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

woof woof said:
The rumor site says that store owners are reporting the Panasonic S series is a total flop.

I remember reading on Thom Hogans site that Sony's market share would be taken away by Canon and Nikon once they launched their FF mirorless lines. Seems like the predictions of other people taking the market off Sony were maybe a touch premature.
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I’m not surprised by this. The Panasonic has some cool tricks but it’s as big as a DSLR and arguably less capable. The reason for going mirrorless for a lot of people is to reduce size and weight so the Panasonic fails that one while the Sony’s clearly succeed.
 
I think Canon at least will hold strong on their market share. At least for the low end SLR market and the big DSLR pros.

It's hard to beat the old image of SLR = better and you can get an entry SLR really cheap with a 50/1.8 vs what you can get in a mirrorless. As for Pros, those 1D users will hold on to it because of their glass and Canon's roadmaps for glass is relentless. I'd say within 5 years they would have everything a pro needs. Sony E-mount has been out for longer than that and ultimately there are still holes.

Nikon, not sure where they are going, whereas Sony seems to push Body tech first, now glass. Canon pushing Glass first, body second. Nikon seems to be pushing evenly for both at the same time. Mediocre body and mediocre lenses.

That said, I have a friend who is a wedding tog that shoots Nikon, he bought both a Z6 and a Sony A7III in the same week to test them out and he has returned them both to get a D850 to replace his D750.
 
There are people on forums including this one who bemoan the small size and handling of mirrorless cameras and say that what they really want is a mirrorless DSLR... but maybe those people are a tiny percentage of the wider non forum posting buying public.

I can't say that I'm actually happy that the Panasonic, Canon and Nikon mirrorless ranges if not actually flopping are not raging successes either as competition can bring more tech and lower prices but I may be just a little bit happy at the thought of the brand fanboys tearing their hair out after predicting that Sony's market share would crash the second Canikon entered the market as I'd love it if people only bought the best product for them and ignored the badge.
 
magicolor1 said:
I’m not surprised by this. The Panasonic has some cool tricks but it’s as big as a DSLR and arguably less capable. The reason for going mirrorless for a lot of people is to reduce size and weight so the Panasonic fails that one while the Sony’s clearly succeed.
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It's actually quite big even when compared with a normal non pro full frame dslr, D750 etc. The evf though is outstanding, image quality is excellent and handling is superb.

It is expensive though, the lens range currently sucks and the auto focus is okay but not great.

I can see why it's a flop but I really liked it.

Wouldn't swap my Sony's for one though.

If I was in the market for a full frame mirrorless body just for my own use I would definitely consider it.
 
Hi all, I’m sure this has been posted before, however I can’t find it, has anyone used E infinity?? Good Bad points ?? Thanks in advance
 
Had my first wedding at the Roman Baths this morning, as it's only 20 minutes up the road I took the opportunity to arrive an hour early (the wedding was at 8am) for a unique chance to hang out there on my own. The staff said it's unusual to see the steam so clearly on such a warm sunny morning.

Roman Baths by Chris Harrison, on Flickr
 
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Cagey75 said:
How good is that lens, it's one I've had my eye on. I have a cheapo 55-250mm atm, but the extra stop of light and I would imagine extra sharpness as it is an L, would be nice. Have seen them go for very reasonable prices too
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The Canon 70-200 f/4 L is fantastic. I used to use both a 70-200 f/4 and a 70-200 f/2.8 (non IS). Both were razor sharp but the f/4 is much more compact and nice to use in the real world. It's also priced pretty competitively new even today and if your usage is mainly going to be outside, it should fit the bill nicely.

On full frame, f/4 (especially at the longer end) gives good enough subject isolation and bokeh imo. I'm certainly considering it but I hear Tamron may be bringing out a 70-200 as well soon to make a triple line up with the 28-75 (Excellent lens) and a 17-28. Even with that adapter though the canon is quite a good setup, especially if it works with eye AF. I only have an A7 II so not sure if the eye AF would still work. Anyone know? With the A7 II it's only in AF-S anyway.

chris. said:
Hi all, I’m sure this has been posted before, however I can’t find it, has anyone used E infinity?? Good Bad points ?? Thanks in advance
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E-infinity are good any many use them for imports. Nothing to worry about. Some of the cheap lenses you can find on ebay which state locations such as "Switzerland" are in fact e-infinity just trading under various ebay user ids. Often the actual address shows as Hong Kong. Worth checking camerapricebuster website to see if the lens you are interested in is available on a good deal in the UK with cashback first. Some of the savings on certain lenses via e-infinity though are too hard to ignore.
 
Hi guys, can someone confirm that when selecting RAW+JPEG on the Sony A7 II (not sure if A7 III is the same?) that the JPEG you get alongside the RAW image is expected to be much smaller in file size than when shooting in JPEG EXTRA FINE mode?
In JPEG EXTRA FINE I sometimes see file sizes at up to 14MB, but when using RAW+JPEG the jpegs tend to often be under 5MB. There appears to be no setting to be able to change the JPEG quality to be higer. They are all still 4000 x 6000 pixels. I assume this is just a limitation in terms of processing power to be able to write a RAW and JPEG file quick enough in long bursts. It's not really an issue since I have the RAW anyway, was just interested.
 
she's a good girl :)

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rob-nikon said:
Interesting it’s a G lens rather than GM. I guess that would differentiate it from the 100-400. potentially it would be cheaper than the 100-400 and inline with 150-600mm or 200-500mm lenses that are available on other lens mounts.
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I'm hoping it's expensive as I've just got my Sigma 150-600 ;)
 
rob-nikon said:
We are talking Sony here! I’m guessing it would potentially be priced somewhere between £1000 and £2500 (aka 100-400 price). My guess would be rpp around £1600-£1800.
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I reckon being a G and relatively slow we could be looking at £1300-£1500 which is still twice the cost of my lens.
 
NewBeetle said:
I reckon being a G and relatively slow we could be looking at £1300-£1500 which is still twice the cost of my lens.
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I wouldn’t mind a long lens to mess about with if it’s under £1500 u.k would be tempted.
 
NewBeetle said:
I reckon being a G and relatively slow we could be looking at £1300-£1500 which is still twice the cost of my lens.
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It’s going to be a weird one, they need to price well enough so that it’s not too high but also so that the 100-400 or 70-300 aren’t hit too much either. It’s a hard one for Sony to get right and there isn’t any similar focal length native mirrorless lens from any manufacturer to compare to. The nearest is Nikon’s 200-500 but that’s not a mirrorless mount. I bet Nikon mirrorless equivalent will cost more than the F mount version.

£1300-1500 would be great but the RRP of the 70-300 G is £1349 although that’s dropped down to £1079 UK street price. I could see a higher intro price around £1600-1800 that drops down to £1300-1500 after a year.
 
the nikon 200-500mm is a constant f5.6 but its slow at focussing compared to the 100-400mm. I am wondering if Sony has managed to keep the speed as good.

Its certainly an interesting lens that could do very well if priced right.

Personally I wish they'd make something like Nikon 300mm PF
 
robinsslee said:
Think I'll be keeping my Canon 500mmII for a while until Sony has equivalent lenses.

That said the 200-600mm G is tempting!

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Nice shots.
Don't think it'll be cheap though, the Sony a-mount 500mm f4 is rather expensive, probably the most expensive Sony lens so far.
Also if you are adapting the a-mount will work better than the canon EF
 
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I'm sure this has come up a million times but what is the most cost effective way of adding an ultra wide? I have a7III, A6400 and an MC-11, so FE, E or EF are all viable.

It's going to get very little use so don't need anything special.
 
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ukaskew said:
I'm sure this has come up a million times but what is the most cost effective way of adding an ultra wide? I have a7III, A6400 and an MC-11, so FE, E or EF are all viable.

It's going to get very little use so don't need anything special.
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Canon 17-40 F4L?
 
ukaskew said:
I'm sure this has come up a million times but what is the most cost effective way of adding an ultra wide? I have a7III, A6400 and an MC-11, so FE, E or EF are all viable.

It's going to get very little use so don't need anything special.
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Samyang 14mm manual focus.
 
ukaskew said:
I'm sure this has come up a million times but what is the most cost effective way of adding an ultra wide? I have a7III, A6400 and an MC-11, so FE, E or EF are all viable.

It's going to get very little use so don't need anything special.
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What is your budget? There are several options tbh...
Sony 10-18mm f4 is small and works on FF also in a pinch between 12-16mm.
Samyang 12mm f2 is great cheap fast sharp UWA
Then there is the samyang 14mm f2.8 which is cheap with lot of distortion but if you get a good copy its sharp also. Its also big.
And plenty more options available.... all depends on your budget and requirements really.
 
£300 tops ideally. Manual focus is fine and relatively compact would be a bonus.
 
Just in case you don't know :D but I'm sure you do... 12mm is very wide indeed on a FF camera.

I have a Tokina 17mm f3.5 and a Vivitar 19mm f3.8. Both are cheap and relatively compact film era mass market efforts. I don't know if you'd be happy with the corner performance or the relatively slow by todays standards apertures but for occasional amateur use they and lenses like them are cheap options.
 
ukaskew said:
£300 tops ideally. Manual focus is fine and relatively compact would be a bonus.
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How wide do you want?
Mechanical adapted Sigma/Tokina/Cosina/vivtar 19/20/21-35 zoom in mount of your choice for <£100
Sigma 12-24 in mount of your choice for ~£300.
Used Samyang/Laowa12/14/15mm for a couple of hundred quid.
 
Samyang 14mm Manual focus gets my vote. £229 brand new, can't go wrong.

(unless you need to use filters)
 
ukaskew said:
£300 tops ideally. Manual focus is fine and relatively compact would be a bonus.
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Samyang 12mm f2 is really great. If you can stretch the budget a little further the Sony 10-18mm f4 is pretty good too.

I personally don't like DSLR FF UWA lenses because they are huge as it is and this is one area where cheap adapters could affect IQ. I remember reading even mc11 affected IQ in some cases. Also you make some considerable weight savings by buying mirrorless design lenses.
 
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I have an a7iii and the Sony 100-400, I was looking at getting the 1.4x converter for it as well. A friend suggested I just put the camera into crop mode - I discounted that though as I think it defeats the object of full frame. In the end I bought an a6400! here's a quick try out last week with the a6400 and 100-400 together https://flic.kr/s/aHsmDXKvrz
 
madmackem said:
I have an a7iii and the Sony 100-400, I was looking at getting the 1.4x converter for it as well. A friend suggested I just put the camera into crop mode - I discounted that though as I think it defeats the object of full frame. In the end I bought an a6400! here's a quick try out last week with the a6400 and 100-400 together https://flic.kr/s/aHsmDXKvrz
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Going into APSC mode doesn't defeat the object of full frame. For instance a bird 20 metres away will still have as many pixels on the frame whether you have it in crop mode or not, You would still have to crop if you were in full frame. I find it's just easier to see the object in the viewfinder and to get focus on when in crop mode.
Putting on the 1.4x TC has the benefit of actually putting more pixels on the bird but with the disadvantage of losing a stop of light.

After a year of using this combination on an A7RIII I now only put the TC on the 100-400 if the light is really good but then it all depends on your shooting environment.
 
footman said:
Going into APSC mode doesn't defeat the object of full frame. For instance a bird 20 metres away will still have as many pixels on the frame whether you have it in crop mode or not, You would still have to crop if you were in full frame. I find it's just easier to see the object in the viewfinder and to get focus on when in crop mode.
Putting on the 1.4x TC has the benefit of actually putting more pixels on the bird but with the disadvantage of losing a stop of light.

After a year of using this combination on an A7RIII I now only put the TC on the 100-400 if the light is really good but then it all depends on your shooting environment.
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When shooting in crop modes you have better chance of a higher res end image I think, as you're composing for the crop. Cropping in post we can tend to over do it. Of course it helps if you have a high MP sensor like the 7RII or III but you won't get away with as much cropping on the A7III
 
Cropping heavily on A7 III example. Ok for sharing online etc but I wouldn't be printing very big. First photo is straight out of camera RAW to JPEG and second image is heavy crop.

DSC06488-3 by Anthony Andrades, on Flickr
 
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Keep thinking getting a battery grip only to use when got 70-200 lens on or when doing a bit of portraits
 
NewBeetle said:
crop by Anthony Andrades, on Flickr
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These days you can get away with pretty significant crops, I've often cropped pretty heavily using a 16mp M43 sensor for macro images - where there's often a lot of non important space. With the 24mp APSC I have now I'll be even braver. No doubting the A7III allows you plenty of leeway but an A7RII/III is obviously going to be even kinder in this regard
 
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