Moving to Sony

[Antonio Correia]

I currently have a bunch of m43 lenses and two 5 Mk II but I am not satisfied because of the quality of the images. Not that they are bad, but rather I find the ones from Sony to be far better with more colour rendition, sharpness and so on. They just please me more to the eye that's all.

1. I am hesitating between the Sony 6400 APS-C and the Sony A7 cameras (which of the 7 is another matter). In fact the 6400 has all the necessary features which I mostly use and is sufficient for my photos but I am tempted by the 7... Perhaps it is a bit silly as the prices are not similar...

2. On the other hand I could not find (my fault for sure) an all purpose large aperture lens Sony zoom. I know I have to go and search and search. There are very good alternatives to Sony lenses, I am aware. The lenses must be E mount full frame, so I can share them with my wife if I get the 7. She wants the 6400 and she is right.

3. Last point - I am very pixel peaky and very concerned about micro-contrast which I do appreciate !

Thank you for any tips or suggestions !

[Manfred M]

very concerned about micro-contrast which I do appreciate !

In that case, I would suggest you go with Leica, not Sony. The legendary Leica look is in fact due to micro-contrast brought about by their lens design and production processes.

[Antonio Correia]

In that case, I would suggest you go with Leica, not Sony. The legendary Leica look is in fact due to micro-contrast brought about by their lens design and production processes.

Thank you Manfred ! Leica ? No way. Too expensive.
I made up my mind: I will keep the actual equipment as the investment is rather big.
The 75mm from Olympus which I own, has what I think is micro-contrast...
You may have seen this photo. It has been posted here

[Manfred M]

Antonio - you can always at micro-contrast in post-production.

Clarity and Dehaze in Lightroom and Adobe Camera Raw are effectively ways of adding micro-contrast. Just be careful how hard you push as both of these functions can end up adding halos.

Another way to add micro-contrast is to use the Unsharp Mask filter with settings of: amount 20%, radius 120 and threshold 0. This works well with my images. and I will do this in an adjustment layer using a copy of the edited image and will reduce opacity, as required. As with most sharpening, view the image at 100% size.

[Antonio Correia]

Antonio - you can always at micro-contrast in post-production.

Clarity and Dehaze in Lightroom and Adobe Camera Raw are effectively ways of adding micro-contrast. Just be careful how hard you push as both of these functions can end up adding halos.

Another way to add micro-contrast is to use the Unsharp Mask filter with settings of: amount 20%, radius 120 and threshold 0. This works well with my images. and I will do this in an adjustment layer using a copy of the edited image and will reduce opacity, as required. As with most sharpening, view the image at 100% size.

Oh ! What a precious tip ! Thank you Manfred !

[DanK]

I use one or the other of the two methods Manfred mentioned, clarity in lightroom or local contrast via USM in Photoshop, with virtually every image I process. You might want to play around with the radius setting for the USM approach. 120 is quite large. I first learned of this method in this Luminous Landscape article years ago, and I find that their recommended settings, amount 20%, radius 50, threshold 0, often gives me results I like. Just see what works best.

If you increase the clarity too much, you may find that you get halos or other artifacts. I find that a small increase is sufficient for many images.

[Antonio Correia]

Thank you Dan for the link and the extra information.
I often use Clarity and Dehaze in LR with good results. I am aware that one must be careful on the use of these tools
The first photo is a reset of the adjustments in LR while the second one is applying Clarity and Dehaze and done today, playing with a borrowed Sony A6300

[xpatUSA]

Antonio - you can always at micro-contrast in post-production.

Clarity and Dehaze in Lightroom and Adobe Camera Raw are effectively ways of adding micro-contrast. Just be careful how hard you push as both of these functions can end up adding halos.

Another way to add micro-contrast is to use the Unsharp Mask filter with settings of: amount 20%, radius 120 and threshold 0. This works well with my images. and I will do this in an adjustment layer using a copy of the edited image and will reduce opacity, as required. As with most sharpening, view the image at 100% size.

Another way to add micro-contrast is through Wavelet Processing as I have demonstrated elsewhere:



The original at left was by a gentleman who likes to soften up his images for some reason, so my edit was a bit tongue-in-cheek.

[Manfred M]

Of course, we really don't need to look too far as Sean has covered this material:

https://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tu...nhancement.htm

[rpcrowe]

Antonio... I would definitely choose the A7iii over the A7400 or the A6500...

While the tiny form factor A6xxx are decent cameras, the A7iii is superior.

I am speaking from experience as a user of the A6500. While that camera produces very nice imagery, the small factor makes it a bit difficult for me to handle. The A7 has more buttons and relies on the menu less to change shooting parameters.

The A7iii also produces better video and still imagery. I cannot quantify how much better the A7iii imagery is than the imagery from the A6500...

At first I was excited about the advent of the A6400 until I realized that it did not have in body image stabilization (IBIS). Of course, if the AF works as well as Sony touts it does, that would be a great asset in favor of the A6400, BUT, and this is a big but, most of the praise being heaped on the A6400 is from fanboys who were flown to San Diego by Sony and wined and dined by Sony. I doubt if they would be invited again if they were critical of the new camera. Almost all of the auto focus examples are those which Sony has regurgitated to the fanboys attending their seminar.

Here is my take on the A6400:

1. Sony desperately needed a crop sensor mirrorless camera to take back the lead that the Canon M-50 has gained worldwide and they needed it quickly! They also needed a crop camera that did not impact the sales of the A6500.

2. The two factors of the Canon M-50 that were hammering the Sony Mirrorless Crop cameras were the price and the articulating screen. The Canon had both while Sony had neither.

3. In the interest of speed and cost cutting, Sony lifted the ridiculous flip screen from their older A5100 and put it in the A6400 touting this as the best thing since sliced bread for bloggers. While all the while, a microphone attached to the hot shoe will block that flippy screen from the bloggers view.

4. Since Canon M-50 doesn't have IBIS, Sony did not need to put it into the A6400 in order to compete with the Canon. Since this lack helped keep the cost of the camera lower, that was the decision that Sony made. Besides, this prevented the A6400 for in-roading on the sales of the A6500. However, that leaves us in a quandary with both the 6400 and the 6500 having things to offer the user but, neither camera having the whole bag of tricks.

5. Sony does have a new processor in the A6400 and is able to achieve better continuous AF (especially Eye AF) and is also able to extend the time of video shooting (although this extension is more from the E.U. agreement about taxation of video vs. still cameras).

6. Sony will be coming out with new firmware which will bring the advantages of the A6400 type of AF to both the A7iii and A9. I personally believe that they want to try this out on a "cheapie" camera to see how it works before launching it for their two prime-time full frame cameras, the A7iii and the A9.

As far as selecting a Sony camera at this time... I might wait a bit. Sony is expected to bring out a newer version of the A6500 which could be called either the A6700 or A7000. It might be very interesting to see how the landscape looks after the introduction of that camera. If they ever get around to introducing the new camera.

I think that Sony pulled a dirty trick on he purchasers of the A6300 by introducing the A6500 right around a year after the A6300 was introduced. Most of them expected at least two years before Sony dropped a new camera on them.

I just saw an ad on the Internet (I think it was from B&H in New York City) that the A7iii is being reduced by $200 starting Sunday (tomorrow) February 3. Is this the start of something? I don't know but, I don't think that I would purchase a Sony camera within the next six months or until the successor to the A6500 comes along. It is touted as being a "mini A9"

However, the A6500 is a joy to use in many ways. I especially like the ability to use a variety of lenses. With the focus peaking, manual focus lenses are quite easy to use. I also like the Eye-AF, although the learning curve of that addition is sometimes a little steep.

Sony is amiss in not offering a decent selection of high quality small sized lenses directed towards the crop sensor users. However, Sigma has come up with several lenses that have filled that bill quite well. The 30mm f/1.4 and the 56mm f/1.4 are great lenses. The Sony 85mm f/1.8 lens, although designed for full-frame cameras, is a great piece of glass for crop sensor cameras. It is relatively small and available at a reasonable price. However all these great new lenses have one thing in common. They are not image stabilized. That is when IBIS comes into its own. Sure, we have all used non-stabilized lenses for years and years, with camera bodies which don't include IBIS. But, that was then and this is now - IBIS is the way to go...

[Antonio Correia]

To thank all of you for the kind words and effort, is perhaps too little... but what else can I do ?

Richard, you often write very useful and long posts. Thank you !

[rpcrowe]

Note: The expectation of a $200 off sale at B&H (which was reported on Sony Rumors) does not appear to be grounded in fact...

Lots of Sony information on https://www.talkemount.com/

I have been searching for a refurbished A7iii but, have not found one...

[rpcrowe]

First - here is a link to the AF System of the A6400... May not be exactly what it is cracked up to be!
http://sonyaddict.com/2019/02/04/sony-a6400-round-up/

That's what I meant about the YouTube fanboys :reviewing" the camera by regurgitating the Sony claims...

Second: Here is a link to the Sony Trade in sale:
https://briansmith.com/sony-usa-trad...-rebates-2019/

I have a 30mm f/1.4 Sigma lens (not the contemporary model) which I was offered $145 as a trade in. If I could get an additional $200 trade in bonus for that lens on the A7iii, I just might do the deal...