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Sony A6000


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For me Gary's video is a whole lot better than reading the manual. I now have 2 A6000, one for backup and also not having to change lens often. At the age of 72 it is a lot easier to try and master one camera and learn all the advantages. Thanks Gary!!

 

Tom :cool:

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Has anyone bought a Power Battery Grip Kit to use with the A6000? If so what model did you get and why?

 

Thanks Tom :cool:

 

Significant reason for buying the camera was for it's size.... ;)

 

Dave

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Gary Fong should be paying a commission to the folks on here recommending his video. LOL!

 

I've had it on my "to do" list to buy it and so I've just done so. Been noodling around a little and hope to use some of this weekend for a more concentrated viewing. I do think that "virtual camera" is a pretty neat tool. :)

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While I was out looking at Jupiter and Venus tonight (I hope you all have been following this great planetary display over the past week), I decided to try taking a manually focused image of the nearly full moon. I'm pretty new to manual focus and have enjoyed learning about the a6000's focus magnifier and focus peaking. So here's my first effort, handheld, f/8, 1/200, ISO 200. Shot with the 18-200 lens, at 200 mm. Just cropped, that's all.

 

Moon%20June%2029%202015_zpslmcymlhy.jpg

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I saw this, ran outside last night to give it a whirl - and the monsoon was blowing in...:(

 

Still practiced with the focus peaking and magnifier. So am I right that as I turn to manually focus and it zooms in - I don't see the peaking color until I stop focusing and it reverts back to the full view - and that is the only time you see the false color indicator? Or do I have something set wrong to not see it under magnification?

 

It was pretty dark when I was practicing so not ideal conditions to even try, but had to try...

 

On another note - going to the Diamondbacks baseball game and fireworks for 4th of July so I am looking forward to game pics - but fireworks might be a little more challenging depending on conditions (stadium lights on or off, bracing against the railing because of no tripod, etc.)

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Set your peaking to medium (yellow seems to work best for me). If you have it on light, you may not see much, if any, sparkle when zoomed. When you zoom in the detectable edges aren't as contrasty as in full view.

 

Dave

Edited by pierces
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While I was out looking at Jupiter and Venus tonight (I hope you all have been following this great planetary display over the past week), I decided to try taking a manually focused image of the nearly full moon. I'm pretty new to manual focus and have enjoyed learning about the a6000's focus magnifier and focus peaking. So here's my first effort, handheld, f/8, 1/200, ISO 200. Shot with the 18-200 lens, at 200 mm. Just cropped, that's all.

 

Moon%20June%2029%202015_zpslmcymlhy.jpg

 

Nice shot..... But manually focusing on the moon shouldn't be very challenging. Essentially every lens has an infinity focus point -- Focus is a measurement of distance. For example, you may set a lens to focus at an object 2 feet away.. or 7 feet away. Focus adjustments are very precise, down to centimeters. But you get to a point where you can't focus any further -- The infinity point. The moon, being thousands of miles away -- is well past the infinity point of any lens.

 

So when shooting objects THAT far away, you just set your lens to infinity focus and shoot. Some would say to set your lens just shy of infinity focus.

 

To really test and experiment with your manual focus skills, you need to MF on objects fairly close.

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Nice shot..... But manually focusing on the moon shouldn't be very challenging. Essentially every lens has an infinity focus point -- Focus is a measurement of distance. For example, you may set a lens to focus at an object 2 feet away.. or 7 feet away. Focus adjustments are very precise, down to centimeters. But you get to a point where you can't focus any further -- The infinity point. The moon, being thousands of miles away -- is well past the infinity point of any lens.

 

So when shooting objects THAT far away, you just set your lens to infinity focus and shoot. Some would say to set your lens just shy of infinity focus.

 

To really test and experiment with your manual focus skills, you need to MF on objects fairly close.

 

Yes, thanks, I'm aware of that. I still found it a good excerise to use focus peaking around the moon. (And I'd already been shooting close objects in my house with manual focus, but I don't think you want to see my salt and pepper shakers! :) )

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Set your peaking to medium (yellow seems to work best for me). If you have it on light, you may not see much, if any, sparkle when zoomed. When you zoom in the detectable edges aren't as contrasty as in full view.

 

Dave

 

Dave, any particular reason not to set focus peaking to high rather than medium?

 

Thanks.

 

BTW: red sparkle worked great around the moon. :)

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I found high sometimes made it hard to see details when using autofocus. If you were doing specific manual focus that required precision, high would be fine. Medium just works for me for general purpose use.

 

Dave

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I found high sometimes made it hard to see details when using autofocus. If you were doing specific manual focus that required precision, high would be fine. Medium just works for me for general purpose use.

 

Dave

 

Thanks, and sorry if this seems stupid, but I'm confused by your reference to focus peaking and autofocus, as I thought the former is only used in manual focus.

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Thanks, and sorry if this seems stupid, but I'm confused by your reference to focus peaking and autofocus, as I thought the former is only used in manual focus.

 

I leave peaking on all the time so it acts as a secondary focus confirmation in addition to the green boxes. That way I don't have another thing to set when I push the button to switch to manual focus.

 

Dave

Edited by pierces
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I leave peaking on all the time so it acts as a secondary focus confirmation in addition to the green boxes. That way I don't have another thing to set when I push the button to switch to manual focus.

 

Dave

 

Hmmm... even though I have peaking on as well (and set to high), I'm not seeing anything in the way in autofocus. Are we looking at different things?

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Hmmm... even though I have peaking on as well (and set to high), I'm not seeing anything in the way in autofocus. Are we looking at different things?

 

I only see peaking in MF and DMF modes. EDIT: And a lot of contrast in the shot.

Edited by shootr
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I neglected to mention that I shoot almost all of the time in DMF. I only switch to AF-C for sports, etc..

 

Dave

 

Ah, mystery solved, thanks Dave. :)

 

And for other newbies to this camera like me, here's a nice video tutorial about DMF from Robert Wilson. (Gary Fong's video is fine for the things he actually covers, but he skips a bunch of stuff, and DMF is one of them, as best I can tell.)

 

 

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Thanks for the website and video, How many of you shoot with DMF? Never thought of using it since the focusing is supposedly so good.

 

JOhn

 

I haven't either. I'd love to hear more from Dave about when/how he uses it.

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I haven't either. I'd love to hear more from Dave about when/how he uses it.

 

In my brief use of it so far, it acts as a second visual confirmation of what the camera is putting into focus in the scene. The camera still auto-focuses, but I can turn the focus ring to focus the camera on a different target easily if I want.

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Pretty much as shootr described. I have the autofocus area set to Zone so I can move the gross sensitivity area around with the joystick (press center button then move orange grid). This usually works for most off-center compositions but if I want to nail a specific small area like an eye or blossom, DMF allows me to finely adjust focus

 

Dave.

Edited by pierces
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