Sony a77ii quick shoot

Since receiving my Sony a77ii last week (while I was isolating at home with my second bout of Covid), I've been itching to get out and shoot with it. If only to set me mind at ease, due to my experience with the a57 (see here).

Given that I'm still in the Covid recovery phase, all I really want to do in the evenings is rest after a day at work. But I was determined to take some photos with the a77ii. And with bad weather forecast for the next week, I decided to go out last night (as I write this) and make the most of the good weather.

We've been having some stunning sunsets here on the West Coast recently, and I was hoping that this evening would be no exception. The conditions looked promising - but alas, it was not to be.

Cobden Beach. Sony a77ii with Zeiss Vario-Sonnar T* 16-80mm f/3.5-4.5 ZA DT (SAL-1680Z)

The above image is pretty standard stuff - nothing to get too excited about. But it's the first photo taken on my 'new' Sony a77ii, with my 'new' Carl Zeiss Vario Sonnar T* 16-80mm ZA DT lens (wow, that's a mouthful)!

Again, nothing special - the spectacular lighting never eventuated. But it is sharp (shot at f11), has good detail, and the colours look natural. So I'm happy.

Rusty wheel. Sony a77ii with SAL-1680Z. f/5.6 @ 1/30th, ISO 100

Taking landscape shots with the camera focused to infinity is all well and good. Even the a57 could do that. It was with subjects at closer focusing distances where the sensor alignment issues on my previous a57 showed up. So I found a subject to focus on, set the a77ii up on a tripod, and used the central spot focus area to lock on to the rusted wheel.

Result - pin sharp focus exactly where I wanted it. Whew! I can breath a sigh of relief. My Sony a77ii has no sensor alignment issues and is focusing perfectly on where I'm aiming. Great news 😀

In fact, I'm very pleased with the sharpness, although I guess I shouldn't be surprised - given that I was using the 16-80mm Carl Zeiss Vario Sonnar T* lens. You should expect nothing but stellar results from a Carl Zeiss designed lens, and I'm happy to report that that appears to be the case. I'm pretty sure this lens will remain practically glued on to the front of this camera, given its fantastic 24-120mm focal range and fairly good f/3.5-4.5 aperture. I will write a more in-depth review of the lens in due course...

Cobden Tiphead Sunset. Sony a77ii with SAL-1680Z. HDR blend in Photoshop

As previously mentioned, the brilliant sunset colours never eventuated. Which is a shame, since the clouds were looking very dramatic. The image above is really as good as it got, and even this had to be created from a two-shot blend - one for the highlights and one for the shadows. 

Soon after taking this image, and having only been out for about 20 minutes, it actually started to rain. The a77ii is weather-sealed, but I wasn't that keen to test that out just yet (and also, the lens is not). So my first landscape outing with the new gear was unfortunately cut short. It was long enough to show that everything seems to be working ok though. So I'd say despite the weather, lack of light, and average images, I'd call the first outing a resounding success! Onwards and upwards...

Micro adjusting your DSLR

I've got my 'new' Sony a77ii and a whole bunch of lenses. Now comes the fun part - taking them all out and testing them in the field.

I enjoy testing cameras and lenses - always have. But I'm not really the 'brick wall and colour chart' kind of tester. I'm more of a 'how does it actually perform out in the real world' type of guy.

With one exception - the micro adjustment of lenses. For this sort of testing you kinda have to resort to some charts to be a little more 'exact' in your results. You are, after all, effecting the autofocusing results of said lenses.

Having said that, you don't have to spend hundreds of dollars on the fancy lens calibration charts that you need a degree in origami to be able to fold in exactly the right angle. A simple downloaded focusing chart off of the interwebs will do. Just do a google search and you'll come up with plenty of them.

But before we get underway with all of this AF micro-adjustment palaver, the question needs to be asked - "do I need to micro adjust my lenses?" And that's a very good question. The answer to which may very well be a resounding 'no'!

Are you happy with the results from your lenses? Do they look sharp to you? Do you have any fast (f1.4 - f2.8) lenses where autofocus will be critical? Or are all your lenses zooms, with an f4 - f5.6 range? If you don't have any fast glass, then chances are the aperture ranges you are using won't show up any 'slight' autofocus alignment issues.

But if you aren't happy with the sharpness you are getting out of your lenses, or if some seem sharp while others not so much, then maybe you need to consider in-camera micro-adjustments for certain lenses? That is, of course, if your camera actually supports such a thing. Many don't.

In-camera micro adjustment is a feature in more hi-end enthusiast or professional level DSLR's. You won't find this option on any of your Canon Rebels. And mirrorless cameras don't need to be micro-adjusted, since autofocusing happens directly at the sensor level, whereas DSLR's use separate AF modules. Sometimes these can be ever so slightly out of alignment, necessitating micro-adjustment. In the 'good-old-days', you would have to send you camera and lens(es) in to Canon/Nikon etc to have them calibrated if you thought the autofocus was 'out'. Photographers' talked of their camera either front or back focusing - especially portrait photographers who would lock the AF onto the eye of a model, only to find that the camera had focused ever so slightly in front of, or behind, the point of focus.

I haven't started using my a77ii yet, so I can't say that I'm having any focusing issues whatsoever. But I do have some very nice, fast, prime lenses for it. So I thought it was worth going through the motions, just for giggles. First up, the Minolta 85mm f1.4.

As mentioned earlier, their are lots of different suggestions online as to how to go about micro-adjusting your lenses. I decided to try a couple of different options, to see if they gave me the same results. Firstly, I found a chart where you set the camera up at a 45 degree angle and then focus on the chart laying flat, at a horizontal line with measurements down either side. Access your micro adjustment menu (check your manual since it will be different for each make of camera), and then shoot at a series of steps (I did 0,5,10,15,20,-5,-10-15-20) with your camera locked down on a tripod, 2 sec timer, aperture wide open, all stabilization turned off (since you are on a tripod). Take the images into Photoshop, enlarge to 100%, and check the areas of sharpness. It will soon become very evident as you go through the images whether this particular camera/lens combination is front or back focusing (or not).

It may be tricky to tell from the above re-sized image for the web, but the a77ii with 85mm f1.4 was ever-so-slightly front-focusing. On initial inspection a +10 adjustment looked the sharpest, but then I refined the process by shooting from +5 to +10 and reviewing the results. After inspecting this set closely, I determined that +7 was the sharpest of the lot.

Not totally convinced, I tried a second method. The 'flat-image-on-a-wall' test. This time you shoot some text on a wall with the camera parallel to the words. Same procedure with the camera (tripod, wide-open, self-timer etc). And wudda ya know - same result! It must be true 😀

Again, it might be hard to tell in these low-res images, but trust me - '0' was nowhere near sharp enough, and +7 sharpens things up nicely. Job done.

My a77ii can retain up to 30 lens adjustments - automatically. Meaning once you have adjusted the lens, the camera will remember it again once that particular lens is mounted on the camera. Brilliant. And I don't know about you, but I think even I might struggle to have 30 lenses to worry about?

So yes, it would seem that at least some of my lenses will benefit from micro-adjusting. And it also seems that either process will give you the exact same results.

But don't take my word for it. Download the charts, grab a fast prime, and try it yourself (as long as your camera supports micro adjustments). You may just breath some new life into that 50mm f1.8 that never quite felt sharp enough?