Sharing my process after one year...

[Betty LaRue]

On 27/04/2020 at 01:22, Bionic said:

It sounds like you'd love the Fuji range of cameras. I have the XT3 and with physical knobs to set ISO, shutter speed and exposure compensation as well as a good old fashioned aperture ring on most lens' it feels very reminiscent of an old 35mm SLR. It was one of the main reasons I came away from Canon and think it's possible even more analogue than my old faithful Pentax ME super that I learnt on back in my early teens. It certainly brings back a lot of fun to photography

I thought the same thing, Bionic. I love the knobs, and love the WYSIWYG. (What you see is what you get) I can’t remember the last time I underexposed an image because of that. I have my histogram showing in my viewfinder, and also adjust from that. 2 fail-safes.

[The Blinking Eye]

Can someone tell me what the correct dimensions are for a standard photo? It looks like my photos are narrower than others. I've been saving them at 16:9 size. I notice RAW and JPG files differ in size.

[The Blinking Eye]

On 23/04/2020 at 02:43, Steve F said:

 

Hi Kristin, glad you're enjoying your Sony. Just to add to what John has written above:

Exposure compensation

The camera assumes that the scene it is photographing is this tone:

18% grey is also called middle grey since, as you can see above, it looks to be about halfway between black and white. Your camera’s assumption that everything averages out to a sort of dull grey is why it usually underexposes bright scenes or over exposes dark ones. The average value is either darker or lighter than middle grey, but your camera doesn’t know that. So as John mentions above, he uses exposure compensation to get around this.

 

For example, if you're photographing a black steam train, the camera will try and make it grey because it doesn't know it should be black. So you need to apply negative exposure compensation to darken the scene. If you're photographing snow, the camera metering will set the exposure so the snow looks grey - you need to apply positive exposure compensation and lighten the scene. (By the way, you'll get the same problem if you just use your Auto setting on the camera)

 

Aperture Priority

I also use my camera on Aperture Priority all the time. It is actually an auto setting still in a way, because the camera automatically adjusts the shutter speed to suit whatever aperture you're using to try to correctly expose the scene. The Aperture or F number sets the depth of field in the picture you're taking. So if you use a large aperture, say F2.8 or F2, which lets a lot of light in, the depth of field is really shallow. And this is good for e.g. portraits, because you get to throw the background out into a soft out of focus. If you're taking a landscape and you want everything to be in focus - say from some plants right in the foreground to infinity, you need to use a much smaller aperture, say F16 or F22 (you then can end up with softness due to diffraction, but that's a whole other topic!). This is one of the reasons landscape photographers use a tripod apart from for composition - if they're using a smaller aperture, less light is coming onto the sensor so the shutter needs to stay open longer and there's more risk of camera shake spoiling the image. Most lenses have an aperture at which they're sharpest and it's normally in the range f5.6 to f8. And f8ish is a good starting point for taking most pictures, depending on the light available and the depth of field you want.

 

ISO

So you've got your camera on Aperture priority, but despite having the aperture as wide as your lens will allow, there's not enough light and the shutter speed is too slow, or you're photographing a fast moving object and the shutter speed is too slow. So you can bump up the ISO to a higher number to increase the sensitivity of your sensor, which increases your shutter speed. Except at higher ISOs you get more noise so it's a compromise between as low an ISO as possible and keeping a fast enough shutter speed. Generally speaking if the light is good enough, you want your ISO set to 200.

 

 

I hope this is useful if you want to get off your Auto settings. There are other settings I use, for focussing etc. but generally that's it, so it's not all that complicated. Hoping it makes sense, there's a wealth of information on these settings online. I'm old school though so I bought and devoured a bunch of photography magazines when I started out!

Stephen

 

 

 

 

I am not ignoring you. 🙂 I just need some time to digest all this, which I look forward to doing. Super helpful and generous of you to share this info. Yes, I would much prefer a paper manual to study, which is one reason I feel so blind.

[Bionic]

2 hours ago, The Blinking Eye said:

Can someone tell me what the correct dimensions are for a standard photo? It looks like my photos are narrower than others. I've been saving them at 16:9 size. I notice RAW and JPG files differ in size.

I suppose you could argue the correct size/crop is what ever suits the picture the best but the standard for APS-C is 3:2. I must say recently though, I’ve been using 16:9 a lot more especially for landscapes

[The Blinking Eye]

13 minutes ago, Bionic said:

I suppose you could argue the correct size/crop is what ever suits the picture the best but the standard for APS-C is 3:2. I must say recently though, I’ve been using 16:9 a lot more especially for landscapes

 

Thank you! I was using 16:9 because I thought that's what the frame of the viewfinder was, but maybe it's 3:2.  I actually prefer to use whatever I see through the camera, because I am deliberately framing the image using that, of course. I find cropping doesn't usually improve on the original frame, except when my horizons are slanted.

[spacecadet]

3 hours ago, The Blinking Eye said:

I was using 16:9 because I thought that's what the frame of the viewfinder was, but maybe it's 3:2. 

You can set 16:9 in a menu (so presumably you did), but the  native AR is 3:2. The same as 35mm film. 16:9 is the widescreen TV AR. All it does in a 3:2 camera is letterbox the image.

RAWs and jpegs should be the same size give or take a couple of px. I did wonder if Sony saved the 16:9 RAW at native AR, but my A58 doesn't.

Edited May 5, 2020 by spacecadet

[Steve F]

7 hours ago, The Blinking Eye said:

 

I am not ignoring you. 🙂 I just need some time to digest all this, which I look forward to doing. Super helpful and generous of you to share this info. Yes, I would much prefer a paper manual to study, which is one reason I feel so blind.

Hi Kristin, nice to feel wanted 😇 It was a steep learning curve for me, but it just comes naturally now. I much prefer books or magazines, there's so much information online and on YouTube it's easy to get lost. To be honest, you can sort out exposure compensation post processing, but I think it's best to try and take as good a photo as you can in the field so you don't have to spend more time in front of a computer!

 

What lenses do you have? You can try playing around with depth of field at home. If you zoom in as much as you can with a lens on an object and set as low an F number as your lens gives you (F4.5 or lower), you should be able to throw the background nicely out of focus. It's a nice effect to separate the background from the subject, particularly if the background is very distracting. I believe the dial on the top right of your A6000 should control your F number when you're in aperture priority mode.

Steve

Edited May 5, 2020 by Steve F

[The Blinking Eye]

10 hours ago, Steve F said:

Hi Kristin, nice to feel wanted 😇 It was a steep learning curve for me, but it just comes naturally now. I much prefer books or magazines, there's so much information online and on YouTube it's easy to get lost. To be honest, you can sort out exposure compensation post processing, but I think it's best to try and take as good a photo as you can in the field so you don't have to spend more time in front of a computer!

 

What lenses do you have? You can try playing around with depth of field at home. If you zoom in as much as you can with a lens on an object and set as low an F number as your lens gives you (F4.5 or lower), you should be able to throw the background nicely out of focus. It's a nice effect to separate the background from the subject, particularly if the background is very distracting. I believe the dial on the top right of your A6000 should control your F number when you're in aperture priority mode.

Steve

 

Oh my god! I've never used that silver knob!!!

 

Really good point about not spending time in front of the computer. I would much prefer to have my photos be upload-ready straight out of the camera. I notice I usually have to up the contrast in the editing software. Which brings me to the topic of monitor calibration! (ugh)

 

I have the 16-50 and the 50-200 lenses.

[AlexG]

Hi Kristin,

The full size image is at the ratio of the sensor, so 3:2 most likely. 16:9 means the image is redimensioned by the camera, something is chopped off from the height of the image. I would put the maximum possible image here, and buyers can always crop it. Maybe crop only if you are removing some distractions, or use the wider ratio for specific impact (more panoramic feel).

 

Best regards

 

Alex g.

[Harry Harrison]

Incidentally, since we're almost on that topic,  the 16:9 aspect ratio corresponds to 1.78:1, so not quite panoramic in Alamy terms. If you want your images to be included by the main Alamy Image > Panoramic filter then the aspect ratio has to be 2:1 or over so you'll need to crop a little more in Post Processing. If you are using Lightroom then you can set the crop tool to 2:1 aspect ratio by creating a custom crop, I daresay other programs are similar.

[The Blinking Eye]

On 05/05/2020 at 03:01, spacecadet said:

You can set 16:9 in a menu (so presumably you did), but the  native AR is 3:2. The same as 35mm film. 16:9 is the widescreen TV AR. All it does in a 3:2 camera is letterbox the image.

RAWs and jpegs should be the same size give or take a couple of px. I did wonder if Sony saved the 16:9 RAW at native AR, but my A58 doesn't.

 

Thank you! Geez I should know these things. My film school education has gotten rusty. 35mm and widescreen TV are the terms I know. However, my RAW and jpegs are very different ratios, which is why I got confused. I will check the settings in my camera! I think the RAW must be 3:2 and the jpegs are 16:9. When I was editing the RAW file, I was finding that I had to recreate the the original frame that I shot!

[The Blinking Eye]

4 hours ago, AlexG said:

Hi Kristin,

The full size image is at the ratio of the sensor, so 3:2 most likely. 16:9 means the image is redimensioned by the camera, something is chopped off from the height of the image. I would put the maximum possible image here, and buyers can always crop it. Maybe crop only if you are removing some distractions, or use the wider ratio for specific impact (more panoramic feel).

 

Best regards

 

Alex g.

 

My confusion comes from the fact that my RAW and jpegs are saving at different ratios so I will check the settings on my camera. Thank you.

[The Blinking Eye]

3 hours ago, Harry Harrison said:

Incidentally, since we're almost on that topic,  the 16:9 aspect ratio corresponds to 1.78:1, so not quite panoramic in Alamy terms. If you want your images to be included by the main Alamy Image > Panoramic filter then the aspect ratio has to be 2:1 or over so you'll need to crop a little more in Post Processing. If you are using Lightroom then you can set the crop tool to 2:1 aspect ratio by creating a custom crop, I daresay other programs are similar.

 

I haven't gotten so far as to notice the panoramic filter but good to know, thank you! I always learn so much in this forum.

[AlexG]

4 minutes ago, The Blinking Eye said:

 

My confusion comes from the fact that my RAW and jpegs are saving at different ratios so I will check the settings on my camera. Thank you.

I believe the raw will always be the full native resolution/ratio. That's why when you set your camera to b&w, or choose different color temperature, the jpeg will implement that but the raw will still have a different color temperature. The raw is uncorrected, and I suspect that applies to the size of the image.

[The Blinking Eye]

1 minute ago, AlexG said:

I believe the raw will always be the full native resolution/ratio. That's why when you set your camera to b&w, or choose different color temperature, the jpeg will implement that but the raw will still have a different color temperature. The raw is uncorrected, and I suspect that applies to the size of the image.

 

Aha, interesting, I didn't realize that the two could differ in other ways as well.

[AlexG]

3 minutes ago, The Blinking Eye said:

 

Aha, interesting, I didn't realize that the two could differ in other ways as well.

And it may depend on the camera make, but we both have Sonys.

B&W photos display in b&w in the thumbnail on my computer, but when I open the raw in Capture One, it is full color, I can edit it anyway I want.

[spacecadet]

12 hours ago, AlexG said:

I believe the raw will always be the full native resolution/ratio. That's why when you set your camera to b&w, or choose different color temperature, the jpeg will implement that but the raw will still have a different color temperature. The raw is uncorrected, and I suspect that applies to the size of the image.

When my A58 is set to 16:9 the RAW saves at 16:9 as well.

Edited May 7, 2020 by spacecadet

[Steve F]

On 05/05/2020 at 23:33, The Blinking Eye said:

 

Oh my god! I've never used that silver knob!!!

 

Really good point about not spending time in front of the computer. I would much prefer to have my photos be upload-ready straight out of the camera. I notice I usually have to up the contrast in the editing software. Which brings me to the topic of monitor calibration! (ugh)

 

I have the 16-50 and the 50-200 lenses.

Hey,

I guess using photos straight out of the camera depends how good the JPEGs are that it generates. I tend to photograph a lot of buildings so I find it really important to sort out distortion (like converging verticals) on the raw file. Plus getting rid of dust spots and changing the saturation and contrast as you mention etc..

 

The 16-50 looks like a fun pancake lens. You'll probably get more joy throwing the background out of focus with your telephoto at 200mm. Is it the 55-210mm f4.5-6.3? It's an image stabilised lens, but you need to switch this setting on within the camera menu apparently.

[Harry Harrison]

1 hour ago, spacecadet said:

When my A58 is set to 16:9 the RAW saves at 16:9 as well.

That's weird isn't it? That may be a Sony oddity, I haven't read all of this very, very long thread but I think the gist of it is that the RAW files are the same size no matter what the crop but Sony imposes the crop on the RAW file and prevents you from undoing it without some kind of workaround. It seems that the information outside of the 16:9 crop is still in the RAW file.

 

https://www.dpreview.com/forums/thread/3909790

[spacecadet]

1 hour ago, Harry Harrison said:

That's weird isn't it? That may be a Sony oddity, I haven't read all of this very, very long thread but I think the gist of it is that the RAW files are the same size no matter what the crop but Sony imposes the crop on the RAW file and prevents you from undoing it without some kind of workaround. It seems that the information outside of the 16:9 crop is still in the RAW file.

 

https://www.dpreview.com/forums/thread/3909790

I obviously didn't post the reply I intended to. Too busy photographing spoons.

When set to 16:9 the RAW is saved at 3:2, but displays at 16:9 and shows as "cropped" to 16:9 in Lightroom. Click on the crop tool and, hey presto, the 16:9 crop window shows and you can recrop to 3:2. Just like that. jpegs have the 16:9 baked in.

So OP is quite right. Her RAWS and jpegs are different sizes.

Edited May 7, 2020 by spacecadet

[Harry Harrison]

21 minutes ago, spacecadet said:

When set to 16:9 the RAW is saved at 3:2, but displays at 16:9 and shows as "cropped" to 16:9 in Lightroom. Click on the crop tool and, hey presto, the 16:9 crop window shows and you can recrop to 3:2.

Yes, that sounds like normal then. The person in the thread with the Nex-7 couldn't seem to do that in ACR on OSX judging by the post. 

[The Blinking Eye]

Indeed I had the camera set at 16:9 and that's why the RAW image was a different size. Thanks all for teaching me a new thing! But 🤔 I feel like I prefer the 16:9 ratio now... Does it matter in terms of sales? I guess I'll go back to 3:2 but it seems to leave too much head and floor room now that I'm used to the other size, which seems to have more potential for dramatic composition. I am fussy about my framing lately...seems to make all the difference between a good shot and a great shot.

Edited May 13, 2020 by The Blinking Eye

[Harry Harrison]

5 hours ago, The Blinking Eye said:

Does it matter in terms of sales?

Not sure there's a clear answer to that but I think that AlexG is probably right in that you can let the buyer decide how to crop and leave your image uncropped at 3:2 provided you're not including anything distracting, trouble is since you're composing to 16:9 you may well have distractions top or bottom. I don't know what camera you are using but the electronic viewfinder and rear screen will have just been showing you the 16:9 view. Since you've been shooting RAW why not revisit the pictures you've taken and see how they work uncropped. As I said above you might consider a more extreme 2:1 crop for some shots. Apart from TV the 16:9 aspect ration is the default for Iphones which is probably why it seems familiar these days.

[The Blinking Eye]

8 hours ago, Harry Harrison said:

... the 16:9 aspect ration is the default for Iphones which is probably why it seems familiar these days.

 

Aha!! That is probably why I'm so used to 16:9. I'll try shooting 3:2 for a while and just think of it as 35mm.

[Marianne]

Though you shoot a wide variety of subjects, your edgy authentic eye comes through in all of them. Your concern for the people you are photographing also comes through, Keep up the good work!