So my friend and I went for a photoshoot session today. It was an outdoor portrait photoshoot.

My gear:
A6500 + Sony 18-105 F4 G lens (with Variable ND) on Slog Picture style as I do more videos than photos + 16:9

His gear:
A6300 + Sony 35mm F1.8 on Standard Picture style + 3:2

After the shot, we compared our photos. I noticed that his photos are generally having more details than mine, and also sharper.

I understand that lens play a role here so the fact that my pictures are less sharper could be due to me using a Sony G lens (but i didnt expect such a huge difference since its a G lens)

Also, his photo colours are better than mine which I understand since I am using a dull picture style.

But what I dont understand is that his photos are around 10MB/pic while mine is only 5MB.

I have selected L size 20MB and Xtra Fine image quality.

Oh yeah, since I had the filter on, i compensated lesser incoming light by boosting my iso to somewhere around 3200. But this shouldn't make my photos inferior than my friends a6300, which is technically speaking, a sister model of A6500.

What could have gone wrong here? I dont think the aspect ratio cost me 50% of the details?

I think high iso ll cause details lost.
Prime lens normally sharper too.
File size I’m not sure need to check the photo dimension too. Maybe Same jpeg setting hv different dimension on different body?

I have both lenses. As you can expect generally prime lens sharper than zoom. Other than that, minimum iso for slog is 800 so noise may start to creep and has an effect on the sharpness. Last, please check on the slog settings on pp7, change the detail to somewhere -2 to 0. I can't remember what is the default but mine is set at -7 because I like to sharpen in post. That way you can control the moire effect.

I found that my a6300 images were a little less sharp, using the 16-55 kit lens, then i looked in the picture profiles I was using, you can actually increase the sharpness of your images, contrast and saturation as well, after i did this, my pictures turned out better. Maybe you can try tweaking those things.

btw, im looking for second hand 35mm or 50mm, any idea where?

The sensor is physically 3:2 ratio. Shooting at 16:9 just means you're cropping it, explaining the smaller file size you end up with.

When using the entire sensor (shooting at 3:2), the L image size is 24mp. Yours is showing only 20mp because that 4mp is cropped off for 16:9.

Curious though, why shoot S-log for photos? If you need maximum editing room probably raw is the way to go. (Disclaimer: I have the A6000 so probably clueless about S-log haha) But if your images are more neutral (less information) then probably also explains the diff in file size.

...... Filter and high ISO? And expect same quality? Also prime lens are generally much sharper than zoom lens though I won't comment too much since I don't have knowledge between ur g lens and his prime. But I do know with zoom lens, the sharpness varies with different focal lengths so take that into account. If u want fair comparison, borrow his prime lens and check.


And I might be wrong here but were you comparing a screenshot of ur video with his jpeg photo?

This post has been edited by TrialGone: Apr 27 2019, 11:11 AM

and thus the racun poison in properly planted.
prepare to spend more MOOOLAH

...... First time I heard borrow mean u have to pay. But its not that expensive. Better yet get sigma 30mm f1.4.

u get that wrong my friend
it just mean dont fall for the GAS aka gear acquisition syndrome.

if u do... then prepare to spend money.. LOTS of it

...... That is why I said borrow....... To test the sharpness only..... I know Gas, but not toking about that....... And secondly it is his money, what he want to do with is his business.......

You may want to take some test shot to compare your photos with / without the variable ND filter. Filters (especially the cheap ones) can sometimes cause refraction that may soften sharpness and contrast.


But then I'm kinda confuse here. Generally, for an outdoor portrait shoot, the ND filter is used as the last resort to prevent overexposure of an image after we have maxed out the shutter speed (1/4000) with the lowest native iso (iso 100). And if the photo is still overexposed, then only we put in an ND filter so that we can continue to use a large aperture setting (for the nice bokeh effect) without overexposing the image. But if you are compensating light by boosting up your iso to 3200, why would you still want to use the ND filter anyway?

This post has been edited by garyeow: Apr 28 2019, 10:04 PM