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

Anybody ordered the Zeiss 35mm 2.8? Got any idea of delivery date?
 
They're shipping. Don't know about ordering from now but if I hadn't pinged my back and been flat on floor for 48 hours I'd have mine.
:(
 
I might have accidentally ordered an A7 so I suppose I'd better get on the list for a 35mm. Where are you ordering from? Amazon seems the keenest price I've come across so far but they don't have it in stock.
 
twist said:
Sorry but I wont believe that the £8 version from China is built to the same standards as Metabones/Voigtlander etc. You can see from pictures they arent.

EDIT: But I wouldnt pay the big bucks for an adapter unless I planned on having loads of MF lenses, which I dont. Fotodiox seem to be a decent bet.
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This is the only adapter I've ever had that I couldn't use, and I'd had many (4/3, m4/3 and now E mount). Fotodiox are just the same cheap adapters with a brand name.
 
I've bought cheap adaptors for Canon, Nikon, Minolta, Leica and C/Y and they've all worked okay. As far as I can see Fotodiox are just the same as these. Metabones adaptors are definitely a step up and I haven't regretted paying extra for them. Novoflex are a big step up again. Everything about them is better - design, engineering, materials. Whether they are worth the money is another matter. To me they are but I can see that £100 plus may not make sense to many.
 
Digital rev have their review up, excellent cameras but limited in colour choice. A big complaint I suspect but they went a long way to fixing it...

Now do I get an a7 or an rx10.....
 
paulcamcas said:
I've bought cheap adaptors for Canon, Nikon, Minolta, Leica and C/Y and they've all worked okay. As far as I can see Fotodiox are just the same as these. Metabones adaptors are definitely a step up and I haven't regretted paying extra for them. Novoflex are a big step up again. Everything about them is better - design, engineering, materials. Whether they are worth the money is another matter. To me they are but I can see that £100 plus may not make sense to many.
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Just purchased a Nikon G Metabones adapter as it's the only one with a click stopped aperture. I wish they'd do a red version like the do with the regular nikon one, that'd be cool!
 
twist said:
Sorry but I wont believe that the £8 version from China is built to the same standards as Metabones/Voigtlander etc. You can see from pictures they arent.

EDIT: But I wouldnt pay the big bucks for an adapter unless I planned on having loads of MF lenses, which I dont. Fotodiox seem to be a decent bet.
Click to expand...

There is a difference between being in tolerance and carrying an unassuming name or indeed no name at all and being in tolerance and looking lovely and having a known name. In reality the latter is often what you pay for.

All I can say is that I've used my current cheap MD and OM MFT adapters at all apertures and I've looked at them at 100% plus on screen and the results speak for themselves.

I've little doubt that the branded made in Germany ones are better but the question is are they better from a longevity and image quality point of view. Longevity wise, it's just a lump of metal and I can see the cheap ones lasting decades and image quality wise... I'll soon see.

PS. I don't work now but when I did I dealt with manufacturing companies all over the world and I can tell you that where it's made and how much it costs if often not that related to quality :D Anyway, I've bought a cheap one and an expensive one so I'll see what they're like when they turn up.
 
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:thumbs:

(If you don't like it, I've got a cheap Minolta adaptor in the drawer I'll swap for it. Oops, perhaps not, just remembered it's for M4/3.)
 
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Just watched Kai's review and the kit lens looks huge to me. I'd ordered with the kit lens but I'm having a rethink now.
 
paulcamcas said:
Just watched Kai's review and the kit lens looks huge to me. I'd ordered with the kit lens but I'm having a rethink now.
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I posted a couple of pictures of my kit lens on the previous page. I'm quite impressed with it, build wise, size and weight and IQ wise and as I'll only use it now and again there'll little point me going for the f4.
 
Guess what I found in my old kit bag..... An md to e mount adapter! Forgot how massive it is.
 
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woof woof said:
There is a difference between being in tolerance and carrying an unassuming name or indeed no name at all and being in tolerance and looking lovely and having a known name. In reality the latter is often what you pay for.

All I can say is that I've used my current cheap MD and OM MFT adapters at all apertures and I've looked at them at 100% plus on screen and the results speak for themselves.

I've little doubt that the branded made in Germany ones are better but the question is are they better from a longevity and image quality point of view. Longevity wise, it's just a lump of metal and I can see the cheap ones lasting decades and image quality wise... I'll soon see.

PS. I don't work now but when I did I dealt with manufacturing companies all over the world and I can tell you that where it's made and how much it costs if often not that related to quality :D Anyway, I've bought a cheap one and an expensive one so I'll see what they're like when they turn up.
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I'm about to pull the trigger on an A7, which Leica m- to e adapter did you buy? Could you post a link for me? There are so many options I don't which to buy!
 
Canon FD is quite compact too, as Konica AR would be.
 
Thanks, both still a little big though. LM has some pretty sweet lenses.
 
twist said:
Hes using MD and Zuiko mounts not LM afaik.
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Yup. Minolta Rokkor and Olympus Zuiko for me because they have a reputation for being quite good and they're cheap, although I can see prices rising a little if they become more popular and indeed some of them already seem to be going for over £200. I'm pretty sure that Leica are very good but I like using these cheap humble little Minolta and Olympus lenses :D
 
Loved both my Rokker and Zuiko 50s on M43 but the best performance/value quotient was the Canon 50/1.4. The outright best for me was the Contax C/Y 50/1.4 although I've read that the 50/1.7 is as good and much cheaper.
 
Nothing wrong with the lenses, I like Rokkors but its just the adapter size that puts me off a little.
 
Think im going to order the A7R and the 35mm, comes to about £2k from Panamoz. The only thing the A7 offers is the phase detect but if i ever need that i can just use the A mount adapter and A lens.
 
Got my Minolta adapter working with a little judicious stabbing with a screwdriver. Seems my 45mm repair didn't work, so that's off to the scrapheap. Also discovered the screws had worked loose on my Nikon adapter, that could have been nasty!
 
I got my Novoflex OM adapter this evening. I've only been able to fire off a few test shots inside but the combination of A7 and Zuiko 50mm f1.8 seems to work very well.

I'd never used focus peaking before so I gave it a go - high and white - and WoW! I'm very impressed! It alows accurate focus even at f1.8 if there's a bit of distance between camera and subject.

I'm still waiting for my Rokkor adapter and more importantly I'm still waiting for some free time to get out with the camera.
 
I feel very limited by the Sony raw software.

What are you lot using (PC not MAC)?
 
Well my a7 arrived and...just wow! The EVF is simply stunning :D The camera feels like it's been very well built and I love the exposure compensation dial! Don't like the charge time though :|

Anyway, I've literally only had a quick play as my little sproglett has needed a lot of attention tonight :gag::lol: So just the Konica 40/1.8 has been mounted so far, and just the one willing (well, kind of) model.


IMG_6400.jpg by <<BackToTheFuture>>, on Flickr


DSC00023.jpg by <<BackToTheFuture>>, on Flickr

Photo shot in RAW and very quickly converted in LR 5.3, hence colours might be a bit out.
 
sony_zps97a43984.png


Found this on the Sony Outlet yesterday and got stupidly excited, alas it was a typo :( one day I'll catch the Sony website out.
 
Couple of issues I've had with adapters in general
Not allowing infinity focus, to thick...
Getting stuck, because mum over rotated, as the adapter didn't have a stop
M42 lens that need pin depressed to stop down, and adapter cant do that , depending on design. Most m42 are fine tho
 
Just placed my order for the A7R and 35mm lens. Should be with me sometime next week, I cant wait.
 
PCPhil said:
I'm using Lightroom 5.3 but I think you're allergic to Adobe if I recall correctly.
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I just feel I got screwed over CS2 and then again with CS5, expensive bits of software that can't and will never process A7 raws. I'm hoping DNG gets updated and provides a workaround but no, I don't fancy giving Adobe a monthly fee or buying Lightroom in the hope of not being in this position again two years down the line.
 
Thats the beauty of being a multi million dollar company. They dont have to care. Annoying as a customer though. :mad:
 
twist said:
Thats the beauty of being a multi million dollar company. They dont have to care. Annoying as a customer though. :mad:
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Yup. A £600 package that they stop updating just a couple of years later. £300 a year then... poor value IMVHO.
 
woof woof said:
Yup. A £600 package that they stop updating just a couple of years later. £300 a year then... poor value IMVHO.
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Yes very, they could at least update Adobe RAW for free for a few more years for existing users.

Hows the camera?
 
I'm happy with the camera although not being able to process raws in anything other than the Sony software is a problem as it's very poor, IMO.

I'm hoping the DNG soon gets updated. The best results I've had so far are from shooting raw, outputing as tiff and processing as raw in CS5 but it's a pain as you can't batch process so processing one simple image takes minutes whilst my 5D and G1 raw images can be batch processed in seconds and saved as jpegs.

I tried UFRaw and found it poor and my two different versions of Rawtherapee kept crashing so I deleted hem both.

The only real issue I've found other than processing so far is that switching between the EVF and back screen is a pain as the EVF detects my eye and the screen goes off and then when I remove my eye from the EVF the screen comes on so it's constantly flashing on and off. You can switch between EVF and screen in the menu but it's a pain to access and there doesn't seem (as far as I can see) any way to allocate EVF/screen to a function key. You can allocate "deactivate monitor" to a function button but the backlight remains on and in low light I find it distracting as again it's constantly flashing on/off, but it's the best fix I've found so far. My G1 was much better in this respect.

Other minor niggles...

- IMO C2 is badly placed and difficult to hit whilst using then EVF.
- You don't get highlight blown blinkies in full screen mode, only in the mode where the image is very small and most of the display is taken up with histograms.

On the plus side the EVF is massively better than my G1's and is actually usable in low light. In darkness however it's just like the G1's and fails to display things clearly visible by eye and turning up the brightness doesn't help, so I may keep my 5D, I haven't decided yet.

Focus peaking is simply excellent.
 
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