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

Even though I don't generally like 28s I still keep getting tempted....especially as I keep thinking about picking up a A5100* as a second small body for when I want really pocketable. 42mm equivalent that small would be quite nice...

*AFAIK this is the smallest E mount camera, ignoring the real oddities like the QX1
 
I spent more on my dinner last night than I did on the Viltrox 28mm.
A new body cap would have cost 10% of the cost of the Viltrox 28mm

Just to give some perspective..... :D
 
ancient_mariner said:
I only use spot focus, so don't give the camera a chance to choose the wrong subject.
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LeeRatters said:
I think f/4.5 is a bit too small though imo

I get the lens is also very tiny, but still. In low light or on a dull day with a decent shutter speed that's going to be some high ISO I think.
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When AF simply doesn't work or when it can't be trusted and when being finicky about where the focus point is I'll use manual focus and the magnified view.

I know this is a niche lens and f4.5 is maybe going to limit its use anyway but for me there's always going to be the odd focus target which'll tax AF to breaking point and for when that happens I'd rather use a lens with MF than realise this lens isn't up to it and have to give up and not take the picture or have the point of focus somewhere other than where I wanted it and obsess over that later, which I would do.

Barrysprout said:
I spent more on my dinner last night than I did on the Viltrox 28mm.
A new body cap would have cost 10% of the cost of the Viltrox 28mm

Just to give some perspective..... :D
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As you might have noticed I do like a cheap lens but the condition is that it has to be useful for my purpose and if going cheap I'd rather go MF with a cheap modern lens like the TTArtisan 50mm f2 which you can now get for £54 or the Pergear 35mm f1.4 at £81 or use a film era 28mm f2.8 which I already have but if I didn't I could get from ebay for £20-£30 assuming I already have the adapter. I do also have the Sony 28mm f2.

The cost does come into it for me as I'm not going to spend £1k + on a lens but I'd rather spend mini Sony G money on a conventional compact 28mm f2.8 if it existed than spend even a tenner on this Viltrox and want to throw it into the sea one day.

Many people wont miss MF and wont understand my objection to a lens without it but for me at least AF defeating things do exist and do attract my attention and I just know that one day I'd be triggered by a lens without MF and I want to smash it :D

Just for illustration...

DSC07082.jpg

For this I wanted to focus at infinity so with AF I aimed at the wind turbines but AF just wouldn't lock on at all, no real problem except for the wasted time as I just manually focused. With a lens with no MF I wouldn't have had that option. Things like this happen at least for me and then there are the messy / AF distracting scenes and subjects and those situations when AF just doesn't know exactly where you want the point of focus. OK, sometimes you'd need to pixel peep to be able to see that the focus wasn't right but when you're an obsessive with a short fuse (and there are times when I have no fuse at all, blame it on my Celtic ancestors) these rare occurrences are best avoided.
 
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woof woof said:
When AF simply doesn't work or when it can't be trusted and when being finicky about where the focus point is I'll use manual focus and the magnified view.

I know this is a niche lens and f4.5 is maybe going to limit its use anyway but for me there's always going to be the odd focus target which'll tax AF to breaking point and for when that happens I'd rather use a lens with MF than realise this lens isn't up to it and have to give up and not take the picture or have the point of focus somewhere other than where I wanted it and obsess over that later, which I would do.



As you might have noticed I do like a cheap lens but the condition is that it has to be useful for my purpose and if going cheap I'd rather go MF with a cheap modern lens like the TTArtisan 50mm f2 which you can now get for £54 or the Pergear 35mm f1.4 at £81 or use a film era 28mm f2.8 which I already have but if I didn't I could get from ebay for £20-£30 assuming I already have the adapter. I do also have the Sony 28mm f2.

The cost does come into it for me as I'm not going to spend £1k + on a lens but I'd rather spend mini Sony G money on a conventional compact 28mm f2.8 if it existed than spend even a tenner on this Viltrox and want to throw it into the sea one day.

Many people wont miss MF and wont understand my objection to a lens without it but for me at least AF defeating things do exist and do attract my attention and I just know that one day I'd be triggered by a lens without MF and I want to smash it :D

Just for illustration...

View attachment 436762

For this I wanted to focus at infinity so with AF I aimed at the wind turbines but AF just wouldn't lock on at all, no real problem except for the wasted time as I just manually focused. With a lens with no MF I wouldn't have had that option. Things like this happen at least for me and then there are the messy / AF distracting scenes and subjects and those situations when AF just doesn't know exactly where you want the point of focus. OK, sometimes you'd need to pixel peep to be able to see that the focus wasn't right but when you're an obsessive with a short fuse (and there are times when I have no fuse at all, blame it on my Celtic ancestors) these rare occurrences are best avoided.
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Worrying about the performance of a £70 lens seems a bit pointless :ROFLMAO:
 
f/2.8 said:
Worrying about the performance of a £70 lens seems a bit pointless :ROFLMAO:
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I've spent a lot less on a lens and been perfectly happy. As above it's not the money it's the fact that I just know that one day this lens would have me ranting.

Oh, and this isn't a "performance" issue, it's a missing ability issue.
 
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So I managed to shoot that Comet last Saturday, a handful of compositions on Thursday & also a shot this Saturday too. Every occasion was NOT guaranteed clear skies and all of them weren't ideal conditions, but..... You got to take those chances sometimes.....

WSM Pier on Thursday


*** by Lee, on Flickr

Black Nore Lighthouse last night - I really wanted this as I shot Neowise here in 2020 :)


*** by Lee, on Flickr
 
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There are a lot of nice photogenetic leaves on the ground here but I can't get out with a camera until Wednesday so I hope they last until then and don't get all soggy :D

I think my favourites leaf picture from last year were taken on 28th and 30th October, with the Pergear 35mm f1.4.
 
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LeeRatters said:
I think f/4.5 is a bit too small though imo

I get the lens is also very tiny, but still. In low light or on a dull day with a decent shutter speed that's going to be some high ISO I think.
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I can’t imagine a scenario I’d use really fast shutters with a lens like this?
 
I know people have moaned about it in the past but haven’t Sony fixed the ‘problem’ of the lenses stopping down prior to taking the shot rather than focussing wide open and only stopping down when the shutter is pressed?

I’ve had a couple of occasions recently where the camera has really struggled to focus due to using small ish apertures in dark environments. Even with exposure preview turned off the aperture still narrows before the shot.
 
Are you having this problem on a current Sony camera? I just had a look at the A9 out of interest and it stops down the lens before the shot, opens it for focusing then stops it back down again.
 
snerkler said:
I know people have moaned about it in the past but haven’t Sony fixed the ‘problem’ of the lenses stopping down prior to taking the shot rather than focussing wide open and only stopping down when the shutter is pressed?

I’ve had a couple of occasions recently where the camera has really struggled to focus due to using small ish apertures in dark environments. Even with exposure preview turned off the aperture still narrows before the shot.
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No, AFAIK they focus at shot aperture unless it’s really small. I’ve seen some mention of an option to turn it off by not sure how.

They noticeably don’t do it with adapted A mount where they focus wide open. It feels like a real step backward. More shutter lag/noise, as you wait for the aperture to move, and for some lenses shift in focus can be an issue.
 
JohnMcL7 said:
Are you having this problem on a current Sony camera? I just had a look at the A9 out of interest and it stops down the lens before the shot, opens it for focusing then stops it back down again.
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Definitely the A7RV, AFAIK the A1 too.
 
Toby……Santa has let himself go a bit….
 
I had a proper check on the A9 with a 28mm F2 (so I could see the aperture blades clearly), on every aperture apart from F2 it stops the lens down to the selected aperture, when I half press to focus it opens to wide open and quickly stops the lens back down
 
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LeeRatters said:
No it isn't ;) And something like an A5100 would be even worse I expect.
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The APSC bodies handle noise quite well actually. Would be grand. Actually other than than maybe the older Fujis which have always been a bit crap with noise anything made in the last 10 years would be grand at that sort of ISO.
 
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f/2.8 said:
The APSC bodies handle noise quite well actually. Would be grand. Actually other than than maybe the older Fujis which have always been a bit crap with noise anything made in the last 10 years would be grand at that sort of ISO.
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The S bodies & the newer iii to v's maybe, but I've seen my boys night sky images with his A6000 - like the A7, they aren't grand.
 
LeeRatters said:
The S bodies & the newer iii to v's maybe, but I've seen my boys night sky images with his A6000 - like the A7, they aren't grand.
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Maybe there is fault with A6000 had 3 of those and they were most definitely grand.
 
JohnMcL7 said:
I had a proper check on the A9 with a 28mm F2 (so I could see the aperture blades clearly), on every aperture apart from F2 it stops the lens down to the selected aperture then quickly stops back down as it gets focus.
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Thanks, I’m not quite sure what you mean in the bit in bold though, as you say it stops down then stops back down, how can it stop back down if it’s already stopped back down :thinking:
 
Depends what you’re doing with the pictures I think, how you plan to view or print. I’ve got pics I like at 3200 on an original x100.
 
LeeRatters said:
No it isn't ;) And something like an A5100 would be even worse I expect.
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It depends. It depends if there's any awful artificial lighting or not, it depends if you boost the exposure post capture or not, it depends how fussy you are and it depends how closely you look. And then there's what modern NR can do to help you.

I'm surprised night sky images are an issue for you with APS-C and the A7 as I'd have thought even at worst scenario (single exposure with minimum processing) they'd be long exposures at wider apertures and even f2.8 should keep the shutter speed and ISO reasonable.

I've always thought you do a lot more processing than I do but if you think ISO 2,500 on APS-C and A7 is bad you must also have a lot higher standards :D
 
snerkler said:
Thanks, I’m not quite sure what you mean in the bit in bold though, as you say it stops down then stops back down, how can it stop back down if it’s already stopped back down :thinking:
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I shouldn't try and write posts quickly as that made no sense.

When I select F22 on the camera, the lens stops down to F22. When I half press the shutter to focus, the lens immediately opens fully then almost immediately stops back down again I assume because it has focus. From what you're saying your lenses are not opening up on focusing?
 
JohnMcL7 said:
I shouldn't try and write posts quickly as that made no sense.

When I select F22 on the camera, the lens stops down to F22. When I half press the shutter to focus, the lens immediately opens fully then almost immediately stops back down again I assume because it has focus. From what you're saying your lenses are not opening up on focusing?
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Was this using AF-S or AF-C? I always have my camera in AF-C so I wonder if it's that, I'll try it later.
 
I've realised that my A7III does this (open a small aperture to focus, then close it again) too. There are times when focusing that the image becomes briefly bright, then returns to normal. I'm almost always using AF-S.
 
JohnMcL7 said:
I shouldn't try and write posts quickly as that made no sense.

When I select F22 on the camera, the lens stops down to F22. When I half press the shutter to focus, the lens immediately opens fully then almost immediately stops back down again I assume because it has focus. From what you're saying your lenses are not opening up on focusing?
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ancient_mariner said:
I've realised that my A7III does this (open a small aperture to focus, then close it again) too. There are times when focusing that the image becomes briefly bright, then returns to normal. I'm almost always using AF-S.
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I've just tried it and it does open briefly when using AF-S. When using AF-C it does open briefly when using AF-C sometimes, looks to me when it's dark and struggling, however as it then closes down again straight away and you're continuing to try and focus it then struggles and you can see it hunting. I wish I knew this at the weekend as I'd have used AF-S, good to know moving forward though (y)
 
You're right I was in AF-S so I've tried AF-C and it behaves the same way you described keeping the aperture closed most of the way down near the chosen aperture when half pressing the shutter. I guess it's to ensure the camera can take the picture as quickly as possible after fully pressing the shutter and if the aperture was wide open it would take a moment to get closed to the correct aperture to take the shot. Still you think they could have it as an option for scenarios where you're using AF-C but would prefer the slight lag on shutter release to get better focusing.
 
JohnMcL7 said:
You're right I was in AF-S so I've tried AF-C and it behaves the same way you described keeping the aperture closed most of the way down near the chosen aperture when half pressing the shutter. I guess it's to ensure the camera can take the picture as quickly as possible after fully pressing the shutter and if the aperture was wide open it would take a moment to get closed to the correct aperture to take the shot. Still you think they could have it as an option for scenarios where you're using AF-C but would prefer the slight lag on shutter release to get better focusing.
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I figured it would be to enable fast/burst shooting, however you’d think they enable the aperture to open fully when in single shot mode regardless of the AF mode
 
Someone had a D750 at the photoshoot at the weekend, shows you how things move on as I always loved the ergonomics of it but it felt like a brick compared to my Sonys :oops: :$
 
snerkler said:
Someone had a D750 at the photoshoot at the weekend, shows you how things move on as I always loved the ergonomics of it but it felt like a brick compared to my Sonys :oops: :$
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I remember still the first impression of my A7III after the D610 - small, much denser, decently engineered instead of flexy entry-level construction. With Nikon the body was bulky and the lenses small. Sony have a small body and enormous bulky lenses (but at least they feel well made).
 
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ancient_mariner said:
I remember still the first impression of my A7III after the D610 - small, much denser, decently engineered instead of flexy entry-level construction. With Nikon the body was bulky and the lenses small. Sony have a small body and enormous bulky lenses (but at least they feel well made).
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Now Nikon have bulky bodies and even more bulky lenses. :ROFLMAO:
 
wibbly said:
Now Nikon have bulky bodies and even more bulky lenses. :ROFLMAO:
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I hope they feel better made than the D610 - my Sony A58 felt better made. And as for the D70, that really was a nasty plastic-fantastic.
 
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