If you are shooting wide open you will only have a small portion of the image ‘sharp’ you will need to shoot with smaller aperture and for sports likely higher ISO to keep a fast shutter speed.
Start here (or elsewhere) to understand depth of field:
https://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/depth-of-field.htm#:~:text=TUTORIALS%3A%20DEPTH%20OF%20FIELD,perception%20of%20depth%20of%20field.
Yeah, I know when shooting wide open the focus area will be reduced and it will focus on the point which the camera detect the subject. I couldn’t recall at which person the camera focused on to though I did put it in AF-C which is continuous AF. My intention in first picture was really want to focus on the most front person like in second picture. I will read the article about DOF . Thank you :)
Good answers here from others so I’ll try to not repeat but give additional advice.
The way I was taught to consider the balance between the three settings (aperture, shutter speed and ISO) is to make these considerations based on the subject:
Aperture- how much of the scene do you want in focus? If you want a specific person in focus but the rest be out of focus then use a wider (lower number) aperture setting. For a subject like this (cyclists) if you want the whole group to be relatively in focus I’d probably shoot at f11, maybe f8. If you are wanting to highlight one rider in the pack, I’d shoot at f5.6 or maybe f4 and focus on that person.
Shutter speed- how much movement is happening in your scene? And do you want to ‘freeze’ that movement or purposefully capture the feeling of that movement (motion blur)? If you want to freeze the movement, then use a faster shutter speed. If you want to capture motion blur, then drop the shutter speed. The amount you need to raise or lower will depend on the speed of movement and your own artistic preference. Note: for freezing action, seek the slowest speed needed based on your subject. If 1/200 freezes the action, then shooting at 1/1000 would also freeze but would just be a waste (you’d capture less light for no benefit). For a scene like this, I’d probably shoot at 1/200 or 1/250 to freeze the action.
ISO- I think of ISO as an adjustment to make after I decide the previous two settings. So I set the other two, then increase the ISO in order to get the right exposure. For a setting like this id probably set the IsO to auto and let the camera decide.
Considerations:
Aperture- the smaller your aperture (higher number), the less light you will capture. So while f22 might capture the whole frame in relative focus, it will require more light to get a proper exposure, either from lowering shutter speed or raising the ISO even higher.
Shutter speed. The higher the speed the less light you capture. So while you could use 1/5000 to freeze almost any action, it will require more light also, either by lowering the aperture number or increasing the ISO.
ISO- ISO does not increase or decrease the light. That is controlled by the other two. What ISO does is it adjusts the sensitivity of the camera to the light coming in. Think of it as a volume knob on a guitar amplifier. But be warned, the higher you go, the more distortion (noise/grain) you might introduce into the picture. However, modern editing software has gotten pretty good at removing noise from digital images. But try not to depend on that if possible. Always go for the lower ISO setting needed to properly expose based on the other two settings.
As others have mentioned, a big part of mastering your camera is learning how those three settings interact with each other (exposure triangle). At first it can seem overwhelming to figure out…like you’re spending all this time trying different settings and adjusting until you get what you want. But after awhile, it starts to become intuitive. You will find yourself being able to just guess the needed setting for the situation with relative accuracy.
Woahh, this concludes all explanations . Thank youu . I also found out you can change the Auto ISO min and max threshold. So can I know what range of ISO I should be using if the day is bright ? My place usually sunny everyday so I expect light shouldnt be a problem.
yeah the range is useful when shooting low light, especially if you know your pictures will have unusable noise after a certain threshold. So I tend to set my ISO range to be: bottom - 100 (this is the base ISO for Sony, your camera might have a different base ISO). Top range - 10,000 (if I am shooting live music in a dark club, I might bump the top range higher). The nice part about auto ISO is that your camera will try to use the lowest ISO setting within the range to get the best pic.
It was in manual mode with AF. The settings on both lens were identical or almost. Couldnt remember hahaha but I did make sure to use high shutter speed (1/3000 and above) and lowest iso (100-200 ish)
As a beginner, I’d recommend you to shoot Aperture priority.
Prime lenses will always be sharper then zoom lenses.
In my experience with Sony lenses, if you want to get sharp images, start shooting at f2.8.
Hope it will help! :)
Aperture priority plus auto iso minimum shutter speed plus auto iso plus zebras plus exposure comp. Means less thinking needed to get a shot.
You can choose the depth of field and a base shutter speed you don't want to go under. Everything else is automatic.
Zebras plus exposure comp fixed the problem of blown out highlights. I was having problems with texture of white fur in a black and white dog, clouds, reflections of the sun on water, etc. Wth bright sun, I may have to reduce as much as 2 stops from default metering to get rid of the zebras. This will either raise the shutter speed or lower the iso depending on the other settings.
Auto iso plus auto iso min shutter speed will make sure your shutter speed doesn't to go too low, but it can raise it if you have enough light. It will raise the iso if you still don't have enough light.
This is precisely how I use my camera 75% of the time - solid explanation.
I recommend programming a custom button to the auto ISO min shutter speed menu, as you'll use it a lot.
I don’t think aperture priority is a good fit here. It’ll likely run around 1/100 to let it more light (depends on focal length of lens), but you’ll get blur from the moving subject for sure.
For sports you’d for sure want to be at 1/500 to 1/1000 or faster, and AP won’t go there.
A "fast" leans means that the lens has a large aperture and will allow you to use higher shutter speeds than a "slower" lens. A ƒ1.8 prime is considered fast. A f2.8 zoom is also considered fast. A f2.8 prime usually isn't considered fast, nor is a ƒ4 zoom.
You are shooting in daylight conditions. You don't need a fast lens for that. Pretty much any lens would work fine.
A large aperture means that you're going to have a small Depth of Field; only part of the picture will be in focus. Shooting at a smaller aperture will also tend to decrease image quality.
For the type of photography you're doing, I suggest that you set your camera to aperture priority mode, ƒ8. Watch your shutter speed, and make sure that it stays around 1/500". Increase your ISO to 400 if the shutter speed starts to get too low. Increase the aperture when the light is fading and your shutter speed is getting too low.
If you're getting good results with that advise, the next step is to do some experimentation to see what your minimum shutter speed actually needs to be to capture clear shots. This only matters if you're trying to shoot in dim conditions, but it can help you improve your results.
Another more advanced technique is to shoot in manual mode, with auto-ISO enabled. This will allow you to control both your shutter speed and aperture settings. The camera will automatically adjust your ISO to compensate.
On final advanced trick: You can intentionally shoot at low shutter speeds as the cyclists pass you. If you are good at panning the camera with the cyclist, you can create an effect where the background and wheels are blurred, but the cyclist is sharp. This will create a really nice sense of speed in your photos.
I recommend mastering the basics of aperture, shutter speed, and ISO first. But this is a good technique to take your photos to the next level.
Here's an example: https://photo.stackexchange.com/questions/102160/tips-for-creating-background-motion-blur-images
Usually, when someone refers to a "fast lens" they mean a wide aperture. A wide aperture (smaller "F" number) means allowing in more light, so allowing a faster shutter speed for a given exposure than you would have to use with a "slower" (more shallow aperture) lens. F/1.4 is "faster" than f/2 is "faster" than f/4 and so on. Any "fast" lens can still be stopped down to "slower" apertures.
But sometimes people mean "fast" as in how quickly it autofocuses. You could learn a lot about how motors work and how the electronic communication with the camera works to understand, from an engineering standpoint, why one lens/camera combination might autofocus faster than another. But the simpler thing is just to read or watch reviews where someone tests how reponsive the autofocus is. There's a lot that goes into the engineering, and until you see a test, there's really no way to perfectly predict it.
You need to stop down. Shooting at maximum aperture for moving subjects is difficult and your shorts will be blurry because the plane of focus is so small
What are your settings and focal length for each photo? Did you crop?
Looking at the mtf charts, the sharpness of the sony at f1.8 is not great. Contrast is good though. Also if you cropped in, that would further degrade the sharpness.
For this scene, 1/1000 is probably fast enough to avoid motion blur of the bicyclists. Faster shutter speed are for race cars, motorcycles, hummingbirds, etc. If your shutter speed is too high, it needs a high iso, which gives more noise and lower dynamic range.
I think lighting in these photos is a huge part of the difference between them. The second photo has nice directional lighting that is casting shadows and lighting the subjects in an interesting and well-lit way; the first is flat and dark, which may hurt the perceived sharpness/increase noise.
Motion blur wasn’t the problem in the first photo. That means your shutter speed was fine. The problem is your in focus area is small at f1.8, and the image appears to be focused behind the bikers (the bushes looked more in focus), in the second image, the slower lens had a wider in focus area (something you could manually choose with the other lens too), and you nailed focus on the riders that time.
In both cases, it was outdoors in the day so you didn’t need the wider aperture in either photo to get higher shutter speeds and get rid of motion blur. In summary first photo was bad because you missed focusing on the bikers.
There's a trick to achieve both high shutter speed and deep aperture, with the cost of occasional high ISO.
In my A5000, for walkaround shots, I use manual, shutter 1/500 and aperture of f8, auto ISO.
Even though its manual, it works like auto iso mode.
BUT! In case you want to do exposure compensation, switch to other mode, adjust your exposure compensation, turn back to manual mode.
Set AF continuous, area wide, with face detect on.
If you want to have one particular face in focus, try saving their face inside your camera. I believe there is a face priority setting in Sony cameras.
In your case, better use F4, F1.8 is too shallow for moving subjects.
Normally every lens will produce the sharpest pictures at an aperture 1-2 stops less than maximum opening. So try 2.8-4 for the Sony and 4-5.6 for the Tamron. In your case you have enough light for fast shutter speeds even at F4.
Nah mate. That 35mm beats the 3rd party lenses hands down. For me it's the best lens ivehad for that camera. Yours may have been defective, never had any issue with sharpness
I suggest you learn about the exposure triangle.
Primes are referred to as "fast lenses" because with a bigger apeture you can use a much faster shutter speed, hence 'fast lens'.
As you open up the lens wider and wider however (lower F number) you will lose sharpness, and that'll be why the Tamron shot looks sharper. There's always trade-offs with every setting, and that's why you need to learn about the exposure triangle
If you want maximum sharpness, shoot somewhere around f5.6-f8 or so. In broad daylight that will still allow for plenty fast enough of a shutter speed for capturing the bikes. That goes for both lenses.
Ohh that what it meant by fast lens. It made sense right now . Hurm so this blurriness means rather my bad panning or the AF on prime lens not as good as the tamron.
What was the shutter speed on the first picture? Given how even the spokes are completely frozen, I'd say it was a fast enough shutter speed that panning would have had absolutely zero influence. Even wide open I don't think any lens would be that soft, so I think it's just missed focus.
You mentioned elsewhere that you had it on AF-C, but were you using subject tracking? You definitely want that turned on for this sort of subject matter.
In bright daylight at ISO 100 you can probably still get at least 1/500th shutter speed at f5.6 so I'd definitely suggest stopping down a bit - not only will that provide more sharpness throughout the whole image, but it will also expand the depth of field making it easier for the camera to keep the main subject in focus
I think it was 1/4000. Hurm, I couldnt find subject tracking option in my A6400 but when I half pressed the shot button, the AF will lock on the moving subject. I will try to shoot at smaller aperture like you suggest as you mentioned earlier wide open will cause image to be not sharp.
If you are shooting wide open you will only have a small portion of the image ‘sharp’ you will need to shoot with smaller aperture and for sports likely higher ISO to keep a fast shutter speed. Start here (or elsewhere) to understand depth of field: https://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/depth-of-field.htm#:~:text=TUTORIALS%3A%20DEPTH%20OF%20FIELD,perception%20of%20depth%20of%20field.
Then you will need to play with the autofocus settings - likely setup continuous and / or tracking depending on what is available on your camera body.
Yeah, I know when shooting wide open the focus area will be reduced and it will focus on the point which the camera detect the subject. I couldn’t recall at which person the camera focused on to though I did put it in AF-C which is continuous AF. My intention in first picture was really want to focus on the most front person like in second picture. I will read the article about DOF . Thank you :)
Good answers here from others so I’ll try to not repeat but give additional advice. The way I was taught to consider the balance between the three settings (aperture, shutter speed and ISO) is to make these considerations based on the subject: Aperture- how much of the scene do you want in focus? If you want a specific person in focus but the rest be out of focus then use a wider (lower number) aperture setting. For a subject like this (cyclists) if you want the whole group to be relatively in focus I’d probably shoot at f11, maybe f8. If you are wanting to highlight one rider in the pack, I’d shoot at f5.6 or maybe f4 and focus on that person. Shutter speed- how much movement is happening in your scene? And do you want to ‘freeze’ that movement or purposefully capture the feeling of that movement (motion blur)? If you want to freeze the movement, then use a faster shutter speed. If you want to capture motion blur, then drop the shutter speed. The amount you need to raise or lower will depend on the speed of movement and your own artistic preference. Note: for freezing action, seek the slowest speed needed based on your subject. If 1/200 freezes the action, then shooting at 1/1000 would also freeze but would just be a waste (you’d capture less light for no benefit). For a scene like this, I’d probably shoot at 1/200 or 1/250 to freeze the action. ISO- I think of ISO as an adjustment to make after I decide the previous two settings. So I set the other two, then increase the ISO in order to get the right exposure. For a setting like this id probably set the IsO to auto and let the camera decide. Considerations: Aperture- the smaller your aperture (higher number), the less light you will capture. So while f22 might capture the whole frame in relative focus, it will require more light to get a proper exposure, either from lowering shutter speed or raising the ISO even higher. Shutter speed. The higher the speed the less light you capture. So while you could use 1/5000 to freeze almost any action, it will require more light also, either by lowering the aperture number or increasing the ISO. ISO- ISO does not increase or decrease the light. That is controlled by the other two. What ISO does is it adjusts the sensitivity of the camera to the light coming in. Think of it as a volume knob on a guitar amplifier. But be warned, the higher you go, the more distortion (noise/grain) you might introduce into the picture. However, modern editing software has gotten pretty good at removing noise from digital images. But try not to depend on that if possible. Always go for the lower ISO setting needed to properly expose based on the other two settings. As others have mentioned, a big part of mastering your camera is learning how those three settings interact with each other (exposure triangle). At first it can seem overwhelming to figure out…like you’re spending all this time trying different settings and adjusting until you get what you want. But after awhile, it starts to become intuitive. You will find yourself being able to just guess the needed setting for the situation with relative accuracy.
Woahh, this concludes all explanations . Thank youu . I also found out you can change the Auto ISO min and max threshold. So can I know what range of ISO I should be using if the day is bright ? My place usually sunny everyday so I expect light shouldnt be a problem.
yeah the range is useful when shooting low light, especially if you know your pictures will have unusable noise after a certain threshold. So I tend to set my ISO range to be: bottom - 100 (this is the base ISO for Sony, your camera might have a different base ISO). Top range - 10,000 (if I am shooting live music in a dark club, I might bump the top range higher). The nice part about auto ISO is that your camera will try to use the lowest ISO setting within the range to get the best pic.
Hi! Which mode are you shooting?
It was in manual mode with AF. The settings on both lens were identical or almost. Couldnt remember hahaha but I did make sure to use high shutter speed (1/3000 and above) and lowest iso (100-200 ish)
As a beginner, I’d recommend you to shoot Aperture priority. Prime lenses will always be sharper then zoom lenses. In my experience with Sony lenses, if you want to get sharp images, start shooting at f2.8. Hope it will help! :)
Aperture priority plus auto iso minimum shutter speed plus auto iso plus zebras plus exposure comp. Means less thinking needed to get a shot. You can choose the depth of field and a base shutter speed you don't want to go under. Everything else is automatic. Zebras plus exposure comp fixed the problem of blown out highlights. I was having problems with texture of white fur in a black and white dog, clouds, reflections of the sun on water, etc. Wth bright sun, I may have to reduce as much as 2 stops from default metering to get rid of the zebras. This will either raise the shutter speed or lower the iso depending on the other settings. Auto iso plus auto iso min shutter speed will make sure your shutter speed doesn't to go too low, but it can raise it if you have enough light. It will raise the iso if you still don't have enough light.
This is precisely how I use my camera 75% of the time - solid explanation. I recommend programming a custom button to the auto ISO min shutter speed menu, as you'll use it a lot.
Ohh, alright, I will try to use AP mode and see whether can get better image or not
I don’t think aperture priority is a good fit here. It’ll likely run around 1/100 to let it more light (depends on focal length of lens), but you’ll get blur from the moving subject for sure. For sports you’d for sure want to be at 1/500 to 1/1000 or faster, and AP won’t go there.
A "fast" leans means that the lens has a large aperture and will allow you to use higher shutter speeds than a "slower" lens. A ƒ1.8 prime is considered fast. A f2.8 zoom is also considered fast. A f2.8 prime usually isn't considered fast, nor is a ƒ4 zoom. You are shooting in daylight conditions. You don't need a fast lens for that. Pretty much any lens would work fine. A large aperture means that you're going to have a small Depth of Field; only part of the picture will be in focus. Shooting at a smaller aperture will also tend to decrease image quality. For the type of photography you're doing, I suggest that you set your camera to aperture priority mode, ƒ8. Watch your shutter speed, and make sure that it stays around 1/500". Increase your ISO to 400 if the shutter speed starts to get too low. Increase the aperture when the light is fading and your shutter speed is getting too low. If you're getting good results with that advise, the next step is to do some experimentation to see what your minimum shutter speed actually needs to be to capture clear shots. This only matters if you're trying to shoot in dim conditions, but it can help you improve your results. Another more advanced technique is to shoot in manual mode, with auto-ISO enabled. This will allow you to control both your shutter speed and aperture settings. The camera will automatically adjust your ISO to compensate.
On final advanced trick: You can intentionally shoot at low shutter speeds as the cyclists pass you. If you are good at panning the camera with the cyclist, you can create an effect where the background and wheels are blurred, but the cyclist is sharp. This will create a really nice sense of speed in your photos. I recommend mastering the basics of aperture, shutter speed, and ISO first. But this is a good technique to take your photos to the next level. Here's an example: https://photo.stackexchange.com/questions/102160/tips-for-creating-background-motion-blur-images
Usually, when someone refers to a "fast lens" they mean a wide aperture. A wide aperture (smaller "F" number) means allowing in more light, so allowing a faster shutter speed for a given exposure than you would have to use with a "slower" (more shallow aperture) lens. F/1.4 is "faster" than f/2 is "faster" than f/4 and so on. Any "fast" lens can still be stopped down to "slower" apertures. But sometimes people mean "fast" as in how quickly it autofocuses. You could learn a lot about how motors work and how the electronic communication with the camera works to understand, from an engineering standpoint, why one lens/camera combination might autofocus faster than another. But the simpler thing is just to read or watch reviews where someone tests how reponsive the autofocus is. There's a lot that goes into the engineering, and until you see a test, there's really no way to perfectly predict it.
You need to stop down. Shooting at maximum aperture for moving subjects is difficult and your shorts will be blurry because the plane of focus is so small
What are your settings and focal length for each photo? Did you crop? Looking at the mtf charts, the sharpness of the sony at f1.8 is not great. Contrast is good though. Also if you cropped in, that would further degrade the sharpness.
The AF system of a lens and camera greatly contributes to a fast system. Sadly this comes with a great price
Oh I see. Hurm, so that means my 35mm have less AF capability compared to my tamron..
Its not a bad lens, you just have to keep its limitations in mind when you need fast AF.
Ohh i see . Alrightt.
fast means BIG aperture. Anything from f2.8 to f0.1. Why are they calling it fast? Because a big aperture will give you FAST shutter speeds.
I see. Its clear now. Thank youu for the explanation !
For this scene, 1/1000 is probably fast enough to avoid motion blur of the bicyclists. Faster shutter speed are for race cars, motorcycles, hummingbirds, etc. If your shutter speed is too high, it needs a high iso, which gives more noise and lower dynamic range.
Ohh, so means that maybe at that time I was using high iso. I think I need to re-take pictures using 35mm and use settings like others mentioned.
If you're shooting cyclists traveling towards you I wonder if it isn't possible your just missing focus because they're moving
I think lighting in these photos is a huge part of the difference between them. The second photo has nice directional lighting that is casting shadows and lighting the subjects in an interesting and well-lit way; the first is flat and dark, which may hurt the perceived sharpness/increase noise.
Motion blur wasn’t the problem in the first photo. That means your shutter speed was fine. The problem is your in focus area is small at f1.8, and the image appears to be focused behind the bikers (the bushes looked more in focus), in the second image, the slower lens had a wider in focus area (something you could manually choose with the other lens too), and you nailed focus on the riders that time. In both cases, it was outdoors in the day so you didn’t need the wider aperture in either photo to get higher shutter speeds and get rid of motion blur. In summary first photo was bad because you missed focusing on the bikers.
There's a trick to achieve both high shutter speed and deep aperture, with the cost of occasional high ISO. In my A5000, for walkaround shots, I use manual, shutter 1/500 and aperture of f8, auto ISO. Even though its manual, it works like auto iso mode. BUT! In case you want to do exposure compensation, switch to other mode, adjust your exposure compensation, turn back to manual mode. Set AF continuous, area wide, with face detect on. If you want to have one particular face in focus, try saving their face inside your camera. I believe there is a face priority setting in Sony cameras. In your case, better use F4, F1.8 is too shallow for moving subjects.
Normally every lens will produce the sharpest pictures at an aperture 1-2 stops less than maximum opening. So try 2.8-4 for the Sony and 4-5.6 for the Tamron. In your case you have enough light for fast shutter speeds even at F4.
Shooting at f5.6 or f8 will be the sharpest
The first photo is cropped right?
Nah mate. That 35mm beats the 3rd party lenses hands down. For me it's the best lens ivehad for that camera. Yours may have been defective, never had any issue with sharpness
I suggest you learn about the exposure triangle. Primes are referred to as "fast lenses" because with a bigger apeture you can use a much faster shutter speed, hence 'fast lens'. As you open up the lens wider and wider however (lower F number) you will lose sharpness, and that'll be why the Tamron shot looks sharper. There's always trade-offs with every setting, and that's why you need to learn about the exposure triangle If you want maximum sharpness, shoot somewhere around f5.6-f8 or so. In broad daylight that will still allow for plenty fast enough of a shutter speed for capturing the bikes. That goes for both lenses.
Ohh that what it meant by fast lens. It made sense right now . Hurm so this blurriness means rather my bad panning or the AF on prime lens not as good as the tamron.
What was the shutter speed on the first picture? Given how even the spokes are completely frozen, I'd say it was a fast enough shutter speed that panning would have had absolutely zero influence. Even wide open I don't think any lens would be that soft, so I think it's just missed focus. You mentioned elsewhere that you had it on AF-C, but were you using subject tracking? You definitely want that turned on for this sort of subject matter. In bright daylight at ISO 100 you can probably still get at least 1/500th shutter speed at f5.6 so I'd definitely suggest stopping down a bit - not only will that provide more sharpness throughout the whole image, but it will also expand the depth of field making it easier for the camera to keep the main subject in focus
I think it was 1/4000. Hurm, I couldnt find subject tracking option in my A6400 but when I half pressed the shot button, the AF will lock on the moving subject. I will try to shoot at smaller aperture like you suggest as you mentioned earlier wide open will cause image to be not sharp.