New member and new Sony A57 owner

[kenerickson]

First I would like to say "hi" and thanks for having me! It looks as if you have a very active forum.

I recently gave my Pentax K100d to my Daughter-in-law and replace it with a new Sony A57. When we went camera shopping I was planning more along the lines of a Nikon but ended up with the A57. I take a lot of indoor pictures in a light box or light diffuser box. My initial impressions of the Sony A57 from a sharpness/color standpoint is not stellar. At this point I only have the 18-55 kit lens. Outdoor pictures really seem to be washed out and lacking detail? I am hoping by joining this forum I can learn the in's and out's of this camera. I did purchase a used Minolta Maxxum AF 50mm F1.7 prime lens, hoping this will help. I hope to have this lens in the next few days. Any and all comments or suggestions are more than welcome.

Here is one example of a outdoor picture. I was using the electronic zoom feature, but similar pictures taken without the zoom are no different.

 

[jaomul]

Welcome to the forum. Turn off your digital zoom feature forever. I advise you check your cameras default settings such as contrast and sharpness etc and see how you go. This is a very highly rated camera at the price point so I imagine a little tweaking will sort you out

 

[dxqcanada]

I have noticed on my SLT-A55 that the meter does tend to over-expose by 1/3-2/3 of a stop most of the time.

You shot in JPEG or RAW ?

 

[kenerickson]

Thanks for the replies so far! I shoot in JPG. I used to shoot in raw with my Pentax but have not figured how to load and edit raw in my version of Photoshop.

I did receive the Minolta lens this afternoon and shot a quick picture under similar lighting conditions as the picture in the OP. I set the contrast, sharpness up two notches each from the factory center position on the camera.

I also took a a picture of the cars in the driveway with what I feel are much better results .

 

[dxqcanada]

What version of PS do you have ?

If you have an old version that does not have the camera raw converter ... use the Sony raw converter that comes with the camera.

 

[kenerickson]

I have Elements 8.0. I did load the raw converter but have not spent anytime as of yet with it. I was so used to editing and converting raw to jpg with my Pentax in Photoshop.

 

[dxqcanada]

The last camera raw update for Elements 8.0 does not support the A57 (unless it is the same as the A55)
Adobe - Photoshop Elements : For Windows : Camera Raw 6.2 update

I really suggest shooting Raw and then the Sony converter ... you have more to work with in post processing than JPEG.

 

[kenerickson]

The Sony converter is painfully slow converting. To the point of being un usable , at least on the laptop I am running.
Do you know if Elements 10 supports the A57?

Thanks for the advice given so far guys!

Here is a picture I did take indoors with my light box and Minolta lens.

 

[Kolia]

I've stopped and actually sold my copy of Element 9 in favor of Lightroom.

You might miss the ease of Organizer's face recognition and other neat functions. But the RAW capabilities of Lightroom are way ahead of the Adobe converter you have and that of Sony's.

Other drawback is you will loose the camera's compensations for deformation and chromatic aberration when using OEM lens. Only the shading compensation (for vigneting) will carry to LR. The camera created Jpg will be intact of course.

You can manually correct those or download some of the user shared profiles for those.

 

[kenerickson]

I have noticed on my SLT-A55 that the meter does tend to over-expose by 1/3-2/3 of a stop most of the time.

After spending more time with the A57 I would have to say this is true with this camera also. I think the EFV took me off guard at first, but getting used to it now.

 

[dxqcanada]

Adobe Camera Raw v6.7 supports the SLT-A57 ... the latest update for Elements 10 is v6.5

As suggested, you might want to look at getting Adobe Lightroom as it supports the latest Camera Raw.

Eh, you might want to upgrade your computer also.