Can't get sharp photos without tripod

[dustinjm87]

Hey all I'm hoping you can provide some advice. I have a Sony a7. Just basically traded my a6000 for it. 

 

I know I don't have great lenses : Sony fe 50mm f1.8 and the Sony 55-210 from my nex camera. 

 

But my problem is I cannot get sharp images even in good lighting while handheld. I use aperture priority set in the sharpest ranges for each lens. I ensure the shutter speed is fast enough and that my histogram is properly exposing. I use the manual focus adjuster to ensure perfect focus. I have it on high speed capture. I've tried techniques to hold the camera more still. 

One thing I notice when im doing the micro adjust autofocus, it almost seems like image Im seeing through the view finder is sloppy, as if I'm shooting over a hot road on a sunny day. Is this something to do with the oss on the 55-210 not working on the Sony a7 body? 

 

 

Mostly trying nature/bird photography. I can get great sharp images with these lenses on a tripod and longer shutter speeds. But i hate carrying a tripod. 

 

I know this lens and camera doesnt have any sort of oss or ibs but at shutter speeds above 300 I wouldn't expect that to be much of an issue in bright light. 

 

 

 

Any help would be greatly appreciated. I want to buy a better telephoto lens but don't want to spend the money if there's something wrong with my techniques or understanding. 

 

 

 

I do shoot in raw I just uploaded JPG because because of file size

Camera settings were f8 1/320 iso 500 and 195mm

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[Pieter]

Did you get sharp images with this lens on your A6000? If yes, at least the optics are not at fault. The 55-210 isn't really great for sharpness but should be able to produce acceptable results.

If you take a photo of e.g. a field of grass with the lens focussed at something like 30 meters away, is there any point/plane in the photo where the grass is sharp? If yes, it's something with the focussing technique.

13 hours ago, dustinjm87 said:

I know this lens and camera doesnt have any sort of oss or ibs

The lens does have OSS and should work just fine with this camera. Try to enable/disable it, see if it makes a difference. If OSS enabled causes blurry pictures, something might be off with the OSS mechanism. But in that case you should at least get sharp photos with your 50mm f/1.8.

Is the photo you uploaded a crop or is it a full-sized photo? If it's a heavy crop, I'm not too surprised by the quality and as expected with the 55-210 (I've had one myself years ago and was never really happy with the sharpness it produced).

[dclark2171]

If anything the a6000 should show blurryness more since it crops in. However, doesn't the the a6000 have IBIS? with longer lenses handheld, a bit of IBIS makes a huge difference. 

[Cameratose]

A couple of points: 

1) That photo is very noisy. Noise will kill resolution and sharpness.

 2) You are shooting in APS-C. The 55-210 is an APS-C lens. Sony cameras automatically switch to APS-C when you attach a crop lens. Because of that, you no longer have 24MP, you have roughly a 10MP image. Still should be big enough but large crops are going to show it. 

Edited February 3 by Cameratose

[Pieter]

33 minutes ago, dclark2171 said:

If anything the a6000 should show blurryness more since it crops in. 

The A7 also (automatically) crops in when using the 55-210, as it's an APS-C lens. The only reason it should look sharper than the A6000 is because it has much less pixels (11 MP vs 24 MP in crop mode). Besides, OP said he gets less sharpness with the A7 than he did with the A6000 (at least, that's how I read it).

37 minutes ago, dclark2171 said:

doesn't the the a6000 have IBIS? with longer lenses handheld, a bit of IBIS makes a huge difference. 

No, only the A6500, A6600 and A6700 have IBIS. For longer lenses, OSS is also more effective than IBIS, which the 55-210 has.

[Pieter]

1 minute ago, Cameratose said:

1) That photo is very noisy. Noise will kill resolution and sharpness. What's the EXIF?

It's right above the photo:

20 hours ago, dustinjm87 said:

Camera settings were f8 1/320 iso 500 and 195mm

 

2 minutes ago, Cameratose said:

2) You are shooting in APS-C. The 55-210 is an APS-C lens. Sony cameras automatically switch to APS-C when you attach a crop lens. Because of that, you no longer have 24MP, you have roughly a 10MP image. Still should be big enough but large crops are going to show it. 

On pixel level, having fewer pixels should result in sharper images, not blurrier ones. The higher the MP count, the less forgiving the system is for lacking sharpness. A bad lens may look decent on 10 MP but it'll look bad on 24 MP.

[Cameratose]

2 minutes ago, Pieter said:

It's right above the photo:

 

On pixel level, having fewer pixels should result in sharper images, not blurrier ones. The higher the MP count, the less forgiving the system is for lacking sharpness. A bad lens may look decent on 10 MP but it'll look bad on 24 MP.

I noticed it and modified my post, but not before you responded

More pixels = higher resolution. Resolution is specifically the sensor's ability to resolve between two adjacent contrasting items. The smaller the pixel pitch, the better the sensor's ability to resolve. That's why we say 'higher resolution'. Pixel size has no effect on image sharpness unless you pixel peep at 200%, and we're not talking 50 or 60 MP, neither of those cameras are considered high resolution. Your comment refers more to lenses. Higher pixel counts (again, 40-50-60) will expose issues with older lenses that can't quite keep up. However, that's not the problem here.

The biggest problem I see is the amount of noise. The noise makes the entire image look blurry. Was there a reason you chose f/8? Seems like you could've opened the lens up some and gained light. In any event, I suggest you try a faster FF lens on the camera, trying to evaluate it with that lens is tough. What kind of results are you getting with the 50/1.8?   

 

[Cameratose]

Thought I was replying to the OP. 

Edited February 3 by Cameratose

[Pieter]

2 hours ago, Cameratose said:

Resolution is specifically the sensor's ability to resolve between two adjacent contrasting items. The smaller the pixel pitch, the better the sensor's ability to resolve. That's why we say 'higher resolution'. Pixel size has no effect on image sharpness unless you pixel peep at 200%

I agree, which is why I specifically said sharpness on pixel level, not on image level. I don't know if OP provided a full image or a heavy crop. If it's a heavy crop, said lenses (Sony FE 50mm F/1.8 and 55-210) will definately look better on 10 MP than they will on 24 MP. As said, I know from experience the 55-210 always looked a bit hazy on 24 MP: it is unable to resolve 24 MP even though it's not decades old. The FE 50mm F/1.8 isn't know for its sharpness either. Because of the much smaller pixel pitch, the A6000 is much more demanding to lens quality than the A7.

[dustinjm87]

Hey all. Thanks for so many responses. I'll try to answer them the best I can. 

 

First things first. Although this lens does have oss it annoyingly does not work on the Sony a7. Even double checked Sony's compatibility site. 

 

That photo is not cropped much. The bird was approximately 50 feet away and I'm zoomed to 195mm. It is cropped, but not extreme. I have bird photos of just 10-15 ft away in great lighting conditions and they still come out looking the same. Even have some from my bird feeder of just feet away and still poor quality. 

I do however have similar photos from when this lens was attached to my nex5n and could get some really high quality shots. 

I'll add that I used to use a Nikon d5200 with just a kit lens and didn't have these sharpness issues anywhere near as much... I absolutely love Sony but my 4 cameras from them have thus far been underwhelming.

As for the noise in the photo I'm not sure why that would be, only shot iso500 and it was a cloudy but bright day. My exposure chart and histogram all showed good levels. As for the f8, I chose that on this day because I've been trying to get sharper Images. I've shot many at wide open and no improvement. 

I do question this lens, it does seem to work fine and I can get sharp images on the tripod like said, but maybe there's an issue with the oss inside that's causing this blurr with anything other than perfect stillness. 

The 50mm is better for sure. 

 

It's only just now that I've even considered something might be off internally on the 55-210. Maybe that would explain the "hot air" look I get in the viewfinder. 

Also I have updated both the camera and the lens to the latest firmware. 

Maybe I need to buy or borrow another telephoto lens and see if I have similar issues.

I do want to get a full frame lens but didn't want to if my technique was so bad I couldn't get nice pictures lol.

I'm leaning towards the sigma 100-400

But if you guys have suggestions of other affordable options. I don't even mind adapting a Lens from another mount as I mostly manual focus anyways. But obviously something with oss that will work on my camera would be great. 

[Pieter]

40 minutes ago, dustinjm87 said:

Although this lens does have oss it annoyingly does not work on the Sony a7. Even double checked Sony's compatibility site.

Interesting... I triple-checked your double-check and came to the same conclusion. Oddly enough, (all?) E-mount cameras produced both before the A7 and those produced afterwards support OSS with this lens... Could even be that the OSS-mechanism behaves erratically with this combination, which would explain the 'heat shimmer' you describe.

[Cameratose]

Post some images made with the 50, say around f/3.5 or 4. 

[dustinjm87]

19 minutes ago, Cameratose said:

Post some images made with the 50, say around f/3.5 or 4. 

Tried too but can't get the images small enough to upload. 

But they are as sharp as I would expect from a base lens. Which is more than sharp enough for my needs. I actually almost feel like I could crop in the 50mm lens to 200mm equivalent and it might be sharper than my zoom. 

Try this link. That should hopefully get you to the raw unedited photo from my 50mm

F4 1/800 50mm iso1000

 

https://photos.app.goo.gl/VcbKugpDvGzoz72g6

 

 

[Cameratose]

Not bad. Did you do any processing? Certainly the camera is capable. I had the 55-210 on an A6000, same as yours and never found it to be a bad lens. Not as sharp as some, but serviceable. Do you have any camera shops near you that would let you try a couple of lenses? That would be a good way to run some tests.  

[dustinjm87]

1 hour ago, Cameratose said:

Not bad. Did you do any processing? Certainly the camera is capable. I had the 55-210 on an A6000, same as yours and never found it to be a bad lens. Not as sharp as some, but serviceable. Do you have any camera shops near you that would let you try a couple of lenses? That would be a good way to run some tests.  

Looking at the photo in the link it actually seems like it lost much of the detail. But yes I'm happy with the 50mm lens. And no there hasn't been any edits done to that photo. Straight out of camera. 

I've read many reviews and seen many posts about the 55-210 and it has always seemed like they've gotten good results with the lens. Which is why I've been so annoyed by my results. I'm strongly starting to believe my lens just has some sort of internal flaw. 

 

 Unfortunately we don't have camera shops in my town. Sadly the best option we have is the pawn shop. But as of right now they don't have any e mount zoom lenses. There is a shop in the town a few hours away that I may need to try. 

[Cameratose]

You could try lens rental too from an online supplier. 

You could've probably used more DOF on the flower shot, but it was good to see a bright shot. 

[Pieter]

6 hours ago, dustinjm87 said:

I've read many reviews and seen many posts about the 55-210 and it has always seemed like they've gotten good results with the lens.

Don't get me wrong: the lens is pretty decent given the very cheap price and should provide acceptable results if you set your expectations accordingly. But the reviews you've read are probably a decade old and the bar has been raised a lot since then. I replaced mine with the 70-350G and the difference in sharpness was really substantial.

Nonetheless, your combination of lens and camera should yield much better results than what you're getting so clearly something is wrong. Given your past experience with this lens on the NEX5N and A6000, the lens should be capable unless it's been damaged over the course of time. Do you still have that NEX5N to rule out lens damage?

[dustinjm87]

9 hours ago, Cameratose said:

You could try lens rental too from an online supplier. 

You could've probably used more DOF on the flower shot, but it was good to see a bright shot. 

Checked that as well. No luck in my neck of town. 

 

I actually just found an old Minolta 100-300 on eBay for $30. Reviews of those old lenses seem great and the price point is unbeatable. I have another old 50mm rokinon 1.8 and I quite enjoy it. 

Again I'm not looking for or expecting tack sharp. I just want useable. My recent trip to Florida with the a7 and 55-210 yielded less than 5 acceptable shots out of hundreds. 

First link is the raw, second will be edit. If I could achieve consistent results like this I would be more than happy. 

https://photos.app.goo.gl/jxg5wgPg1o8z4N6U7

https://photos.app.goo.gl/dU3JJdL1QEFiUrdbA

 

[dustinjm87]

3 hours ago, Pieter said:

Don't get me wrong: the lens is pretty decent given the very cheap price and should provide acceptable results if you set your expectations accordingly. But the reviews you've read are probably a decade old and the bar has been raised a lot since then. I replaced mine with the 70-350G and the difference in sharpness was really substantial.

Nonetheless, your combination of lens and camera should yield much better results than what you're getting so clearly something is wrong. Given your past experience with this lens on the NEX5N and A6000, the lens should be capable unless it's been damaged over the course of time. Do you still have that NEX5N to rule out lens damage?

Yes I fully understand this lens is meh, but the examples in those reviews blow my experience out of the water. In my previous post I added maybe my "sharpest" photo from a recent trip to Florida. That's where my bar is set, which I think is pretty low. 

I do have the nex5n kicking around however never bothered trying it again as the reason I upgraded to the a6000 was because my results were so meh with the nex5n and the 55-210. After having poor/worse results with the 6000 and a7 I started to think maybe something else was wrong. My next experience with the lens is from years ago so perhaps the lens has just gotten more out of wack. I had flashes of excellence from the nex but still overall was disappointing in comparison with my Nikon d5200 from a similar era. 

The only constant with my issues has been this one lens. 

[Cameratose]

1 hour ago, dustinjm87 said:

Checked that as well. No luck in my neck of town. 

 

I actually just found an old Minolta 100-300 on eBay for $30. Reviews of those old lenses seem great and the price point is unbeatable. I have another old 50mm rokinon 1.8 and I quite enjoy it. 

Again I'm not looking for or expecting tack sharp. I just want useable. My recent trip to Florida with the a7 and 55-210 yielded less than 5 acceptable shots out of hundreds. 

First link is the raw, second will be edit. If I could achieve consistent results like this I would be more than happy. 

https://photos.app.goo.gl/jxg5wgPg1o8z4N6U7

https://photos.app.goo.gl/dU3JJdL1QEFiUrdbA

 

Looks ok to me. 

If that's the 100-300 APO, yes, it's a decent lens. I had the 100-400 APO. There are a ton of really, really good A-mount lenses out there. You will need an adapter. Sony made 5, called LA (Lens Adapter) EA (E to A) then followed by a number, 1-5. Like LA-EA5. These adapters are not all created equal, and you must get the right one to work on your camera. Some are manual focus, some are APS-C, and some are FF/AF. I think you will need the LA-EA4 if you want AF, but you need to visit Sony's website. I can't get to the page from work, it's blocked. Here's a link to get you started. 

https://www.bing.com/ck/a?!&&p=93697e2488c048523ea078aa86539969438c5f46ee04eb8f553efef9a80ddbedJmltdHM9MTczODYyNzIwMA&ptn=3&ver=2&hsh=4&fclid=3f18c111-8917-6f18-323e-d2db88bf6e12&psq=sony+lens+adapter+compatibility+chart&u=a1aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuc29ueWFscGhhbGFiLmNvbS9ndWlkZXMvbGVucy1hZGFwdGVycy8&ntb=1

You can choose your camera, then the lens, and then see which features work with which adapters. I "think" it's:
LA-EA1 APS-C Manual Focus

LA-EA2 FF Manual Focus

LA-EA3 APS-C AF

LA-EA4 FF AF

LA-EA5- The most advanced and compact. Does everything, but only works with the newer cameras, I think from the A1 and newer, maybe the A7R IV. 

Don't trust my memory here, check the listings! Also, some may work on your camera with the older in-body focus motor, but not with the later in-lens motors, and/or vice-versa. 

What you'll find if you dabble in A-Mounts is that the earliest (1985-early 90's) of the Minolta and the Sony branded are the best. The lenses that fell in between are mostly poor. Minolta gave in to lower quality to try and maintain a market that was overcome by Canon and Nikon after their early Maxxum AF success. That's not to say there aren't a few outliers, there are. A good resources is the Dyxum A-Mount lens database. You can see reviews and ratings for most of the hundreds and hundreds of A-Mount lenses that were marketed. 

https://www.bing.com/ck/a?!&&p=7d3f21c0afd72d4d609c853927daac6dbedc5ddcf142beda2458586b29fb074aJmltdHM9MTczODYyNzIwMA&ptn=3&ver=2&hsh=4&fclid=3f18c111-8917-6f18-323e-d2db88bf6e12&psq=dyxum+lens+database&u=a1aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZHl4dW0uY29tL2xlbnNlcy8&ntb=1

 

 

[dustinjm87]

2 hours ago, Cameratose said:

Looks ok to me. 

If that's the 100-300 APO, yes, it's a decent lens. I had the 100-400 APO. There are a ton of really, really good A-mount lenses out there. You will need an adapter. Sony made 5, called LA (Lens Adapter) EA (E to A) then followed by a number, 1-5. Like LA-EA5. These adapters are not all created equal, and you must get the right one to work on your camera. Some are manual focus, some are APS-C, and some are FF/AF. I think you will need the LA-EA4 if you want AF, but you need to visit Sony's website. I can't get to the page from work, it's blocked. Here's a link to get you started. 

https://www.bing.com/ck/a?!&&p=93697e2488c048523ea078aa86539969438c5f46ee04eb8f553efef9a80ddbedJmltdHM9MTczODYyNzIwMA&ptn=3&ver=2&hsh=4&fclid=3f18c111-8917-6f18-323e-d2db88bf6e12&psq=sony+lens+adapter+compatibility+chart&u=a1aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuc29ueWFscGhhbGFiLmNvbS9ndWlkZXMvbGVucy1hZGFwdGVycy8&ntb=1

You can choose your camera, then the lens, and then see which features work with which adapters. I "think" it's:
LA-EA1 APS-C Manual Focus

LA-EA2 FF Manual Focus

LA-EA3 APS-C AF

LA-EA4 FF AF

LA-EA5- The most advanced and compact. Does everything, but only works with the newer cameras, I think from the A1 and newer, maybe the A7R IV. 

Don't trust my memory here, check the listings! Also, some may work on your camera with the older in-body focus motor, but not with the later in-lens motors, and/or vice-versa. 

What you'll find if you dabble in A-Mounts is that the earliest (1985-early 90's) of the Minolta and the Sony branded are the best. The lenses that fell in between are mostly poor. Minolta gave in to lower quality to try and maintain a market that was overcome by Canon and Nikon after their early Maxxum AF success. That's not to say there aren't a few outliers, there are. A good resources is the Dyxum A-Mount lens database. You can see reviews and ratings for most of the hundreds and hundreds of A-Mount lenses that were marketed. 

https://www.bing.com/ck/a?!&&p=7d3f21c0afd72d4d609c853927daac6dbedc5ddcf142beda2458586b29fb074aJmltdHM9MTczODYyNzIwMA&ptn=3&ver=2&hsh=4&fclid=3f18c111-8917-6f18-323e-d2db88bf6e12&psq=dyxum+lens+database&u=a1aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZHl4dW0uY29tL2xlbnNlcy8&ntb=1

 

 

You are right, the whole adaptor world is much more complicated for Minolta than for rokinon manual lenses. Probably not worth my effort in the end since an adapter that will give me functional use of those Minolta lens will run hundreds of dollars. 

I just attached my rokinon 50mm to the a7 for the first time and the results are awesome. Possibly better than the Sony 50mm I have. I can crop in to like 200% and things still look nice. Which just reinforces my thoughts on the 55-210 having an issue. 

Maybe I'll look for some m42 mount older telephoto lenses and go from there 

[Cameratose]

I use several Samyang/Rokinon lenses and have never had an issue with any of them. The 24/1.8 and 135/1.8 are my go-to primes for when it gets dark and I'm shooting under track lighting.  

[dustinjm87]

28 minutes ago, Cameratose said:

I use several Samyang/Rokinon lenses and have never had an issue with any of them. The 24/1.8 and 135/1.8 are my go-to primes for when it gets dark and I'm shooting under track lighting.  

Just took this photo with the rokinon off my front step. Probably cropped in 400%. Can't say for sure as I just used Lightroom on my phone and the detail is still great. 

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