[Andrew_Oid]

At 300mm there's a real chance that softness is caused by even the slightest of jitter. You should really try it with a tripod.

Thanks for the suggestion. I do hate tripods, but I hauled it out and set it up and reshot the scene. It's a few hours later so the light's changed. I set the ISO down to 200 and set the shutter release for a 2 second delay. (It gets breezy here and I could see movement of the camera in the breeze - in the viewfinder, that is. My tripod isn't the sturdiest you can find . . . Otherwise I would have set the ISO to 100.) The photo is a tad sharper, but that could be due to the lower ISO. Shutter speeds have been quite high, so I wasn't too concerned about apparent movement.

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[goatsNdonkey]

Thanks for the suggestion. I do hate tripods, but I hauled it out and set it up and reshot the scene. It's a few hours later so the light's changed. I set the ISO down to 200 and set the shutter release for a 2 second delay. (It gets breezy here and I could see movement of the camera in the breeze - in the viewfinder, that is. My tripod isn't the sturdiest you can find . . . Otherwise I would have set the ISO to 100.) The photo is a tad sharper, but that could be due to the lower ISO. Shutter speeds have been quite high, so I wasn't too concerned about apparent movement.

Could atmospheric haze and/or convection currents in the air have played a role in softness in that shot?

[ZombieArmy]

Could atmospheric haze and/or convection currents in the air have played a role in softness in that shot?

It looks like it, stuff closer to the point of focus look more in focus than the main target.

[Andrew_Oid]

Could atmospheric haze and/or convection currents in the air have played a role in softness in that shot?

I think that's the case. This is a humid tropical location, and there's usually varying degrees of haze. There's a photo taken with the Tokina at 105mm from the same spot a few pages back that gives an idea of the distance to the building. All in all, I guess the lens does what it was designed for pretty well, getting sharp photos of distant scenes and objects, but its usefulness for me will be limited I think. I'm still waiting for a 67mm CPL filter. I'll be very interested in its effects on photographing with this lens. It should boost contrast and color and perhaps cut through the haze a bit as well.
One curious thing I've noticed is that sharpest focus at infinity seems to be just before the infinity stop. The a850 has a wonderful optical viewfinder, and that seemed the case when I tried using it with this lens. The electronic viewfinder of the a65 with its focus confirmation (the colored outline) has confirmed it. Is that a production fault, or is there a purpose for it?

[goatsNdonkey]

A CPL should make a difference on distance shots like that. On the other hand, if you want to take city-scapes or architectural shots that combine subjects that are near-and-clear with ones that are farther away and veiled in literal "atmosphere," you've got a ready-made shooting location for doing that! There is always the option to USE challenging circumstances, as opposed to trying to overcome them.

Do you have a film camera body? A red filter with black-and-white film used to be THE way to cut through haze before polarizing filters. That might be fun for you to try there. I'm going to try that the next time I load some iso 400 B&W in a camera--iso 100 is a bit to slow to make up for the filter light loss, at least handheld as I'd prefer to go.

I think that's the case. This is a humid tropical location, and there's usually varying degrees of haze. There's a photo taken with the Tokina at 105mm from the same spot a few pages back that gives an idea of the distance to the building. All in all, I guess the lens does what it was designed for pretty well, getting sharp photos of distant scenes and objects, but its usefulness for me will be limited I think. I'm still waiting for a 67mm CPL filter. I'll be very interested in its effects on photographing with this lens. It should boost contrast and color and perhaps cut through the haze a bit as well.
One curious thing I've noticed is that sharpest focus at infinity seems to be just before the infinity stop. The a850 has a wonderful optical viewfinder, and that seemed the case when I tried using it with this lens. The electronic viewfinder of the a65 with its focus confirmation (the colored outline) has confirmed it. Is that a production fault, or is there a purpose for it?

[Andrew_Oid]

A CPL should make a difference on distance shots like that. On the other hand, if you want to take city-scapes or architectural shots that combine subjects that are near-and-clear with ones that are farther away and veiled in literal "atmosphere," you've got a ready-made shooting location for doing that! There is always the option to USE challenging circumstances, as opposed to trying to overcome them.

Do you have a film camera body? A red filter with black-and-white film used to be THE way to cut through haze before polarizing filters. That might be fun for you to try there. I'm going to try that the next time I load some iso 400 B&W in a camera--iso 100 is a bit to slow to make up for the filter light loss, at least handheld as I'd prefer to go.

Thanks for your comments.
I do like working with the haze and have taken a lot of photos because of it. I like how it separates planes of density (I don't know how else to put it.) from near to far. Sometimes it combines with sunlight poking through cloud cover and illuminating patches to make a very interesting scene. I wish I had access to other vantage points and not always the same ones, but I'm grateful for what I have. When the haze is very thick, the scene is almost monochromatic.My preferred focal length for cityscapes at my location is 55mm. That f/l isolates and enlarges enough to make an interesting (to me) photo. I go wider (35mm) when the sky and clouds are important.
I don't have a film camera body anymore, but I've noticed there seems to be a renewed interest in film photography and admit I've considered getting an old Spotmatic, but it's not practical for me.
The ease of black and white digital processing is amazing. I use Silver Efex Pro, and it shows a range of different processing "styles/ techniques" for the shot and allows individual manipulation of each as well, including the effects of red, orange, yellow, green and blue filters of varying intensity. I think you can reproduce any effect/look that could be obtained in analogue b&w. Making prints is a different matter though.

[Andrew_Oid]

It's a dreary, overcast day in Bangkok. We don't get too many of those outside of rainy season which this is not. The first photo taken at about 60mm f/l at f11 is straight from the camera, RAW, reduced file size for posting. The second is the same photo after PP and conversion to B&W. Just playin'. If I wanted to spend a little more time on it, I'd open up the shadows a bit more to put more texture in the foliage and brighten the scene overall just a bit.

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Last edited by Andrew_Oid; 03-26-2017 at 10:20 PM.

[goatsNdonkey]

It's a dreary, overcast day in Bangkok. We don't get too many of those outside of rainy season which this is not. The first photo taken at about 60mm f/l at f11 is straight from the camera, RAW, reduced file size for posting. The second is the same photo after PP and conversion to B&W. Just playin'. If I wanted to spend a little more time on it, I'd open up the shadows a bit more to put more texture in the foliage and brighten the scene overall just a bit.

That color and BW pair are interesting. The second one does seem to look like much of the haze has been cut through, though the color one does have that dreamy quality you mention.

[Andrew_Oid]

That color and BW pair are interesting. The second one does seem to look like much of the haze has been cut through, though the color one does have that dreamy quality you mention.

You are really too kind, goats. The color version is certainly one of the ugliest photos I've ever taken, but it does show how bad the haze can get. No amount of color PP could've made it a good photo. The black and white version is at least acceptable. It does need some fine-tuning but does show that even a bad photograph can be salvaged.

[pepperberry farm]

new-to-me lens arrived today:

[Andrew_Oid]

Got the 67mm CPL filter today, but it's no good. It blurs the photos. Telephoto's not my thing anyway, so I'll hang up the 60-300.
One from the trusty 35-105. "Late afternoon at the Pool".

[goatsNdonkey]

You are really too kind, goats. The color version is certainly one of the ugliest photos I've ever taken, but it does show how bad the haze can get. No amount of color PP could've made it a good photo. The black and white version is at least acceptable. It does need some fine-tuning but does show that even a bad photograph can be salvaged.

I wasn't passing judgement on the entirety of the color photo as an artistic landscape photograph, only noticing the dreaminess of it's atmospherics. I think a more interesting photograph could be made with some sort of much clearer bit of subject matter -- let's say for example person(s), vehicle(s), flora, or structure -- much nearer in the foreground. In that case the progressively haze-enveloped surroundings would become visual backdrop and environmental context, and whether it looked dreamy or conversely threatening might depend on the nearer dominant subject matter.

---------- Post added 03-28-17 at 09:33 AM ----------

Got the 67mm CPL filter today, but it's no good. It blurs the photos. Telephoto's not my thing anyway, so I'll hang up the 60-300.
One from the trusty 35-105. "Late afternoon at the Pool".

To accommodate the considerable light loss from the CPL are you slowing the shutter speed or opening the aperture? Either can have an effect on sharpness, but in different ways -- the former making camera shake more of a problem and the latter lessening depth-of-field. Not that a dirty or poor quality filter couldn't lower image quality, but there are other possibilities to consider before absolutely dismissing the CPL as being useful.

I like the image from the 35-105; it's a good example of a shot with foreground interest, not only the hazy cityscape.

Are you shooting the 60-300 mostly at 300, or at 60, or in between? Some old zooms are sharper at one extreme than they are at the other.

[paulh]

Andrew - nice job on that BW conversion!
pepperberry - that A35-70/4 is one of my favorite lenses & was glued to one of my cameras last year. Nice examples!

[pepperberry farm]

pepperberry - that A35-70/4 is one of my favorite lenses & was glued to one of my cameras last year. Nice examples!

thank you - I need to post pics of the lens itself; it is amazing that this thing works at all....






(:

[pepperberry farm]

here we go - no filter ring, lots of slop in the focus ring, dust inside, and some impressive marks on the front element:








but still able to pull this: