Over my Head in the Sony DLSR Swamp
July 26, 2015 7:18 PM Subscribe
7 months ago I bought a Sony A7II DLSR camera. Though I knew there was a steep learning curve going in, I still haven't mastered the thing. I need some resources (hopefully a class) that will allow me to learn how to take non-grainy pics with this camera.
To date I have purchased a guide book on Amazon and bought Gary Fong's visual guide to the camera features. They have been only slightly helpful. I am having problems getting the autofocus to work correctly every time and getting the auto ISO to produce non-grainy low light pictures. I could run the whole camera in automatic mode but I didn't buy this camera to do point and shoot. Nikon offers classes, if Sony does I can't find them. Please help.
To date I have purchased a guide book on Amazon and bought Gary Fong's visual guide to the camera features. They have been only slightly helpful. I am having problems getting the autofocus to work correctly every time and getting the auto ISO to produce non-grainy low light pictures. I could run the whole camera in automatic mode but I didn't buy this camera to do point and shoot. Nikon offers classes, if Sony does I can't find them. Please help.
Not a Sony user, but ... just use it, experiment with different settings, make sure you know how it works (read the manual, understand it). Check out the Sony forum at Dpreviewdotcom. Are you a skilled photographer who understands the technical aspects of photography - aperture/ISO/shutter speed relationships, if not you may need to go there and make sure you are on top of that.
I will leave the rest to the Sony shooters.
posted by GeeEmm at 7:44 PM on July 26, 2015
I will leave the rest to the Sony shooters.
posted by GeeEmm at 7:44 PM on July 26, 2015
I bought a Sony mirrorless camera a couple of years ago (NEX something-or-another)—it was my first time using anything more complicated than a point-and-shoot. What really helped me learn my way around was forcing myself to use it with auto-everything turned off. In my case, my hand was forced—I bought some extremely cheap vintage lenses and adapters, and they only work in manual mode.
It helped me because as long as some things were automatic I could never really experiment—it was like working without a control group, so that I couldn't really know for sure what my adjustments were doing. With everything manual, each setting (and what it did) became intuitive much faster than I was expecting. The Focus Peak setting really helps, of course—I don't think I could manually focus the camera without it. (If you haven't tried it yet, it just highlights the high-contrast areas in your viewfinder, so you can see what you've got the camera focused on.)
I can't really help with the autofocus specifically, because I don't get to use it very much, but I think giving yourself some time to take some easy (i.e. mostly stationary) shots while controlling everything, and doing it in a variety of situations—daylight, dusk, indoors, etc.—will help you think in tune with the camera, and anticipate what it's going to do after you turn pieces of the autopilot back on.
posted by Polycarp at 7:51 PM on July 26, 2015
It helped me because as long as some things were automatic I could never really experiment—it was like working without a control group, so that I couldn't really know for sure what my adjustments were doing. With everything manual, each setting (and what it did) became intuitive much faster than I was expecting. The Focus Peak setting really helps, of course—I don't think I could manually focus the camera without it. (If you haven't tried it yet, it just highlights the high-contrast areas in your viewfinder, so you can see what you've got the camera focused on.)
I can't really help with the autofocus specifically, because I don't get to use it very much, but I think giving yourself some time to take some easy (i.e. mostly stationary) shots while controlling everything, and doing it in a variety of situations—daylight, dusk, indoors, etc.—will help you think in tune with the camera, and anticipate what it's going to do after you turn pieces of the autopilot back on.
posted by Polycarp at 7:51 PM on July 26, 2015
Two bits of advice for you, they don't answer your question in terms of courses, forgive me.
1. Turn off auto ISO. It's just shite in virtually every camera manufacturer, and Sony has in particular copped some crap for it. Ugh it's horrible. And with the staggering dynamic range offered by the A7II, you will be able to pull up virtually anything that's too dark in postprocessing, even just picasa will do it.. Set your ISO at, say, 400 for day time, 800-1600 at night and forget about it - those settings will get everything you need.
2. It's kind of old school of me, but goddamnit it works. I pretty much exclusively use single point AF, centre-orientated 90% of the time. What does this mean? My camera focuses on whatever is right in the middle of the camera (i.e what I'm pointing it at). What do I do if my subject is, say, to the left of centre? I point my camera at them, half press the button to focus, reframe my shot, and then press the button all the way. Nearly everyone used to focus like this, once upon a time.
On your (And my) camera, you can change this focus point by simply tapping on the screen to focus on the element you want, as well.
I shot in M 90% of the time, but if you want to use other modes, I tend to use centre-weighted metering, too (ie, exposure is set based on what you're focusing on, not the whole scene).
posted by smoke at 8:16 PM on July 26, 2015 [2 favorites]
1. Turn off auto ISO. It's just shite in virtually every camera manufacturer, and Sony has in particular copped some crap for it. Ugh it's horrible. And with the staggering dynamic range offered by the A7II, you will be able to pull up virtually anything that's too dark in postprocessing, even just picasa will do it.. Set your ISO at, say, 400 for day time, 800-1600 at night and forget about it - those settings will get everything you need.
2. It's kind of old school of me, but goddamnit it works. I pretty much exclusively use single point AF, centre-orientated 90% of the time. What does this mean? My camera focuses on whatever is right in the middle of the camera (i.e what I'm pointing it at). What do I do if my subject is, say, to the left of centre? I point my camera at them, half press the button to focus, reframe my shot, and then press the button all the way. Nearly everyone used to focus like this, once upon a time.
On your (And my) camera, you can change this focus point by simply tapping on the screen to focus on the element you want, as well.
I shot in M 90% of the time, but if you want to use other modes, I tend to use centre-weighted metering, too (ie, exposure is set based on what you're focusing on, not the whole scene).
posted by smoke at 8:16 PM on July 26, 2015 [2 favorites]
This is my "photography on baby's first DSLR in 10 minutes" run down....
Taking a photo is capturing light, and light = data. This light has to pass through 3 bottlenecks before it gets recorded in your camera. Every step has an option of maximizing the light passing through it, but at a cost.
1) Aperture (size of the hole that lets light in). Larger aperture means more light, but the tradeoff is that less and less of your picture will be in focus.
2) Shutter speed (how long you capture the light for). Longer exposure means more light, but the tradeoff is that moving objects become blurred, or the entire picture becomes blurred if you can't hold the camera steady.
3) Sensor ISO (how much gain you give the sensor). Higher ISO means more light, but the tradeoff is noise and grain.
Controlling those 3 settings sets up the exposure, too much light = overexposed. Too little light = underexposed. Humans can't reliably tell how much light is actually available since your eyes compensate for it.
A camera in full auto mode sets all 3 settings for you, but it may not be the settings you want. A camera in full manual mode requires you to set all 3 yourself, and it's labourious to achieve the correct exposure.
Most DSLR users shoot in "semi-auto" modes with restricted ISO and shutter speed ranges. The two common modes are Aperture Priority (labelled A on your camera) and Shutter Priority (labelled S or T on your camera, T for time).
Aperture Priority = you set the aperture, the camera fiddles with shutter speed and ISO to maintain correct exposure. This is when you want to control what areas of the picture are in focus and not in focus, and there's little motion going on.
Shutter Priority = you set the shutter speed, the camera fiddles with aperture and ISO to maintain correct exposure. This is when you need to control the sharpness or motion blur for moving objects.
In the main camera settings, you can set a "maximum" camera ISO and maximum shutter speed as hard limits. For example, if you find the noise and grain beyond ISO1600 unacceptable, you can set that as your limit. If your camera simply can't get enough light in at ISO1600 it will just go ahead and shoot the image as underexposed, but it will warn you first. Same for shutter speed limits.
A common default behaviour of autofocus behaviour is to use multipoint focusing (you'll see the camera pick 12 points) and then the camera usually locks onto the nearest of the 12 points, reasoning that the subject is the closest thing to you, which it sometimes isn't - as a result you end up with a blurred subject. Most DSLR users prefer to change this to single point focusing (one single dot in the center) and then manually set the focus / exposure point by half-depressing the shutter, before moving the viewfinder to the final framing. This allows you to know exactly where the focus plane is rather than relying on the camera to choose between the 12 focus points it has.
In both automatic and semi-automatic modes the camera chooses the correct exposure and white balance for you according to some algorithmic logic. It's not always correct. You can always do better than it. But don't worry about it while you're shooting, that's why we shoot in RAW. DSLRs nowadays capture so much information that getting the exposure and white balance correct is not so important while shooting because it can be corrected during the RAW processing stage - within reason, of course.
Here's how the workflow should really be. Shoot everything in automatic as a beginner, then look through your photos, comparing them with "great" photos taken by professionals, and identify the differences.
Most of time it will be things like composition - getting the subjects and backgrounds right.
Other times it will be exposure and color balance issues - which you can manipulate in your own time in the RAW file (within reason) at your leisure afterwards to try emulate it.
Only in some cases will it be settings you needed manual control over during the shooting process, where fully automatic shooting failed you. For example:
1) You see a good photo of a model with very good subject / background separation (face looks really sharp, background looks blurred). The photo you took has everything equally sharp. This is where you want to max out your aperture size to reduce the depth of field, so you should shoot in aperture priority with maximum aperture.
2) You see a good night shot of a river with mirror smooth water reflecting the city skyline perfectly. But when you shoot it the water is messy and full of waves and ugly reflections. This is when you want to increase your shutter speed, to say 30 seconds, so the waves in the lake cancel themselves out and give you the averaged reflection of the city skyline and it looks mirror smooth, so you shoot in Shutter Priority.
There are numerous cases, I just realised I can't list them all... usually you'll figure it out by looking at the comparison, and if you can't, just post them side by side and ask a more experienced photographer.
posted by xdvesper at 8:25 PM on July 26, 2015 [10 favorites]
Taking a photo is capturing light, and light = data. This light has to pass through 3 bottlenecks before it gets recorded in your camera. Every step has an option of maximizing the light passing through it, but at a cost.
1) Aperture (size of the hole that lets light in). Larger aperture means more light, but the tradeoff is that less and less of your picture will be in focus.
2) Shutter speed (how long you capture the light for). Longer exposure means more light, but the tradeoff is that moving objects become blurred, or the entire picture becomes blurred if you can't hold the camera steady.
3) Sensor ISO (how much gain you give the sensor). Higher ISO means more light, but the tradeoff is noise and grain.
Controlling those 3 settings sets up the exposure, too much light = overexposed. Too little light = underexposed. Humans can't reliably tell how much light is actually available since your eyes compensate for it.
A camera in full auto mode sets all 3 settings for you, but it may not be the settings you want. A camera in full manual mode requires you to set all 3 yourself, and it's labourious to achieve the correct exposure.
Most DSLR users shoot in "semi-auto" modes with restricted ISO and shutter speed ranges. The two common modes are Aperture Priority (labelled A on your camera) and Shutter Priority (labelled S or T on your camera, T for time).
Aperture Priority = you set the aperture, the camera fiddles with shutter speed and ISO to maintain correct exposure. This is when you want to control what areas of the picture are in focus and not in focus, and there's little motion going on.
Shutter Priority = you set the shutter speed, the camera fiddles with aperture and ISO to maintain correct exposure. This is when you need to control the sharpness or motion blur for moving objects.
In the main camera settings, you can set a "maximum" camera ISO and maximum shutter speed as hard limits. For example, if you find the noise and grain beyond ISO1600 unacceptable, you can set that as your limit. If your camera simply can't get enough light in at ISO1600 it will just go ahead and shoot the image as underexposed, but it will warn you first. Same for shutter speed limits.
A common default behaviour of autofocus behaviour is to use multipoint focusing (you'll see the camera pick 12 points) and then the camera usually locks onto the nearest of the 12 points, reasoning that the subject is the closest thing to you, which it sometimes isn't - as a result you end up with a blurred subject. Most DSLR users prefer to change this to single point focusing (one single dot in the center) and then manually set the focus / exposure point by half-depressing the shutter, before moving the viewfinder to the final framing. This allows you to know exactly where the focus plane is rather than relying on the camera to choose between the 12 focus points it has.
In both automatic and semi-automatic modes the camera chooses the correct exposure and white balance for you according to some algorithmic logic. It's not always correct. You can always do better than it. But don't worry about it while you're shooting, that's why we shoot in RAW. DSLRs nowadays capture so much information that getting the exposure and white balance correct is not so important while shooting because it can be corrected during the RAW processing stage - within reason, of course.
Here's how the workflow should really be. Shoot everything in automatic as a beginner, then look through your photos, comparing them with "great" photos taken by professionals, and identify the differences.
Most of time it will be things like composition - getting the subjects and backgrounds right.
Other times it will be exposure and color balance issues - which you can manipulate in your own time in the RAW file (within reason) at your leisure afterwards to try emulate it.
Only in some cases will it be settings you needed manual control over during the shooting process, where fully automatic shooting failed you. For example:
1) You see a good photo of a model with very good subject / background separation (face looks really sharp, background looks blurred). The photo you took has everything equally sharp. This is where you want to max out your aperture size to reduce the depth of field, so you should shoot in aperture priority with maximum aperture.
2) You see a good night shot of a river with mirror smooth water reflecting the city skyline perfectly. But when you shoot it the water is messy and full of waves and ugly reflections. This is when you want to increase your shutter speed, to say 30 seconds, so the waves in the lake cancel themselves out and give you the averaged reflection of the city skyline and it looks mirror smooth, so you shoot in Shutter Priority.
There are numerous cases, I just realised I can't list them all... usually you'll figure it out by looking at the comparison, and if you can't, just post them side by side and ask a more experienced photographer.
posted by xdvesper at 8:25 PM on July 26, 2015 [10 favorites]
As a beginner, the key for me was eliminating as many variables as possible. I almost always shot in aperture-priority mode and shot at f/1.8. I used a prime lens, but if I used a zoom I would probably stick to one focal length. You'll end up taking some crappy photos during this learning stage but I think it's way more useful than sticking to auto mode. My point is focus one thing at a time, and once you feel you have a good understanding of it learn another aspect. Aperture -> ISO -> Shutter speed is the path I ended up taking.
I assume you're using the kit lens, which apparently goes down to f/3.5. This is really not that great for low light shooting. With your aperture constrained, and assuming you want lower ISO, the only other way to take bright photos is a longer shutter speed. Obviously this is not practical for photographing things that are moving, and once you get down to 1/30 you have to worry a lot about holding the camera still. If you're willing to spend money to solve the problem, then a brighter prime lens would go a long way.
You can also attack this from the other angle. Shoot in RAW and learn a postprocessing app like Lightroom. You can salvage a lot of dark and noisy photos by bumping up exposure and using noise reduction. It won't look as good as low ISO photos but you'd be surprised how good it can end up looking.
posted by rq at 12:01 AM on July 27, 2015 [1 favorite]
I assume you're using the kit lens, which apparently goes down to f/3.5. This is really not that great for low light shooting. With your aperture constrained, and assuming you want lower ISO, the only other way to take bright photos is a longer shutter speed. Obviously this is not practical for photographing things that are moving, and once you get down to 1/30 you have to worry a lot about holding the camera still. If you're willing to spend money to solve the problem, then a brighter prime lens would go a long way.
You can also attack this from the other angle. Shoot in RAW and learn a postprocessing app like Lightroom. You can salvage a lot of dark and noisy photos by bumping up exposure and using noise reduction. It won't look as good as low ISO photos but you'd be surprised how good it can end up looking.
posted by rq at 12:01 AM on July 27, 2015 [1 favorite]
Simplify. Doing everything (aperture, shutter speed, exposure, focus) at once is confusing. Seconding Smoke's advice, and adding: Shoot in Aperture priority mode. So:
1. Set your ISO based on how much light there is. Less light = higher ISO.
2. Use the center focus point.
3. Use aperture priority mode.
Then the primary thing you'll need to worry about now is just aperture/depth of field instead of everything all at once.
The last thing I'd say is that if you're trying to focus at night or in very low light, manual focus often will work better. Also, if you're handholding the camera in low light, make sure that the issues you're seeing are focus and not camera shake problems.
posted by cnc at 12:16 PM on July 27, 2015
1. Set your ISO based on how much light there is. Less light = higher ISO.
2. Use the center focus point.
3. Use aperture priority mode.
Then the primary thing you'll need to worry about now is just aperture/depth of field instead of everything all at once.
The last thing I'd say is that if you're trying to focus at night or in very low light, manual focus often will work better. Also, if you're handholding the camera in low light, make sure that the issues you're seeing are focus and not camera shake problems.
posted by cnc at 12:16 PM on July 27, 2015
For any Sony camera, Gary Friedman is the go to source. He has a book specifically for most Sony cameras and for yours here. He will recommend default settings, reasons why, walk through every feature with examples. They are really great guides in my view.
posted by Admira at 10:37 PM on July 28, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by Admira at 10:37 PM on July 28, 2015 [1 favorite]
« Older One day - an Ozark Trail Thru Hike | Great housecleaning services in Harlem needed on... Newer »
This thread is closed to new comments.
Still, there are some general tips:
Sony does a few things automatically that can cause problems. For instance, the minimum shutter speed before beginning to increase ISO is only 1/60th of a second. That's far too slow to freeze any sort of movement that isn't a tortoise or snail.
If the photographs you're taking are too grainy, it's likely that the maximum ISO is set too high, with predictable results.
You can change both of these settings in camera (IIRC, I can't check the minimum shutter speed setting right now).
As for autofocus, I'd recommend a few things:
1. Set your autofocus mode to DMF (which Sony has broken, but that's another issue altogether). This will allow you to manually adjust focus after the camera locks focus.
2. Turn on Focus Peaking to see the areas of highest contrast in the potential picture.
3. Turn off the Focus Assist Light. I have yet to observe it assist in gaining correct focus.
You may also be well served to begin using a post-processing software (like Lightroom) to do noise reduction on low light photos, as Sony's noise reduction algorithm is pretty awful.
If you can link to a photograph that exhibits the problems you are trying to solve, we may be able to help more.
N.B. I currently do most of my shooting with a Sony A7, so most of this should apply. If you want any help setting your camera up, feel free to memail me.
posted by builderofscience at 7:38 PM on July 26, 2015 [2 favorites]