Tag Archive for: A7RII

Digital classroom Small flash

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Digital classroom is a live broadcast from our studio which we do every month for free.
I started digital classroom to introduce people a bit to what we do with our instructional videos and workshops, of course these go more in depth and are a bit more technical but for a free broadcast I strongly believe it’s a great educational tool.

 

Digital classroom is not possible to create without the help from some sponsors of course, so we are very grateful for our friends at BenQ and Rogue/Expo imaging to help us out with this.

 

This time the theme of the Digital classroom is “using small flash”.
It’s a 2 hour instructional video so take your time, sit back, grab your notepad and enjoy.

Digital classroom live Q&A 2

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Next to the 2 hour monthly broadcasts from “Digital classroom” we also broadcast several smaller episodes at random dates, often containing tips, Q&A etc. See it as a boosted version of Periscope 😀

 

In this episode tips on :
Finding and working with models
The X-rite ColorChecker passport
The iPad pro and the always going war between xxxx vs Apple
And a solution to shoot tethered wireless with the A7RII
Please feel free to comment, subscribe and share the link.
Digital classroom is made possible by BenQ and Rogue/Expoimaging.

Sony A7RII review video

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When I switched from Canon to Sony at the release of the A99 I did a small prediction…. “In 10 years Sony could be the new number 1, if they keep doing what they are doing”, little did I know about what would happen in only 2 years.
At the moment you must be living under a rock to not take Sony serious.
In Medium format they are the “unknown” number 1, meaning every manufacturer is now using their sensor from Hasselblad, Phase One, Mamiya/Leaf to Pentax and to be honest, I tested the Credo50 just before release and it was breathtaking what the Sony sensor does. But also Nikon uses a lot of their sensors. The reason is very simple, their sensors are just the best in dynamic range, color and noise performance, I actually hoped that also Canon would switch to Sony sensors (I still love Canon).

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Sony A7RII review Part III

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In todays part of the review series on the Sony A7RII the simple question….
Do we still need HDR?

 

The answer you may give yourself, but let me first tell you my opinion.
When I shot with Canon I often shot HDR in difficult situations (lighting wise), always 2,1,0,1,2 and I edited those with mostly NIK, when I switched to Sony I found that I actually didn’t need the HDR shots anymore, there is so much detail recoverable in the files that I found myself more and more shooting non HDR and “fixing” it in DxO optics or Capture One (or even Lightroom).

 

Now with the A7R shooting HDR was not perfect, the camera was not as fast as the Canon and I decided to just forget about it. With the A7RII we have a new chance, shooting 5 frames a second and this combined with the new Lightroom HDR merge option you can actually work very fast (and very good) with HDRs so I decided to test this out, but ….. I needed a scene were it would make sense, and we indeed ended up in such a location today. Muir woods.

 

Let me start by showing the HDRs.
All were shot handheld in the order 2,1,0,1,2
Editing was done in Lightroom and tinting in DxO Filmpack 5
I tried to stay away from doing HDR like Highly Destructive Retouching, but I do like some detail 😀

SF (343 of 689) August 05 2015-HDR-Edit

SF (424 of 689) August 05 2015-HDR-Edit

SF (467 of 689) August 05 2015-HDR-Edit

SF (509 of 689) August 05 2015-HDR-Edit

SF (554 of 689) August 05 2015-HDR-Edit

 

 

Now these were the HDRs, now let’s look at some images I shot under the same circumstances but now used Lightroom (DxO doesn’t support the files yet and I wanted to keep everything in Lightroom) to get some HDR like looks.

SF (445 of 689) August 05 2015-Edit

SF (449 of 689) August 05 2015-Edit

SF (601 of 689) August 05 2015-Edit

SF (600 of 689) August 05 2015-Edit

SF (457 of 689) August 05 2015-Edit

 

SF (618 of 689) August 05 2015-Edit

Now a lot will be taste of course, but I have to be honest…. I think the Sony A7RII does pretty well without shooting HDR. The HDRs look smoother without a doubt, and it’s very fast to do with the new HDR option in Lightroom, and it will in the end give you slightly better files, but it will also take up 5x as much space on your harddrive.

 

For me it’s a matter of that I will shoot it more than with the A7R for the simple reason it’s so much faster and as mentioned before with Lightroom you put the HDRs together in seconds, but if we really need it….. I think the dynamic range is pretty “sick” 😀