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

NewBeetle said:
I know but I'm skirting around the shock of spending £1700 this week and the above is making me feel better haha. I use my 135mm a lot along with 35mm (for close focus stuff) and various 50s and 55s.

As far as native, I'm considering the Sigma 50 1.4, the Sony 85 1.8, the Sigma 70 macro. I do use 135mm and 200mm primes quite a lot, hoping to get one of the 70-200's to kinda cover this sometime but I will continue to use my manual lenses, plus people tell me I will get more out of them on FF especially with the IBIS for the longer ones.
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Maybe 35/85 and APSC crop to 50 and 135, thats what Im doing at the mo.
 
I do fancy the Sony 85mm f/1.8 or the 70-200 first I think.
 
twist said:
The 85 1.8 is a very good little lens. It helps it doubles up as a 135 @ 10MP as I dont use 135 that often.
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Remind me what happens if I put an APSC lens on a FF body? For example my 30mm f/1.4 Sigma e-mount?
 
twist said:
It'll put it into crop mode @ 10MP which is approx 45mm or you can disable that and you'll get 24MP with severe vignette.
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And will the aperture be a true f/1.4? I'm just going through stuff deciding what's to be sold and what's to be kept.
 
NewBeetle said:
And will the aperture be a true f/1.4? I'm just going through stuff deciding what's to be sold and what's to be kept.
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It will let in 1.4 light (afaik!) and camera will shoot at f1.4 but DOF will be f2.1 equiv. So 45mm f2..... which is still pretty decent.
 
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twist said:
It will let in 1.4 light (afaik!), but DOF will be f2.1 equiv. so 45mm f2..... which is still pretty decent.
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Thanks, I'll be sure to try my lenses in crop before selling them. I'm keeping the A6000 as a second anyway.
 
twist said:
Yeah, its a lens worth holding onto esp if you're keeping the a6k.
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TBH my favourite auto focus e-mount lens on the A6000 is the cheapo sigma 60mm f/2.8 that thing is hellish sharp and a nice focal length on APSC for me personally.
 
So now I’ve set up my new camera, better update the firmware. Will all my settings be saved or do you back up?
 
NewBeetle said:
TBH my favourite auto focus e-mount lens on the A6000 is the cheapo sigma 60mm f/2.8 that thing is hellish sharp and a nice focal length on APSC for me personally.
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Get the FE85 1.8 then, its also very sharp and renders really nicely for a cheap FF lens.

These were taken with it.... bokehs smooth even with a lot of busy textures like grass.... very sharp @ 1.8.



 
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And the d*** measuring continues!

I’m a believer that the best camera is the one you have, it is also very subjective. What is great for landscapes might not be great for sports. For me the Sony is an established system which is start to get a better selection of unadapted lens, yes my af could be better (currently have the Rii) and I may change it to the Riii eventually or more likely the Riv,(yes I know it’s a long way off), I like the size and portability and strangely I also love the colours it produces.

I started off with Canon many years ago, starting with film, then the 350d, 60d, 5d3 and builtmup a large selection of lenses, most of which have now been replaced with Sony. I’m not saying that I wouldn’t change again, but it’s highly unlikely due to the cost involved for a mere amateur
 
I do like Kai but he's not a 'serious' reviewer, more an entertainer
 
Fraser Euan White said:
I like his reviews and find them unbiased TBH Talks real world use rather than spec sheet self gratification.
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I don't really trust any of them tbh, I prefer to buy and try. It means a lot of switching but I'm quite happy to do that till I find the right camera.
 
twist said:
I don't really trust any of them tbh, I prefer to buy and try. It means a lot of switching but I'm quite happy to do that till I find the right camera.
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I will probably wait till the next gen but I think the first effort from Nikon is a lot better in real world use than what people initially thought TBH. (Body overall matches or betters the Sony and a massive range of glass that the adaptor works flawlessly with!)
 
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Fraser Euan White said:
I will probably wait till the next gen but I think the first effort from Nikon is a lot better in real world use than what people initially thought TBH. (Body overall matches or betters the Sony and a massive range of glass that the adaptor works flawlessly with!)
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:D

Trolls be trolling
 
Fraser Euan White said:
I like his reviews and find them unbiased TBH Talks real world use rather than spec sheet self gratification.
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I have to agree he doesn't seem as biased as a lot of them, also a lot of time for Gordon Laing at Cameralabs
 
Fraser Euan White said:
I will probably wait till the next gen but I think the first effort from Nikon is a lot better in real world use than what people initially thought TBH. (Body overall matches or betters the Sony and a massive range of glass that the adaptor works flawlessly with!)
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Sony can use A mount flawlessly, canon EF without much hassle and has 40 plus native af lenses and can adapt pretty much every mount ever made using MF.... I'd say it's well covered.

I've read a lot about the Z not dealing well with AFC tracking and bursts via F mount.... Which I do, so it's not all roses this gen. I'd like to try one but there's no native lenses I use.

I don't think this gen Nikon matches the a7iii.
 
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twist said:
Sony can use A mount flawlessly, canon EF without much hassle and has 40 plus native af lenses and can adapt pretty much every mount ever made using MF.... I'd say it's well covered.

I've read a lot about the Z not dealing well with AFC tracking and bursts via F mount.... Which I do, so it's not all roses this gen.
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None of the new kids on the block seem to be able to track focus in AFC and burst mode, fuji seems to manage it better but none of them seem to be able to keep up with Sony.
 
NewBeetle said:
I do like Kai but he's not a 'serious' reviewer, more an entertainer
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But DP review also stated this:

Overall, the combination of high resolution, expansive dynamic range, compact size, comfortable handling and great 4K video with intuitive and decisive autofocus is hard to dismiss. We're confident in saying that, as of now, the Z 7 is Nikon's most well-rounded camera they've ever produced.

Full article here:
https://www.dpreview.com/articles/8167832602/the-nikon-z7-what-we-think-and-where-it-should-go
 
Fraser Euan White said:
But DP review also stated this:

Overall, the combination of high resolution, expansive dynamic range, compact size, comfortable handling and great 4K video with intuitive and decisive autofocus is hard to dismiss. We're confident in saying that, as of now, the Z 7 is Nikon's most well-rounded camera they've ever produced.

Full article here:
https://www.dpreview.com/articles/8167832602/the-nikon-z7-what-we-think-and-where-it-should-go
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The key take away...

Nikon's most well-rounded camera they've ever produced.

They also said it didn't AF well continuously with f mount.
 
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Fraser Euan White said:
I will probably wait till the next gen but I think the first effort from Nikon is a lot better in real world use than what people initially thought TBH. (Body overall matches or betters the Sony and a massive range of glass that the adaptor works flawlessly with!)
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Having played with the Z7 I agree in some ways, if the A7R3 is a 3rd era Sony device then the Z7 feels like its a 2.5 - undoubtedly better than the A7r2 but its really just the AF that lets it down v the A7r3.... (single slot I guess too....)
 
twist said:
The key take away...

Nikon's most well-rounded camera they've ever produced.

They also said it didn't AF well continuously with f mount.
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Considering they have D5 + D850 + D750 - then that is a very fine stable!
 
chrism_scotland said:
Having played with the Z7 I agree in some ways, if the A7R3 is a 3rd era Sony device then the Z7 feels like its a 2.5 - undoubtedly better than the A7r2 but its really just the AF that lets it down v the A7r3.... (single slot I guess too....)
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I tend to agree Chris but Kai does point out that it clearly isn't a camera for shooting fast sports but does say the AF is good.

If they managed this with their first incarnation then just think how good their next release will be and that is only the camera body. With Nikon glass available (and third party glass working well) I believe Nikon will stop any of their current users switching brand - in fact you would be mad to change after this first offering.
 
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chrism_scotland said:
Having played with the Z7 I agree in some ways, if the A7R3 is a 3rd era Sony device then the Z7 feels like its a 2.5 - undoubtedly better than the A7r2 but its really just the AF that lets it down v the A7r3.... (single slot I guess too....)
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The single card sot.

The crap A.F.

The lack of native lenses.

No eye a.f.

Exposure lock on first frame in burst mode.

Crap battery life.

Yeah the Z7 is a cracker. :D
 
Fraser Euan White said:
Considering they have D5 + D850 + D750 - then that is a very fine stable!
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Key take aways...

  • Subject tracking reliability lags behind Nikon's industry-leading 3D-Tracking, found in its DSLRs, and behind several of its mirrorless competitors.
  • Low light AF sensitivity is 2-3 stops worse than the competition - this can cause hunting in dim lighting or when shooting back-lit subjects in AF-C.
  • Face Detect - available in the Auto-Area mode - is reliable at tracking subjects that are still, but can be confused by movement. We prefer the reliability of Sony's Eye AF.
  • In low light, when shooting in AF-C, set the camera to 'Release' priority instead of 'Focus' priority or be prepared to be frustrated by slow acquisition speeds. But note, doing so will mean fewer critically-sharp images.
In short the only thing consistent about the Z7's subject tracking performance is just how inconsistent it is.

It is also worth mentioning that AF tracking performance seems dependent on how well the camera initially recognizes the subject. In the case of our bike test, the subject starting small in the frame seemed to add to the camera's challenge of recognizing it as it approached. And fairly often we noticed the camera picking a slightly different object in the frame rather than the object we intended to track, which added to our frustrations regarding Z7 subject tracking.

One pervasive frustration we observed while field testing the Z7 is the camera's tendency to hunt in AF-C when shooting in low light or back-lit subjects. In controlled testing we found the camera started to hunt noticeably in light levels between 0 and -1EV when using the 35mm F1.8 S lens. But even in light levels slightly higher - like in the example above - AF hunting caused missed shots.
 
f/2.8 said:
Exposure lock on first frame in burst mode.
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That's ok, it only gets about 2 per second and only the first one is anywhere near in focus :D
 
f/2.8 said:
The single card sot.

The crap A.F.

The lack of native lenses.

No eye a.f.

Exposure lock on first frame in burst mode.

Crap battery life.

Yeah the Z7 is a cracker. :D
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Speaking as someone who doesn't need super AF its fine with me - most of my shooting is tripod based and I'd be happy to live with using Nikon F mount to fill in the gaps for now.
Actual user reports on battery life suggest that its not as crap as the CIPA rating suggests.

Can't justify the cost of one anyway currently, especially when the D850 is a shade over £2000 grey!

As a first effort though its pretty darn good, its certainly a helluva lot better than than the A7 / A7r were way back when new.

A7r3 is a mega bit of kit though!
 
I have a feeling the Z6 will be a lot better than the Z7
 
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