Not to discredit Fujifilm whatsoever, but the camera had reached its limits for me. The file size, the DR, ISO tolerance and what I could do in post processing with them pushed me to make a change. Sure, the Fujifilm XT-4 was an option, but it still didn’t have the look and feel of the RAW files from a Sony Alpha series camera, so I decided to jump ship back to Sony.

This article is going to highlight some of the ground work that I did to make the decision to go with the Sony A7RIII instead of the Sony A7RIV and why it’s the better choice for most landscape photographers. It also features some new pretty pictures.

Sony A7RIII vs Sony A7RIV: Key Differences and Similarities

This is a question that I’m sure many landscape photographers have found themselves in since the A7RIV came out. There are a few key differences outside of price that are worth a closer look including file size, sensor design and autofocus regarding both full frame setups.

Sensor Differences

First let’s take a look at the sensor and file size. The A7RIII sports a 42.5MP full frame stabilized back side illuminated (BSI) CMOS sensor with improved, low-noise processing. The image quality and dynamic range is much improved compared to its predecessor and the dynamic range rivals that of the Nikon D850 at its long envied ISO 64 setting. The camera shoots uncompressed RAW files that come out at a file size of 81.9MB.

The A7RIV has a newly designed high-resolution full-frame 60.2MP BSI-CMOS sensor. It also has a new 16-shot high-resolution mode that can be used to generate 240MP images of static scenes (this means no moving clouds or water).

The sensor of the A7RIV is slightly noisier than the A7R III at the highest ISO values and I’ve seen some samples at lower ISO values that show the same thing. DPReview outlined this in their review of the A7RIV.

Storage Headaches

With a larger sensor and improved resolution you can run into a few problems, including lens resolving power. This sensor is downright impressive and the uncompressed RAW files are HUGE; in excess of 110MB. You better be prepared to upgrade your storage if you’re planning to pick this camera up. Seriously though this means that you will likely either need to build a new custom Mac or PC to handle the file sizes and you will definitely need to set up a new RAID storage system to handle and back up files that large. It’s definitely something to consider before purchasing.

Dynamic Range

Let’s take a closer look at DR:

The above chart came from an excellent site known as photonstophotos.net (linked in blue above). This chart displays the photographic dynamic range at each ISO value.

As you can see the A7RIII (in blue) is slightly better in terms of DR than that of the A7RIV (in black), but the differences really are going to be mostly indistinguishable in real world use.

Both cameras have fantastic sensors and in terms of printing a 42.5MP sensor will allow you to print virtually any size that you can dream up. The 61MP sensor is a monster and you may run into some issues with the resolving power of your lenses with a sensor this large. If your lenses are absolutely perfect optically, then you will the ability to print billboard size images that look amazing. For a full review of image quality and DR please check out DPReview’s reviews for both the A7RIII and the A7RIV.

Autofocus

Autofocus is an area where the A7RIV slightly edges out the A7RIII, but if you’re using this camera primarily for landscape shooting with some wildlife here and there, does that matter? No, not really. The A7RIII is still excellent for small children running around, sporting events, landscapes and yes even wildlife. The eye AF Animal eye AF and overall subject tracking on the A7RIII all work exceedingly well in real world situations and they have only been improved in the A7RIV. Both cameras shoot at 10fps with the mechanical/electronic shutter and 8fps in uncompressed RAW. Burst speed is also very close in 28 uncompressed RAW files in the A7RIII vs 33 in the A7RIV.

Touch to Focus

The touch to focus in the A7RIII is actually fairly responsive and fairly easy to use for focus stacking static subjects. The cancel button can be a bit sticky at times, but it still works pretty well. Make sure that you switch to manual mode with focus peaking to ensure that you’ve hit all of your focus points. The touchscreen and the LCD is identical in the A7RIV and didn’t see an upgrade outside of the fancy new red box. It now includes a red box instead of gray box for touch to focus, but that’s not enough to warrant spending the extra cash in my book.

Another important thing to note is that the A7RIII got a firmware update with the A7RIV made its debut. This allowed nearly all of the AF features to be updated to near A7RIV spec in the A7RIII… except the little red box. That stays with the A7RIV.

For a full review of the AF in both cameras please check out these links from DPReview A7RIV, A7RIII as they have done a great job going over the specifics of the autofocus differences between the two models.

AF Customization

Both the A7RIII and the A7RIV have it and if you don’t currently use it, you really should be. One thing that I cannot stress enough is to make sure to customize your C1, C2, C3 and C4 buttons with AF options. This makes it extremely easy to switch between different AF modes, AF coverage and different subject tracking options on the fly. If you’re photographing wildlife or even a landscape with quickly changing conditions. This video goes over how to go about making those changes.

Ergonomics

The ergonomics definitely saw a big facelift in the A7RIV with an improved larger grip and newly designed body. The button design, grip and button layouts all saw improvements in the A7RIV. Both of these cameras also offer 5-axis in body image stabilization with ~5-stops, so even your non IS lenses with perform exceedingly well. They both feature the exact same LCD screen. Full disclosure I have big hands and the hand feel of the A7RIII is great; I’ve had no issues with it whatsoever, even with larger lenses.

You will see a difference in the EVF resolution (electronic viewfinder) with the A7RIV sporting a new and improved 5.76m-dot EVF. I honestly rarely use it and when I do, I find that the A7RIII EVF is more than adequate. If that’s important to you, then it is something to consider.

Price (the deal maker)

This was the big one for me and what ultimately became the deciding factor. You can pick up an A7RIII new for $2,498.00 and if you decide to go used you can get one with an extremely low shutter count for around $2,000.00. An A7RIV will set you back $3,198.00 and the used ones are still going for around $2,800.00 – $3,000.00. I’ll give you two guesses as to what I decided to jump on.

I ended up picking up an almost new A7RIII for around $2,000.00. The differences between the A7RIII and the A7RIV were really negligible when you get down to it, especially for landscapes and it made more sense for me to put that extra savings into excellent lenses, batteries and lens filters (CPLs).

Conclusion

I hope that this article helps a bit in your decision to purchase your next Sony camera. Both the A7RIII and A7RIV are great choices for wildlife and landscape photography. With the A7RIII firmware update you’re really getting *most* of the functionality of the improved AF. The bottom line is that you wont be disappointed by either of them. The cost savings and the ability to use my 2018 Macbook Pro made the decision even easier for me. The A7RIII files are absolutely outstanding, the camera performs exceedingly well in the field and I have been extremely happy with my decision.

Stay tuned for my lens choices… Sony makes some great stuff, but there are plenty of 3rd party options that just might edge out that expensive G-Master that you’ve been eyeing.

The post Sony A7RIII vs. Sony A7RIV: Battle of the Landscape Photography Titans appeared first on Chris Williams Exploration Photography.

Preface

I’ve only been in the field a short time; I started this journey in 2012, but the changes that I have seen over the past few years have really inspired me to write a opinion piece on the state of the field and the direction in which things are headed.  I’ve had some amazing interactions with some outstanding photographers on multiple platforms and I’m very privileged to call a number of the people I’ve met over the years friends.  In the content below I’ve outlined some issues that I, as well as other photographers have noted in recent years.  Sarah Marino encouraged me to write a post on the subject.  She has already published a post about 500px and the direction in which landscape photography is heading.  It’s very inspirational and worth a read: Photo Consumption, Conformity and Copying in Landscape Photography

The Social Morphology and the Death of Originality 

There’s really no question that social media has shaped and is continuing to shape and influence landscape photography today. For better or worse the majority of us desire to get noticed and for our work to be appreciated by the masses. This desire has really unequivocally damaged the field in my opinion. Day in and day out I see the same locations shot in the same way over and over again, with no credit given to the person who found that original winning composition.  I can’t tell you how many different copies of one of  Marc Adamus’ shots I’ve seen with little to no credit given to him.  Originality may not be dead but it’s definitely on its way out. Photographers now flock to these locations over and over again to get ‘the shot’ for their portfolio. They don’t bother to look for other compositions or different perspectives, no they just want that number one spot on the front page of 500px and they’ll do whatever it takes to get it. Crank the saturation to 150 throw some Orton on the frame, run it through HDR software and you’re set! I’m the first to admit that I’ve done this in the past and I would be a hypocrite to say that I haven’t. But! Things have definitely changed for me personally; especially as of late. Originality is king and less is more. Unfortunately it seems that originality is being rewarded less and less while imitation goes viral. 

It’s so discouraging to see the direction the field is going in. Photographers are fighting on social media outlets over the representation of areas that have been shot countless times. Vote scamming and playing follow the leader are running rampant throughout the media world and thoughtful, constructive feedback is all but dead. There really are very few healthy communities in social networks today that feed off creative and positive forward thinking and feedback. If I were a budding photographer I would be intimidated as hell by all of this nonsense. The field isn’t going in a positive direction right now and to be honest it’s really quite sad. 500px has been an amazing way to expose others to your work but it’s also become a very stressful and, quite frankly, a hostile environment for budding photographers.

Social Media Alternatives

So, where does that leave us? What other outlets or choices do we have? In order to answer that question I think some light needs to be shed on the problems with some of the other social media outlets currently available on the market.

Facebook has become one of the worst choices available. Personal pages are now limited by newsfeed regulations and friend limits and I can’t tell you how many times I get asked if I’m even still posting photos by people who follow my Photography Page. In addition to those problems Facebook has been severely limiting how many of my followers actually see my photos. Out of the nearly 7k followers that I have currently following my page only a few percent are actually seeing my posts. If I want everyone to see them I have to pay and if you do pay they then limit subsequent posts to get you to pay more. It’s like a giant money pit that leaves you broke in the end. What’s even more concerning is the fact that they generate fake likes with zero engagement on the page itself. So you essentially pay for your content to be seen by your current followers and click farms outside of the U.S., sounds like a great deal, doesn’t it?  I can understand limiting the reach of major corporations in an effort to turn a profit on their end but they do it equally across the board. In addition to the above stipulations any posts that have links, any mentions of commerce or anything of the sort are penalized even further and reach less people. This makes it extremely difficult to maintain any sort of a photographic community on your Facebook page. Facebook groups can be beneficial but from my experience constructive conversations can be hard to come by especially since Facebook even limits who sees what you post in groups as well due to newsfeed regulation and the like.

Instagram (which is now owned by Facebook, go figure) severely lacks in the community aspect and it has honestly become much like 500px in the sense that hubs only feature content from the same photographers over and over again in an effort to gain followers of their own much akin to the editors choice category in 500px (which has improved as of late drastically thanks to a handful of talented photographers with a great eye for outstanding content). It’s essentially a giant popularity contest. I’ve heard that Instagram can be a very productive, lucrative and positive environment but I have personally yet to experience many of those aspects. One positive is that post engagement isn’t currently regulated so it’s an excellent way for your content to get seen once you’ve obtained enough followers to do so, although I’m sure that that will change in the future.

There are other choices outside of the world of Facebook, but they too have their share of issues. Google+ was once touted to become the next Facebook but better. Well truth be told it’s essentially become a ghost town with very little user interaction and post visibility. Once in a while one of my posts will catch fire and go ‘moderately viral’ for a brief period of time but that’s honestly fairly rare. The hubs and pages do a much better job of sharing content but the reach is fairly limited. One of the old dogs in the fight is Flickr. I only recently joined Flickr but I’ve been told that it used to be a budding community with plenty of user interaction and fairly nice photo reach but that has since disappeared. The new platform has severely limited photo reach and the groups are essentially useless. Personally I’ve experienced very little interaction with new users on that site and my exposure has been minimal. There are also a handful of other platforms on the market such as 1x, Ello and Pinterest but they all have fairly big gaps in one way or another.

Social Eb and Flow: The Demise of Whytake

The death of Whytake was a huge blow to the field in my opinion. I had only discovered it a year or so ago but it had already made a huge impact on my work. The site featured a curated inspirational photography catalogue that exemplified the essence of modern landscape photography. Anything from intimate nature abstracts to sweeping vast landscapes and powerful wildlife images graced the home page of that site and gave visitors a much different and more broad look at the field than other sites provided.  The name didn’t determine the content and the images spoke for themselves.  Many of the images that graced the galleries were from photographers whom I had never heard of and many of the more subtle images from those that I was aware of but had never seen.

Whytake may not have had much user interaction, but it made up for that in sheer original and inspirational content. The same can’t be said for many of the other alternatives on the market today. I never got to experience the Nature Photography Network or NPN in its heyday as I began my photographic journey in 2012, but I’ve heard that it was a lot like Whytake with the addition of excellent user interaction, constructive feedback and a positive learning environment.

500px is King 

Unfortunately at the time of writing this 500px is king. Many photographers strive to get to that top spot at the expense of creativity and in some cases self respect (in the case of photo theft through composites or outright re-posting someone else’s work). Intimate scenes are often overlooked, subtle yet creative and original content often goes unnoticed and many of us sit behind our computer screens shaking our heads in disbelief at the content on the front page. Thoughtful comments are often replaced with ‘great shot v+f take a look at my latest work!’ Or in some cases really destructive dialogue between fellow photographers which is laid out on the table for the masses to see. The site has essentially become a massive popularity contest run by consumption with little appreciation for the amount of work that actually goes into the photographs themselves. The site’s crop can utterly ruin a photo’s chances of making it; especially in the case of panoramic work.  Up Voting, cliques and fairly un-original content now run the site for all intents and purposes. The superficial and sometimes damaging dialogue that permeates the site has really damaged the community as a whole and has substantially culled what could otherwise be a fantastic learning environment.

Where do we go from here?

With Whytake on its way out, Facebook dictating what we see, Flickr failing to form a community setting, 500px with so much potential yet so many problems and many of the other social networks coming up short.  The question can be asked; where do we go from here?

The truth of the mater is I don’t have a solution or a fix for social media as a whole but I think that we as individuals owe it to ourselves to strive to do better. Think outside of the box and really strive to form a community that feeds off creativity and constructive feedback.  Instead of going for ‘the’ shot investigate other perspectives and less seen scenes.  Get away from the familiar and immerse yourself into the unknown.  Creativity knows no bounds but your own limitations.

Lastly we need to remember that in the end you will never be remembered for your pulse, the number of followers you have or how many likes you get.  When all is said and done the photos are what really matter.  We need to remember why we started photography to begin with and why we continue to do it today.  After all is said and done the journey to each photo is often more important than the image itself; we grow and learn from each step forward and the occasional stumble backward from time to time.  I think social media has really diminished the value of the art of photography itself and getting that back might be the single most important thing we can do at this point in time.

The post Landscape Photography and Social Media: A Blessing and a Curse appeared first on Chris Williams Exploration Photography.

This was probably the hardest I’ve worked for a photo in a long time.  Mt. St. Helens seems to be one of the most stubborn mountains I’ve ever had the privilege to photograph.  It seems to shy away from the photographic spotlight, well at least for me anyways.  This photo was taken on my third attempt this month at photographing this gorgeous area.  In the previous two times I was promised gorgeous conditions by amazing forecasts only to be socked in dense fog on the ridge line near the mountain.  With my dreams and hopes dashed I had all but given up but decided to try desperately one more time and man was the reward sweet.  I literally ran to my car after work and left as soon as I could in hopes of avoiding the rush hour commute toward the mountain (it’s an almost 4 hour drive one way).  I arrived just in the nick of time; 30 minutes before sunset and scrambled around like a crazy man trying to find a good composition.  The sunset was one of the most intense I had ever seen; it burned and lingered for almost two hours.  The intense reds and oranges faded to soft magentas and purples.  As an added bonus the clouds broke up just enough to allow the super moon to rise up just to the east of the mountain.  It was a memorable sunset to say the least.  I also ran into two local photographers I had never met in person before.  We chatted and snapped away as the glow faded and the stars began to shine like tiny diamonds in the sky.  The sunset was still lingering and a light pink glow illuminated the western side of the mountain while the bright moonlight from the super moon enveloped the eastern side of the blast zone.  It was at that point that I decided to put together one more photo to end the night and this was the result.  It was a very long and tiring drive home but well worth all of the effort in the past three weeks.  It was a night that I wont soon forget.

I set my camera up maybe 6-8 inches or so from the flowers with the lens pointed down at a slight angle and took 6 separate exposures to ensure that all of the foreground flowers were in focus.  I then followed that by taking an additional photo of the mountain, the moon and clouds to ensure that it was in focus and at the correct exposure for dynamic range.

Technical information:

6 photos focus stacked at 16mm, f/2.8, 1/4 sec, one more for dynamic range

I used the auto-align action in Photoshop CS6 to align all of the photos and then used the auto-blend action to blend the photos by selecting the sharpest pixels.  I had to go back in and fix several areas due to wind blown flowers not blending correctly.  I then blended in one more exposure for the mountain, the moon and the stars and clouds.  This sounds like a lot of work but it is what is needed to see exactly what the eye sees.  Many folks say this is “photoshopped” the bottom line is your camera can’t see everything in focus in one shot at certain focal distances.  In order to get everything in focus you absolutely have to use multiple exposure blending techniques. I then applied several post-processing techniques to maintain details in the shadows while giving the photo a dark and natural look in Photoshop.

Gear Used:

Camera: Sony a7r, MetaBones Canon Lens Adapter

Lens: Canon 16-35mm f/2.8L II

Tripod: MeFoto Road tripper

If you have any questions feel free to message me: cwexplorationphotography@gmail.com

The post Super Moon Rebirth appeared first on Chris Williams Exploration Photography.

After purchasing my first full frame camera; a Canon 5D Mark II, I was in the market for a new landscape lens that wouldn’t break my budget.  My solution was the Tokina 16-28mm f/2.8 lens.  It is an absolute stunner of a lens with build quality that rivals the 16-35mm f/2.8 L Canon counterpart.  The one downfall to the Tokina was its in ability to accept standard filters due to its bulbous front end and built in lens hood.  To solve this problem I turned to Fotodiox.

I decided to order their standard Wonderpana 145 ND filter package for the Tokina lens, followed by a CPL filter which was generously given to me to review, and I couldn’t be happier with the product.  The overall build quality and craftsmanship is absolutely bulletproof.  I’m fairly hard on my gear as I am always out in the field when I shoot.  The Wonderpana system has held up in some atrocious conditions that we often see here in the Pacific Northwest, as well as 22 mile backpacking trip through the Enchantments in Washington State. The filter threads can stick at times, but overall I had minimal problems. There is a slight color cast with the ND filters, but it can be easily corrected through post processing. If you’re in the market for a lens specific filter system, the Wonderpana system is your best bet.

Here is a stock image from Fotodiox of the Wonderpana hood setup on the Tokina:

The other really nice thing about this lens filter kit is the professional appearance that it brings to your equipment.  I’ve had countless people approach me to ask questions about my setup and lens configuration.  It’s a fantastic and functional conversation starter.  The hardware is constructed of color coded anodized aluminum which is very sturdy and is custom built for the lens.  These are not universal kits; this fact alone makes them worth their weight in gold.  Universal filter kits are wonderful but they don’t work well for every lens they are applied to.  The Wonderpana system allows the photographer to utilize a wide variety of filters and systems that are designed for the chosen lens in an effort to optimize image quality.

The filters themselves are made up of high quality glass and glass coatings.  I have used the 145mm ND 16 and ND 32 filters as well as the 145mm CPL filter.  I have also stacked these filters for ultra-long exposures; the CPL accompanies the ND filters quite nicely when stacked.

Here are a few sample images from my recent outings with this filter system:

I couldn’t be happier with this lens filter system and I am very excited to try their square graduated filters and the new Free Arc Wonderpana System that was just released.  They also offer a wide variety of filter systems outside of the Wonderpana kits as well as lighting and flash accessories for a variety of needs and uses.

Here’s a link to their site: http://fotodioxpro.com/

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