The Amazing Sony A1/A7/A9/APS-C & Anything else welcome Mega Thread!

stevelmx5 said:
Whilst there will always be some reduction of kit prices over time, I do still believe that Sony are re-couping a lot of their R&D costs from people who are willing to pay higher prices for OEM kit as there aren't any alternatives.
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This is true...... just the nature of the business unfortunately but it seems to be working for Sony.
 
stevelmx5 said:
Shouldn't you be comparing the Sony 24-70/4 with the Nikon 24-85 (24mm lenses are always more expensive then more common 28mm)?

Sony 24-70/4 - £869
Nikon 24-85/3.5-4.5 - £435
or Nikon 24-85/2.8-4 - £589

Also, where do you get the Sony FE 85/1.8 for £429 new?

Sony 85/1.8 - £561
Nikon 85/1.8 - £429

The Sony FE 50/1.8 is also £279

(all prices from CameraPriceBuster)

There's no denying that Sony lenses are more expensive than equivalents from CaNikon. Regardless of how old the lens designs are, you're still buying a brand new lens with warranty that delivers the same optical formula for considerably less across the board. Whilst there will always be some reduction of kit prices over time, I do still believe that Sony are re-couping a lot of their R&D costs from people who are willing to pay higher prices for OEM kit as there aren't any alternatives.
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Fair point - but people make out that there is a vast difference in price - but thats not quite true.

I dont think you can compare the 24-70 to the 24-85 either due to getting more at the long end so in that case there are no real comparable kit lenses as such.

The fact that if you but the 28-70 with the A7iii is costs a mere £200 which seems cheap.

Even so, I was origiannly scared off by the price of Sony lenses, but having looked in to it properly I think they are more affordable than I first thought.
 
JJ! said:
Fair point - but people make out that there is a vast difference in price - but thats not quite true.

I dont think you can compare the 24-70 to the 24-85 either due to getting more at the long end so in that case there are no real comparable kit lenses as such.

The fact that if you but the 28-70 with the A7iii is costs a mere £200 which seems cheap.

Even so, I was origiannly scared off by the price of Sony lenses, but having looked in to it properly I think they are more affordable than I first thought.
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This, now only if I could get a A7III and a 35 1.4 and the 85 1.8..
 
JJ! said:
Even so, I was origiannly scared off by the price of Sony lenses, but having looked in to it properly I think they are more affordable than I first thought.
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I guess affordability is different for everybody...... you can't knock Sony for doing what they are doing.
At the moment it seems Sony's only real competitor is itself! lol :D
 
Swiss Toni said:
Not everybody is a wedding photographer and comparing a D750 to an A9 is just silly.
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How about Fuji XT-2 to Sony A9?
http://www.albionrow.com/sony-a9-review-wedding-photography/

How about various Nikon bodies including D810, D750, D4s and Fuji XT-2 to Sony A9?
https://www.davidstubbsphotography.co.uk/sony-a9-review-wedding-photographers/
https://katemcelweephotography.com/2017/09/wedding-photographers-review-sony-a9-camera-weddings/

Nikon D4s to Sony A9
https://karibellamy.com/blog/sony-a9-wedding-photography/
http://www.agatomaszek.com/sony-a9-vs-wedding-photography/

Plenty more where those came from! lol :D
 
Riz_Guru said:
Sony A9 Wedding Photographer - 7 Months on....
He came from the Nikon D750. :D

https://www.robtarren.co.uk/2018/01/30/sony-a9-wedding-review-6-months-on/
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Those focus on the eye confetti shots are impressive. I'd have thought that the only way of getting a shot like that would be to manually focus. I can imagine a DSLR being very frustrating for that sort of shot.

All this talk of the A7III is very interesting and tempting so I have to keep reminding myself that I don't need one.

Another thing that's impressed me over the recent pages is the 85mm f1.8 but it's not a focal length I use much and I have 4 manual 85's and a 45mm f1.8 MFT, so again it's something that I don't really need.
 
woof woof said:
Those focus on the eye confetti shots are impressive. I'd have thought that the only way of getting a shot like that would be to manually focus. I can imagine a DSLR being very frustrating for that sort of shot.

All this talk of the A7III is very interesting and tempting so I have to keep reminding myself that I don't need one.

Another thing that's impressed me over the recent pages is the 85mm f1.8 but it's not a focal length I use much and I have 4 manual 85's and a 45mm f1.8 MFT, so again it's something that I don't really need.
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You don't need but maybe want..... give in and buy a Sony A7 III, you've got your moneys worth out of the Sony A7 ;)
 
Riz_Guru said:
You don't need but maybe want..... give in and buy a Sony A7 III, you've got your moneys worth out of the Sony A7 ;)
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Yes, I've got my moneys worth out of the A7. I tend to keep kit a while, I had my 20D over 7 years and my Nikon SLR for decades :D but I am interested in new kit and money isn't the problem, the problem is having the time and opportunity to use pursue my hobby and at the moment that's difficult. There's no point buying new stuff to fondle and use about the house so I'll wait until I can get out more. I've had a difficult few weeks but I'm hoping things will improve a bit soon :D
 
Tom Green said:
Can’t compare, it’s 3 x the cost.

That’s like saying ‘I upgraded from a Mercedes to a Ferrari and it’s better’
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Of course you can compare and that's what many people do..... hence the online reviews..... :D
 
simonbarker said:
Well...

Sony FE 70-300mm f4.5-5.6 £1199
Canon EF 70-300mm f4-5.6 IS II USM £464

I'm sure the Sony lens is a lovely example of a slow 70-300mm but god damn that's expensive.
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:o big difference, maybe it has special rare nano crystal particles inside it lol :D
 
Tom Green said:
Can’t compare, it’s 3 x the cost.

That’s like saying ‘I upgraded from a Mercedes to a Ferrari and it’s better’
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The cost is just another point for comparison,

Spending more does not necessary give you a camera that's better for the your needs.

I could say I 'upgraded' from a D750 to a Leica SL - and whilst the general image quality is superior the autofocus is not as good.

The person then decides if they can live without speedy autofocus and want the image quality boost for XXXX money

(there are other factor for comparison)
 
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Riz_Guru said:
There has been plenty of discussion and some say that they work great and in some instances better on Sony bodies because of features like Eye-AF.
Personally I don't think they are as fast as native FE lenses.
I thought you were going to get the FE 70-200mm f4? I have owned this lens and it was tack sharp with great IQ, you could easily crop and retain sharpness.
Do you really need more than 200mm? What's the longer Nikkor you got at the moment?
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The ability to crop or just zoom in to 100% plus and see detail continues to surprise me after (what is it...) four years with a 24mp camera.

This is a picture from our night out in Malton. A7 with V 35mm f1.4, f5, 1/160, ISO 100. It's just a record shot of the street our hotel was on. I focussed about a third of the way into the scene. Note that these pictures haven't been sharpened for the net or anything, just downsized and saved as quality 9 rather than 12 for the first two, quality 12 for the third.

1-DSC09711.jpg

100%...

2-DSC09711.jpg

200%...

3-DSC09711.jpg

It was a miserable day, although I like the lens it probably isn't world beating and the settings (including my chosen point of focus) weren't ideal for capturing a shot of that road sign :D

The pictures wont be as good here as on my screen but on my screen I can easily read the town names and road numbers on a sign I could hardly even see by eye and this is with only 24mp. I can only imagine what's possible with the A7R cameras. Unless people want to produce an absolutely massive picture and view it very closely or crop like crazy and produce a big final picture I'm pretty sure that 24mp will be enough for most uses and the 40+ mp of the A7R cameras... even more so :D

PS.
I often take flower shots with my A7 or 16mp MFT cameras and crop to 100% and the results are good for screen viewing and good sized prints.
 
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woof woof said:
Unless people want to produce an absolutely massive picture and view it very closely or crop like crazy and produce a big final picture I'm pretty sure that 24mp will be enough for most uses and the 40+ mp of the A7R cameras... even more so :D
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The Sony FE 70-200mm f4 is a extremely sharp lens (my copy was) so this helped crop without too much worry about loss of detail.
 
Riz_Guru said:
The Sony FE 70-200mm f4 is a extremely sharp lens (my copy was) so this helped crop without too much worry about loss of detail.
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I think we can get carried away with pixel peeping and forget how non geeks look at pictures and see.

Years ago one thing I did was produce artwork for use on stage and of course being anal and obsessive my stuff had all of the fine detail I could put in it and of course people at the back couldn't see it. In that scenario the detail that needs to be seen has to be visible for people sat at the back. There's no point having very fine detail that can only be seen when you're 6 inches from the picture as it just will not be visible to people in the audience viewing the picture normally. What matters is what people see in the final picture when looking at it.

If you intend for every detail on every leaf on a tree in the distance to be visible when you zoom in to 200% or look at the picture with a magnifying glass then that's one scenario but a more realistic one is producing the picture you want (including cropping if that's what you need to do) and deciding if it's good enough. Mostly with my 24mp FF and 16mp MFT I stop cropping at 100% and only then for pictures that I think are only going to be viewed on screen or maybe printed to something like A4. That quality would have been Voodoo not so long ago. I can only guess what's possible with 40mp :D
 
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Have to confess to being tempted by the R3, purely for the joystick and the better eye-AF. But those alone aren't worth the extra for me, as a hobbiest with not enough time to shoot as it is. Couldn't imagine going back to a non-R model, the crop-ability and detail you can get out the shots still blows my mind.
 
Durbs said:
Have to confess to being tempted by the R3, purely for the joystick and the better eye-AF. But those alone aren't worth the extra for me, as a hobbiest with not enough time to shoot as it is. Couldn't imagine going back to a non-R model, the crop-ability and detail you can get out the shots still blows my mind.
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Yup but what balances it out for me is that I've taken pictures, saved them 1000 pixels wide at quality 9 and emailed a 200kb file to someone who has then printed them out to fill an A4 sheet, framed them and put them on the wall and they still look lovely.

I still want a new camera though :D
 
Riz_Guru said:
There has been plenty of discussion and some say that they work great and in some instances better on Sony bodies because of features like Eye-AF.
Personally I don't think they are as fast as native FE lenses.
I thought you were going to get the FE 70-200mm f4? I have owned this lens and it was tack sharp with great IQ, you could easily crop and retain sharpness.
Do you really need more than 200mm? What's the longer Nikkor you got at the moment?
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Did you not see the video I posted showing the A7Riii with the Canon 70-200mm f2.8? It was pretty abysmal ;)

JJ! said:
They have a few?

The 50mm 1.8 looks decent for the money and not far off Nikon 50mm 1.8.
The 70-200 2.8 is on par with Nikon new version price wise
The 28-70 is much cheaper than Nikon kit lenses and meant to be decent enough.
The 70-200 f4 is a bit high on price
The 28mm 2 is cheaper than Nikon 28mm 1.8

I think because there are not really any gen 1 or gen 2 versions of lenses as they are so new, there hold used value.
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The benefit with Canon is the 3rd party alternatives which are MUCH cheaper (y)
 
So Wet have offered me just over £4500 for all of my gear, trouble with that is that it's trade value rather than cash and if I bought UK I'd be even more out of pocket than accepting a lower cash offer and buying grey ;)
 
snerkler said:
So Wet have offered me just over £4500 for all of my gear, trouble with that is that it's trade value rather than cash and if I bought UK I'd be even more out of pocket than accepting a lower cash offer and buying grey ;)
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Mpb
 
snerkler said:
Did you not see the video I posted showing the A7Riii with the Canon 70-200mm f2.8? It was pretty abysmal ;)


The benefit with Canon is the 3rd party alternatives which are MUCH cheaper (y)
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What video? I did a whole shoot with the canon 70-200 and it focuses like native
 
simonbarker said:
Well...

Sony FE 70-300mm f4.5-5.6 £1199
Canon EF 70-300mm f4-5.6 IS II USM £464

I'm sure the Sony lens is a lovely example of a slow 70-300mm but god damn that's expensive.
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That is expensive!

But in comparison some lenses are pretty equal in price:

Can 24-70 II - 1738
Sony 24-70 - 1894
Nikon 24-70 - 1779
 
JJ! said:
But in comparison some lenses are pretty equal in price:
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Not the ones I want though! ;)

Don't get me wrong, I agree the prices are fairly comparable when you compare apples to apples (same kind of performance, age of design etc) but I don't normally buy lenses that soon after they're introduced and the second hand market is that much smaller so it's going to sting more than normal.
 
simonbarker said:
Not the ones I want though! ;)

Don't get me wrong, I agree the prices are fairly comparable when you compare apples to apples (same kind of performance, age of design etc) but I don't normally buy lenses that soon after they're introduced and the second hand market is that much smaller so it's going to sting more than normal.
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Yup :(
 
jonneymendoza said:
Dslr tech is nonsense
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I think photography is just going the same way as other things as technology makes it easier for more people to get good enough results.

I do think that the old SLR/DSLR format has probably reached about as far as it can go and that mirrorless is the future and is the thing that'll make it easier for more people to get good enough results :D
 
From the rumor site...

"1) Sony realizes their menu system needs to be radically overhauled and maybe even re-designed from scratch.
2) The personal preference of that one Sony engineer “would be for a complete re-design based on a new touchscreen interface.” Something like the Hasselblad X1D has."

Read all about it...

https://www.sonyalpharumors.com/son...ased-new-touchscreen-interface/#disqus_thread

I can't remember the last time I changed any settings or went through a menu on the back screen as I much prefer doing these things whilst looking at the EFV. I suppose I'm in a minority again but I just don't care about touch screens and menus. At all.
 
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woof woof said:
From the rumor site...

"1) Sony realizes their menu system needs to be radically overhauled and maybe even re-designed from scratch.
2) The personal preference of that one Sony engineer “would be for a complete re-design based on a new touchscreen interface.” Something like the Hasselblad X1D has."

Read all about it...

https://www.sonyalpharumors.com/son...ased-new-touchscreen-interface/#disqus_thread

I can't remember the last time I changed any settings or went through a menu on the back screen as I much prefer doing these things whilst looking at the EFV. I suppose I'm in a minority again but I just don't care about touch screens and menus. At all.
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Personally I think that Sony has always planned to re-do the menu/GUI system and to incorporate the touch system better than it already is.
So they decided to put in the touch screen hardware on current bodies ready for this update via a firmware.... forward planning maybe :D.
Guess we'll have to wait and see if Sony actually do anything.
 
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Well if they have a touch screen I suppose pretty much all of the other stuff can be done via a firmware update if they want to and once they get around to it.

I wont care, as long as it can all be turned off and reverted back to a basic thing I can do whilst looking at the EVF.

I suppose there's no reason why it can't all be offered as an option or options...

I used to set pc's up like this, with a front end menu that gave the user the option of proceeding a number of ways. Doing it this customisable way where pretty much everything can be customised or at least offering the users a number of semi customised options should pretty much kill off any complaints about menus and would only take up a small amount of space on a chip :D In fact it all sounds so easy I can't understand why they haven't done it... Oh, hang on... they're Japanese :D
 
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