Sony A100 + Tamron ??????UV FILTER?????

infiniteMPG wrote:

I have a Sony A100 and a Tamron AF 18-250/3.5-6.3 DI II Macro Lens. I
have been having issues with clarity of my shots and lack of vivid
colors

Compared to what? Your A100 with another lens, or a different camera?
RAW images or JPEGs? What colour saturation settings and mode are you
using on the camera? What happens when you use more vivid settings?

--
Chris Malcolm DoD #205
IPAB, Informatics, JCMB, King's Buildings, Edinburgh, EH9 3JZ, UK
[http://www.dai.ed.ac.uk/homes/cam/]

infiniteMPG wrote:
Compared to what? Your A100 with another lens, or a different camera?

Basically a different camera. Images even with PS-C3 just can't seem
to be made vivid enough. Used to my old PAS Konica Minolta Z3 which
gave me very vivid images and clearer pictures without messing with a
bunch of controls.

If that's like most P&S cameras its default JPEG processing settings
would give brighter sharper more vivid images ex-camera than most
DSLRs. The reason for that is that most DSLRs have a much wider
dynamic range than P&S cameras, and you can't get that vividness and
contrast etc. without losing some of the dynamic range and detail. You
can possibly adjust the DSLR and certainly edit its images to get that
same bright vivid sharpness. The reason for making it adjustments you
have to make is that the wider dynamic range gives you more choice in
what part of the dynamic range you choose to emphasize, and which you
choose to lose.

Biggest thing I "lost" was the ability to preview
what the settings were doing thru the view finder before I pushed the
shutter button.

I have a Sony A350 with the Sony version of the same lens. My usual
test of how sharp an image is is how much I can downsize it without
losing detail. I find that when the lens is at its extremes, i.e, wide
open and at 18mm or 250mm then it's usually only sharp enough for a
7MP image (downsize to 50%), and sometimes only 4.7MP (downsize to
33%). Backing off from the extreme ends of zoom and up a stop or two I
find it's usually sharp enough for a 9.3MP (downsize to 67%) image,
and sometimes a 14MP image. If I try hard (e.g. tripod and f8 and care
with focussing and avoiding the extremes of zoom) I can usually get an
image which justifies 14MP most of the time, although there's clearly
room for extra sharpness.

I also have a Sony R1, reputed to have a very sharp Zeiss zoom
(14.3-105mm, x7), and I find that most of the time, away from extremes
of zoom or opening, the A350 with the 18-250 produces images with as
much more detail as I'd expect from 40% more pixels.

IMHO that's very good performance indeed for a zoom range of x14!

I've not used an A100 but I suspect it can't be too different in basic
operation from my A350. On that I get to see the effect of changes of
settings in the live view screen.

RAW images or JPEGs?

Been trying both and not happy with the JPEG settings and the RAW
images I just can't seem to get decent even messing with Photo Shop.

You don't mention what JPEG settings you're using. I find with my A350
that the standard default settings produced flat soft images. Turning
up saturation and sharpness produced images with the kind of sharp
vividness I'd liked a lot from the R1. But at the cost of losing some
detail and introducing more sharpening artefacts than I was
comfortable with. In the end I found the best compromise for my
general shots was Landscape mode (slightly more vivid colours) with
sharpness turned up one notch to +1.

That produces ex-camera slightly flatter and softer images than I
like, but which are very simply tweakable in an editor to brighten
them up ans sharpen them a bit more, while losing little if any of the
extra detail resoltion available in RAW.

I find Sony's own RAW Image Data Converter produces the best results.

What colour saturation settings and mode are you using on the
camera? What happens when you use more vivid settings?

Been trying stuff across the board but my problem is in the field I
can't see in the viewer what the alterations made.

But you can see the alterations in Live View, and you can scrutinise
them in a lot more detail by reviewing the shot after you've taken
it. You may not want to do that all the time, but since you're trying
to learn how to use a new camera it would seem to be obvious that you
should use the feedback it provides you with.

Then when I get
back and look on the PC it's hard to remember what I was messing
with. Been trying to start with everything in automatic mode and then
just tweaking a few minor things. It seems that as soon as I start
zooming anything, especially in light other then direct sunlight, I
get fuzzy images. Unless I'm within a few feet of my subject I get no
vivid clarity in my shots. Mostly what I want to shoot is outdoor
nature type shots.

It sounds to me as though your experimental method is too haphazard
for you to be able to draw any useful conclusions. You need to use a
notebook, or an audio recorder, or snap along with your photos some
indications of what you're doing, such as photographing a scribbled
note.

It sounds as though you might have a focussing problem. To test that
open the lens wide and photograph something centrally focussed several
yards away on grass or another textured surface. Then check by looking
at the grass whether the plane of sharp focus is actually on the
object you focussed on.

Didn't know if the filter was maybe causing focusing issues but I'll
try to see if I take identical shots with and without it and see what
happens. I shopped for weeks for the lens I got (Tamron AF
18-250/3.5-6.3 DI II Macro Lens) and basically got good reviews from
bunches of people including the groups as I wanted a good multi-
purpose lens so I didn't have to keep swapping lens out (or hauling
them around) when hiking. So far I've been pretty disappointed with
the A100 and the lens.

I've been pleased by how good mine is, the Sony version of your
Tamron, supposed to be optically identical, and I'm using it with a
camera with higher resolution than yours. I think you need to test
more carefully and systematically in order to find out if there's
something wrong with your lens while you can still return it.

I'd also look around the image web sites, such as Flickr, to find
images taken with the A100 to find images which you like. You can then
check the EXIF data or ask them to see what camera settings and lenses
etc. they were using.

--
Chris Malcolm DoD #205
IPAB, Informatics, JCMB, King's Buildings, Edinburgh, EH9 3JZ, UK
[http://www.dai.ed.ac.uk/homes/cam/]