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

Bobsyeruncle said:
A few people seem to be unhappy with Sony all of a sudden?
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Bobsyeruncle said:
Yeah, better sell it and buy a Canon.... :LOL:
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Nope, pretty happy with the Sony. Its not perfect though and I’ve brought the niggles up from day one.

The Canon as a system doesn’t have anything to interest me other than the 70-200mm f2.8.
 
Bobsyeruncle said:
A few people seem to be unhappy with Sony all of a sudden?
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Met up with a friend of mine yesterday who has managed to get the hold of an R5.

They are loving their new camera and it is a huge improvement on the older Canon mirrorless cameras.

I am still very happy with the Sony stuff I have at the moment but as I have mentioned before I would like a 50 f/1.2 although I am in no mad rush really for that.

Having had a proper play with an R5 now and compared directly to the A9 side by side, a.f on the Canon isn't as good, it may be better for animals I don't know, I didn't really get to test that as only tried with a couple of small birds and it wasn't as reliable as my A9. That's a difficult test though.

For people it wasn't as reliable, tracking wasn't anywhere near as sticky and it seemed much more sluggish switching between subjects.

One odd thing we did notice with it was that we couldn't find any way to lower the fps when using the electronic shutter, we could only get it to do 20fps no matter what settings we used. Not sure if there was something we missed or it was some sort of bug. The girl who owns the R5 is a very experienced Canon user and even between the 2 of us we couldn't figure it out. We assumed it was just user error, but seen someone else mention this on Facebook this morning.

Image quality seemed very good based on the few raws we had a nosey at on her laptop afterwards. I guess it may have been unfair to compare to the A9, when it's really more comparable to the A7RIV. It's hard to tell as we didn't have an A7RIV to hand but having owned one before I would say a.f is pretty comparable between the 2.
 
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pmac said:
obviously wouldn’t be long until people started to jump ship, going buy past releases on here.

having done it once that was enough for me.
Either no sense or too much money.

There seems to be little you would actually gain between switching from one to the other, the canon might have a little advantage now, not that I can see much to be honest. More a side step and then if Sony trumps it will you all jump back?

What if nikon pulls a blinder next [emoji3]

Even model to model the advancement has slowed, small gain in DR/ISO at best maybe some more MP or FPS.
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I agree with this. Every system will have its niggles. Swapping to resolve minor niggles would be quite a costly exercise and not really worth it. You’d likely end up with some other niggles that you weren’t expecting anyway!
One of the problems I see is we may not be using the models as they were intended by the designers. I wouldn’t expect the designers to have designed the A7R4 as a wildlife camera. The high MP may help cropping but I’d expect the designers to have thought the A9/A9ii was their intended camera for wildlife because of AF, real time tracking, FPS etc.

I doubt many of us hobbyists will be limited by any modern camera. It’s likely a greater improvement could be made by us learning how to get improvements from our current camera than swapping to another model because of minor niggles. The problem is marketing departments are great at their job. And so are (paid) you tubers!

The best way is similar to the DSLR market, pick a manufacturer for its overall system that feels right when holding it and stay with it for the long haul as camera models come and go. The simple fact is there should always be something better coming along. Now there is competition perhaps Sony will pull the stopper out to remain at the top of the mirrorless market.
 
rob-nikon said:
I agree with this. Every system will have its niggles. Swapping to resolve minor niggles would be quite a costly exercise and not really worth it. You’d likely end up with some other niggles that you weren’t expecting anyway!
One of the problems I see is we may not be using the models as they were intended by the designers. I wouldn’t expect the designers to have designed the A7R4 as a wildlife camera. The high MP may help cropping but I’d expect the designers to have thought the A9/A9ii was their intended camera for wildlife because of AF, real time tracking, FPS etc.

I doubt many of us hobbyists will be limited by any modern camera. It’s likely a greater improvement could be made by us learning how to get improvements from our current camera than swapping to another model because of minor niggles. The problem is marketing departments are great at their job. And so are (paid) you tubers!

The best way is similar to the DSLR market, pick a manufacturer for its overall system that feels right when holding it and stay with it for the long haul as camera models come and go. The simple fact is there should always be something better coming along. Now there is competition perhaps Sony will pull the stopper out to remain at the top of the mirrorless market.
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TBH my main niggle is something that I believe can be fixed via firmware, which makes it even more frustrating. It's the fact that a lot of functions are disable whilst the buffer is clearing, and the reason that I believe it can be fixed via firmware is that Olympus fixed this exact same issue on the EM1-II.
 
snerkler said:
TBH my main niggle is something that I believe can be fixed via firmware, which makes it even more frustrating. It's the fact that a lot of functions are disable whilst the buffer is clearing, and the reason that I believe it can be fixed via firmware is that Olympus fixed this exact same issue on the EM1-II.
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But this does depend on how the internal software architecture has been structured. For some manufacturers a fix allowing a function to interrupt an activity may be simple for others it may be harder (or impossible without a major software re-write)
 
pmac said:
obviously wouldn’t be long until people started to jump ship, going buy past releases on here.

having done it once that was enough for me.
Either no sense or too much money.

There seems to be little you would actually gain between switching from one to the other, the canon might have a little advantage now, not that I can see much to be honest. More a side step and then if Sony trumps it will you all jump back?

What if nikon pulls a blinder next [emoji3]

Even model to model the advancement has slowed, small gain in DR/ISO at best maybe some more MP or FPS.

AF seems to have been the only real advance I’ve seen since the jump from the d700-d800 with its huge DR/MP jump.

My move was to reduce size and gain better AF.

The larger body and lens on canon plus the new buyer premium is eye watering.
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Been with Sony for more than 6 six years since original A7.
So if I switch the idea is to stick with it for a fair while.

Moving canon is mostly to get over annoyances on Sony I have put up with for long because there wasn't an alternative. Having a less annoying camera is a good thing.
After 4 iterations they still can't seem to fix their annoyances.... So how much longer before they actually fix them.
 
As a birder I think the R5 is a good move by Canon (Once they sort it out ) but there are no long fast primes for it unless you adapt a lens so that's quite a big niggle from the start.

Rob
 
GyRob said:
As a birder I think the R5 is a good move by Canon (Once they sort it out ) but there are no long fast primes for it unless you adapt a lens so that's quite a big niggle from the start.

Rob
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Adapted teleprimes work nearly as well as native lenses if not just as good as them. That's one of my main attraction for me. I can never afford the Sony FE teleprimes. There are many on canon EF that I can.
 
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justa1972 said:
Emperors new clothes ?
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Some people are just serial buyers and will always find reasons to buy the latest thing whilst others will have very specific requirements which will limit their choices.

I see nothing wrong in buying new shiny stuff even if on the flimsiest of reasoning :D but it's not something I want to do as frankly, I just can't be bothered :D

As this thread has been a bit tumbleweed the last couple of days how about a random question?

What's your favoured combination of the moment?

For me it's my A7 and Voigtlander 35mm f1.4 + No.4 close up filter. I like this combination for walks when I'm likely to want to take pictures of the scenery and maybe the odd wild flower or interesting leaf/detail. I have these on my desktop at the moment...

fYu0S2E.jpg


AYCEuOj.jpg


RY5sNcY.jpg


sNLgZ5W.jpg


bRE8zrx.jpg


NiZpK9X.jpg


wF2Eouq.jpg
 
nandbytes said:
Adapted teleprimes work nearly as well as native lenses if not just as good as them. That's one of my main attraction for me. I can never afford the Sony FE teleprimes. There are many on canon EF that I can.
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It's the Nearly bit that bothers me and as there are no RF lenses to compare just as good is not really proven yet .

Rob.
 
Are there any cheaper adaptable longer lens options in the Sony universe? Maybe A mount or other?
 
woof woof said:
Are there any cheaper adaptable longer lens options in the Sony universe? Maybe A mount or other?
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I have the Contax Carl Zeiss 80-200/4 T* but obviously that's manual focus ;) I've not used it an awful lot, but it appears a pretty good lens for the money.

I'm debating whether to pack that, or the FE85 for a Dorset holiday next week..... Probably the AF might win in all honesty.
 
Mr Perceptive said:
But this does depend on how the internal software architecture has been structured. For some manufacturers a fix allowing a function to interrupt an activity may be simple for others it may be harder (or impossible without a major software re-write)
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I don't honestly know tbh, maybe. It's a nuisance though, and it baffles me that companies a big as this with all the tech knowledge they have can't rectify it. They're trying to push these cameras as pro cameras, and it's not great if you can't use a lot of the functions for several seconds.
 
GyRob said:
It's the Nearly bit that bothers me and as there are no RF lenses to compare just as good is not really proven yet .

Rob.
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Why? If there is almost no noticeable difference why does it matter. Of course we come from different PoV because you are comparing it to A9II and me to A7RIV. A9II doesn't work for me overall. And R5 AF wise seems better for birding than A7RIV even with adapted lenses.
 
woof woof said:
Are there any cheaper adaptable longer lens options in the Sony universe? Maybe A mount or other?
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There are adaptable options but AF sucks because Sony refuses to give proper adapters for screw driven lenses. Yet another one of my pet annoyances with Sony
 
nandbytes said:
There are adaptable options but AF sucks because Sony refuses to give proper adapters for screw driven lenses. Yet another one of my pet annoyances with Sony
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Theres the LAEA4, but yeah, its not great.
 
@nandbytes Not much point in the old Alpha and Minolta APO glass when the Canon stuff is mostly cheaper and in most cases better anyway?
 
nandbytes said:
Why? If there is almost no noticeable difference why does it matter. Of course we come from different PoV because you are comparing it to A9II and me to A7RIV. A9II doesn't work for me overall. And R5 AF wise seems better for birding than A7RIV even with adapted lenses.
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Well it matters to me because if i'm putting time and effort to get a good shot say of an Owl or if a rare bird should fly passed I want the top performance any system can give, I had the A7RIV and its a good all round camera but the AF is not up to the A9mkII I tested them side by side .

One always has to pay quite a bit more for just 10/20 % speed or just a little more accurate focus this is why there are pro type cameras it's not that the other cameras can't get the shot often they can but not a risk i want to take it's just the same with Lenses my 200/600 is almost as fast to focus and almost as sharp as my other 600 almost /Nearly but not quite :)

Rob.
 
GyRob said:
Well it matters to me because if i'm putting time and effort to get a good shot say of an Owl or if a rare bird should fly passed I want the top performance any system can give, I had the A7RIV and its a good all round camera but the AF is not up to the A9mkII I tested them side by side .

One always has to pay quite a bit more for just 10/20 % speed or just a little more accurate focus this is why there are pro type cameras it's not that the other cameras can't get the shot often they can but not a risk i want to take it's just the same with Lenses my 200/600 is almost as fast to focus and almost as sharp as my other 600 almost /Nearly but not quite :)

Rob.
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There you go said it yourself it's nearly as good. Everything is a compromise there is no perfect camera or lens. Same was adapted EF teleprimes are almost/nearly as good at least it not just as good which could also be the case.

I'd love to own multiple bodies and lens for various uses but I can't. So I need a best do-it-all camera for me. At the moment it's A7RIV, could be R5 in future.
 
A nice surprise from Tamron - bought the 28-200 a week before they bought out a promotion to include a free PD Slide lite - sent my claim in anyway and they agreed :)

Are they any good ?
 
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justa1972 said:
A nice surprise from Tamron - bought the 28-200 a week before they bought out a promotion to include a free PD Slite lite - sent my claim in anyway and they agreed :)

Are they any good ?
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I think the full slide is nicer but it's still a great strap if you have smaller lighter lenses.
 
twist said:
I think the full slide is nicer but it's still a great strap if you have smaller lighter lenses.
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In the U.K they give a free strap worth £35, in the states they discounted by $100. Rip off Britain.
 
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Tried it and I prefer a hand strap so off to the classifieds or Ebay it goes !
 
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snerkler said:
Few pics from this morning's dog walk

1.

A7R09155-Edit by TDG-77, on Flickr

2.

A7R09160-Edit by TDG-77, on Flickr

3.

A7R09176-2 by TDG-77, on Flickr

4.

A7R09195 by TDG-77, on Flickr
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Nice place to walk the dog! We've only just started taking ours out in the car and for walks that aren't around the block. To be fair, she's been pretty good so far but she doesn't like to sit still on the way there. Probably excitement maybe.... She's not uncontrollable or anything. We went to a small beach area (where I took the Comet Neowise images) late yesterday and she didn't even need a lead on her whilst we were there.

She's not easy to photograph with the CV40 1.2E though lmao
 
nandbytes said:
There you go said it yourself it's nearly as good. Everything is a compromise there is no perfect camera or lens. Same was adapted EF teleprimes are almost/nearly as good at least it not just as good which could also be the case.

I'd love to own multiple bodies and lens for various uses but I can't. So I need a best do-it-all camera for me. At the moment it's A7RIV, could be R5 in future.
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I said ( almost /Nearly but not quite ) and that's why I don't mind paying more if i did not shoot birds the a7r4 R5 would be fine with adapted lenses even my EM1X would have been more than good enough .

Rob.
 
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