HALP

>Why do my pictures look so shitty?
>Sony a6300 if it matters

Should have purchased the Fuji familia

File: DSC01751v2.jpg (940KB, 3000x1688px) Image search: [Google]

940KB, 3000x1688px

>>2954744
Yeah it was a gift, my dad just buys stuff on impulse and sends it to me. Just trying to make the best of what i have.

Another dissapointment

[EXIF data available. Click here to show/hide.]

Camera-Specific Properties:
Equipment Make	SONY
Camera Model	ILCE-6300
Camera Software	ILCE-6300 v1.00
Maximum Lens Aperture	f/3.5
Focal Length (35mm Equiv)	27 mm
Image-Specific Properties:
Image Orientation	Top, Left-Hand
Horizontal Resolution	350 dpi
Vertical Resolution	350 dpi
Image Created	2016:04:11 06:59:38
Exposure Time	1/60 sec
F-Number	f/3.5
Exposure Program	Normal Program
ISO Speed Rating	640
Brightness	2.6 EV
Exposure Bias	0 EV
Metering Mode	Pattern
Light Source	Other
Flash	No Flash, Compulsory
Focal Length	18.00 mm
Color Space Information	sRGB
Image Width	6000
Image Height	3376
Rendering	Normal
Exposure Mode	Auto
White Balance	Manual
Scene Capture Type	Standard
Contrast	Normal
Saturation	Normal
Sharpness	Normal

>>2954745

Since you replied genuinely to my truthful but essentially troll post.

The camera is alright, consider your composition and photography as creating images and not just snapping away. Your location looks ok, you could shoot on a tripod, long exposure with better composition or learn about creating panoramas, learn more about editing.

Snapshits rarely generate anything worthwhile.

File: editcrap.jpg (172KB, 1024x603px) Image search: [Google]

172KB, 1024x603px

>>2954746
Im working on composition, but things that look good through the digital (fuckkk) viewfinder never seem to look as good on a big screen. More practice I suppose.

[EXIF data available. Click here to show/hide.]

Camera-Specific Properties:
Equipment Make	SONY
Camera Model	ILCE-6300
Camera Software	LightZone
Maximum Lens Aperture	f/3.5
Focal Length (35mm Equiv)	27 mm
Image-Specific Properties:
Image Width	1024
Image Height	603
Horizontal Resolution	300 dpi
Vertical Resolution	300 dpi
Image Created	2016:01:29 08:52:18
Exposure Time	1/60 sec
F-Number	f/3.5
Exposure Program	Normal Program
ISO Speed Rating	320
Brightness	2.2 EV
Exposure Bias	-1.3 EV
Metering Mode	Pattern
Light Source	Other
Flash	No Flash, Compulsory
Focal Length	18.00 mm
Rendering	Normal
Exposure Mode	Auto
White Balance	Manual
Scene Capture Type	Standard
Contrast	Normal
Saturation	Normal
Sharpness	Normal

I've seen far, far worse.

few things to consider - you're shooting a kit lens wide open, so that's going to soften things a little. I'll reiterate the tripod advice, which will let you close down aperture, drop ss and ISO (not that the ISO seems to be a problem), and sky is brighter than land so your shots need work in post to fix the underexposure.

Also straighten stuff and crop empty bits - makes a huge difference.

Are these jpegs out of the camera?

>>2954750
that one is actually pretty ok op

File: DSC01742_v2.jpg (91KB, 1024x506px) Image search: [Google]

91KB, 1024x506px

>>2954754
Good tip on the lens, never fully realized that. Also I cropped and straightened and looks much better. Not really sure how to fix the exposure in lightzone so i just fucked with some sliders and now it looks straight out of instagram. Gonna keep working on that. And yeah, just pulled the first 2 off the card.

>>2954759
Thanks anon.

[EXIF data available. Click here to show/hide.]

Camera-Specific Properties:
Equipment Make	SONY
Camera Model	ILCE-6300
Camera Software	LightZone
Maximum Lens Aperture	f/3.5
Focal Length (35mm Equiv)	27 mm
Image-Specific Properties:
Image Width	1024
Image Height	506
Horizontal Resolution	300 dpi
Vertical Resolution	300 dpi
Image Created	2016:04:11 06:58:45
Exposure Time	1/60 sec
F-Number	f/3.5
Exposure Program	Normal Program
ISO Speed Rating	250
Brightness	3.5 EV
Exposure Bias	0 EV
Metering Mode	Pattern
Light Source	Other
Flash	No Flash, Compulsory
Focal Length	18.00 mm
Rendering	Normal
Exposure Mode	Auto
White Balance	Manual
Scene Capture Type	Standard
Contrast	Normal
Saturation	Normal
Sharpness	Normal

>>2954741
They look pretty infocus to me.

File: DSC01791v2.jpg (1MB, 3600x2026px) Image search: [Google]

1MB, 3600x2026px

>>2954765
They just dont seem all that crisp to me if that makes sense, kinda like a cellphone picture.

here is a truly horrible one, but I think thats more because I couldnt see shit to focus on

[EXIF data available. Click here to show/hide.]

Camera-Specific Properties:
Equipment Make	SONY
Camera Model	ILCE-6300
Camera Software	ILCE-6300 v1.00
Maximum Lens Aperture	f/3.5
Focal Length (35mm Equiv)	27 mm
Image-Specific Properties:
Image Orientation	Top, Left-Hand
Horizontal Resolution	350 dpi
Vertical Resolution	350 dpi
Image Created	2016:04:11 09:16:00
Exposure Time	25 sec
F-Number	f/3.5
Exposure Program	Shutter Priority
ISO Speed Rating	3200
Brightness	-11.3 EV
Exposure Bias	0 EV
Metering Mode	Pattern
Light Source	Other
Flash	No Flash, Compulsory
Focal Length	18.00 mm
Color Space Information	sRGB
Image Width	6000
Image Height	3376
Rendering	Normal
Exposure Mode	Auto
White Balance	Manual
Scene Capture Type	Standard
Contrast	Normal
Saturation	Normal
Sharpness	Normal

>>2954768
I think a lot of it is just the processing of it.

Not sure how familiar you are with lightroom or photoshop. But Definitely play around with it. I've got an a6300 and it's a fantastic camera.

>They just dont seem all that crisp to me
Can you post an example of an image you define as "crisp" I might be able to at least give you a few places to look to achieve the look

File: mota.ru-20150630127-1920x1080.jpg (219KB, 1920x1080px)

219KB, 1920x1080px

>>2954780
The details in this one are more apparent throughout the entire shot. Most of the details in my first pic seem a little blurry and not easily discernible.

>>2954741
i think this was taken with a much bigger sensor/film format.

i notice the pixel shift pics i take on my pentacks are way more crispy crust that non-pixel shift

File: DSC08451_1.jpg (616KB, 1200x800px) Image search: [Google]

616KB, 1200x800px

>>2954783
One thing that will help to get more sharpness is to change the aperture on your lens. It looks like you kept it at f3.5. Try changing it to like f8. At that setting, your lens should be at it's sharpest, and more things will also be in focus.

Not sure how familiar you are with the mechanics of photography. But definitely read up on it a little bit, just to understand what's going on when you change certain things

As for that image. That's definitely shot at a smaller aperture (like f8 or f11) you can tell because the branches in the front, and the mountains in the back are all perfectly in focus.

In lightroom, they adjusted the saturation slider and the vibrance slider pretty high, you can tell by the blues and magentas in the sky. They also did multiple exposures (to make sure the sky and ground are well exposed) or they brought up the shadows in lightroom.

The a6300 is a good camera. But trust me, people on /p/ will absolutely shit on you for having a sony, don't listen to them. I own a few sonys and they're fantastic cameras. You'll love that camera once you start getting in the the processing part of it.

Pic related is from a trip I went on. I gave my gf my a6300 to use while I was using my camera. This is the stock cheap lens that comes with the camera too, so nothing special.

[EXIF data available. Click here to show/hide.]

Camera-Specific Properties:
Equipment Make	SONY
Camera Model	ILCE-6300
Camera Software	Adobe Photoshop Camera Raw 9.6 (Macintosh)
Maximum Lens Aperture	f/3.5
Focal Length (35mm Equiv)	24 mm
Image-Specific Properties:
Horizontal Resolution	300 dpi
Vertical Resolution	300 dpi
Image Created	2016:10:27 22:48:35
Exposure Time	1.3 sec
F-Number	f/8.0
Exposure Program	Aperture Priority
ISO Speed Rating	100
Lens Aperture	f/8.0
Brightness	-0.7 EV
Exposure Bias	0 EV
Metering Mode	Pattern
Light Source	Shade
Flash	No Flash, Compulsory
Focal Length	16.00 mm
Color Space Information	Uncalibrated
Rendering	Normal
Exposure Mode	Auto
White Balance	Manual
Scene Capture Type	Standard
Contrast	Normal
Saturation	Normal
Sharpness	Normal

>>2954788
Good tips, thanks. I definitely need to learn the terminology a bit more. Might need to make a cheat sheet when I go out so I can remember all this stuff.

Glad to hear you like your 6300, Im looking forward to the day I can consistently take decent shots with it.

>>2954798
The little power zoom kit lens is very cute, but not great, it is a bit soft. Your shots aren't out of focus (apart from the night one), just a bit soft due to the lens. There may be a bit of motion blur if you view at 100%, don't be surprised, you're new and your technique for taking photos probably isn't quite up to scratch, there's guides online on how to get sharper images, and they revolve around technique rather than gear.
Most lenses are sharpest between f5.6 and f8.

keep iso as close to 100 ("base iso" for sony) as possible

For sharp shots handheld is 1/double fl, so if your lens at 30mm,you would be shooting at 1/60th or faster.

These 3 values form the exposure triangle, every "stop" is a doubling or halving of light gathered, so to go for a one stop brighter exposure you could; double the shutter speed (yes, there's as much difference between 1/4000 and 1/8000 as there is between 15 seconds and 30 seconds). Double the iso or go down one aperture value (eg, from f8 to f5.6 lower number = bigger hole = more light). To remember aperture stops it's just 1.4 doubling interspersed with 2 doubling (1.4, 2, 2.8, 4, 5.6, 8, 11, 16).

Raw processing is part of doing photography, raw files look shit straight out of the camera, they are designed to be as flat as possible to give the most possibility with editing. You can use straight out of camera jpegs, but they will look like snapshits. If you have any rl photo friends, get them to give you a crash course in lightroom and photo management, you'll thank me later.

the great thing about sony is the evf gives a preview of your exact exposure, so you never need take guesses at your settings, you have the focus magnifier so you never need miss focus, even in near pitch black with a fast manual focus lens.

The other great thing is you can get very cheap lens adapters to use lenses from any camera on it, so if your old man has an old film camera, grab an adapter and nick his lenses and have some fun.

>>2955301
not OP but I'm a beginner who just bought an a6000 as a first personal camera

When you say this one >>2954783 might have used mutliple exposures, would they just use bracketing at a certain exposure compensation number or would they focus on ground for one shot and focus on sky for another? It seems that the a6000 doesn't let you combine exposure compensation with the continous shooting mode, so is a remote fully required to avoid touching the camera on a tripod?

Are all lenses softer when wide open, or are better lenses able to have sharp zones but retain bokeh even at faster f stops?

I notice this one >>2954788 is -0.7 EV, does that need to be set in the camera or would it have the exact same effect if you reduced exposure from the raw in lightroom?

I've looked at the cheap adapters and I'm confused by having to set aperture on the lens itself. Does the EVF work with this and does the camera let you use aperture priority, let the camera set shutter speed etc or would you have to use manual mode?

>>2955608
>is -0.7 EV, does that need to be set in the camera

I believe this is what the camera was reading in that situation. Because of what metering mode it was in, it thought the scene was dark. I think I lifted the shadows a little bit in that image, but it wouldn't affect the info in the metadata.

>I've looked at the cheap adapters

I bet you're considering the rokinon lenses? If you have the camera set to aperture priority, it will still work normally, you set the apurture on the lens, and the camera will figure out the shutter speed it needs. However, you cannot use Shutter priority, because it wont be able to change the aperture.

I personally only use manual mode, I would suggest learning how to use it. You don't have to use it all the time, but just learn how, you really do need it in certain situations

>>2954741
> Why do my pictures look so shitty?
It's not a night vision camera *and* you seem to fuck up post-processing.

Try to at least do better than full auto JPEG would, eh...?

>>2954768
> here is a truly horrible one, but I think thats more because I couldnt see shit to focus on
You can see more than you can with plain eye on the viewfinder. (Maybe you still need to learn how to turn off exposure compensation at night, but you can.)

But yes, it's still too dark for anything but a long exposure.

>>2955608
> It seems that the a6000 doesn't let you combine exposure compensation with the continous shooting mode
You don't know how to operate the camera. Just use the built-in AE bracketing mode. That's what you do for getting HDR in post.

The camera also has built-in HDR, but it's certainly a bit inferior to AE bracketing and making a computer do HDR.

> Are all lenses softer when wide open, or are better lenses able to have sharp zones but retain bokeh even at faster f stops?
Sony has a lot of primes that are extremely sharp at maximum aperture, but I think more or less all are sharpest between f/4 to f/5.6. [It's just the case that you can't really see the difference on some lenses, but technically they'll be sharpest at f/4-f/5.6 anyhow].

If you want to know how lenses perform in this regard, DXO has published easy to understand lens sharpness field maps for all their tested lenses.

>>2955301
>Most lenses are sharpest between f5.6 and f8.
That's maybe on a Canon?

The camera in question will do best between f/4 and f/5.6. f/8 tends to be still serviceable, but f/2.8 is actually usually better than f/8.

> keep iso as close to 100 ("base iso" for sony) as possible
I say limit Auto ISO to ISO3200 or ISO6400 and let the camera decide (just be aware of what measurement area you picked).
Then just do aperture or shutter priority. Sony cameras are good at this, let them do it.

> the great thing about sony is the evf gives a preview of your exact exposure
At night you'll exactly want to turn that one off to actually fix >>2954768 - you'll see better than with your eyes.

>>2955770
>sharper at 2.8 than 8
No
But, any half decent modern lens will be plenty sharp enough wide open, even the tamron 28-75 2.8 is plenty sharp wide open in the centre, and can be had for under $150, pop it on a sigma mc11 and you have a fantastic little setup for not much cash.

>auto iso, not a bad idea, if i use auto i also dial in - 2/3 ev as it tends to save a lot of blown areas.

>at night turn off exposure preview
No, just crank the shutter speed or iso to focus, then bring it to where you want for the exposure.

A little tip for stars, 500 ÷ focal length is your max shutter speed, or you will have visible trails on your stars. So if you're at 50mm, 500/50 = 10 seconds exposure.

Don't worry about bracketing/focus stacking, get a single photo right before you try complicated things. Your camera is crop, so has a deep depth of field so focus stacking isn't necessary, and it has a killer sensor, take a raw, at iso 100, that's underexposed to the point you can barely make out what you're looking at, then raise it's shadows/exposure in lightroom and marvel at just how much detail you can pull from what looked like a wasted shot. Ain't no need to bracket for exposure.

>>2955780
> No
Yes. Check DXO or something, it's actually the case for the E-mount. f/2.8 is usually sharper than f/8.

> auto iso, not a bad idea, if i use auto i also dial in - 2/3 ev as it tends to save a lot of blown areas.
Sony cameras don't tend to easily blow out large areas on auto ISO to begin with, unless they'd have to make the whole image so dark you'll see nothing. It does fine by default.

Again, I get the feeling you're talking about your experiences with perhaps a Canon or something? Or an older Sony that I never used?

> No, just crank the shutter speed or iso to focus, then bring it to where you want for the exposure.
One could do that too, but it's IMO not as convenient or fast as is to focus with the exposure preview turned off and just doing test shots and watching the histogram plus the over/underexposed area indicators in the image review.

This works for long exposures too and the viewfinder lags less, plus you can see what's going on in your image at all times in case something moves.

> Don't worry about bracketing/focus stacking, get a single photo right before you try complicated things
It's not complicated. You select AE bracketing, do a burst, load that burst into your HDR software on your computer and play with sliders to get what you want. Super easy.

Just not a cure-all for all images.

> and it has a killer sensor, take a raw, at iso 100, that's underexposed to the point you can barely make out what you're looking at, then raise it's shadows/exposure in lightroom and marvel at just how much detail you can pull from what looked like a wasted shot. Ain't no need to bracket for exposure.
Uuuuh with the shots in light conditions as they were above, that's not going to work well. The sensor is good, but not THAT good.

>>2955790
>no
Centre sharpness may be up there, but edges won't be.

>sony cameras dont blow out on auto
I have a nex 3, a7 and a7ii, they all have a tendency to blow out skies.

>not as convenient or fast as test shots
A 30 second exposure takes over a minute including dark frame, you're saying it takes you more than a minute to swirl the iso dial?

>in case something moves
It's a long exposure...

>hdr is super easy
Also looks like shit, recovering shadows looks marginally less shit than auto hdr and doesn't require any faffing.

>light conditions
Light is light, your dr doesn't change with it. Doesn't matter if you're one stop underexposed in a dark room or one stop underexposed on a sunny day.

You're a standout example of the dunning kruger effect.

How hard is it to turn exposure preview on and off with a Sony?

On my Nikon I just have to press the 'OK' button to toggle it on or off.
Can't you at least assign a function button to it?

>>2955767
>Just use the built-in AE bracketing mode
I meant that it won't let you do bracketing with the self timer, not continuous. So you'd have to touch the camera as far as I can tell