General help on Shooting night scenes with A9

[tmosty]

Hi all!

I am a brand new Sony A9 user and I am running into some roadblocks that I could really use some help on.

I have had the camera 2 weeks and can't figure a few things out.  Please be gentle, but here goes the list:

1) When shooting at night, I am getting blur.  I have the camera set to MF and I focus at infinity, but I noticed that it seems to be more in focus when the highlights are lit up...is that correct?

2) How in the world do I shoot at 1 sec?.  Why can't i get any lower than 1/8th?  What am I missing (shooting in Manual mode, MF)

 

3) What is "M.M. -2.0" that is flashing on the bottom of my screen... listed between my Fstop and ISO

[Chrissie]

ad 1.: are you using a tripod?  In other words: is it a motion blur or an out-of-focus blur? It would be helpful if you tell us what lens you are using.

Please check the following User Manual page for setting aperture value and shutter speed in Manual mode.:

http://helpguide.sony.net/ilc/1650/v1/en/contents/TP0001477947.html

Check this page for the "Manual Focus Assist" function:

http://helpguide.sony.net/ilc/1650/v1/en/contents/TP0001477969.html

ad 2.: all of the above

ad 3.: Check this page for descriptions of the on-monitor symbols. In your example:  the "M.M. -2.0" means, that your exposure is 2 full stops short from the proper lighting, i.e. too dark.

http://helpguide.sony.net/ilc/1650/v1/en/contents/TP0001491323.html (search for "Metered Manual")

Please keep us updated.

 

 

[Kathi]

Hello,

I can answer question number 3 because I have been trying to figure it out on my a7RIII all day and finally  cracked it!  MM -2.0. You are seeing this in the bottom of the live view screen, right? It's the exposure value. If you look through your viewfinder exposure looks like  (simplified) this:  -3  -2  -1  0  1  2  3    and the tick would be on the -2.( under exposed by this value).  If you had MM -1.0 the tick in the viewfinder would be at the -1.

I hope this helps.