (crop factor 1.5) this is expected to be = 6400/2.25 = around 2800.
In practice, there isn't a single highest useable ISO for everything. For example, for portraits, especially environmental portraits I would personally try to use the highest ISO no larger than 1/2 the number I am prepared to go to for birds or wildlife. Human faces are more obviously affected by the loss of image quality in low light (high ISO means little light reaching the sensor). A higher ISO can be o.k. when shooting subjects that most humans are not closely familiar with and wouldn't be able to spot the loss of image quality and information.
bwcolor wrote:
Yes, I’m looking at RAW and using the AI noise reduction in Lightroom Classic.
Ok, YMMV. In my case I haven't printed in a long time and all of my images are for social media so I seldom go beyond 1200 x 1500 pixels. Having said this, I just post processed an image shot indoors @ ISO 1250 and applied noise reduction via Adobe Camera RAW and for me it looks much better than without the NR. Even for Instagram purposes.
A6700 + Sonnar 24/1.8 ZA @ f/2, 1/250 sec. ISO 1250
LR's AI Denoise is definitely your friend here. While ISO 12800 cleans up quite nicely there is another consideration that should be taken into account, that is the amount of cropping to a capture. The A6700 is only 26MP so a large crop along with high ISO is not going to yield great IQ. Small cropping on properly exposed frames shouldn't be much of an issue.
schlotz wrote:
LR's AI Denoise is definitely your friend here. While ISO 12800 cleans up quite nicely there is another consideration that should be taken into account, that is the amount of cropping to a capture. The A6700 is only 26MP so a large crop along with high ISO is not going to yield great IQ. Small cropping on properly exposed frames shouldn't be much of an issue.
I agree here. For travel (with model shoots) my 1-2 punch is the A6700 + Sonnar 24/1.8 and Fuji X100VI. The latter crops nicely then apply NR or vice versa since it is 40MP. Hoping that the A6800 goes up to 40MP.
Good information and I think 3200 ISO is a good setting for daylight Auto-ISO limit. So, will work on presets. Has anyone used stored presets in the Sony Creative App? Are they easy to use and apply?
The Sony Imaging Edge Desktop? Yes it's pretty easy to use. However, I'm used to Adobe Camera RAW/Photoshop so I just use that. With the A6700 there's the camera matching color profile available anyway.
Shot with Portrait (creative setting) As is except for straightening the horizon:
jojib wrote:
The Sony Imaging Edge Desktop? Yes it's pretty easy to use. However, I'm used to Adobe Camera RAW/Photoshop so I just use that. With the A6700 there's the camera matching color profile available anyway.
Shot with Portrait (creative setting) As is except for straightening the horizon:
Imaging Edge Desktop
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ACR
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To my eyes the IED skin colors are better. Kind of healthier. I say that as an ACR-user.
I was under the impression that the Sony mobile APP can store settings, like ISO, metering mode..etc..for the camera, or is it just storing settings for JPEGs?
bwcolor wrote:
I was under the impression that the Sony mobile APP can store settings, like ISO, metering mode..etc..for the camera, or is it just storing settings for JPEGs?
I think that is right. Check the manual/help for Creator's app. I have seen a Save Camera Settings options in there - haven't tried it though.
Folks are discussing the excellent Lightroom AI Denoise, but what has been fantastic for me is DXO PureRaw. Color preservation and dynamic range is enhanced to close to full frame levels. It's worth grabbing the trial and running some high ISO files through.
I run Fuji APS-C and Sony full frame side by side and PureRaw makes those APS-C files fit right in.
Here's a candle lit scene that is also slightly cropped where a guest was being mentioned by someone giving a toast. It was shot at shot at ISO 6,400:
Here's another photo of the mother of the bride giving a toast shot at ISO 5,000:
These were just processed with DXO, and with no denoise (DXO calls it Luminosity) applied. These were shot with the Viltrox 75mm f1.2 along side my 50mm f1.2 GM and 24m f1.4 GM. I brought the Viltrox because I knew it would perform better than a 70-200 f2.8 at these telephoto distances in very dark environments.
