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

f/2.8 said:
Surprised to hear anyone say that the Z9’s a.f isn’t as good as the higher end Sonys
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No. Not saying that. I’m a previous Nikon owner. I’d have gone back now that their eye af is usable.
Had the Z6. Loved the handling and the colours. Switched to Sony for AF-C and eye AF. Could easily go back, but I get an enormous amount of pleasure from the 50GM. Like you it’s fast becoming my most used optic. It’s what keeps me Sony. The Nikon Z 50f1.8 is good. But once I’d experienced the Sony 50GM...game over.
 
35mm f2.8, 35mm f1.8, 55mm f1.8, 35mm f1.4 GM, 50mm f1.2 GM...

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I can see the attraction of the GM's and they're probably amongst the best lenses ever made but I do like compact kit and the 35 and 55mm f1.8's are already getting towards the bulkiest kit I'm happy to carry about and use. Plus I don't take a lot of pictures in low light and when I do f1.8 is going to be enough. I'll probably keep reading about GM lenses but although I get tempted I'll probably always end up not getting one.
 
woof woof said:
That may be what someone said but it just doesn't seem believable to me when Sony make a couple of compact 50mm one of them being a f1.8 and so does just about everyone else. I suppose it is possible that they started out to make a 50mm, screwed up somewhere and made it a 55mm to save face rather than starting again. I'd believe that rather than them having some unique issue that no one else seems to have had. There have of course been 55mm lenses in the past and I do have another one.

I do think it's a good lens and easily the best AF 50/55mm I've ever owned but I think on balance I preferred the old Sigma 50mm f1.4 for it's overall look despite it not being able to compete technically across the frame. The occasional ca with the 55mm some scenes isn't really that much of a problem for me as usually it's a tiny proportion of the image which no one I show pictures to will ever notice. My ideal would be the Voigtlander 50mm f2 apo with AF.
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If the Voigtlander 50mm had been af then I'd keep it, but as it's not hence why it's up for sale.
 
trevorbray said:
No. Not saying that. I’m a previous Nikon owner. I’d have gone back now that their eye af is usable.
Had the Z6. Loved the handling and the colours. Switched to Sony for AF-C and eye AF. Could easily go back, but I get an enormous amount of pleasure from the 50GM. Like you it’s fast becoming my most used optic. It’s what keeps me Sony. The Nikon Z 50f1.8 is good. But once I’d experienced the Sony 50GM...game over.
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Umm a bit more switching than that Mr Bray - its something like Nikon, Sony, Fuji, Sony, Fuji, Sony (and thats in the last 18 months) :ROFLMAO: :ROFLMAO: :ROFLMAO:
 
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Fuji Dave said:
If the Voigtlander 50mm had been af then I'd keep it, but as it's not hence why it's up for sale.
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I have been thinking about selling mine. If I sold the 40mm f1.2 and 50mm f2 I could get the 50mm f1.2 and have that and the 35mm f1.4. That would make more sense than having 35, 40 and 50mm lenses but I think the 50mm f2 is a better lens than the 50mm f1.2 so maybe I should just sell the 40mm f1.2 and have the 35mm f1.4 and 50mm f2.
 
woof woof said:
I have been thinking about selling mine. If I sold the 40mm f1.2 and 50mm f2 I could get the 50mm f1.2 and have that and the 35mm f1.4. That would make more sense than having 35, 40 and 50mm lenses but I think the 50mm f2 is a better lens than the 50mm f1.2 so maybe I should just sell the 40mm f1.2 and have the 35mm f1.4 and 50mm f2.
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Mine is now in the original box in the back of the cupboard.
 
LeeRatters said:
My 20G is in the sales!
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I hardly use mine but I dream of going on a cruise to see the northern lights one day plus it's nice to have to available for the odd wide shot nearer to home.

I also have a Tokina 17mm and a Vivitar 19mm too. The Vivitar especially is a lovely thing to use but has a limiting aperture and a sort of wavy distortion. Luckily there's a lens profile which does a pretty good job.
 
woof woof said:
I hardly use mine but I dream of going on a cruise to see the northern lights one day plus it's nice to have to available for the odd wide shot nearer to home.

I also have a Tokina 17mm and a Vivitar 19mm too. The Vivitar especially is a lovely thing to use but has a limiting aperture and a sort of wavy distortion. Luckily there's a lens profile which does a pretty good job.
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Flickr tells me it's been out and used about 20 times in 11 months, mainly night skies.

I just find it a little too wide in all honesty for general use and I think the 24mm is better suited.

Northern lights would be cool one day.
 
Not necessarily the car of your dreams (A65 / 16~300 Tamron)...

Hearse parked in Exeter Road Exmouth A65 DSC03170.JPG
 
f/2.8 said:
You might find if you have one that you would use it a lot more than you would think. I certainly have, for a start it completely replaced my 85mm. I hardly use the 85mm any more at all, I also use my 35mm a lot less than I did previously as well.

Before I had the 50 GM according to Lightroom for a wedding I was using my 35mm about 60%, my 85mm 30% and others 10%. After getting the 50 G.M it now shows 50mm about 60%, 35mm 30% and others 10%.
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We've just been out on an Alpaca walk experience today and the 45mm was definitely more of an appropriate focal length than the 85mm, also despite my initial reservations I do really like the rendering from the 45mm today. As much as I'd love the 50GM it's just to high a price for me.
Fuji Dave said:
Love the first shot, my AF 45mm is my most used lens think it's a cracker for my jazz shots.
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I think I was too quick to critique, looking back at the edits it's nicer than I thought, and I like the rendering from today as just mentioned.
nandbytes said:
it certainly has somewhat unique "softer dreamy" rendering you don't get with many other lenses. Reminds of the EF 50mm f1.2.
The word on the street is that it's closer to a f1.3 lens than a f1.4 lens.
AF isn't great on either :p

There is a new samyang 50mm f1.4, not sure how good or bad that is. looks to be a completely different optical formula.
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Reviews I've seen say the new version is a huge step forward compared to the old one, in particular AF and build
trevorbray said:
@snerkler Can honestly say if it weren’t for the GM primes and particularly the 50mm I would probably have gone back to Nikon with Z9
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Z9's too bulky for me, plus the 70-200mm is still up at 1.5kg, the GM OSS II is so nice to use with it 'only' being 1kg.
 
snerkler said:
Z9's too bulky for me, plus the 70-200mm is still up at 1.5kg, the GM OSS II is so nice to use with it 'only' being 1kg.
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if they make a Z7III with 3D AF from Z9 with a 85mm f1.2 think I am swapping to Nikon.
The 800mm f6.3 is the tele I have always wanted and they also have a smaller, light 400mm prime on the roadmap which looks like a canon 400mm DO equivalent.
My fingers across for a decent Z7III now (they also have a fast 85mm prime on the roadmap)

They already have focus stacking and the new FW2.0 bought the pre-buffer feature from oly.
So all in all Nikon are turning things around and Sony is honestly getting a bit frustrating since they don't seem care about people shooting with telephotos or care to add any use software features. even the ones that were good and available through playmemories have been removed with no replacement.
 
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nandbytes said:
if they make a Z7III with 3D AF from Z9 with a 85mm f1.2 think I am swapping to Nikon.
The 800mm f6.3 is the tele I have always wanted and they also have a smaller, light 400mm prime on the roadmap which looks like a canon 400mm DO equivalent.
My fingers across for a decent Z7III now (they also have a fast 85mm prime on the roadmap)

They already have focus stacking and the new FW2.0 bought the pre-buffer feature from oly.
So all in all Nikon are turning things around and Sony is honestly getting a bit frustrating since they don't seem care about people shooting with telephotos or care to add any use software features. even the ones that were good and available through playmemories have been removed with no replacement.
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I’m trying not to look at other systems as I’ll just go round in circles swapping from one to the other :LOL: Lens wise Sony have everything I want (at least for lenses I can afford) and the 70-200mm GM2 is a massive draw for me. My biggest frustration is the slideshow EVF at slower shutter speeds and the ‘grainy’ EVF when focussing.
 
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woof woof said:
That may be what someone said but it just doesn't seem believable to me when Sony make a couple of compact 50mm one of them being a f1.8 and so does just about everyone else. I suppose it is possible that they started out to make a 50mm, screwed up somewhere and made it a 55mm to save face rather than starting again.
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The 55 f/1.8 has the same light transmission as the 50 f.4 ZA according to the internet, that wouldn't be possible if it had of been a 50 f/1.8. Not then anyway.

Also read something about the lens would have been bigger if it had of been a 50mm.

They wanted it as small as possible with as much light gathering capability as possible and in the end that was best achieved by it being 55mm and not 50mm.

The C.A is not occasional, shoot anything backlit wide open and it is very evident in every frame. This does cause me additional work. A lot of my wife's portraits are backlit, when the bride walks down the aisle, 9 times in 10 backlit etc.

I guess you have to just weigh up the bad Vs the good. C.A is awful, the files always need a lot of work to get them looking how I like. On the flip side of the coin, the lens is very sharp and it is ridiculously small for a lens these days.

It will be swopped out out as soon as a suitable alternative is available though. My missus loves the 50GM too but she insists that there is no chance in hell of her carrying one around all day.
 
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Wide open backlit scenes are a tiny proportion of my pictures and even then CA depending on the composition may only affect small sections of the picture or even very small sections of the picture. For you as a demanding pro things will be different if you shoot a lot of backlit scenes at wide apertures.

I can't say that I spent a lot of time weighing up the good v bad mainly because the alternative choices at the time I got the 55mm were AFAIR non existent and they're still limited if you want a compact 50mm f1.x. If I was looking for one for the first time today I don't know what I'd do. I might not bother or I might just go for the 55mm again as the 50mm f1.8 is a non starter for me as I don't think it'll work well on my A7 and I don't want to repeat the f2.8 annoyance and disappointment.

Out of curiosity I'm going to have to read up on it as with all resect to you it still all sound a bit of a stretch to me. Light transmission is T stops which may not or even usually doesn't equal f stops as f stops are a different thing being "just" the ratio of focal length / aperture size so I suppose it's possible that the f1.8 transmits light relatively well and the f1.4 not so well but all this leads me back to my point about there being an awful lot of 50mm f1.8 or so lenses about for a long time. Anyway. thanks for the pointer. I'll research it.

The 35mm f1.8 also has CA and as I use it more than the 55mm I've seen it more with it. It is I suppose disappointing that Sony seem to have decided that designing it out isn't a priority as lenses are a series of compromises and I suppose they have other things they'd rather prioritise. It is a bit worse for me as my creaking old A7 AFAIK doesn't do any in camera corrections and although my creaking old CS5 has a check box as far as I can see it does exactly nothing having no effect I can see at all. Although CA can be disappointing or even annoying it's not necessarily a deal breaker for me as it'll only affect a tiny percentage of my pictures.
 
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4wd said:
It has worked well but I wonder why you shot at F1.8 - I would usually have wanted more depth of field in good light.
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My preference is shallow DOF (y)
 
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