The "New Gear/Willy Waving" thread

Ive got a 16-35 F4 and a Canon 5DS-R arriving Friday, 50mp incoming!

Only bought it for a bit of fun, probably use it for a few weeks and then sell it on.
 
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My new Sony A7 II arrived today with a "nifty fifty" f1.8 50mm prime lens.

Been taking some photos around the house but can't wait to get out and get some practice with this.

Want to learn the basic photography fundamentals but am mostly interested in

#1 Astrophotogoraphy with interesting foregrounds
#2 Mountaineering photography for when i am out on the mountains
#3 other more regular portraits and landscapes but im not "dead set" on mastering those.

One of the first pictures taken with the camera, no doubt the quality can improve a lot and the limiting factor to this camera right now is the novice user:
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Looking forward to learning more about this hobby
 
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Loving mine, really am and the image quality really stands up well against the modern variants imo.
Agree the battery life is the worst but I got 4 batteries from the rainforest for about £40 and they seem fine.
 
Kobi said:
Nice, i've got the A7II and it's still a great camera that'll produce great quality pics. For me the biggest downside of the camera is the battery life, but batteries are cheap, so stock up on some. Enjoy!
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I am planning on picking up a couple of batteries and a couple more memory cards too!

Im not a fan of the stock sling so will look at after market ones of those and i would also like to get a new lens.

I need to do some research because as yet im still unsure on what type of lens causes what effects.

I was taking some pictures of my dog yesterday and either through my own lack of experience or due to my lens (1.8 50mm) i could not get the whole head in focus only his eyes or his nose.

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I would love to be able to take these pictures but more of the foreground sharp whilst maintaining the nice blurred background. Any lens/setting recommendations to help me to achieve this?
 
FloppyPoppy said:
I would love to be able to take these pictures but more of the foreground sharp whilst maintaining the nice blurred background. Any lens/setting recommendations to help me to achieve this?
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At f1.8 on full frame you’ll struggle to get an entire face in focus in one shot - especially at close distances.
I’d say for the whole head to be in focus you’d need to shoot at least f4 maybe even 5.6.
That will then of course lessen your background blur unless you have a good distance between your subject and the background.
 
FloppyPoppy said:
/Snip
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Yeah, that's just a shallow depth of field. So the lower your aperture(in your case f1.8) the less you'll have in focus, likewise the higher you go the more you'll get in(landscapes for example would use around f11-16). Set the camera onto A(aperture mode), where you set the aperture and everything else is auto. Take a pic of your dog/object from f1.8-6 and see the differences.
 
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So i have just been talking to my uncle who is a professional photographer to also take his opinion on lenses ect. He is a canon only user so isn't super familiar with Sony but has graciously offered me some lenses he no longer uses due to very expensive upgrades and showed me an adapter to buy to fit them onto the e mount.

The first lens is an 80-200mm m42 & the second is a Carl Zeiss 135mm f3.5 prime

He has also donated me a camera bag, tripod, strobe, variable nd filters and more

Feeling extremely fortunate right now, he completely refused to allow me to pay him for any of it though i will force him to come for a meal after lockdown.

Kobi said:
Yeah, that's just a shallow depth of field. So the lower your aperture(in your case f1.8) the less you'll have in focus, likewise the higher you go the more you'll get in(landscapes for example would use around f11-16). Set the camera onto A(aperture more), where you set the aperture and everything else is auto. Take a pic of your dog/object from f1.8-6 and see the differences.
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Thank you for the advice, i will have a play around shortly in A, ( can i still manual focus in this mode i hope? ) the advice is greatly appreciated.

GMac11 said:
At f1.8 on full frame you’ll struggle to get an entire face in focus in one shot - especially at close distances.
I’d say for the whole head to be in focus you’d need to shoot at least f4 maybe even 5.6.
That will then of course lessen your background blur unless you have a good distance between your subject and the background.
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Thank you :D i will keep all of this in mind.
 
Minstadave said:
Welcome to the team :)
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Thanks.

It is a beast of a camera, just used it as a web cam for a work meeting this morning, all kinds of praise on quality. Can't wait to go somewhere and take some snaps. The 2.0 firmware really did elevate this camera to a new level.

Also, despite Amazon customer services saying that they are not participating in the current cash back offer, I rang Panasonic and they put me through to 360Insights who are running the promo for them, 360Insights confirmed that Amazon are on the list of vendors/retailers they accept.
 
GMac11 said:
If it’s half as good as the 23mm variant you will not be disappointed.
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I did a quick iq test with it comparing to my existing lenses (on a tripod at f8 in the garden). And honestly yes your right i am not dissapointed at all.

- It performs similarly to my samyang 35mm f1.2 but with cleaner corners.
- Its not quite as sharp as the xf 27mm edge to edge.
- It is slightly sharper than the xf 18-55 in the centre and has much better corners.

I bought it for landscapes and considerign the edge to edge at f8 its perfectly suited for that, if im honest i would prefer to use the xf 27mm as its insanely sharp but using any sort of filters with that lens that arent 39mm is a nightmare.

I have a feeling i will be selling the samyang and the xf 18-55
 
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Picked up a Peak design capture and a clutch to go with my A7ii The clutch isn't the perfect fit(as expected based on their own comments on mirrorless support) but it's quite comfortable and i think with a little bit of time it will feel a lot more natural.

The capture clip however is an absolute game changer for me as i was using the in box A7 neck/shoulder strap before so whenever my partner wanted to use the camera it was a whole dance to get the strap from under my hood ( only way it was comfortable ) and on to her.

Now she can just grab it as and when she wants.

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And the capture seems extremely secure. Very happy.

Quick video for anyone who might not have seen how the capture clips work.

 
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