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

snerkler said:
I’ve just stuck to genuine Sony ones as I’ve heard stories of third party not playing nice with Sony. Prior to Sony I always used ExPro.
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Apart from the original I've always used batteries which came with chargers or just what came up on Amazon but the last one I bought from Amazon doesn't seem to be very good so I thought I'd go for a couple of originals... unless someone knows of anything better.

I thought buying direct from Sony will guarantee they're originals whereas who can be sure with Amazon and ebay?
 
woof woof said:
Apart from the original I've always used batteries which came with chargers or just what came up on Amazon but the last one I bought from Amazon doesn't seem to be very good so I thought I'd go for a couple of originals... unless someone knows of anything better.

I thought buying direct from Sony will guarantee they're originals whereas who can be sure with Amazon and ebay?
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You'd expect any reputable camera store would sell originals only, ebay I'd leave well alone, amazon you'd expect original if direct from Amazon but I'm not sure how you'd check.
Cheapest seems to be £65, assuming your relic takes these ;)

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woof woof said:
Apart from the original I've always used batteries which came with chargers or just what came up on Amazon but the last one I bought from Amazon doesn't seem to be very good so I thought I'd go for a couple of originals... unless someone knows of anything better.

I thought buying direct from Sony will guarantee they're originals whereas who can be sure with Amazon and ebay?
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I only have one genuine battery for each of my Sony's. The rest are Amazon 3rd party. They last okay from what I can tell.
 
LongLensPhotography said:
There is no way I would buy a "genuine" battery for a 10 year old camera. They are probably made in the same factory anyway
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I don't think they are all made in the same factory and they're probably not all made in the same country.

I've had a few non original batteries and they do vary in both weight and performance. I've no doubt that there are clearly different batteries available.
 
gjhill said:
I bought a DSTE branded one off Amazon in October, so far so good
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Just looked them up and Amazon are selling 2 for £14.99. Very tempting :D

As above, I've had copies and I think I might go for an original if only to see if there is any real difference.
 
woof woof said:
Just looked them up and Amazon are selling 2 for £14.99. Very tempting :D

As above, I've had copies and I think I might go for an original if only to see if there is any real difference.
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I’m not sure there’ll be much difference in performance, for me it’s more of a question of whether I trust them to play nice with the camera.
 
snerkler said:
I’m not sure there’ll be much difference in performance, for me it’s more of a question of whether I trust them to play nice with the camera.
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All the ones I've had have worked but this is with my A7 and newer cameras might be cleverer and be able to spot a 3rd party battery and play up. They've all worked but some clearly lose their charge quicker than others and the last 3rd party one I bought seems to be less good than others I've had so I'll have to get something as I only have two batteries at the moment, this new and seemingly quite poor 3rd party one and a much older 3rd party one which I've had for years which doesn't last long at all so when going out for a day I might exhaust both.

My original Sony battery was the best performer but it became swollen and difficult to get in and out of the camera as did a couple of 3rd party ones so they were all retired.

I do appreciate the comment above about not buying originals for a 10 year old camera and I can see how some might think like that but the camera does almost everything I need and it still works so £120 or so at worst for a couple of good batteries is not great problem for me.
 
By now the 3rd parties have definitely figured out all the control modules for the older cameras. If there was a new type of battery for a novel camera then perhaps...
I have used Duracell, neewer and honestly can't tell the difference from original other than the sticker
 
I have used third party batteries for around 15 years now in every camera I have bought. They have all been as good as the original, and lasted the same length of time. One battery I bought for an early Panasonic camera was out of use for a few years, when I bought a new Panasonic camera a couple of years back |I was surprised to see it was the same fitting, so I charged up the old battery and it works as good as the new original. I would never buy a way over priced original battery. On my new Sony A7CR it warns me the battery is 3rd party, I just say OK, and all the functions like how much battery is left still work fine.
 
Redspider said:
I have used third party batteries for around 15 years now in every camera I have bought. They have all been as good as the original, and lasted the same length of time. One battery I bought for an early Panasonic camera was out of use for a few years, when I bought a new Panasonic camera a couple of years back |I was surprised to see it was the same fitting, so I charged up the old battery and it works as good as the new original. I would never buy a way over priced original battery. On my new Sony A7CR it warns me the battery is 3rd party, I just say OK, and all the functions like how much battery is left still work fine.
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As above, some of mine have been... less good than I'd hoped.

I might get a Duracell. I spotted them on Amazon (at a third of the cost of an original from Sony) and they're a good make but I might go for one of those and an original just to see if there's any difference :D

I'm quite excited about today as I'm well enough to go out and indeed I have to go out so I'll take my camera and both batteries :D I might get to take a picture for the first time in weeks too :D
 
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I have used Duracell in the past in a-mount bodies and it worked incredibly well.
I'm a bit worried about "no name brands".
No point spending ££££ on a body and then trying to save a few pennies on the batteries.

Having said that I have ended up with a couple 3rd party batteries from various sales. I do use them from time to time when needed but try to stick with Sony ones mostly. But I wouldn't have a problem buying Duracell again either.
 
ancient_mariner said:
These days I often just carry a 50 and stitch multiple images for wide angle work, though that could be tricky in a city.
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How do you avoid the parallax effect when stitching panos? That’s why I’m not a fan of stitching vs using a true wide angle, I’ve never managed to stitch without getting marked parallax effect.
 
snerkler said:
Looks cool but no way I could be bothered to faff with one of those ;)
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I think you really only use this if you know you will need to print at 4m wide or you do a 360. I haven't really touched mine since I bought it 2 years ago
 
snerkler said:
Laowa 10mm AF predicted to be $799, so probably £799, that’s ruled this lens out for me :(

Laowa 10mm f/2.8 FE lens preorders will open on Feb 20 | sonyalpharumors

Preorders for the new Laowa 10mm f/2.8 FE lens preorders will open on Feb 20. Price should be $799. https://youtu.be/aSHv_1ySpfo
www.sonyalpharumors.com www.sonyalpharumors.com
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Laowa lenses tend to drop like a stone in price soon after launch.

I am keeping an eye on this one too, would expect it drop to around £500-600 soon enough grey.

£799 and I am out as well.
 
snerkler said:
How do you avoid the parallax effect when stitching panos? That’s why I’m not a fan of stitching vs using a true wide angle, I’ve never managed to stitch without getting marked parallax effect.
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So far it's not been a problem, perhaps because I'm not doing the cliched landscapey thing of trying to get rocks filling the bottom third in a pano.
 
I read this article but never bothered because when I do a pan I haven't included things close to the camera.

fstoppers.com

A Beginners Guide to Parallax and How to Avoid It When Shooting Panoramas

Sometimes even the widest wide angle lens is not enough. In those cases you have to shoot multiple images and stitch it together into one extreme wide angle shot. You can go as far as 360° around, if you want. But you have to avoid parallax errors. Shooting wide angle is fun. Almost every...
fstoppers.com fstoppers.com
 
I had a few minutes in the park with my A7 and TTArtisan 50mm f2. The weather wasn't nice with that fret like rain hanging in the air.

No one around...

DSC04605-M.jpg

Higgledy Piggledy.

DSC04606-M.jpg

Miserable day, can't blame anyone for having a weep.

DSC04611-M.jpg
 
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LongLensPhotography said:
Just wondering what you are going to do with 10mm on presumably full frame?! 14mm is like so crazy wide I can hardly see the use of it already
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For me it gives options, crazy wide for interiors and the I can use it in crop mode for 15mm FOV (16mm is my go to wide angle focal length).
 
ancient_mariner said:
So far it's not been a problem, perhaps because I'm not doing the cliched landscapey thing of trying to get rocks filling the bottom third in a pano.
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I get it even when not doing that, look at the weird sky/clouds in this (boring) photo.
IMG_7218.jpeg
 
snerkler said:
I get it even when not doing that, look at the weird sky/clouds in this (boring) photo.
View attachment 414824
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Surely that's a wide angle lens effect? Panos often seem to look different:


London Pano 2 by Anton Ertl, on Flickr

Though I have seen a little of that effect:


Flooded valley Somerton Jan 2024 by Anton Ertl, on Flickr

I think it's much more to do with the angle of the clouds in relation to the point at which the camera is placed, and you'll always see it in some scenes.
 
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ancient_mariner said:
Surely that's a wide angle lens effect? Panos often seem to look different:


London Pano 2 by Anton Ertl, on Flickr

Though I have seen a little of that effect:


Flooded valley Somerton Jan 2024 by Anton Ertl, on Flickr

I think it's much more to do with the angle of the clouds in relation to the point at which the camera is placed, and you'll always see it in some scenes.
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That was a stitched shot, here’s another made up from 6 shots IIRC. Obviously you’d expect this kind of effect with such a close subject.

IMG_7219.jpeg

Even when I’ve shot in camera panos (when I’ve had a camera that does them) I get the same effect.

Maybe I need to use a longer focal length and take more shots?

Both my examples were with a wide angle (16mm and 20mm) used in portrait orientation.
 
snerkler said:
Both my examples were with a wide angle (16mm and 20mm) used in portrait orientation.
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That's why then - a WA is already going to have problems of this kind, and stitching just makes it all worse. Mine were done with a 50. I can't imagine there are many WAs that don't distort too badly for stitching
 
ancient_mariner said:
That's why then - a WA is already going to have problems of this kind, and stitching just makes it all worse. Mine were done with a 50. I can't imagine there are many WAs that don't distort too badly for stitching
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I’ll give it a go next time. The only trouble with shots like Buckingham Palace as you’d need to use wide angle to get it in shot.
 
snerkler said:
I’ll give it a go next time. The only trouble with shots like Buckingham Palace as you’d need to use wide angle to get it in shot.
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For something like a flat-fronted building I think you'd need to take a lot of shots while walking parallel to the frontage while using a lens with little distortion and a relatively narrow field of view. It might well require multiple passes to get it.
 
ancient_mariner said:
For something like a flat-fronted building I think you'd need to take a lot of shots while walking parallel to the frontage while using a lens with little distortion and a relatively narrow field of view. It might well require multiple passes to get it.
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Yeah not really possible due to the big iron fence outside ;)

Joking aside, if I do need to stitch in future I’ll remember to use a longer FL.
 
snerkler said:
Yeah not really possible due to the big iron fence outside ;)

Joking aside, if I do need to stitch in future I’ll remember to use a longer FL.
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I don't think getting a good photo in the way you wanted of that place is possible from the outside.
 
ancient_mariner said:
I don't think getting a good photo in the way you wanted of that place is possible from the outside.
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I don’t think so either, that’s what I was saying in that sometimes a situation forces your hand with the focal length. That being said I quite like the effect in that example and I knew it would turn out this way before taking the shots (y)
 
snerkler said:
That was a stitched shot, here’s another made up from 6 shots IIRC. Obviously you’d expect this kind of effect with such a close subject.

View attachment 414828

Even when I’ve shot in camera panos (when I’ve had a camera that does them) I get the same effect.

Maybe I need to use a longer focal length and take more shots?

Both my examples were with a wide angle (16mm and 20mm) used in portrait orientation.
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Looks like a spherical model was used here. Why you would choose that model is well and truly beyond me. Rectilinear perhaps... Anything incamera as usual is most suspect and should not be used except as a last resort.
Spherical as the name suggest is good for 360. A full 360 at that.

ancient_mariner said:
For something like a flat-fronted building I think you'd need to take a lot of shots while walking parallel to the frontage while using a lens with little distortion and a relatively narrow field of view. It might well require multiple passes to get it.
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yes, but only because wideangles almost inevitably expose you to closer foreground elements.... If you were to shoot enough frames with 50mm to cover a similar FOV you may run into pretty much the same issues. And again choosing the correct merging model is very important.

unless you are printing insane dimensions like my last client requested, a panorama is usually not the best nor the most convenient way to go
 
snerkler said:
For me it gives options, crazy wide for interiors and the I can use it in crop mode for 15mm FOV (16mm is my go to wide angle focal length).
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To me that reads like a good 14mm or ideally 15 / 16mm prime would serve a much better purpose. Interiors is something I can comment with my full experience and anything under 15/16mm is going to massvely distort close objects, emphasise near space too much and leave all the good bits small and far away. Other than some very special cases it is really a trap, and cropping this heavy is really a a very poor choice. In fact it is not even that great for 360s apparently. A fisheye is much more efficient for this sort of job.

I watched their whole demo video and apart form absolutely insane and in fact degrading (people) distortions there is but one effective example.
View: https://youtu.be/aSHv_1ySpfo

I simply wouldn't buy it for as long as there is any other lens on the market that I still haven't got
 
LongLensPhotography said:
To me that reads like a good 14mm or ideally 15 / 16mm prime would serve a much better purpose. Interiors is something I can comment with my full experience and anything under 15/16mm is going to massvely distort close objects, emphasise near space too much and leave all the good bits small and far away. Other than some very special cases it is really a trap, and cropping this heavy is really a a very poor choice. In fact it is not even that great for 360s apparently. A fisheye is much more efficient for this sort of job.

I watched their whole demo video and apart form absolutely insane and in fact degrading (people) distortions there is but one effective example.
View: https://youtu.be/aSHv_1ySpfo

I simply wouldn't buy it for as long as there is any other lens on the market that I still haven't got
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The 10mm has zero distortion
 
Santafe2000 said:
Thanks buddy. As I said, I'm pretty relaxed about it. I've bought seven cameras from Efinity over the last few years, plus maybe around 6 lenses, so I reckon I've saved thousands across those purchases with no issues until now, so if it costs me £350.00 to repair, then so be it. It's the risk you take with grey goods and I'm ok with that. I've still got my A7R3, which I'll continue to use for landscapes until I get it back.
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Have you emailed them? They do give a warranty and will often let you get it sorted locally, they’ll ask you to send it off and send them to quote.
 
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