Sony A1 The one thing I'd change on the A1.

mark.s

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Mark Sturman
Is the i.s.o. /display dial on the back.
It's far too sensitive, especially when trying to adjust whilst wearing gloves in the freezing cold mornings.
If it had a bit more resistence, it would be great.
Does anyone else have this problem, or is it just a case of needing more time to mentally/physically adjust to such a delicate function?
 
I haven't noticed that as an issue for me... but maybe that's because I'm too busy being aggravated by the push-button release on the mode dial to notice.

Coming from an a7iii, I have muscle memory to switch back and forth between aperture priority and video mode that no longer works without releasing my grip on the right side of the camera.

I suppose even a camera as amazing as the A1 has to have some features that exist solely to annoy us personally.
 
Is the i.s.o. /display dial on the back.
It's far too sensitive, especially when trying to adjust whilst wearing gloves in the freezing cold mornings.
If it had a bit more resistence, it would be great.
Does anyone else have this problem, or is it just a case of needing more time to mentally/physically adjust to such a delicate function?

I haven't noticed it, but I have never needed gloves when shooting.

I guess the insensitive / inconsiderate response to your question might to suggest moving to a warmer climate, although the way things are going, maybe the warmer climate will be coming to you!
 
I haven't noticed it, but I have never needed gloves when shooting.

I guess the insensitive / inconsiderate response to your question might to suggest moving to a warmer climate, although the way things are going, maybe the warmer climate will be coming to you!
Having spent 15 Winters in the Arctic, many months in the Jungle and Desert, I'm used to varying climates but there's absolutely no point sitting by a river at nigh on zero degrees and getting cold. This is the U.K. it rains, snows, freezes and a couple of days every year the sun actually shines. Nah, I work better in the colder climates, just as well really. :)
 
What to change on the A1? Nothing.....but lots to change when it comes to the skills and technique of this user! I love this camera to death, it is absolutely brilliant, but wow,it has been really, really challenging and at times quite unforgiving of my various stupid mistakes and inability to grasp some (probably basic) shooting and/or editing concepts and using them appropriately.

Sometimes I' II come home, run the images though the computer and what I see -- crappy images -- just makes me feel like sh**, and that OK, there we are, I should just go out right now and sell this camera and my lenses and just use a P&S set to "Auto" mode, do snapshots from time to time and otherwise be done with this whole photography thing.

Right now I'm just frustrated and angry and hopefully this, too, will pass and tomorrow I'll pick up my A1 and a lens and we'll try again.....
 
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What to change on the A1? Nothing.....but lots to change when it comes to the skills and technique of this user! I love this camera to death, it is absolutely brilliant, but wow,it has been really, really challenging and at times quite unforgiving of my various stupid mistakes and inability to grasp some (probably basic) shooting and/or editing concepts and using them appropriately.

Sometimes I' II come home, run the images though the computer and what I see -- crappy images -- just makes me feel like sh**, and that OK, there we are, I should just go out right now and sell this camera and my lenses and just use a P&S set to "Auto" mode, do snapshots from time to time and otherwise be done with this whole photography thing.

Right now I'm just frustrated and angry and hopefully this, too, will pass and tomorrow I'll pick up my A1 and a lens and we'll try again.....
You're not the only one who does some things that piss off the operator and make them feel stupid. Identify the problem and try ways to work around it. When you conquer it, you will feel great. I had a problem with my A7 III where I un-knowingly moved a dial and screwed the photo. I did it more times than I care to admit. I got some personal advice from Mark Galer. He said to treat the information in the bottom of the Finder like a rear view mirror on a car. Include it in your scan. It was perfect advice for me. I check much more often. I might still move a dial, but I catch my error right away. Good luck and good shooting.
 
Thanks! Ah, but Jeff, if I recall correctly, you're a relatively new photographer and have a good excuse! Part of my frustration comes from the fact that I have been shooting for years so should know better. I suspect part of the issue is that over the years I've developed some sloppy habits or perhaps never learned a particular technique correctly in the first place, and I know that sometimes I get excited and start firing away when I see something interesting and am not always mindful of the settings. Aside from that, the A1 is one heck of a camera and is far less forgiving of mistakes than any other camera I've ever used, including the A7R IV.
 
Thanks! Ah, but Jeff, if I recall correctly, you're a relatively new photographer and have a good excuse! Part of my frustration comes from the fact that I have been shooting for years so should know better. I suspect part of the issue is that over the years I've developed some sloppy habits or perhaps never learned a particular technique correctly in the first place, and I know that sometimes I get excited and start firing away when I see something interesting and am not always mindful of the settings. Aside from that, the A1 is one heck of a camera and is far less forgiving of mistakes than any other camera I've ever used, including the A7R IV.
Well you are fortunate to own an A1, which is probably as fine a camera as you can buy. If you get really upset, I'll give you my shipping address and you can ship it out here. :LOL:
 
Hee, hee, no way am I giving up my A1! I just have to improve my technique and skills in order to be worthy of this incredible camera.....
 
Aside from that, the A1 is one heck of a camera and is far less forgiving of mistakes than any other camera I've ever used, including the A7R IV.
I've been following this thread and waiting for someone to say the one thing they'd change is the price!

In all seriousness, what is it that you believe makes this camera less forgiving than any other camera you've used?

Coming home with a handful of bad photos is expected, the key is to minimize them. Do you come from a film background? If so, then you probably recall opening the envelope or looking at your negatives after developing and seeing some OOF, or poorly composed, or poorly exposed. Back then we had to do it all and had no way to know. We used to bracket exposures not to create an HDR image, but to be sure we had the shot. That was expensive in the film days.

I understand what Jeff is saying. Yeah, he's a newer photographer, but I can't tell you how many times I forgot to change a setting (usually ISO) and I've been shooting for decades. It's the small things that'll get you. At least the second try is free!
 
Thank you! :). That is the one saving grace about digital imaging, the fact that once we've bought the camera, the lens and the memory card(s) we don't have to pay anything extra for processing! Except for our own time, of course. (Oh, and yes, one does need a computer for that purpose.). I indeed have fond memories and not-so-fond memories of shooting film, and both opening the envelope and looking at the negatives and the prints and being disappointed, or later, tossing a couple of rolls of film at the lab and then a day or two later looking over the contact sheets and often being disappointed again but at least there I could mark up the contact sheets and get printed just what I wanted and the rest was discarded. I also spent a lot of time in the darkroom gently rocking a tray filled with chemicals, only to get the thing out into the light where I could see the print more clearly and realized that I was going to need to return to the enlarger and try again..... Those were frustrating times!

Actually, yeah, yesterday after I finally got over my hissy fit, I sat down with the camera and looked again at my settings and realized that, oh, the other afternoon when I was out on the boardwalk shooting I was so eager to get out there on that gorgeous afternoon that I had totally forgotten that the previous time I'd done any shooting I had changed some settings for a specific purpose and had not gone back to change them again before heading out. DUH!!!!!!

Back in the halcyon days when DSLRs were just coming into their own, the images coming out of them didn't show as much detail and sharpness as we see these days due to the technology available back then. I still remember when I bought my first "professional" level camera, the Nikon D2X, being warned that this camera would be less forgiving than my earlier D70 and D200 had been. I wasn't quite sure what was meant by that until I started shooting and realized that I definitely needed to improve my technique. Ditto for the D3 when it came out. I was moving from APS-C to full frame, for one thing, and I also was using a camera which was more precise in its technology than my other cameras had been. User errors showed up very quickly!

Now, it's many years later and I am surprised at the subtle but definite differences between the A7R IV and the A1 -- and its about more than the number of megapixels. The A1 seems to be really fine-tuned, very precise and picks up details very well. Mistakes show quite quickly: motion blur, wrong exposure setting, etc.

Also while Auto ISO works quite nicely in some situations there are others in which it simply does not and I still am wrestling with that. I think I was getting a little too dependent on Auto ISO even as I was setting the Aperture and the Shutter Speed manually. I notice it more now because I've been shooting wildlife much more with the A1 than I did the A7R IV. Now I'm pushing aside the whole Auto ISO thing and am back to setting it manually in the hopes that my results will be better, or at least if they are not, I'll know why.

I agree, the one thing that I would change, too, with the A1 is the price! That is a heckuva lot of money and I really went back-and-forth for a while about buying the A1 when I already have the A7R IV, but I really don't regret it (even though there has been some frustration, I know it's all user error, no blame to lay on the camera. I just need to sharpen up my skills, be more mindful of my technique, use what I've learned through the years.....
 
See, now don't you feel better? :D It sucks to have the high tech yet still continue to be bitten by our own foibles. I spend as much time cursing my own stupidity as I do pressing the button!

As to Auto ISO, I refuse to use it. I want to control it myself, in fact I find it creepy. I am in M 95% of the time, once in a while in P, and on the rare occasion I want to use a feature that's only available in jpeg mode, Auto. That's about 4 or 5 times a year. Staying in M is beneficial in helping to eliminate what you described in your second paragraph...well, except for that ISO thing...

Most of this is a holdover from having learned how to shoot on a Pentax K-1000. What can I say, I'm a total Luddite! There are a few other practices I dislike or disagree with in principle that I won't go into, since my opinion on them would be highly unpopular. ;)
 
For years I shot in Aperture Priority and was happy enough with that, but then decided to return to shooting in all manual, and for the most part I prefer that since I really do have more control, especially in situations with difficult or mixed lighting. Somewhere along the line I decided to try Auto ISO and thought it was just dandy until I finally belatedly am realizing that, no, it's really not. There are times when it really IS useful, but I should have realized that it is not something that should be used all the time, as there are situations where it messes things up more than it helps.
 
I wonder how many folks here have seen Mark Galer's video "Auto ISO Minimum SS". I have found this to be a very effective tool.
I used to use auto ISO in P mode regularly. What I found is the camera will sometimes adjust ISO to an unneeded level rather than the Shutter or the Aperture. To my mind ISO should be the last thing the camera adjusts, and then only if the other two can't provide the correct combination. Your camera will always be at its best at native ISO. Nowadays of course we can stray from that and still get premium results, but I like to treat it as the exception rather than the rule to prevent myself from abusing the feature.
 
Auto ISO has not been my friend, which I am only now realizing. Eventually I began to see that some of my images that I've shot over the past several months, while they looked OK on the surface, had some really wild and weird EXIF info and then when sharing some images with people on another site, pretty much had that suspicion verified. Even seemingly basic shooting situations were showing seriously high ISO in situations in which this was not warranted at all. Something was seriously wrong. Was it me, or was it the settings, or a combination of both? Why and how? Is it me being stupid and/or is it the camera simply doing the settings as instructed, even though they're wrong? Do I need someone to hold my hand and get me to the right settings every time I pick up the camera to shoot? I certainly am feeling that way recently.

To be honest, for whatever reason this has thrown me for a loop and has definitely marred my usual enjoyment of photography. In some ways I feel as though I need to go through the whole photography learning process all over again, starting from Ground Zero and the Exposure Triangle..... Reading recommendations from this expert or that expert or viewing videos, where there is often conflicting information, only brings on confusion and that sure doesn't help any.
 
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In some ways I feel as though I'm starting to learn this whole photography thing all over again, starting from Ground Zero and the Exposure Triangle.....
You ain't kidding! I have said on more than one occasion if someone were to hand me the digital equivalent of a K-1000 with world-class autofocus I'd be in heaven. 30-40MP, simple menus, M mode only (ok, maybe add auto), no video.

I hate, no...despise deep menus. Most never use half of the features and you forget where things are. I can't even count how many times I tried a feature, thought it was pretty cool, and promised myself I'd use it only to forget its even there.
 
I wonder how many folks here have seen Mark Galer's video "Auto ISO Minimum SS - Sony's best custom setting". I have found this to be a very effective tool.

I used to use auto ISO in P mode regularly. What I found is the camera will sometimes adjust ISO to an unneeded level rather than the Shutter or the Aperture. To my mind ISO should be the last thing the camera adjusts, and then only if the other two can't provide the correct combination . . .

Auto ISO has not been my friend . . . had some really wild and weird EXIF info and then when sharing some images with people on another site, pretty much had that suspicion verified. Even seemingly basic shooting situations were showing seriously high ISO in situations in which this was not warranted at all . . .

You’ve pointed out something here that is huge in the way humans interact with automatic features and will be more of an issue in the future as we have more AI driven devices such as self-driving cars. You want correct exposure but you also want to do things in the order that you prefer. When setting aperture priority we’ll find the camera sometimes selects shutter speeds way higher and way lower than we would have liked. We’re trading the camera’s nearly instant response for the choices we would make if we were shooting in manual mode. Canon cameras allow the user to set limits for a minimum and maximum shutter speed but of course this isn’t perfect in every situation. Sony’s [ISO AUTO Min. SS] may be an indication of how automatic features will be set up in the future. The user picks an f stop and the camera picks a shutter speed until the minimum shutter speed is reached and at that point the ISO is adjusted. One user might choose for auto exposure to be less sensitive and only change settings after a half stop plus or half stop minus. Another user might want changes to take place only after light is a full stop lighter or darker. All these features could be programmable now but camera manufacturers are not motivated to enable advanced settings when megapixels, social media and price point are what drive the market. Up until now the manufacturers have made even the most advanced cameras in a way that consumers can take great photos right out of the box with the idea that pros will be shooting in manual mode anyway. As the tech gets better and better it opens the door for more automatic features to be used to achieve more things quickly and correctly than any experienced pro photographer could in quickly changing conditions.
 
You ain't kidding! I have said on more than one occasion if someone were to hand me the digital equivalent of a K-1000 with world-class autofocus I'd be in heaven. 30-40MP, simple menus, M mode only (ok, maybe add auto), no video.

I hate, no...despise deep menus. Most never use half of the features and you forget where things are. I can't even count how many times I tried a feature, thought it was pretty cool, and promised myself I'd use it only to forget its even there.
Just a thought - any time you find something like that, add it to you My Menu entries. Then you’ll have a collection of things you have found useful, without having to find them again.

It’s advice I’m trying to follow myself :rolleyes:

I have made it a habit to put things like Format Card onto My Menu as one of the first actions after setting date and time on a camera! On the A1, I have a second menu which starts with the menu to switch between human/animal/bird eyes.
 
You want correct exposure but you also want to do things in the order that you prefer. When setting aperture priority we’ll find the camera sometimes selects shutter speeds way higher and way lower than we would have liked. We’re trading the camera’s nearly instant response for the choices we would make if we were shooting in manual mode.
What I've learned is that over the years I've become just as fast in M as the camera is in P. While P only needs one dial for exposure, it still needs a second dial for exposure comp. I can do the exact same thing with the two dials to control shutter an aperture and it's just as instantaneous as P, except I get to choose which one I use for the compensation. In P, the camera will sometimes (again) choose to adjust the one I don't want. I just find myself to be more comfortable in M as long as there are two dials. One front, one back. One caveat to this would be panning through sun, such as at air shows or maybe BIF for those who shoot them. In that case allowing the camera to automatically make adjustments is a very nice feature.
Just a thought - any time you find something like that, add it to you My Menu entries. Then you’ll have a collection of things you have found useful, without having to find them again.

It’s advice I’m trying to follow myself :rolleyes:

I have made it a habit to put things like Format Card onto My Menu as one of the first actions after setting date and time on a camera! On the A1, I have a second menu which starts with the menu to switch between human/animal/bird eyes.
Good advice. I may try that, but knowing me I'd forget that My Menu is even there!
 
What I've learned is that over the years I've become just as fast in M as the camera is in P. While P only needs one dial for exposure, it still needs a second dial for exposure comp. I can do the exact same thing with the two dials to control shutter an aperture and it's just as instantaneous as P, except I get to choose which one I use for the compensation. In P, the camera will sometimes (again) choose to adjust the one I don't want. I just find myself to be more comfortable in M as long as there are two dials. One front, one back. One caveat to this would be panning through sun, such as at air shows or maybe BIF for those who shoot them. In that case allowing the camera to automatically make adjustments is a very nice feature.

Good advice. I may try that, but knowing me I'd forget that My Menu is even there!

I think that's why My Menu is the FIRST menu on an A1. Well, that and it's the main menu you need once you get the key commands onto it.
 
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