SONY or Nikon File?

[Arthur Morris]

Is this file a SONY A9 file or a Nikon D850 file? All comments on sharpness, IQ, and FFD are welcome.

What focal length?

with love, artie

[John Mack]

I don't know if this is a Sony,Nikon or even Canon file. But i do know it is sharp with very nice detail. The background compliments the bird very well. What is FFD?

[Krishna Prasad kotti]

Simple and nice. Like the colors on the eyes and Bill.

TFS

[arash_hazeghi]

nice details Artie, would run NR on the BG.

impossible to tell from a web JPEG which camera was used, any camera made in the past 10 years could have gotten this shot, could be a digital Rebel, D5, 7D, Olympus, Sony, Fuji etc. they will all look the same for this kind of shot at this presentation size....

looks good

best

[Daniel Cadieux]

I'm gonna guess one of the Nikon Coolpix cameras:t3. Kidding aside, I love these types of portraits, as you surely already know. IQ looks perfect as posted, I especially like the dark fine feathering around the eye. I'm going to guess somewhere around the 150-200mm range, but of course could be way off.

[Arthur Morris]

nice details Artie, would run NR on the BG.

impossible to tell from a web JPEG which camera was used, any camera made in the past 10 years could have gotten this shot, could be a digital Rebel, D5, 7D, Olympus, Sony, Fuji etc. they will all look the same for this kind of shot at this presentation size....

looks good

best

Arash, That sounds like a cop-out to me. I've seen you trash the image quality of countless images here on BPN. And SONY is garbage ha ha according to you. Or maybe this is a D850 image ...

with love, arti

[Arthur Morris]

I don't know if this is a Sony,Nikon or even Canon file. But i do know it is sharp with very nice detail. The background compliments the bird very well. What is FFD?

FFD = fine feather detail.

Thanks John.

with love, artie

[arash_hazeghi]

Arash, That sounds like a cop-out to me. I've seen you trash the image quality of countless images here on BPN. And SONY is garbage ha ha according to you. Or maybe this is a D850 image ...

with love, arti


Hi Artie,

I don't understand what you are trying to imply :)

When I find poor image quality I mention it as part of critique. I have commented on countless images that have had great quality including many of yours. What does have to do with the camera? I don't understand :bugeyed:Any camera can make a poor image and any camera can make a great image. This image is sharp and detailed as posted with good light and a good HA...you asked which camera... I mentioned it could be any camera, all it tells us is that the person behind the camera knew what he was doing . I am sure others will tell you the same thing :)


cheers

[David Salem]

I agree that it could be almost any camera with this type of presentation so I have no idea what you shot it with, but it does look really nice. Clean details and nice dynamic range throughout.
I just had my hard drive fail so I've been out of touch for the last week or so. Anyone reading this, make sure that you backup your stuff.
Luckily I did and now I am moving two terabytes of images around to reconfigure my computer, cataloges and redundant backups.
Very interesting reading the last few Sony posts of yours and everyone's comments on the Sony system and images you posted.
I'm going to give you my honest opinion of the new Sony mirrorless cameras. That is with my limited experiance with them.
1st off, we will all be shooting mirrorless stuff in the next 5 to 10 years, so it's coming no matter what others may think.
It's the way of the future. Just like electric cars.
There are a lot of pros to the new mirrorless systems, and a few cons.
As you know I'm an avid flight and action photographer and the 1st time I tried a Sony mirrorless system was about 4 or 5 years ago when the A7 1st came out.
A friend of ours had just purchased one and brought it out to the local duck flight spot we shoot at. My 1st impressions were not very good as the auto focus was much slower than even my Canon, and the electronic viewfinder was very lagging which made for a unusual jittery view. I was testing it on fast moving ducks in flight with varied BGs. It was not very good and the owner was frustrated with its performance also, especially compared to us standing next to him nailing way more shots than he could. Granted this is very difficult photography as the ducks can be really moving fast and are hard to get locked on to, even for an experianced flight Photographer.
Fast forward 4 years to last summer at the local Peregrine Falcon eyrie we shoot at.
20 people standing on the cliff while peregrines are flying all around us and the guy next to me stikes up a conversation. He has a new A9. He tells me it's much better than the older A7 and hes getting lots of cool flight shots and likes the body a lot.
Within a few minutes He asks if I would like to try it and obviously I was excited to see how it performed. 1st off, it is very light, which as you know makes tracking flying birds much easier. 2nd of all the shutter speed is ridiculously fast at 20 fps.
But here's the big deal which becomes a big problem with a mechanical shutter.
I shoot a lot of fast moving subjects and once you get locked on the bird you hold down the shutter full blast and track the bird, at12 fps, there is more than 50% of the viewfinder blacked out from shutter slapping back-and-forth in front of the veiwfinder. Within a second or 2 you can not see anything, especially a Falcon diving at 100 miles an hour.
I had an awesome afternoon shoot at a Peregrine Falcon site in Australia a few months ago and I shot 2500 frames in one evening shoot!! It was on fire! My biggest problem was as I was blasting away at 12fps I couldn't see crap after I started tracking the driving falcon!! It was a real problem.
That was the coolest thing about shooting this guy's A9, no shutter slap at all, just a clear veiwfinder and all I heard was the digital clicking noise of 20 frames a second.
And I think you can make it completly silent. Very cool!!
Now about the auto focus on the A9.
Definitely better than the a7 but still not as good as the nikon stuff IMHO. I was able to lock on to falcons in the sky with no problem but when they dove into the cliffside at high speed, it definitely had problems following them and didnt maintaining focus well. That being said, this is as challenging as an AF test situation gets, for any system, and it is where the Nikon system shines.
As for image quality, I do not think there's a problem with the Sony stuff at all and I believe they make the sensor's for my nikon camera anyways.
Not trying to tell you what's better as there are a lot of variables in everyone's shooting requirements, just elaborating on my limited experiance with the gear.
I have been avidly watching and waiting as the mirrorless stuff gets better and better.
I'm glad you are having fun with your new gear and I'm looking forward to more posts. Especially flight and action stuff.
See ya soon

[Isaac Grant]

Nice California Gull! I will play. I like these types of games. We spend so much time talking about gear but can we tell the difference between them? Now I think a better game would be if you had the same shot, one with Sony and one with Nikon and put them both up. Then you could really compare. That is what I did with the 5d4 vs d850 and as I mentioned to you, the D850 was clearly better.

I would guess this is a Sony shot. It has great details but something about it seems a bit coarse and not the same rendering of fine feather details I am used to with the d850. I would guess it was processed with Capture One because I see a greenish yellow cast to the whites which is something that I found to be the case with every capture one shot I processed. You have very good depth of field as the bill and to behind the eye are in focus but not the back of the head. Just a wild guess this was the 100-400 with an extender. As I do not even know what extenders Sony has I would say 560mm.

[dankearl]

I would get of 1 of the catchlights...soft light, nice details.

[Paul Burdett]

I shoot a lot of fast moving subjects and once you get locked on the bird you hold down the shutter full blast and track the bird, at12 fps, there is more than 50% of the viewfinder blacked out from shutter slapping back-and-forth in front of the viewfinder. Within a second or 2 you can not see anything, especially a Falcon diving at 100 miles an hour.


Hi David. I read your post with interest. Is this "viewfinder blackout" on your Nikon camera? I don't notice any blackout on my 7Dii when shooting bursts of images. Cheers.

Artie: I don't care which camera..it's a stunning shot as far as I'm concerned.

[arash_hazeghi]

Hi David. I read your post with interest. Is this "viewfinder blackout" on your Nikon camera? I don't notice any blackout on my 7Dii when shooting bursts of images. Cheers.

Artie: I don't care which camera..it's a stunning shot as far as I'm concerned.

All DSLR's have viewfinder blackout, because the mirror has to rise in order to take a picture. When the mirror is up no light goes to the finder so it is black, thus "blackout". Your 7D2 has it too and it's longer than Nikon's or the pro models like the 1D series. The faster the continuous shooting speed the more you notice it. mirror-less cameras have no mirror so there is no blackout from the mirror but there is still an instant where the video feed has to switch from finder to the recording circuit when you press the shutter, so they suffer from electronic lag or "freeze out" during a burst. In all mirrorless cameras with the exception of the Sony A9, the electronic lag is longer than a pro DSLR's mirror blackout (the Nikon D5 has the lowest blackout time of about 40msec). The finder in the Sony A7 series or the Fuji cameras for example cannot keep up at high fps and make it difficult if not impossible to track a challenging subject such as a peregrine falcon. The Sony A9 has significantly reduced the electronic freeze out lag to the point that the user doesn't feel it in most conditions.

in order to quantify the impact the blackout time when tracking we can use the simple formula, fps x blackout time, for e.g. Nikon D5 shooting at 12 fps has a total back out time of 12 x 40msec = 480 mec or 0.5sec per each second of shooting a burst. This means when shooting at full speed almost half the time the shooter is completely blind to what's going on. While an experienced flight photographer can still follow the subject by instinct even with blackout it becomes more challenging in wind and when working with focal lengths greater than 800mm.

hope this helps

[Dorian Anderson]

Exposure and detail look great, and the orbital ring adds a nice touch of color. I might clone out the second catchlight to tighten this up. Can't say much on the gear as a close, static shot won't differentiate the bodies as well
as more challenging action frames!

[Arthur Morris]

Hi Artie,

I don't understand what you are trying to imply :)

When I find poor image quality I mention it as part of critique. I have commented on countless images that have had great quality including many of yours. What does have to do with the camera? I don't understand :bugeyed:Any camera can make a poor image and any camera can make a great image. This image is sharp and detailed as posted with good light and a good HA...you asked which camera... I mentioned it could be any camera, all it tells us is that the person behind the camera knew what he was doing . I am sure others will tell you the same thing :)


cheers

My question remains, how can i make a sharp and detailed image with gear that you classify by saying "SONY is garbage ha ha." It would seem that if SONY was garbage that it would not be possible to create a sharp and detailed image with it.
with love, artie

ps: I should have written, This is a cop-out rather than that seems like a cop-out :)

[gail bisson]

I have no idea what gear you used. It is a lovely portrait, lots of beautiful details in the whites, excellent DOF, nice clean BG and perfect HA.
Gail

[Paul Burdett]

Hi Arash. Info appreciated. Cheers.

[arash_hazeghi]

My question remains, how can i make a sharp and detailed image with gear that you classify by saying "SONY is garbage ha ha." It would seem that if SONY was garbage that it would not be possible to create a sharp and detailed image with it.
with love, artie

ps: I should have written, This is a cop-out rather than that seems like a cop-out :)


That's what I said to you in a private email, not sure why you post it here :) many cameras can produce sharp and highly detailed images including a 1970's film camera in the right hands and with the right subject, although I might put them in the recycling bin. Haven't you heard, one man's junk is another man's treasure :)

Enjoy your new rig and I look forward to your images, I am sure you will make excellent images regardless of the camera you use

Cheers

[Arthur Morris]

Thanks Arash. One reason that I included the SONY is garbage remark is that I respect you highly ... Thus, you might wish to consider the impact of what you say. I'll quit it now :)

with love, artie

[Arthur Morris]

Artie: I don't care which camera..it's a stunning shot as far as I'm concerned.

Many thanks. Paul. It is good to see you (via your new avatar).

with love, arite

[Arthur Morris]

Hey David, I had more time to read you comments today. Thanks again. For me, for flight, not having any blackout enables me to better track the birds in flight, sort of a muscle/brain re-education. As that is something that I have never been able to do well, that is a big plus. For the birds in flight that I do, and with both TC-Es (including the 2X on the 100-400), SONY AF kills Nikon AF which in turn kills Canon AF. I think that folks are confusing IQ with the accuracy of focus. Or not.

with love, missed you in La Jolla.

artie

[Arthur Morris]

Nice California Gull! I will play. I like these types of games. We spend so much time talking about gear but can we tell the difference between them? Now I think a better game would be if you had the same shot, one with Sony and one with Nikon and put them both up. Then you could really compare. That is what I did with the 5d4 vs d850 and as I mentioned to you, the D850 was clearly better.

I would guess this is a Sony shot. It has great details but something about it seems a bit coarse and not the same rendering of fine feather details I am used to with the d850. I would guess it was processed with Capture One because I see a greenish yellow cast to the whites which is something that I found to be the case with every capture one shot I processed. You have very good depth of field as the bill and to behind the eye are in focus but not the back of the head. Just a wild guess this was the 100-400 with an extender. As I do not even know what extenders Sony has I would say 560mm.

You played and did quite well. I did convert in Capture 1. The RGB values of the brightest WHITEs in the RAW file are R=233, G= 234, B = 230 but I would blame that on me as I did not like the look when I clicked there with White eyedropper ...

As far as the sharpness and FFD all looks great to me as I sit in the eye doctor's office ... He tells me that my eyes are perfect and that he would never guess that I was a diabetic. I will post the gear and focal length stuff tomorrow. I will continue to test you :)

Thanks for playing and being so smart.

with love, artie

[Arthur Morris]

ps: I find that duplicating the same image with two different cameras and lenses is pretty much impossible. I could not even do it on a tripod while photographing a sign!

with love, artie

[Robert Kimbrell]

Beautiful Image, I Think it was shot with the A9 and 100- 400, focal length ~ 180mm The image is well exposed, with a nice background and head turn. The "ffD" is superb, but I know you can produce that with any of the systems you use. I an happy that you are testing the Sony gear. I will as some point be going to mirrorless, (as will we all). I am glad to get all the reviews you post.

[Paul Burdett]

The A9 and 100-400 lens both have image stabilization. So, for perched and bif which do you use?...or can you have both turned on, as i believe the camera and lens may be able to "talk to each other"

[Arthur Morris]

Hi Paul,

Both are always turned on. I have yet to use a tripod with my SONY gear and have not used a tripod with my Nikon 500 PF since the Emperor Penguin trip. The times they are a changin'.

with love, artie

[Arthur Morris]

This image was indeed made with my SONY gear as follows:

This image was created on January 30, day 5 with the SONY gear. I used the hand held Sony FE 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 GM OSS lens (https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1333230-REG/sony_sel100400gm_fe_100_400mm_f_4_5_5_6_gm.html/BI/6633/KBID/7226/kw/SO100400GM/DFF/d10-v2-t1-xSO100400GM), the Sony FE 2.0x Teleconverter (https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1222778-REG/sony_sel20tc_fe_2x_teleconverter.html/BI/6633/KBID/7226/kw/SOTC2/DFF/d10-v2-t1-xSOTC2) (at 800mm) and the beyond remarkable Sony Alpha a9 Mirrorless Digital Camera. (https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1333228-REG/sony_ilce_9_b_alpha_a9_mirrorless_digital.html/BI/6633/KBID/7226/kw/SOA9B/DFF/d10-v2-t1-xSOA9B) ISO 400: 1/800 sec. at f/14 in Manual mode. Exposure was determined using the Zebra feature. AWB at 9:24am on a sunny day.

Isaac was the closest.

So with my new SONY gear (it actually comes tomorrow, FEB 8, I am walking around with a 200-800mm zoom lens that focuses down to .98 meters ... With fast and accurate AF the covers 93% of the frame ...

with love, artie

[Isaac Grant]

Man I was so close!!! Total cop out but I was thinking 800mm but did not even know that they had a 2x so went the safe route with a 1.4. Should have trusted my gut feeling :Whoa!:

[Joseph Przybyla]

I waited to see the results. The image looks great, wonderful tight shot. I am sure I will see you at Gatorland with your Sony kit this year. Thank you for sharing, Artie.

[Joseph Przybyla]

P.S. Artie, now that you can walk around with a camera and lens of 200-800mm you might consider getting a monopod (smiles broadly). It sure makes holding the focus point exactly where it should be while waiting for the bird to do something. Maybe I will see you at Gatorland with just camera, lens and monopod. Just maybe....

[Daniel Cadieux]

I guess I was close enough LOL!!:bugeyed:.

[Paul Burdett]

The times they are a changin'.

Bob Dylan was right...They sure are! I was considering Nikon...now thinking Sony...all we need is Canon to outdo Sony!...the answer is "blowin' in the wind".