Bill P

[quote=Mac]I don't mean to be smart, but only you can decide if your photos are sharp enough. If you're happy with the results, then they're fine.

You hit the bullseye. Only you can decide what is sharp enough just as only you can prevent forest fires.

I suggest you would do well to visit Mike Johnson's website, the Online Photographer. Over the last several days he has fun a series of posts on the subject of sharpness. To reduce his exhaustive yet well reasoned posts to the fine point, sometimes sharpness is just right, sometimes things are too sharp and yes, some of the time things are not sharp enough.

I'm of the opinion that today's relentless quest for more sharpness is the replacement for yesterday's pointless quest for more MP's.

mas24 Loc: Southern CA

[quote=Bill P]

Oh!! Those megapixels keep on increasing in cameras. Just how many megapixels are enough?

Imagemine Loc: St. Louis USA

Not being a Sony shooter the same basic principle apply find the sweet spot of your lens, which some say is around f/8 & some so called kit lens are actually pretty good all depends on your taste & practice, practice, practice, good luck 👍

Leitz Loc: Solms

Someone will be sure to tell you what you're looking at.

Bill P

Fewer than most marketing people and folks on this site think.

lev29 Loc: Born and living in MA.

ABSOLUTELY!

I don’t understand how anyone but raw beginners can ask technical questions about their own gear yet don’t provide such essential information. Optics is still optics, be it employed in film or digital cameras.

amfoto1 Loc: San Jose, Calif. USA

First thing you should do, if you haven't already, is get a calibration device such as a Datacolor Spyder or X-Rite Color Munki and calibrate your computer monitor.

All three of your example images are too dark. That's probably because your computer monitor is uncalibrated and is too bright. It's causing you to adjust your images too dark. This will show up when you make prints, in particular.You mention that these images are JPEGs right out of the camera. Perhaps you've already made more accurate adjustments, working from the RAWs.

Below are revised versions of your flower and eagle images, done with a calibrated monitor. The flower was easy... I just brightened it up and boosted the contrast in Photoshop, using a curves adjustment. I also warmed it up quite a bit with an 85 Photo Filter. I suspect that was taken in the shade, which tends to be bluish and low contrast.

The eagle needed more complex corrections. I brightened up the bird quite a bit, but darkened the background separately. I also sharpened the bird, but added blur to the background. And, I re-cropped it to move the bird's eye off center (using the "rule of thirds").

Below are your originals as well as the revised images...

Original image #1

(Download)

Edited image #1

(Download)

Original image #3

(Download)

Edited image #3

(Download)

Abo

If you can shave with it... it's sharp enough.

Shot with a 10 year old 6.3 meg. Fujifilm S6500fd (S6000fd for US market) "bridge" camera
that can be bought off ebay today for $44.95au ($30.12us)

https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Fujifilm-Finepix-S6500fd-Digital-Camera-with-case-GREAT-CONDITION/274030091102?hash=item3fcd775b5e:g:5~sAAOSwmXtdkB-K&frcectupt=true

amfoto1 Loc: San Jose, Calif. USA

Regarding your flower photo, you might want to look into and learn "focus stacking". It's hard to get everything in focus in close-ups like that. Notice the flower bud that's out of focus. By the time you stop down to small enough aperture, you run into problems with diffraction where you are losing fine detail. The solution is to take a series of photos that are focused on different points, then combine the sharp portions of each into a single composite image.

The next thing I'd suggest is, if you don't already have one, get a copy of Bryan Peterson's "Understanding Exposure". That book is an easy read and a great explanation of how cameras and lenses work. It also gives you a lot of insight into lens selection. Beyond that, you just need to consider what you like to shoot and what would be the best tools for those specialization.

I don't know the Sony system well enough to make anything more than general recommendations. But, based upon what you say you like to shoot....

"Landscape—40%
Close up—30%
Wildlife—20%
Sports (Grandkids)—8%
Indoor sports—2%"

... I would be looking for a good wide angle zoom for landscape photography. On a crop sensor camera like yours, the Sony 10-18mm might be a good option. I really don't know what all is available.

For close-ups, consider a good macro lens. I'd normally recommend a lens in the 90mm, 100mm or 105mm focal length for "general purpose" close-ups. But if you rarely shoot closer than your flower example, you may be able to use a shorter 50, 60 or 70mm. Those more compact and affordable lenses will not give much working distance when used at their highest 1:1 magnification. But your flower photo is far less magnification than that. A lot of macro/close-up photographers prefer to use manual focus and there may be some affordable manual focus only lenses worth considering.

The 100-400mm you've got should work for outdoor sports and wildlife. Indoor sports is more challenging and often requires a more expensive f/2.8 zoom... or, smaller and more afordable, and even faster prime such as a 50mm, 85mm or 100mm. This lens will typically not be a good substitute for the macro lens and the macro lens won't serve for sports (by design, macro lenses are slower focusing... emphasizing precision focusing over focusing speed... which makes them less useful for fast action photography).

I'm not a fan of 10X and higher zooms, like your 18-200mm Tamron. Those lenses typically compromise in a lot of ways in order to offer such a wide range of zoom. If you're happy with it, great. Personally I suspect an 18-105mm or 18-135mm lens would offer better image quality and performance. But I might be wrong. As I said, I'm not all that familiar with what's available for the Sony system.

Do a lot of research, don't make too many changes at once, and keep shooting a lot with whatever you've already got, because that will likely help you more than all the gear purchases you might do.

duane klipping Loc: Bristow iowa

I use Aperature Priority all the time and turn off auto ISO the only thing that changes then is shutter speed. Never have a noise issue this way.

Bob Locher Loc: Southwest Oregon

I have the 30 mm f1.4 Sigma lens designed for AP-C, available new now for under $300, and it is incredibly sharp on my A6000. It is a great all around lens, equivalent to 45 mm on a full frame camera.

Cheers

Bob

augieg27 Loc: Central California

In aperture priority if you keep ISO at 100 and auto sensitivity off, only shutter speed will change.