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

I demand the right to be calm and rational whenever I want - and I'll not have some keyboard warrior who hides behind the picture of a plastic dog to tell me otherwise!!

(Rant as requested :LOL:)

PS: Happy New Year to everyone!

Normal Service has been restored. Thank You.

And I'm not just a plastic dog. I'm a plastic dog lamp.
 
A camera is a tool to be used, 99.9% of all people shooting sports, moving wildlife etc are going to shoot at well over 3fps. If you're an amateur you're not going to be wracking up 500-1000 images/day. If you're a pro you factor in wear and tear into your business costs.

To not use your camera through fear of wear and tear is crazy imo, it's like buying a car and not driving it because you don't want to wear your tyres.
I hope you are not advocating for preferentially using low end models that lack usable electronic shutter for action photography. The train has definitely left the station here, and people in the game are willing to pay over £6k for a body to get the best newest technology.

IMHO even if you are an amateur who likes to go out every day, it is absolutely not unreasonably to come back with at least 500 on the card. 20fps gets it done in just 25s of combined shooting so go figure. And 20 is now considered low rate, we see 30, 40 and more. I shot over a 1000 shots in e-shutter with macro lens every time I went out in the garden during the summer. I only looked at maybe 50 of them randomly and kept around 10. So there you have it - a perfectly average real life high fps shooting scenario. My shutter count was = 0 here. The settings were quite marginal in wind high, so single shot was really not a great option, and no I don't shoot at ISO-ridiculous to limit my print options and require extra processing. My camera would be well on the way to the bin if I used mechanical shutter like this every day and for what exactly? I will never raise any £ from the said images.

If you are pro then you are not a charity for some chinese factories and resellers. You work to maximise profit, reduce expense as far as it is reasonable while delivering up to and exceeding client expectations. This is business, simple as that.

Re cars, strangely enough you will find just that in many cases. People are buying brand new £70k car, driving as little as possible at 19mph to a shop and back because something will wear out, their insurance will be happier, tyres can actually go on them in just 5k miles as the client with X7 told me (at £500 per corner), and yeah those emissions. Crazy, I know...

I'd rather experience blackout than miss a shot. I never found it that distracting, the blackout shooting a low shutter speed was a bit more of a nuisance.
Well I found it extremely distracting causing me to miss a shot after shot. I'd rather deal with rolling shutter to be absolutely crystal clear, and only because I haven't moved on to stacked sensor yet.

If you have to use it one-off for subject going across the frame in the worst case scenario for maximum rolling shutter, fine use the mechanic. I get that. I never saw an issue where subject is going mostly straight ahead or at lower speeds. And that's all near enough gone with stacked sensors.

Besides no shutter = less camera shake.

Plenty of people using DSLRs still without an issue, plenty of people using mirrorless without blackout free shooting having no issues either. Blackout free shooting with mimimal lag makes life easier, but it's not as though it's impossible without these things.
I never had the pleasure (nor need) of shooting 1DX at high fps in any real life scenario so can't really comment on that. My Dslrs are set to precisely 3fps, I never need more for what they are used, typically locked on tripod. It obviously has a blackout, but absolutely no lag, so it has to be clearly better than any old style non-stacked mirrorless. Tracking is not as great on these dslrs in comparison, but yeah it still gets you there most of the time. I am not sure what exactly is the point of this nostalgia. Why did you all move away from perfectly fine Canon / Nikon setup then at a very painful expense?!
Next we will discuss how pre-focusing and film motor drive was just fine to get you published in a high end magazine.
 
Hopefully the weather will be improving soon so we can get outside and actually do some photography :)
Looks like it's eventually going to stop some time tonight around here. Dropping to minus temperatures at weekend and into next week as well.
 
I hope you are not advocating for preferentially using low end models that lack usable electronic shutter for action photography. The train has definitely left the station here, and people in the game are willing to pay over £6k for a body to get the best newest technology.
I'm not sure where you read this :thinking:

IMHO even if you are an amateur who likes to go out every day, it is absolutely not unreasonably to come back with at least 500 on the card. 20fps gets it done in just 25s of combined shooting so go figure. And 20 is now considered low rate, we see 30, 40 and more. I shot over a 1000 shots in e-shutter with macro lens every time I went out in the garden during the summer. I only looked at maybe 50 of them randomly and kept around 10. So there you have it - a perfectly average real life high fps shooting scenario. My shutter count was = 0 here. The settings were quite marginal in wind high, so single shot was really not a great option, and no I don't shoot at ISO-ridiculous to limit my print options and require extra processing. My camera would be well on the way to the bin if I used mechanical shutter like this every day and for what exactly? I will never raise any £ from the said images.

If you are pro then you are not a charity for some chinese factories and resellers. You work to maximise profit, reduce expense as far as it is reasonable while delivering up to and exceeding client expectations. This is business, simple as that.

Re cars, strangely enough you will find just that in many cases. People are buying brand new £70k car, driving as little as possible at 19mph to a shop and back because something will wear out, their insurance will be happier, tyres can actually go on them in just 5k miles as the client with X7 told me (at £500 per corner), and yeah those emissions. Crazy, I know...


Well I found it extremely distracting causing me to miss a shot after shot. I'd rather deal with rolling shutter to be absolutely crystal clear, and only because I haven't moved on to stacked sensor yet.

If you have to use it one-off for subject going across the frame in the worst case scenario for maximum rolling shutter, fine use the mechanic. I get that. I never saw an issue where subject is going mostly straight ahead or at lower speeds. And that's all near enough gone with stacked sensors.

Besides no shutter = less camera shake.


I never had the pleasure (nor need) of shooting 1DX at high fps in any real life scenario so can't really comment on that. My Dslrs are set to precisely 3fps, I never need more for what they are used, typically locked on tripod. It obviously has a blackout, but absolutely no lag, so it has to be clearly better than any old style non-stacked mirrorless. Tracking is not as great on these dslrs in comparison, but yeah it still gets you there most of the time. I am not sure what exactly is the point of this nostalgia. Why did you all move away from perfectly fine Canon / Nikon setup then at a very painful expense?!
Next we will discuss how pre-focusing and film motor drive was just fine to get you published in a high end magazine.

I think the 'issue' here is that you talk about your own opinion, many others shoot completely differently.

These are facts, not opinion:-

Many many amateurs and pros alike have shot and continue to shoot high fps (up to 14fps) with DSLRs and mechanical shutter mirrorless and do not mind the blackout.
Amateurs and pros can amass thousands of shots at one event with such cameras and do not worry too much about shutter count. Shutters wear and can be replaced, also many amateurs swap their cameras long before the end life of the shutter.
Often pros will take less shots than amateurs fo sports and wildlife, they shoot in short high speed bursts
People who shoot like this are not wrong and know exactly what they're doing (y)
 
Looks like it's eventually going to stop some time tonight around here. Dropping to minus temperatures at weekend and into next week as well.
We're on flood warning at the moment but the rain is set to stop at some point today (y)
 
We're on flood warning at the moment but the rain is set to stop at some point today (y)
I live right next to the Irwel because we're within a certain distance we get a warning but it's a good 100m below us so I'd be very worried if it flooded.
It does flood a little further up though and it's in the news this morning.
 
I'm not sure where you read this :thinking:



I think the 'issue' here is that you talk about your own opinion, many others shoot completely differently.

These are facts, not opinion:-

Many many amateurs and pros alike have shot and continue to shoot high fps (up to 14fps) with DSLRs and mechanical shutter mirrorless and do not mind the blackout.
Amateurs and pros can amass thousands of shots at one event with such cameras and do not worry too much about shutter count. Shutters wear and can be replaced, also many amateurs swap their cameras long before the end life of the shutter.
Often pros will take less shots than amateurs fo sports and wildlife, they shoot in short high speed bursts
People who shoot like this are not wrong and know exactly what they're doing (y)
Happily shooting wildlife and action here with blackout.
Ok may be not so happy because 8fps sucks having used 15-20fps. But that's really my only issue. No bothered about shutter count or blackout as much.

Not saying blackout free shooting is not desirable, most definitely is but there isn't a camera in my price range with lots of MPs that does that at the moment.

I don't consider R5 too seriously, it's electronic shutter comes with a lot of compromises. Also they haven't got any glass that usable for me.

Nikon Z8 is the first body that's within my price and does most things I want. Might swap to it. But the body is too big with "only" 6 stops IBIS so I'm on the fence between that and A7RV now.
I'll go a shop and try out both and make the decision. If I can really handhold A7rv for 1-2s exposures like people online are claiming then I might go with it. That's a massive deal for me. Means I can leave the tripod at home a lot of the time.
 
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Happily shooting wildlife and action here with blackout.
Ok may be not so happy because 8fps sucks having used 15-20fps. But that's really my only issue. No bothered about shutter count or blackout as much.

Not saying blackout free shooting is not desirable, most definitely is but there isn't a camera in my price range with lots of MPs that does that at the moment.

I don't consider R5 too seriously, it's electronic shutter comes with a lot of compromises. Also they haven't got any glass that usable for me.

Nikon Z8 is the first body that's within my price and does most things I want. Might swap to it. But the body is too big with "only" 6 stops IBIS so I'm on the fence between that and A7RV now.
I'll go a shop and try out both and make the decision. If I can really handhold A7rv for 1-2s exposures like people online are claiming then I might go with it. That's a massive deal for me. Means I can leave the tripod at home a lot of the time.
The only cameras I've been able to handhold for 1-2s are olympus, I can't get close with Sony. Occasionally I can get 0.5s but that's very hit and miss.
 
The only cameras I've been able to handhold for 1-2s are olympus, I can't get close with Sony. Occasionally I can get 0.5s but that's very hit and miss.
Apparently the A7RV with it's 8 stop IBIS can do that.

A7RV is almost perfect apart from the lack of stacked sensor. It has all the usability improvements like fully articulated screen, customisable 3rd dial, 8 stop IBIS etc

I don't only shoot wildlife. It's only 20-30% of what I shoot.

So all the other improvements makes a big difference to everything else I shoot.
And I know LLP above thinks mechanical shutter is useless now lol, but 8fps mechanical is still usable for wildlife while not ideal
 
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The only cameras I've been able to handhold for 1-2s are olympus, I can't get close with Sony. Occasionally I can get 0.5s but that's very hit and miss.

I must be a lot more shaky than I used to be, because on the A7III with a 50mm lens I'm often seeing camera shake at 1/45 with IBIS on.
 
I must be a lot more shaky than I used to be, because on the A7III with a 50mm lens I'm often seeing camera shake at 1/45 with IBIS on.
I can't remember what I can get at 50mm tbh, 0.5s tends to be much wider.
 
I can't remember what I can get at 50mm tbh, 0.5s tends to be much wider.
Hope is with 35mm I can get 1-2s
That's 5-6stops

And with 20mm may be 2-3s

If it can manage that then it's a real benefit for me.
As it stands the IBIS is basically useless 90% of the time (for me anyway) since I normally have a tripod with me anyway. Anything slower than 1/3s I don't even bother trying hand holding at the moment.
 
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Hope is with 35mm I can get 1-2s
That's 5-6stops

And with 20mm may be 2-3s

If it can manage that then it's a real benefit for me.
As it stands the IBIS is basically useless 90% of the time (for me anyway) since I normally have a tripod with me anyway. Anything slower than 1/3s I don't even bother trying hand holding at the moment.
If you can get a true 8 stops that will be impressive. Of course the high res will accentuate any movement :facepalm:
 
If you can get a true 8 stops that will be impressive. Of course the high res will accentuate any movement :facepalm:
Not expecting true 8 stops, expecting 5-6 stops

With the current IBIS I can get about 2-3 stops without issues. 4 stops if I really concentrate. I don't really get much more than that.

I don't think I'm particularly bad at hand holding either, I can manage 1/focal length pretty well without stabilisation. I just don't think Sony's IBIS has been all that good historically.
 
Not expecting true 8 stops, expecting 5-6 stops

With the current IBIS I can get about 2-3 stops without issues. 4 stops if I really concentrate. I don't really get much more than that.

I don't think I'm particularly bad at hand holding either, I can manage 1/focal length pretty well without stabilisation. I just don't think Sony's IBIS has been all that good historically.
I've never tested how many stops it gives me, I've never tried without.
 
I've never switched on IBIS :ROFLMAO:

From my A7 days I got used to shooting 1/focal-length since I was adapting a-mount lenses mostly to start with.

It's quite handy in low light for static subjects but I normally need carry a tripod anyway so lack of it isn't such a big deal.
But being able handhold 1-2s means I can leave the tripod at home sometimes.
 
From my A7 days I got used to shooting 1/focal-length since I was adapting a-mount lenses mostly to start with.

It's quite handy in low light for static subjects but I normally need carry a tripod anyway so lack of it isn't such a big deal.
But being able handhold 1-2s means I can leave the tripod at home sometimes.
Just tried with the A1 and 50mm, can get 0.5s ona fairly regular basis but requires lots of concentration. If I shoot a 3-4 shot burst I can usually get at least one in focus at 1s.
 
Just tried with the A1 and 50mm, can get 0.5s ona fairly regular basis but requires lots of concentration. If I shoot a 3-4 shot burst I can usually get at least one in focus at 1s.
you are better at it than me perhaps.
Never got anywhere close to that with A1

Even on my A7IV with less pixels I can't get that. with 50mm I can comfortably shoot 1/6s. May be 1/3s with lots of concentration but longer than that.
 
you are better at it than me perhaps.
Never got anywhere close to that with A1

Even on my A7IV with less pixels I can't get that. with 50mm I can comfortably shoot 1/6s. May be 1/3s with lots of concentration but longer than that.
It wasn't easy ;)
 
The only cameras I've been able to handhold for 1-2s are olympus, I can't get close with Sony. Occasionally I can get 0.5s but that's very hit and miss.
Me too - EM1
Another image that springs to mind is a handheld shot taken in low light at 1/25 with a Canon 70D + Tamron 150-600 (sorry to digress)
 
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I never bother with low shutter speeds as even if there are no people in the frame the world tends to at least move about a bit in any slight breeze. I suppose indoor scenes such as church interiors, still life or shots deliberately including movement will be applicable but I can't think of too many if any applications for low shutter speeds in which I'd want to take a picture. I think I'd rather just up the ISO and try and resist pixel peeping.
 
you are better at it than me perhaps.
Never got anywhere close to that with A1

Even on my A7IV with less pixels I can't get that. with 50mm I can comfortably shoot 1/6s. May be 1/3s with lots of concentration but longer than that.
I've just noticed that when I put it in burst shooting it dropped the shutter speed to 0.5s, it won't allow me to go slower than 0.5s using burst mode with electronic shutter. I just tried again single burst and sat on the sofa with my arm propped on the arm rest I can get 1s hand held :lol:
 
I never bother with low shutter speeds as even if there are no people in the frame the world tends to at least move about a bit in any slight breeze. I suppose indoor scenes such as church interiors, still life or shots deliberately including movement will be applicable but I can't think of too many if any applications for low shutter speeds in which I'd want to take a picture. I think I'd rather just up the ISO and try and resist pixel peeping.
If I'm on a dog walk without a tripod and I see a waterfall or something, being able to hand hold with a slow shutter is useful (y)
 
If I'm on a dog walk without a tripod and I see a waterfall or something, being able to hand hold with a slow shutter is useful (y)

That's one scenario I thought of and mentally included in "deliberately including movement" but silky water shots are one thing I'm not really too much of a fan of. As always good luck to those who like them and they do seem popular and even if they're not for me I can see the attraction but I personally like reality or life and movement in water, even in a still picture.
 
If I'm on a dog walk without a tripod and I see a waterfall or something, being able to hand hold with a slow shutter is useful (y)

I like shooting moving water at around 1/15 or 1/8, but will always look for something to lean on OR take a lot of shots hoping one or 2 will be acceptable.
 
I've just noticed that when I put it in burst shooting it dropped the shutter speed to 0.5s, it won't allow me to go slower than 0.5s using burst mode with electronic shutter. I just tried again single burst and sat on the sofa with my arm propped on the arm rest I can get 1s hand held :lol:

That's really good.
For some reason on A1 I got better results with mechanical shutter than electronic shutter
 
That's really good.
For some reason on A1 I got better results with mechanical shutter than electronic shutter
I tried mechanical and it was worse :thinking:
 
20-70mm currently £749 on e-infinity, very tempted just slightly hesitant as I’ve never ordered from them before and not keen on repairs having to go to HK.
 
20-70mm currently £749 on e-infinity, very tempted just slightly hesitant as I’ve never ordered from them before and not keen on repairs having to go to HK.
I've bought a few items from them and had no issues however I haven't needed any repair work and looking at people who have had issues with them, I've been using Panamoz instead more recently.
 
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20-70mm currently £749 on e-infinity, very tempted just slightly hesitant as I’ve never ordered from them before and not keen on repairs having to go to HK.
Repairs don’t go to HK.

Get it fixed locally and Einfin will refund the cost of the service fee.
 
I've bought a few items from them and had no issues however I haven't needed any repair work and looking at people who have had issues with them, I've been using Panamoz instead more recently.
I’ve always used Panamoz but they’re listing the 20-70mm at £940. They do often come down but not by nearly £200 on an item of this price.
Repairs don’t go to HK.

Get it fixed locally and Einfin will refund the cost of the service fee.
Have you had repairs done? I know Panamoz do this but I know others in the past have had to send to HK and turnaround has been several weeks.
 
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I’ve always used Panamoz but they’re listing the 20-70mm at £940. They do often come down but not by nearly £200 on an item of this price.

Have you had repairs done? I know Panamoz so this but I know others in the past have had to send to HK and turnaround has been several weeks.
Just the once, purchased my 24mm GM from them, I had it repaired through an online company and Einfin refunded me the invoice amount. Only issue is you do have to pay out the money first.

Actually I’ve just checked and it was Panamoz who I dealt with so sorry for the confusion.

Einfin website states 3-10 weeks for a turn around.
 
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I would have said definitely A7R4 unless you need the smallest body possible. Is the AF better on the C?
I would too, they haven’t got the ergonomics right on the A7c’s for me.
 
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