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

Not sure how many here have A74 but the withdrawn firmware is available again.
They have changed how it is done, you now drop it on an SD card and this time you have to update to a cinderella 1.05 then do 1.10.
Anyway just did it and seems Ok.
The big change is three sizes of compressed RAW you can also have touch screen shutter (not sure why but that works too).
Plus unspecified stability and improvement to eye AF - overall worth doing but no rush.
 
woof woof said:
There's a Sony 24mm f1.4 in the classifieds.

I have the f2.8 G and it's good enough for me. I've been thinking that I should take it out soon.
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There is also a couple of Takumar manual lenses in the classifieds. They have been there a while and they are at an amazingly low price. I've almost bought them a few times after some beers but I really have no need for them :)
 
trevjm said:
I considered selling my Sony set up last week so I asked for prices from a variety of camera retailers and was offered the following for the Sony 24-105 F4 which is in an as new condition.

MPB: £500
Wilkinson: £560
LCE: £535
Wex: £554
Harrison: £510
Cameraworld: £630
Park: £575
Jessops:: No response.

Cameraworld offered the most for all my kit. However, I am not selling anything. Indeed I bought the Sony 40mm F2.5 this morning to add to my set up :)
Click to expand...

Nice one thanks, I'll maybe try Cameraworld if WEX won't budge. I'm in no hurry and happy enough to keep it than let it go for so little. The profit margins do seem rather high on used gear.
 
gman said:
Nice one thanks, I'll maybe try Cameraworld if WEX won't budge. I'm in no hurry and happy enough to keep it than let it go for so little. The profit margins do seem rather high on used gear.
Click to expand...

Two things to consider

1) There is a VAT to pay on teh difference between buy and sell for most VAT registered retailers, so £100 profit instantly becomes £80 (and some sort of warranty is usually included)
2) There is very little margin in new Camera/Lens sales so increasingly photographic businesses are selling more s/h kit in order to make a profit. Most new camera/lens gear is in single figure margins, so you need to shift a lot of new gear to pay for overheads/staff/etc. Decent porofits from s/h gear helps the companies overal profitability.
 
Barrysprout said:
There is also a couple of Takumar manual lenses in the classifieds. They have been there a while and they are at an amazingly low price. I've almost bought them a few times after some beers but I really have no need for them :)
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Yup and the Chinon's :D

They're all nice lenses and all perfectly useable and in good condition but the fact is that commitments at home mean that I really can't get out much these days so I have been trying to find some manual lenses a new home :D
 
Mr Perceptive said:
Two things to consider

1) There is a VAT to pay on teh difference between buy and sell for most VAT registered retailers, so £100 profit instantly becomes £80 (and some sort of warranty is usually included)
2) There is very little margin in new Camera/Lens sales so increasingly photographic businesses are selling more s/h kit in order to make a profit. Most new camera/lens gear is in single figure margins, so you need to shift a lot of new gear to pay for overheads/staff/etc. Decent porofits from s/h gear helps the companies overal profitability.
Click to expand...
Retailers on average make around 5-8% margin on bodies. Lenses are around 15-20%

I have a friend that works at a well known camera retailer.

As you would expect camera bags , tripods, memory cards etc have huge margin and that is how they make their real money.
 
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4wd said:
Not sure how many here have A74 but the withdrawn firmware is available again.
They have changed how it is done, you now drop it on an SD card and this time you have to update to a cinderella 1.05 then do 1.10.
Anyway just did it and seems Ok.
The big change is three sizes of compressed RAW you can also have touch screen shutter (not sure why but that works too).
Plus unspecified stability and improvement to eye AF - overall worth doing but no rush.
Click to expand...


Doing mine now probably should have waited but sure.. :D

Also why couldn't they have rolled the smaller raw options to some of the other bodies like the a7riv.
 
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Mr Perceptive said:
Two things to consider

1) There is a VAT to pay on teh difference between buy and sell for most VAT registered retailers, so £100 profit instantly becomes £80 (and some sort of warranty is usually included)
2) There is very little margin in new Camera/Lens sales so increasingly photographic businesses are selling more s/h kit in order to make a profit. Most new camera/lens gear is in single figure margins, so you need to shift a lot of new gear to pay for overheads/staff/etc. Decent porofits from s/h gear helps the companies overal profitability.
Click to expand...

Thanks. They have initially offered £550 and I'm guessing will try to sell for about £900? Assuming they are using the VAT margin scheme then that leaves £291 (52%) gross profit, which seems pretty good to me? Then the lens I'm buying is £1,199, so take the lower 15% and there's another £179.85 profit totalling £470.

If they give me £650 it would seem that they will make £208 profit on my lens, so it only really costs them £83 to do this if I've got my numbers right (give or take a pound)?
 
gman said:
Thanks. They have initially offered £550 and I'm guessing will try to sell for about £900? Assuming they are using the VAT margin scheme then that leaves £291 (52%) gross profit, which seems pretty good to me? Then the lens I'm buying is £1,199, so take the lower 15% and there's another £179.85 profit totalling £470.

If they give me £650 it would seem that they will make £208 profit on my lens, so it only really costs them £83 to do this if I've got my numbers right (give or take a pound)?
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£550 sounds low to me.
 
I've got a session day tomorrow (weather permitting) some of which is outdoors and some indoors. I'm not sure what the lighting is indoor, except that it's constant, what would people recommend to avoid the risk of banding? Obviously I assume it's best to use the mechanical shutter indoor, but are there any shutter speeds to avoid?
 
snerkler said:
I've got a session day tomorrow (weather permitting) some of which is outdoors and some indoors. I'm not sure what the lighting is indoor, except that it's constant, what would people recommend to avoid the risk of banding? Obviously I assume it's best to use the mechanical shutter indoor, but are there any shutter speeds to avoid?
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It is very rare to get banding with the A9 series cameras.

Just to take a couple of test shots and check, can't even remember the last time I got banding indoors. More likely to get banding outdoors when shooting backlit.
 
f/2.8 said:
It is very rare to get banding with the A9 series cameras.

Just to take a couple of test shots and check, can't even remember the last time I got banding indoors. More likely to get banding outdoors when shooting backlit.
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Thanks is that with electronic, mechanical shutter, or both?
 
snerkler said:
£550 sounds low to me.
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They've come back and said that they've checked the margins on their end and due to the £100 off voucher promotion they can't budge. I've checked and this is a promotion on a new 24-105mm, although I've noticed that Park Cameras actually do a SONY-200 voucher and it works so why aren't WEX doing that one? Is this a Sony reimbursed type voucher or does it actually cost the retailer?

Anyway, the voucher will expire soon enough and they are currently selling a used Sony 24-105 for £859 so that's still 46% gross profit after VAT + the margin on the new lens. It seems like they want to pay bottom dollar, yet charge top dollar so feels a touch greedy perhaps that there's no room for movement at all. So it's a no go for me - although mainly out of principle now.
 
gman said:
They've come back and said that they've checked the margins on their end and due to the £100 off voucher promotion they can't budge. I've checked and this is a promotion on a new 24-105mm, although I've noticed that Park Cameras actually do a SONY-200 voucher and it works so why aren't WEX doing that one? Is this a Sony reimbursed type voucher or does it actually cost the retailer?

Anyway, the voucher will expire soon enough and they are currently selling a used Sony 24-105 for £859 so that's still 46% gross profit after VAT + the margin on the new lens. It seems like they want to pay bottom dollar, yet charge top dollar so feels a touch greedy perhaps that there's no room for movement at all. So it's a no go for me - although mainly out of principle now.
Click to expand...
I'd personally shop around, and also shop around for the lens you intend to buy as overall you might be able to save yourself a substantial sum of money.
 
Spent a few hours at Brands this morning, woefully unprepared with just a 135mm and 28-75 lens. The Porsches weren't out for long so didn't have much opportunity to hone my craft (read as get my shutter speed lower) Hadn't done this for what must be around 8 or so years!

Brands-12 by Tim G, on Flickr

Brands-9 by Tim G, on Flickr

Brands-2 by Tim G, on Flickr
 
T_J_G said:
Spent a few hours at Brands this morning, woefully unprepared with just a 135mm and 28-75 lens. The Porsches weren't out for long so didn't have much opportunity to hone my craft (read as get my shutter speed lower) Hadn't done this for what must be around 8 or so years!

Brands-12 by Tim G, on Flickr

Brands-9 by Tim G, on Flickr

Brands-2 by Tim G, on Flickr
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Nothing wrong with those, look sharp enough to me. What were you shooting there, about 1/100-1/125?
 
T_J_G said:
Yup around that, used to be able to go around 1/60th. Was shooting on a part of the track where they’re fully accelerating so I’m sure that plays its part
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Yeah there's a lot of variables that come into play, heavy acceleration, heavy breaking, speed of the car/bike, how close you are etc etc. I actually find it easier shooting when they're further away as there's less change in the speed of your panning. What I mean by this is that as the car is approaching your panning can be relatively slow, then as it passes by your panning's relatively fast and then as it moves away your panning starts to slow down again. The closer I am to the action the more this change is from my experience.
 
snerkler said:
Yeah there's a lot of variables that come into play, heavy acceleration, heavy breaking, speed of the car/bike, how close you are etc etc. I actually find it easier shooting when they're further away as there's less change in the speed of your panning. What I mean by this is that as the car is approaching your panning can be relatively slow, then as it passes by your panning's relatively fast and then as it moves away your panning starts to slow down again. The closer I am to the action the more this change is from my experience.
Click to expand...

Yup but like most tracks shooting is very limited. I was hoping to see the GT3 cars as it’s their race weekend at Brands but no such luck so I lost interest!
 
gman said:
They've come back and said that they've checked the margins on their end and due to the £100 off voucher promotion they can't budge. I've checked and this is a promotion on a new 24-105mm, although I've noticed that Park Cameras actually do a SONY-200 voucher and it works so why aren't WEX doing that one? Is this a Sony reimbursed type voucher or does it actually cost the retailer?

Anyway, the voucher will expire soon enough and they are currently selling a used Sony 24-105 for £859 so that's still 46% gross profit after VAT + the margin on the new lens. It seems like they want to pay bottom dollar, yet charge top dollar so feels a touch greedy perhaps that there's no room for movement at all. So it's a no go for me - although mainly out of principle now.
Click to expand...

Trade prices are often based on availability. This lens was available for a short time for less than half price.

I would imagine WEX have a metric ton of them and are struggling to shift them.
 
I've just bought a second a9 and I can't for the life of me find an option to save all the settings to a clean SD card and transfer them over. I've done this with other cameras before and it saves about an hour of work.

Does the option exist, and if so where is it?!
 
Hiya all,

I’m looking for some advise. I finally have a second A7iv now, which will be attached to the 200-600 permanently as a wildlife set up, but wanted some recommendations on best cases to store this set up? I also have same body with a 70-200ii attached, so not sure if a backpack for everything is best or safest or whether two separate shoulder type bags for each set up is best?

Thank you :)
 
ukaskew said:
I've just bought a second a9 and I can't for the life of me find an option to save all the settings to a clean SD card and transfer them over. I've done this with other cameras before and it saves about an hour of work.

Does the option exist, and if so where is it?!
Click to expand...

Was only added to Sony cameras with the 4th gen. Not available on the A9.
 
snerkler said:
I'd personally shop around, and also shop around for the lens you intend to buy as overall you might be able to save yourself a substantial sum of money.
Click to expand...

I think you are right. After pointing out that £859 used one, they have come back with some story that this was actually an open box/unused one and their used 9+ one is actually £802. This isn't true because there was only two listings when I searched before starting negotiations, a brand new one at £999 which is still there, and one at £859 which I specifically remember being marked up as used and 9+ rating. There was nothing at £802.

So I went back just after his last email and checked and suddenly there's an £802 listing and the only other listing is the brand new one. No unboxed listed though. Now I've checked a few hours later there's suddenly another one at £802, so that's two at £802 but still no alleged unboxed one. So in the short space of time between emails they've either sold the alleged unboxed one and also received in two used ones, or there's a bit of manipulation going on? Either way the trust is gone so I'll look at alternatives.
 
f/2.8 said:
Trade prices are often based on availability. This lens was available for a short time for less than half price.

I would imagine WEX have a metric ton of them and are struggling to shift them.
Click to expand...

I don't know, but the prices suddenly started changing during emails. Seemed a little too coincidental for me! lol
 
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trevjm said:
I considered selling my Sony set up last week so I asked for prices from a variety of camera retailers and was offered the following for the Sony 24-105 F4 which is in an as new condition.

MPB: £500
Wilkinson: £560
LCE: £535
Wex: £554
Harrison: £510
Cameraworld: £630
Park: £575
Jessops:: No response.

Cameraworld offered the most for all my kit. However, I am not selling anything. Indeed I bought the Sony 40mm F2.5 this morning to add to my set up :)
Click to expand...
I've got a quote from MPB for £620 for my 24-105mm lens....
 
Can anyone think of any reason why a Sony a9 (or indeed any a7 series camera) would stick on single shot, even if the drive dial is changed to Continuous Low/High etc? I've done a factory reset and still have the same issue so sadly I think it's a hardware fault.
 
ukaskew said:
Can anyone think of any reason why a Sony a9 (or indeed any a7 series camera) would stick on single shot, even if the drive dial is changed to Continuous Low/High etc? I've done a factory reset and still have the same issue so sadly I think it's a hardware fault.
Click to expand...
I wonder if leaving the battery out over night might reset something.
 
ukaskew said:
Can anyone think of any reason why a Sony a9 (or indeed any a7 series camera) would stick on single shot, even if the drive dial is changed to Continuous Low/High etc? I've done a factory reset and still have the same issue so sadly I think it's a hardware fault.
Click to expand...
My first thought would be that the drive dial is broken on the A9. Obviously this wouldn’t be the case with an A7 as they don’t have a drive dial.
 
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