Official Photography Thread

[Pelado]

Got to play with my son's Sony A6000 (he mistakingly told me it was an A6300) and I am mostly impressed. It is less than half the size and weight of my Cannon 6D. Here are two shots taken while feeding the squirrels sunflower seeds at a local park:

Cannon 6D (24-105 lens, automatic settings)


Sony A6000 (3.5-5.5/16-50 kit lens, automatic settings)

What doesn't impress you about it?

[tooblue]

What doesn't impress you about it?

Pros: Mirrorless cameras are certainly the future. I absolutely love how small and lightweight it is, and the quality of video is amazing due to the built-in image stabilization.

Cons: Weirdly complex interface; too many buttons to press to get to standard manual shooting mode features. When you want to look through the view finder the digital image you are seeing is really awful, which means shooting while looking at the LCD screen is your best option. That's a good thing for me because I like to shoot (blindly) while holding the camera at chest level or at my waist, but there are times when you really need to look through the view finder, and the quality of the image in the view finder you are seeing is really that bad. Also, because it's a Sony it's not too Mac friendly. Finding your videos on the SD card is like trying to find hidden treasure. The quality of images overall is not the same—they just aren't as crisp as with my D6. Sony lenses comparable to my 24-105 cannon lens are expensive—size does matter.

There's a reason it's the best selling mirrorless camera—it's a great camera for the price.

Last note: battery life is putrid, especially in cold conditions. You should have an extra battery with you if you expect to go out shooting with it all day, whereas the battery in my cannon will go days without needing to be charged.

[eldiente]

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[beefytee]

Pros: Mirrorless cameras are certainly the future. I absolutely love how small and lightweight it is, and the quality of video is amazing due to the built-in image stabilization.

Cons: Weirdly complex interface; too many buttons to press to get to standard manual shooting mode features. When you want to look through the view finder the digital image you are seeing is really awful, which means shooting while looking at the LCD screen is your best option. That's a good thing for me because I like to shoot (blindly) while holding the camera at chest level or at my waist, but there are times when you really need to look through the view finder, and the quality of the image in the view finder you are seeing is really that bad. Also, because it's a Sony it's not too Mac friendly. Finding your videos on the SD card is like trying to find hidden treasure. The quality of images overall is not the same—they just aren't as crisp as with my D6. Sony lenses comparable to my 24-105 cannon lens are expensive—size does matter.

There's a reason it's the best selling mirrorless camera—it's a great camera for the price.

Last note: battery life is putrid, especially in cold conditions. You should have an extra battery with you if you expect to go out shooting with it all day, whereas the battery in my cannon will go days without needing to be charged.

This seems consistent with my Panasonic. The interface could be improved. Once the settings are in place though, taking great pictures and video is a snap. I don't have a problem with the view finder, but I do usally use the LCD screen. Not being the photophile though and having an older SLR, I haven't seen any drop in the quality of the photos.

[swampfrog]

First time to Pittock Mansion in Portland. First a couple of view shots.





Inside the mansion

[mtnbiker]

First time to Pittock Mansion in Portland.

That's a lot of stairs.

[swampfrog]

Stopped by the capitol building in Olympia on a drive to Seattle. Great timing.

[swampfrog]

A few of the interior









And one more from further back outside

[mtnbiker]

It surprises me how much they clear around the base of the tree.

Stopped by the capitol building in Olympia on a drive to Seattle. Great timing.

These "slides" along the stairs crack me up. How many kids jump under the railings and slide down them? And how much extra processing do you have to do to bring out details in spite of the bright backlit windows?

A few of the interior

[swampfrog]

These "slides" along the stairs crack me up. How many kids jump under the railings and slide down them? And how much extra processing do you have to do to bring out details in spite of the bright backlit windows?

Didn't occur to me to try out the slides, I'm guessing it happens from time to time. but there are always a lot of security and other adults around, so not too likely.

All of the interior shots with the windows are 3 shot HDR composites, so one of the three has detail in the windows. Same as the Pittock mansion shots. Isn't too much of an issue really. The 7D mark II shoots 10 frames per second, so I can shoot the bracket shots handheld without a tripod and nearly always they align perfectly. The "Auto" feature in the latest Lightroom is much better than previous iterations, so processing can be pretty quick depending on what I'm after.

[tooblue]

Lovely as usual Swamp

[swampfrog]

Rainy day trip to Bremerton, WA. Cleared up a bit in the afternoon for the return ferry ride. These are a clickable to see a larger version.

[Dwight Schr-ute]

I am in need some insight. On sort of a whim, I purchased a Canon EF 2X II for my 5D. I photograph lots of wildlife for work and have always felt that my 400mm was leaving me a little short. So, I figured an extender would be a relatively cheap solution. I looked at the 1.4 and the 2X before convincing myself that 2 is better than 1.4. So I finally pick it up today, throw it on for a brief trial only to discover that the autofocus doesn’t seem to work on the 2X?! Can that possibly be? WTF is this ridiculousness? I made the purchase to improve my bird game and those little bastards hardly hold still enough for me to struggle with manual focusing. Are there tricks around this or am I doomed to very close up but also very blurry photos from here on out?!


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[swampfrog]

I am in need some insight. On sort of a whim, I purchased a Canon EF 2X II for my 5D. I photograph lots of wildlife for work and have always felt that my 400mm was leaving me a little short. So, I figured an extender would be a relatively cheap solution. I looked at the 1.4 and the 2X before convincing myself that 2 is better than 1.4. So I finally pick it up today, throw it on for a brief trial only to discover that the autofocus doesn’t seem to work on the 2X?! Can that possibly be? WTF is this ridiculousness? I made the purchase to improve my bird game and those little bastards hardly hold still enough for me to struggle with manual focusing. Are there tricks around this or am I doomed to very close up but also very blurry photos from here on out?!

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I'm assuming the 400mm f/5.6L?

Which 5D? If you have the 5D mark IV, it can autofocus at f/8 at all points. The 5D mark III can autofocus at f/8 at the center point. Previous 5D will not autofocus at f/8 at all.

Return the 2X II if possible, it costs 2 stops f/5.6 --> f/11, no Canon DSLR focuses at f/11 except the new mirrorless bodies.

If you have a 5D III or IV, pick up the 1.4x III which costs 1 stop, it will turn your 400 mm f/5.6 into a 560mm f/8.

Bird photography in the wild is expensive. Cheapest entry (with Canon branded gear) is 80D + 100-400mm mk II + 1.4X, and that's still not long enough for many situations.

[tooblue]

A shot I took on my iPhone last night as my wife and I were returning home on the train after a night out on the town: