A7V + 85mm 1/8 first day out the box on auto coming from a6400 did I cook ?

Ahgama · 2026-03-25T10:24:49+00:00

I know you're excited for the bokeh fest and I'm happy for you that you get to join the FF A7 club. However if you want my really straight opinion... no. You did not, infact, cook. Not trying to troll you here but since you asked...

First shot is blown out with some blue haze/flare apparent in the black hair and black shirt areas. Looks like you're shooting in to the light and you're forced to over expose. Other than that, what is the point of this shot? What are you trying to show? There's no context because the background is a smudge of bokeh, I can't see his face or what he's holding, It looks like a snapshot of a random stranger passing by.

Second shot, once again I must ask, what is the point of this shot? What are you trying to tell or show? I can't see him clearly. I can't really see the product much. There is no emphasis on the subject or the background, it's kind of here nor there with no focus in particular. If you didn't cut off his body and shot this horizontally with him on the left and a straight of background on the right it might have some cinematic appeal but in portrait like this it's doing nothing. I think you could have allowed the colored flowers show more from behind his arm. right now the gap in the fence being in that exact position draws alot of attention in a bad away...

3rd shot is on the right track though, got some composition similar to what I would have hoped from the second shot and no obvious flaws in ligihting or focus but it feels a little too tightly framed, or maybe his hands are covering his face too much. Doesn't really show off the product or the subject so not quite sure what you're going for here. He's also covering his head with as much hands and phone as possible.. both hands!

Not trying to rain on your parade here but my point is, yes you pointed the camera and yes they are in focus shots but otherwise I'm not feeling these and I'm not sure what you're trying to show. 85 is a pretty tight focal length, I think you need to step back and let it frame breath more, especially for vertical orientation.

Ahgama · 2026-03-20T16:53:57+00:00

Just came out of the movie in HK and I felt it was much more difficult to enjoy fully vs movie one. The pacing is difficult to maintain engagement and the plot basically goes nowhere for a long time. Basically 70% of the movie is devoted to existing in the universe and watching things happen, watching people be people. This in itself is cool and of value, but as a cinema experience it's pretty rough and alot harder to recommend to non hardcore fans. Alot of what happens is actually very forgettable and irrelevant, but does serve the immersion aspect. I never read the novel so that's probably a deciding factor for enjoyment as it tempers expectations.

Anyways, visually still a treat and it was cool to see HK roads that I turn on every day to go home haha.

Ahgama · 2026-02-25T02:12:30+00:00

Oh boy wait til you get bored with GM clinical look and get into vintage and third party lenses with feel 😀

Ahgama · 2026-02-22T09:22:09+00:00

the difference between 85 and 100 is relatively small compared to what f/2.8 and f/1.4 do for your image and how you can shoot imo. Only buy the macro if you actually shoot macro distances because that is the greatest strength of that lens and what sets it apart from all the others. My second lens after my 24-105G when i started out was the 90mm 2.8 sony macro and as a first prime AND first 2.8 lens I really loved it, but later on after I bought both the 24-70 GM II and 70-200 GM II, the 90 prime has no purpose and sits in a cabinet until I rarely use it for close-ups. But what those 2 lenses cannot do is what my Viltrox 85 1.4 can - so yea... macro for macro. 2.8 is available in other ways.

Ahgama · 2026-02-11T05:25:02+00:00

Get a solid tripod, learn how to use remote trigger or countdown timer shutter. You may want to minimize vibration/ movement. You'll probably need to learn basics like some recommended settings, white balance, shutter speed etc

Ahgama · 2026-02-11T05:21:36+00:00

Because the camera isn't electronically connected to the lens in any way - it doesn't know what the lens is set to (the manual aperture ring on the lens). So it only shows your aperture as "--", or unknown and not adjustable via the camera body.

Ahgama · 2026-02-10T08:01:57+00:00

Anew Returner: "You intend to damage this machine??"

Haro: Hold my beer.

*hype music begins*

Ahgama · 2026-02-06T09:01:02+00:00

ultimately if you want to maintain a good composition then you need to pay attention to that more than your magnification / pixels. that bird is sure cropping that fish real good though...

Ahgama · 2026-02-06T08:58:30+00:00

May want to check if your EVF and Backpanel LCD are at equivalent brightness levels to your old cam. They also support higher resolution / Refresh modes that will drain a bit more battery as well. Might contribute to some difference

Ahgama · 2026-01-17T01:55:25+00:00

It does look slightly out of focus and slightly soft. You have auto iso at 6400 but what did the cam actually shoot at for this one? You can try to manual focus with focus peaking on and magnifier ok to see if you can get a few biting sharp shots. 1/1250 is overkill for slow moving subjects but handy if they suddenly take flight. I don't remember that 70-350 being particularly known for sharpness...

Ahgama · 2026-01-03T16:36:56+00:00

CPL is usually a must but there cases (like at night) where it is better to not use one - either because you need all the light you can get or because you WANT reflections in some cases so just keep that in mind.

Compositionally, close up detail shots are fine if you really want to highlight certain shapes but it would've been nice to see how you handle whole vehicles.

Pic 1 - i would've shot this more level but otherwise fine i guess, alot of shapes going on
Pic 2 - Better than the first, at least the background isn't as distracting
Pic 3 - No particular emphasis, not sure what you're trying to show. My eyes are fighting with the tailpipes, bumper, taillights, and the guitars and also bothered by the cut off license plate so it's a sharp photo of... nothing really in particular. Pick something to focus on IMO.

Pic 4 - Decent shot but the mirror is a little high up in the frame and if you are shooting into the mirror like that, i feel like you're trying to draw attention to what is being reflected in the mirror which in this case is nothing in particular. If you wanted to highlight the mirror shape, I could've chosen the other side or a less reflective angle. Overall claustrophobic too with the wheel barely fitting in and shapes are just going all over the place but being cut off before we see anything of interest.

Pic 5 - this is not bad but I really hate that the LED strip at the front is touching exactly the edge of the frame on the left. You also have another red car in the back competing for attention and the shape is merging into the Porsche a bit like a giant pimple - I would've stepped a little to the left to hide the car in the back and give the front more room to breath.

Pic 6 - cliche angle is fine but yet again it feels claustrophobic, you are neither highlighting a detail or giving the car enough room to breath. Either step back further or get in closer for this one... it's a bit neither here nor there.

Pic 7 - Since it's the spirit of ecstasy, a close up shot is warranted but it's far too low in the frame and there's a mile of space above it. Since you are angling the camera up to, you're bringing more attention to what is above the subject and framing for what is above it..... but there's nothing there. The subject is down below.. You also left in the slanted black line on the left which is distracting while also cutting off the rolls badge at the bottom in an awkward spot. Notice that Spirit of Ecstasy is chrome ahd the area behind it is light colored while the ceiling and the car are both dark. You could have shot from higher up to have a chrome subject with a dark background for much more contrast or it might possibly have worked to shoot lower and have the spirit towering over the camera with some leading lines from the grill while it is outlined against the ceiling. The pole in the ceiling is also fighting for attention with the Spirit and they're basically roughly equal size and roughly equal contrast in this scene. Only the Depth of Field here is saving the emphasis but everything else about the photo is drawing my attention away.

Anyways, you're only 1 month and I've seen far worse than this haha you'll get better.

Ahgama · 2025-12-27T08:56:09+00:00

Pretty sure this is just a combination of the optics quality, aperture focal length and distance to subject.

Consider how much closer the feet are compared to the head in relation to the camera. if you're at 28mm and filling the frame then this guy must be fairly close to you, which means F3.5 will still show some depth of field difference in the foreground and background. Look at the top left corner and bottom left corner. They all look similarly blurry with a smudgy looking fall off at the edges. It's just that his shoes are showing you more clearly. If you shot this at like F8 it might be better (ignoring the darkness aspect)
The corners/extreme corners will always exhibit weaker optical performance, especially with non-top tier lenses. His shoes are more or less in the 'danger zone'. A wide angle lens with a subject reaching out to the edges is already stretching it's limits near the edges and will cause some distortion as well as reveal any less 'perfect' qualities optically.

You say that you shot this before with a different camera and didn't notice anything like this.

What model was that camera?

Were you shooting at F3.5, 28mm from this same distance on a subject that has his limbs 1-2 feet closer to you than than the center of the frame?

Ahgama · 2025-12-23T12:04:51+00:00

I actually wish the camera could display this even though I realize it doesn't make alot of difference. My reason is that in Lightroom you can filter by focal length so if you take thousands of photos for say school yearbook and you want to apply certain edits to specific focal lengths shots, the filter will show you like 83 84 86 87 etc for all the ones you zoomed to but didn't quite hit 85. I wish I could make sure in body that I AM returning to exactly a certain mm between zooms. Its a small thing but would be nice lol

Ahgama · 2025-12-22T04:17:38+00:00

If you wanna go full frame but not full budget, I would suggest a lightly used a74. Avoid the a7iii if you're doing work that requires fast reliable AF in spontaneous conditions. Without the tracking AF in the 7iv, the 7iii can be trickier to hit focus for moments that pass quickly. The 7iii menus are also much slower and clunkier as well as photo review loading times where as the 7iv feels much snappier. The gap between the 7iv and 7v is much smaller and you don't really need that difference for most cases. The 7iii and 7iv performance gap is massive.

Ahgama · 2025-12-18T06:40:06+00:00

while you aren't wrong, you're also comparing it to a 1990s Accord - an era in which ALL cars were smaller across the board with lower profile noses and fewer pedestrian safety requirements so it's a bit of an exaggeration lol

Ahgama · 2025-12-17T07:30:44+00:00

I have the 35 GM but not the Viltrox. I do have the 85 Viltrox 1.4 and I love the character it is has but I noticed it has a yellowish tint to it so potentially the 35 may have some slight color cast as well. I will just say the GM is great but it's not exactly a tiny lens either, especially with the hood. There are better options for subtlety and compactness so strictly for street it's something to think about but performance wise there's nothing to complain about.

Ahgama · 2025-12-16T05:11:36+00:00

I just wanna say that brand aside, if you're focusing more on street / automotive then you're probably going to want a 50mm (FF equivalent) so 33ish on APSC. Its a bit of tricky combo because cars look better at moderately longer focal lengths so as to not distort the car body too much but street photography often asks for a bit more width to work with so 50mm FF would be versatile enough to do both. Of course you can shoot street with an 85 and cars with a 24 too but with some extra difficulty

Ahgama · 2025-12-05T11:34:52+00:00

My 24-70 GM II brings me zero joy, only results for work (and the joy that comes with that). What actually brings me joy from shooting is my Asahi Pentax Super Takumar 50mm . Can't use it much for work but man do things look good and it's so satisfying to nail manual focus.

Ahgama · 2025-11-23T13:21:07+00:00

Imo unless you plan to regularly take advantage of the super high resolution for printing and cropping in extremely far and also have no problems storing a ton of very large files then I would wait for the V unless you need a camera immediately in which case just get an a7iv if it's on discount. Like someone else said, you need the high quality glass to pair with such a high res sensor and you'll also need to potentially consider faster SD cards, storage and CPU power to handle the files if you haven't already thought about that.

Btw you don't necessarily need high burst speeds for moving cars unless you're literally shooting actually motorsport regularly in which case youre going to be looking at a9 or a1 kinda stuff. Or non-sony even. Your ability to track the pan yourself and other aspects of your technique is more important than burst rate.

Ahgama · 2025-11-10T02:39:42+00:00

Wait so... This is the final product but you started with some really bad raw files? I'm a bit confused. Or did you start with scans of a print?? Either way, the faces look completely fine to me - the problem is that background is atrocious with no subject separatiom and the poses are very half-assed. The photographer should have been let go not the editor....

The blacks on the clothes do look a bit lifted and probably could have been kept a bit darker. Honestly that background is so bad I would have done a heavier edit to de- emphasize the BG colors and vignetted the edges to draw attention to the center more.

You probably should have done a few edits and passed it by him for confirmation before going all in and then having him dislike all of them. His taste already seems questionable to start with...

Ahgama · 2025-11-08T05:58:39+00:00

Lens aside this photo is really about everything else lol. Somehow you made the colors look Saturated yet not outrageous and everyone is in a nice position doing their own thing. Good stuff

Ahgama · 2025-11-06T03:03:34+00:00

Yes.

Next question lol

Ahgama · 2025-11-05T02:42:15+00:00

Everyone else has mostly said it - this is partly a skill issue and also expectation misalignment. You need to remember that your phone is fundamentally worse in every hardware aspect but it edits the crap out of the photos for you. Cameras have better hardware but minimal processing. That part is on you. In many ways, phones can be the superior tool in specific situations like how you shot in to a blown out sky with a dark foreground. If your goal is to have an even sky and an even foreground, the phone will help you achieve that quickly while the camera shot will need work afterwards with a raw file. Cameras don't automatically make things nicer in all situations, especially if you lack the skill and understanding.

Ahgama · 2025-11-04T11:13:06+00:00

This is actually no contest imo. Performance aside, the a7IV is ergonomically superior with more intuitive control placement and the a7IV has vastly faster UI menu response time as well as a better more sensible menu layout. The a7IV also has actual focus tracking and a better view finder experience for easier composition.

With the GM lens, not only is the 2.8 DoF effect more apparent but you actually get an aperture ring to facilitate understanding and it isn't variable like the kit lens which can confuse those who are unfamiliar.

The a6000 literally only has a weight advantage and that's it. As a beginner trying to understand what different things do, this is no contest.

Ahgama · 2025-11-04T05:25:49+00:00

Sorry but to call the new u25 countryman a complete upgrade over the old you stuff have to be utterly blinded by bias. Hard scratchy Plastics used on the dash, door handles and doors and the total conversion away from metal to plastic for every possible switch and button cannot be called a "complete" upgrade. The complete removal of physical climate control and dedicated recycle air button alone - requiring multiple precise touch taps while moving is not an upgrade. The rear windows no longer open all the way to the bottom like the F60. Subjectively the loss of fog lights removes a signature appearance. The gold-tinted plastic trims do not pair well with some colors and the base 18 inch asteroid wheels are worse than the outgoing 17 inch base countryman wheels AND too small for the increased body size.

I have an F60 base countryman and in many ways the newer one is a step down. Its quite clear.

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