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Zeiss Sonnar 35mm

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  • 17 min

Sony A6400 Review – One Of My Favorite APS-C Cameras

The Sony A6400 is a small lightweight APS-C camera designed for photographers and videographers looking to maximize versatility and image quality without compromising performance.

Built like a tank, the A6400 is one of the best autofocusing cameras out there with some overall really nice specs. 11fps of continuous RAW shooting, 4k 100mbps video and a Tilting screen for selfies or vlogging.

Because Sony omitted IBIS from the A6400, the camera ends up being lighter compared to the A6500 while having a battery that lasts about a full day.

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Sony A7r II A Quick Look At Diffraction

Now that the Sony A7r II has 42 megapixels of madness, it’s a good idea to look at how it handles diffraction with a few lenses.

Right now the consensus is that your aperture and megapixel count will have an impact on your image detail due to diffraction. Shooting higher apertures like f16-f22 will result in softer images vs shooting at f4-f8. Also more megapixels will impact how your images look at higher apertures.

However, from what I’ve been seeing from doing various diffraction tests with different cameras and different lenses, it’s not only aperture and megapixel count that impact diffraction.

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The Rental Jeep On The Big Island

Rental Jeep On The Big Island

I love car commercial photography and always wanted to try it / get into it. So while driving around the Big Island of Hawaii last Fall, I also spent a lot of my time looking for the right location and conditions to take pictures of my Jeep. I managed to get a few decent photos, here is one that I touched up last night for the fun of it.

The Photoshop process is pretty easy for something like this. . .

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Shooting The Wave With The Sony A7r & Zeiss 35mm

I finally had a chance to go to The Wave this month. We actually did the lottery and won on our second try. Lucky us I guess. Some people have tried 9 times with no luck. 

I never really thought The Wave was all that cool from pictures I’ve seen, but really once I was there it was a lot cooler than I was expecting. It is also a lot smaller than I was expecting. 

But ultimately, I think hands down the best part about going to the wave is the amazing three mile hike you have to take to get there. Shooting this raw wilderness along the way is an experience I’ll never forget.

See all the photos.

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Splash – Oahu Wave Photography

Wave Photography on Oahu Hawaii.

When I was in Oahu a few weeks ago I was shooting a bit of photography like this. Super close to the water as it splashes up against the sand or surrounding rocks. It's actually not the smartest thing to do with an expensive Sony A7r and after a few very close encounters I decided it was enough. But not before I got a few cool shots!

I did actually ended up with a grain of sand in one of the little wheels that took me a few days to finally grind out.

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Between Worlds – Oahu Hawaii

Ocean of Oahu Hawaii.
 

I've always loved shots of clean tropical water on a white sand beach. There is even a good one that comes as a desktop background if you're an OSX user. Well guess what, I finally got one. Except the sand is not exactly white, close enough.

This shot was taken at the infamous Waimea Bay. No tripod, just my trusty Sony A7r with the Zeiss Sonnar T* 35mm f2.8, a lens I've come to truly love and the sharpest lens I've ever shot with. But it does have some minor drawbacks which you can see here on my review.

 

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Mochi Girl – Japan Street Photography

The past few months have been crazy. All I've done really is work which has left me with very little time to shoot photography.

I'm still trying to find that perfect balance between posting photography and camera news which is tricky. Posting tutorials and news is more friendly to Google which gets my site more views. Which is a good thing. I've tripled my viewership in the last two months. However, I've noticed people don't come back as often when I'm not posting photos regularly as there are a million camera news blogs out there. 

So in an effort to make my front page more interesting to those who just love photography, I've decided to go back and start posting all my street photography until my blog grows to the point where I can make a living from it. Which hopefully will be soon. Then things will get crazy!

So hopefully now I'll have an interesting blend between HDR, Landscape and Street photography. 

Mochi Girl – Tokyo Japan

Tokyo Girl preparing mochi balls. Shot with the Sony A7r with the Zeiss 35mm Sonar lens. An amazing combo for travel and street photography and was the bread and butter for most of my trip to Japan this year.

Japan is known for its rich culture, hospitality and food. Stands like this are all over the cities and the food is amazing. Here they are preparing Mochi.
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  • 1 min

Fukuoka Airport

This was from my last moments in Japan in the Fukuoka Airport. The photography gods finally appeared at the end there and gave me one last blessing. We were eating dinner in a restaurant when the sun lit up the sky. Luckily my Sony A7r wasn't packed away with the rest of my gear.

Believe it or not this was also a handheld HDR. Those actually usually turn out for me as long as you keep the shutter speed high. 

I probably spent way too much time on an airport shot but hey, it was fun.

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Sakura Explosion – Tokyo Japan

I posted this photo on Google+ earlier today letting people zoom in 100%. With the Zeiss Sonnar 35mm and Sony A7r with its 36 megapixel sensor with no High Pass filter, it's really amazing the detail you can get out of your images.

I recommend checking out that thread here http://goo.gl/xd7PH9

The Sakura Explosion

In Japan Cherry Blossoms are called Sakuras. And when they are in season it's the most amazing thing you'll ever see. I wasn't expecting it to be as awesome as it was.

They are literally everywhere. Another photographer on Google+ referred to it as the Cherry Blossom Apocalypse. It really is. The peddles are blowing everywhere in the wind, raining down on you, getting in your hair, they're on the ground. It's awesome.

My New Processing Technique With The Sony A7r

My processing techniques and the look of my photos changes monthly, as I'm always trying new stuff and trying to learn to achieve new looks. A lot of photographers find 'their look' and stick with it. I'll probably figure out 'my look' one day, but I'm inspired by so many different photographers with different styles, it's really hard.

My processing went something like this. And it only took 15 minutes.

Adobe Lightroom 5

For some lens profile correction. I also added a little contrast and exposure adjustments.

I exported to Photoshop then used these plugins.

Nik's Define 2

For Noise Reduction. I use to use Topax denoise a lot. Trying to figure out which I like better. But if I'm really OCD about noise reduction I'll use find edges on a channel mask to mask out my edges and reduce the noise everywhere else.

Nik's Viveza 2

This is a really great tool for basic color adjustments. It doesn't do anything Photoshop vanilla can't do, but I find it's a little faster than using Photoshop's tool set. In Viveza I did Contrast, Saturation, and a few Color adjustments

Color Efex Pro- My review here.

I used the Sky Light filter with a control point top right, Pro Contrast & Detail Extractor. I love Color Efex Pro. It can be a game changer if you don't feel like really master Photoshop completely.

Last Tweaks In Photoshop

Luminosity Masks for final exposure and detail tweaks + Highpass Filter set at .5 pixels with Linear Light blending mode for sharpness. 

Finish In Lightroom

Final tweaks to color since nothing beats the speed of color tweaking in Lightroom, then export. I always use Lightroom for exporting because you can control your metadata.

The Photo – Sakura Explosion

Sakura Explosion shot with the Sony A7r and the Zeiss Sonnar 35mm.

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