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

Ive just purchased a minolta md super paragon 200mm f3.8, just need an adapter now.
 
robj20 said:
Ive just purchased a minolta md super paragon 200mm f3.8, just need an adapter now.
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Note what I found... my cheapo MD adapter seemed to be very good quality and all my lenses fitted but it's a Sony Nex APS-C adapter and my 24mm vignettes badly, 28mm is ok though. I'm curently waiting for my hyper expensive Made in Germany adapter to arrive, which hopefully and going by what others have posted is FF safe.
 
I think from now onwards clever adapter makers are going to be restricting the amount of material inside the frame ... and maybe advertising them as full-frame suitable.

Does anyone think there'll be another full-frame mirrorless from the other manufacturers that'll have a more generous mount?
The sensor in the A7 is really giving lenses some trouble by having such a narrow NEX mount ring.

I too miss "Jobbie", but the thread title is now so much more sensible :)
 
woof woof said:
Note what I found... my cheapo MD adapter seemed to be very good quality and all my lenses fitted but it's a Sony Nex APS-C adapter and my 24mm vignettes badly, 28mm is ok though. I'm curently waiting for my hyper expensive Made in Germany adapter to arrive, which hopefully and going by what others have posted is FF safe.
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I'm looking at one that's about £29. The feedback is 100% positive has a removable tripod mount as well.
 
Tobers said:
The timelapse app looks intriguing, but a tad pricey at £8 (quite cheap that really I suppose).
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Does that require a smartphone or does it go on the camera by itself?

I'm very slowly working my way through yesterday's outing and uploading them to http://www.flickr.com/photos/darkandindustrial/sets/72157638447815913/ . PP varies from none to extreme in all shades in between. Really am amazed at what you can subject a raw file from this camera too, as long as it contains not large flat areas of gentle gradation at least.
 
Presumably everyone is using these pretty much exclusively with legacy glass? I love the idea of the a7 but the FE glass is not inspiring me at the moment. I also think they've really shot themselves in the foot putting it as a subset of the E Mount, it's actually quite difficult to pick out the FE glass on the majority of retailer websites...ironically even on the Sony website itself.
 
Alan Clogwyn said:
Does that require a smartphone or does it go on the camera by itself?
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To download it, you need to sync it with your PC. After that the 'app' is stored on the camera and is used like a Picture Effect mode. (Although, stored away in the Application folder).
 
Alan Clogwyn said:
Beautiful set of tones in this one, and the DOF is perfect.
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Thanks. 2.5 SC renders colours beautifully and has wonderful contrast. It's almost Zeiss-like on occasion.

I think that was at f/2.8 - I'd fluffed the previous shot that I'd prefocused carefully for the train's arrival and had to hurriedly adjust with a guesstimated twist of the barrel and fired the shutter straight away. I got lucky :)

Had a bit of a challenge yesterday morning shooting my 6 year old playing James in his drama club's performance of James and the Giant Peach with MF lenses only in relatively dim conditions, so it was wide open with the FD 50mm f/1.4, 28/2 35/2 and 135/2. Not my usual subject matter and it's one of those situations where I'd usually fall back on AF, so I surprised myself by getting the focus right most of the time despite everyone bouncing around a lot.
 
ukaskew said:
Presumably everyone is using these pretty much exclusively with legacy glass? I love the idea of the a7 but the FE glass is not inspiring me at the moment. I also think they've really shot themselves in the foot putting it as a subset of the E Mount, it's actually quite difficult to pick out the FE glass on the majority of retailer websites...ironically even on the Sony website itself.
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No my main lens is the 35mm and its brilliant really compact and produces great images.
 
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Anybody else got some old Nikon 85mms they can have a play with please? mine (AIS f1.4) appears to have an allergic reaction to my A7R (or vice versa). Considering replacing perhaps an AF version for compatibility with F100 and S5.

Any kind of strong light, causes what looks like a film light leak but isn't. Only happens with this lens. You can see it's pretty much square which is weird, and worst in the corners:



 
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Sony A7 'Scan' experiment by -cybertect-

First attempt at using my Sony A7 as a film scanner - Sony A7 + Canon FD 50mm f/3.5 Macro lens + Canon FD Auto Bellows.

The effective resolution is 6000dpi and rather better pixels than I get with my V700. It's also a lot quicker :-)

Original shot with a Canon AV-1 with FD50mm f/1.8 and Kodachrome slide.

100% crop

Sony A7 'Scan' experiment 100% crop by -cybertect-

V700 scan for comparison - the colour with the A7 is more accurate and was a lot easier to get right.

Sun shadows by -cybertect-
 
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My latest naff adapter woes....


I did however take delivery of a Kipon PK one, I think I'll be making them my default adapter from now on, much better build quality than any of the others I have, lighter and simply works properly.
 
Musicman said:
Sony A7 'Scan' experiment by -cybertect-

First attempt at using my Sony A7 as a film scanner - Sony A7 + Canon FD 50mm f/3.5 Macro lens + Canon FD Auto Bellows.

The effective resolution is 6000dpi and rather better pixels than I get with my V700. It's also a lot quicker :)

Original shot with a Canon AV-1 with FD50mm f/1.8 and Kodachrome slide.

100% crop

Sony A7 'Scan' experiment 100% crop by -cybertect-

V700 scan for comparison - the colour with the A7 is more accurate and was a lot easier to get right.

Sun shadows by -cybertect-
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Great result - I intend to do the same with mine. What did you use for light source and film holding?
 
Musicman said:
Urgh! Some kind of internal reflection, possibly on the adapter?
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More than likely (the adapter is not matte black inside, it's gloss black) but it only affects this lens, no doubt due to coatings being better on all my newer nikon/3rd party lenses.
 
Alan Clogwyn said:
Great result - I intend to do the same with mine. What did you use for light source and film holding?
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Film holder is a standard accessory on the FD auto bellows, which I had already - designed for slide copying with film cameras.

For a light source, as I couldn't find my lightbox easily, I just used my iPad! :)

BTW, I cross-posted a new thread in F&C: Using a Sony A7 as a 35mm film scanner
 
Anyone using a Hahnel battery, some reviews seem to suggest they might not play nice with newer cameras and not charge in camera.
 
robj20 said:
Anyone using a Hahnel battery, some reviews seem to suggest they might not play nice with newer cameras and not charge in camera.
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Not got a Hahnel one, but it's a 3rd party battery and it won't charge on the supplied charger or via computer USB. Charges fine in a standalone battery charger though.
 
Tobers said:
That does look particularly crappy! What lens is that by the way? Looks nice & diddy.
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Konica Hexanon 40mm f1.8. Looks really good on camera with that zebra adapter but I think I'll be getting a Kipon adapter instead.
 
A little Monday silliness - I'm working my way through my lens collection trying them on the A7.

Here is the Canon FD 500mm f/8 reflex :)



With a fixed aperture f/8 lens like this, one is glad that the A7 can take a decent-ish image at ISO 6400.
 
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Thanks

Every time I use it, I find it incredible how thin the DoF is even at f/8 and with objects over a mile away - the tiniest touch and it's out by tens of metres, and the FD 500 has quite a long throw on the focus mechanism.

Edit: When you look at 100%, it looks like the A7 is stretching the limits of the resolution of the lens, though it's possible some of that may also be because you have to crank up the ISO to avoid movement
 
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I've cracked and joined the A7 club. Hurry up postie. First on my list is an m-mount 90mm for portraits. Any recommendations? The M-Rokkor f4 looks favourite at the mo.
 
Which one did you get? And what made you get that one?
 
A7.
24mp is plenty (12mp would have been fine with me).
File size.
Shutter sound.
Cost.
 
I'm struggling with zebra and blinking both of which seem to me to be way too cautious.

I've found so far that zebra is useless as it blinks so early that it gives no indication that highlights are anywhere near blowing so for me so far a feature that I thought would be great is as far as I can see useless.

I also find the histogram to be way too cautious. I've tried shooting a scene with about 50% sky with compo dialled in +1, +2 and +3 with +2 being up to but not off the RHS of the histogram and +3 being off the RHS.

At +1.3 zebra kicked in and the histogram was nowhere near the RHS. At +2 the histogram was still not off the RHS but the whole sky was blinking on review and yet when looking at the raw nothing was blown, nothing at all. At +3 again obviously the whole sky was blinking and in raw it looked blown but dialling in -1.55 brought it back.

About 66% crop, +3 raw, histogram says it's blown...


Pulled back...


With my G1 I used to rely on the histogram and I found it a help but with the A7 at the moment it just isn't matching the raw file. Not that I will over expose +3 on purpose and rely on pulling it back... but I'd hoped that it would be accurate.

What are you lot finding?
 
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PS. Had to clean my sensor yesterday, one spot at f16. The inbuild clean feature didn't but a Rocket did.
 
So your saying the dynamic range is too good? I'm loving how easy it is to bring back detail to highlights and shadows. The issue im having with this is Lightroom not having enough adjustment, you can max out the highlights and shadow sometimes and still require more.
 
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I thought I was saying that zebra and histogram weren't accurate.

I'm all for great DR but I thought that (hoped) zebra and histogram would be accurate? As I said, zebra seems useless at the mo. and the histogram is way too cautious to be much use as a warning.
 
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I see what you mean. Something they can fix in a firmware update then, let hope its spotted.

paulcamcas said:
A7.
24mp is plenty (12mp would have been fine with me).
File size.
Shutter sound.
Cost.
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Fair enough, it took me ages to decide on one, the shutter sound being one of the factors i looked at but honestly its not even louder its just longer. I was mostly concerned with the lack of phase detect but from 99% of the reviews they say its so close its not worth worrying about and in low light makes no difference.

Is there anyone wishing they bought the other one to what they have?
 
woof woof said:
I've found so far that zebra is useless as it blinks so early that it gives no indication that highlights are anywhere near blowing so for me so far a feature that I thought would be great is as far as I can see useless.
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As I understand it, that's not the point of zebra stripes.

They're a feature carried over from video cameras, commonly to indicate when skin tones are getting too bright for a natural rendering.

http://www.thedvshow.com/faq-pro/?action=article&cat_id=002&id=2

As such, zebra stripes are not really concerned with the available RAW headroom, but the video and probably the current JPEG rendering.
 
woof woof said:
I thought I was saying that zebra and histogram weren't accurate.

I'm all for great DR but I thought that (hoped) zebra and histogram would be accurate? As I said, zebra seems useless at the mo. and the histogram is way too cautious to be much use as a warning.
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That's a bit of a disappointment. Are they too eager to show even when adjusted to only show at 1% & 99%?
 
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woof woof said:
I thought I was saying that zebra and histogram weren't accurate.

I'm all for great DR but I thought that (hoped) zebra and histogram would be accurate? As I said, zebra seems useless at the mo. and the histogram is way too cautious to be much use as a warning.
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Turning down the contrast in picture styles effectively compresses the histogram, so blinkies flash later and therefore closer to the actual Raw. Might help a little. I find histograms and blinkies are usually very cautious, but a few experiments will establish how much headroom you've got. Bit of PITA though.

Edit: agree with Rob re zebras, as I understand them, but I'll not get my hands on the A7R till later this week.
 
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