Sony A7 IV Cropped/Shared Images are Blurry

[Embeeous]

I am currently using an A7IV with GM 70-200 to shoot birds. I’m a week away from purchasing the GM 200-600 but for now that’s my setup. Pretty straightforward issue - no matter what shutter speed, aperture, focus mode, focus area or any other setting I use (I keep ISO on auto and capped at like 2000-2500), the pictures look great on the camera’s monitor, even when I zoom in to check out sharpness and details. But as soon as I go to share to my iPhone via Imaging Edge, or the big culprit - cropping to bring the bird more into view and prominence in the shot - I wind up with a blurry, noisy bird. Pretty much every time. I recently moved from the a6100 to A7IV and I’ve had this issue with both camera bodies, so barring user error, I’m guessing that I am simply not using enough lens to shoot birds. No one that I know shoots birds with less than 300mm. I’m guessing that a 200-600 will help me crop a lot less and result in clearer images post processing but I’d like to be sure before making the investment. Thank you in advance for any input that you can provide.

 

[spudhead]

Yes and no. There are definitely times when you want to turn IBIS off that have nothing to do with shutter speed. Examples include tripod mounting (although I've never seen a difference, personally) and panning, especially true if the camera or lens doesn't have a panning mode.

I am intrigued with the theory about shutting it off for fast shutters. Going to dig into it a bit and maybe do some testing,

Kev is right on a lot of what he states, I am firmly planted between the new e-mount system and the old a-mount system and obviously a lot of the older primes I use do not have lens stability and so that leaves in body ibis which I have turned off most of the time with the old primes even the 300 g 2.8, due to the fact that testing proves to me personally ibis in most cases makes the image worse, its more about learning to how to handle the lens. So just because Sony added oss to the newer lenses like the 200-600 did not mean to me that it just needed to be on by default, early on I played around with it on and off and in different modes and found for me! it was not always a plus factor and in fact often it was a negative. I am only just starting to shoot birds in flight and I am light years behind Kev and many others on this forum but I quickly realised what Kev states for me personally has a lot of merit with the limited testing I have done so far. Sometimes the oss on does in fact make things worse in some images, I need to stress, you need to test this yourself. When I first got the the 200-600 I could not hand hold it and take shots which sounds crazy now given its light weight compared to some of the old primes I have and use, so now its second nature and I have found I can hand hold it even with my shoulder issues. I will say this though when a look at many images on the forum I tend to look at the metadata and its clear to to me some are way better with the 200-600 at slower shutter speeds than I am so as they say I still have lots to learn.

 

[Uncle Kevriano]

"Dont agree the on/off switch is a function provided for only switching OSS/IBIS off at high shutter settings"

No it's not, but B &H suggested it did it automatically, and yes, you should always turn it off on a tripod, for the same reason you don't need it at high shutter speeds, it will correct shake that just would not be there.

 

[Brownie]

I think we need to identify what stabilization, OSS or IBIS, is really for to begin with. It was developed to assist in shooting slower speed shutters.

I'm fond of saying 'back in the day', we used the rule of thumb to never shoot a shutter speed slower than the focal length of the lens. I will expand here in case someone isn't familiar. Those of you who are, please excuse the digression:

• A 200mm lens requires a shutter speed of at least 1/200.
• A 50mm lens of at least 1/50, etc.
• Note that this increases with crop sensors as the effective FOV changes. A 200mm lens on a crop sensor camera needs a 1/300 minimum shutter speed. M-4/3 needs double that of FF.

This rule of thumb still applies when using fast shutters. It stands to reason then that most people will say that anything above 1/1000 doesn't need IS because 1/1000 exceeds just about every lens setup on the market. Even a 600mm lens on an APS-C sensor would need only 1/900.

But when shooting a slower shutter, stabilization buys you some room with ISO and/or aperture. A kit that (truly) produces 5 stops of stabilization would let you shoot a 600mm lens @ 1/20.

Here's an article from B&H about IS that echoes about everything in my post. At no time do they suggest it's automatic, so my guess is the person at B&H was ill-informed. That's not good news for us. However, the article doesn't suggest that it get turned off for fast shutters.

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/explora/photography/tips-and-solutions/image-stabilization-when-use-it-and-when-turn-it

I am going to continue to look around, but so far the only information I can find about IS affecting sharpness at higher shutter speeds are forum comments from DPR, Miranda, etc. Still, the proof is in the pudding and I'll experiment.

Of course the worst part is if your subject is in motion, all of this IS stuff goes right out the window!

 

[Deleted Member 5003]

Personal opinions are equally valid, but none of the B&H postings and specifically the above quoted
link which i saw on the internet this am , state all is automatic or switching off OSS at high shutter
speeds is required.

As i previously stated , switching off IBIS alone for hand held shooting of flying birds is valid and
is also acknowleged by B&H that IBIS alone is not as efficient as OSS/IBIS working together.

Equally, whilst i havent seen such info, nikon and Canaon may well advocate switching off IBIS or its
equivalent as they do not produce lenses with an OSS functionality equivalent and leave stabilisation
to their cameras.

As regards Sony long lenses, after a good few years of focussing on shooting flying birds, I remain
convinced that leaving OSS on with IBIS gives better images than without .....others may have
alternate views and thats OK, each to is own.

 

[Jeff A]

I am currently using an A7IV with GM 70-200 to shoot birds. I’m a week away from purchasing the GM 200-600 but for now that’s my setup. Pretty straightforward issue - no matter what shutter speed, aperture, focus mode, focus area or any other setting I use (I keep ISO on auto and capped at like 2000-2500), the pictures look great on the camera’s monitor, even when I zoom in to check out sharpness and details. But as soon as I go to share to my iPhone via Imaging Edge, or the big culprit - cropping to bring the bird more into view and prominence in the shot - I wind up with a blurry, noisy bird. Pretty much every time. I recently moved from the a6100 to A7IV and I’ve had this issue with both camera bodies, so barring user error, I’m guessing that I am simply not using enough lens to shoot birds. No one that I know shoots birds with less than 300mm. I’m guessing that a 200-600 will help me crop a lot less and result in clearer images post processing but I’d like to be sure before making the investment. Thank you in advance for any input that you can provide.

I don't know if anyone pointed this out to you, but it's probably just a Typo but the Sony 200-600 is a G Series lens, not a GM. A good lens for sure, but not a GM. Good luck.

 

[AZHeaven]

I am currently using an A7IV with GM 70-200 to shoot birds. I’m a week away from purchasing the GM 200-600 but for now that’s my setup. Pretty straightforward issue - no matter what shutter speed, aperture, focus mode, focus area or any other setting I use (I keep ISO on auto and capped at like 2000-2500), the pictures look great on the camera’s monitor, even when I zoom in to check out sharpness and details. But as soon as I go to share to my iPhone via Imaging Edge, or the big culprit - cropping to bring the bird more into view and prominence in the shot - I wind up with a blurry, noisy bird. Pretty much every time. I recently moved from the a6100 to A7IV and I’ve had this issue with both camera bodies, so barring user error, I’m guessing that I am simply not using enough lens to shoot birds. No one that I know shoots birds with less than 300mm. I’m guessing that a 200-600 will help me crop a lot less and result in clearer images post processing but I’d like to be sure before making the investment. Thank you in advance for any input that you can provide.

I was having sharpness issues with my A7IV and Sony 100-400. After finally finding a Sony Support person that didn't want me to jump through hoops of fire after being doused with gasoline, I was able to send it to Precision Camera. A camera under warranty no less.
They replaced the mother board and realigned the sensor. With the side note saying it could be my lens. Weather hasn't been exactly AZ like with all the clouds and rain. So I haven't been able to get out and test the fixed camera or the 100-400.
You may want to call Sony support and they will run you through some tests to see what the issue might be. It very well might be the 70-200.

 

[Deleted Member 5003]

Good call Jeff but for the purposes of the above IQ discussion performance, the 200-600 mm, even as a G lens as you correctly note, still has 3 function OSS.

In addition as most users on the forum who use the 200-600mm, as well as photographers at large have found, the 200-600 performs very close
to GM quality despite the aperture limitations.

In my opinion I don't think Embeeous should concern himself too much whether its a GM or G, and even more so given the very low cost for such a high quality piece of glass...

 

[Jeff A]

Good call Jeff but for the purposes of the above IQ discussion performance, the 200-600 mm, even as a G lens as you correctly note, still has 3 function OSS.

In addition as most users on the forum who use the 200-600mm, as well as photographers at large have found, the 200-600 performs very close
to GM quality despite the aperture limitations.

In my opinion I don't think Embeeous should concern himself too much whether its a GM or G, and even more so given the very low cost for such a high quality piece of glass...

Thankfully, Sony puts out some lenses that perform above their price class. Surely the 200-600 is one of those. I have a couple of lenses that fit in that category as well, the FE20mm G lens is one such example.

 

[Deleted Member 5003]

Thankfully, Sony puts out some lenses that perform above their price class. Surely the 200-600 is one of those. I have a couple of lenses that fit in that category as well, the FE20mm G lens is one such example.

 

[SteveCress]

Maybe I'm late to the party and missed something, but you're uploading very low resolution photos to your phone. Imaging Edge defaults to 2MP and you have to change it to original size and make sure you're shooting JPEG or RAW+JPEG.

 

[Gaz]

The file size of that sample jpg shot is absolutely miserable (432kb). Ensure you're importing full size 36mb raw files and exporting from iPhone to full-resolution jpg. You can always reduce the size if you need to?

I shoot in both RAW and HEIF. The heif files are often 6 - 16Mb and always 33Mp. HEIF is a native apple format. No challenge on the iphone.

G