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

Raymond Lin said:
My concern is that with an iMac, even though it cost more, i can usually get 5+ years out of it. It is currently 7 years and i don't feel the need to upgrade at the moment.

Anyone else using a 7 year old windows machine? Because if it can't last that long then it isn't really cheaper.
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I got mine in 2013. Windows 7, i5 CPU, 16GB RAM - That's about as far as my computer knowledge goes :LOL:
 
I like the idea of the RX1 but I picked one up on a store once and it was too small, to the point that I will drop it.
 
I've always liked the idea on an RX1 type camera but my fixed lens and dust bunny phobia stops me as does the thought that it isn't a lot smaller than my A7 with 35mm f2.8. I'm sure they're lovely though and I sort of want one.
 
Wish they'd just announce the A9II :) apparently another camera announcement in August so fingers X'd but I doubt it.
 
TGphoto said:
I find all this A9ii talk a bit crazy. No one needs it, no one physically is limited by the A9 surely? I always wonder what people could possibly want out of it.
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The only thing for me would be the shutter, either a faster mechanical fps or a global shutter.
 
TGphoto said:
I find all this A9ii talk a bit crazy. No one needs it, no one physically is limited by the A9 surely? I always wonder what people could possibly want out of it.
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A9 dynamic range isn’t as good as other models. Few of the wedding photographers I know think it isn’t even as good as the 5dmkIV.

It’s also not the most reliable camera with quite a few common issues. The build quality being improved along with the dynamic range being improved is what most of them are hoping for with the new model. Well that and all the new fancy toys, better evf etc.

I liked the A9 when I had a lend of one for a while but with all the talk of the new model coming I have purposely held off buying one but will probably be first in line for the new one when it hits.
 
I stay with Macs for 2 reasons.

1: The performance stays the same for years without slowing down with zero effort/maintenance from the user (my 2012 MBP15 retina does everything I want at a speed that's never an issue)
2: I've only used Mac operating systems for 20+ years and I have no desire to mess about with another operating system.
 
TGphoto said:
I find all this A9ii talk a bit crazy. No one needs it, no one physically is limited by the A9 surely? I always wonder what people could possibly want out of it.
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Did anyone need the A7R iv? I think Sony are just trying to stay ahead of the game.
 
f/2.8 said:
A9 dynamic range isn’t as good as other models. Few of the wedding photographers I know think it isn’t even as good as the 5dmkIV.

It’s also not the most reliable camera with quite a few common issues. The build quality being improved along with the dynamic range being improved is what most of them are hoping for with the new model. Well that and all the new fancy toys, better evf etc.

I liked the A9 when I had a lend of one for a while but with all the talk of the new model coming I have purposely held off buying one but will probably be first in line for the new one when it hits.
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I thought Canon folks prefer to pretend dynamic range doesn't matter :D

5D4 does have more dynamic range till about this ISO640. A9 isn't really designed to compete with this sensor, it was designed to compete with 1DXii and D5. Does a decent job at that.
 
TGphoto said:
I find all this A9ii talk a bit crazy. No one needs it, no one physically is limited by the A9 surely? I always wonder what people could possibly want out of it.
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I'm limited on it.

Slow mechanical shutter both fps and lag makes it limited when shooting in very harsh artificial light and studio work.

Slow time to clear the buffer. It really needs xqd dual card slots or uhs 3. Not 2. That's not fast enough.

Better weather sealing at the bottom of the camera

40mp file for cropping (cropping is very useful for sports and wildlife).
 
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NewBeetle said:
1: The performance stays the same for years without slowing down with zero effort/maintenance from the user (my 2012 MBP15 retina does everything I want at a speed that's never an issue)
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I REALLY don't want to turn this into a PC vs Mac session, but one of the things I found with my late 2008 unibody Macbook was that the system needed wiping/reinstalling about every 18 months to maintain performance. I understand OSX is better these days (since Lion) just like W10 doesn't suffer slowdows like XP used to. I ended up doing 3 or 4 rounds of reinstalls before I stopped using it regularly, and I was also a bit horrified to see how much cruft the OS added (a sidecar file for every file on the machine) when they were no longer hidden by the OS.

NewBeetle said:
2: I've only used Mac operating systems for 20+ years and I have no desire to mess about with another operating system.
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That's probably the best reason for staying Apple - learning a new OS is a PITA unless you enjoy that kind of thing (which I did) and OSX seems intuitive to some people.
 
ancient_mariner said:
I REALLY don't want to turn this into a PC vs Mac session, but one of the things I found with my late 2008 unibody Macbook was that the system needed wiping/reinstalling about every 18 months to maintain performance. I understand OSX is better these days (since Lion) just like W10 doesn't suffer slowdows like XP used to. I ended up doing 3 or 4 rounds of reinstalls before I stopped using it regularly, and I was also a bit horrified to see how much cruft the OS added (a sidecar file for every file on the machine) when they were no longer hidden by the OS.



That's probably the best reason for staying Apple - learning a new OS is a PITA unless you enjoy that kind of thing (which I did) and OSX seems intuitive to some people.
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Thankfully I've never had to re-install on this 2012 machine. Back in the olden days when there was a loophole to use the Higher Education pricing without being a student I used to buy and replace my mac every 12 months for the latest model with hardly any cost so they never got old enough to have any problems.

Honestly the thought of having to change operating systems freaks me out, and is the main reason I stay with macs. I'm over the whole 'style' thing. Hell if they sold cheap plastic boxes that ran OS X I'd probably go that route with a decent monitor.
 
I've made the decision to do all my photo editing on my Win10 machine from now on. I'm getting more and more into using third party plugins and the on the iMac this is excruciatingly slow. The Win10 machine is probably about 30% faster when using Lightroom alone but at least 3x faster when using Nik Software plugins.

I only started using Macs 4 years ago when my transition from Win7 to Win10 was fraught with problems. I found immediately that the Mac was a much more stable platform but it's taken me a while to get used to the file system, hardly surprising really.
I had built a Win10 machine for gaming only but I found this to be very unstable. I have solved that problem by stopping Windows driver updates by hacking the registry and only update the graphics drivers.

I believe it was a Mac user on here who said that when he viewed his pictures on other peoples non-Mac monitors he was surprised that they didn't look as good as they had done on his 5K Mac monitor.
FWIW My iMac specs:
Mac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, Late 2014), 3.5 GHz Intel Core i5, 16 GB 1600 MHz DDR3, AMD Radeon R9 M290X 2 GB.
My Win10 specs:
Intel i7-8700K @3.7GHz, 16 GB RAM DDR4 1200MHz, Radeon RX850 8 GB.
As far as I know Lightroom is not GPU intensive, relying on CPU and RAM power but Photoshop is more GPU intensive.
 
jonneymendoza said:
I'm limited on it.

Slow mechanical shutter both fps and lag makes it limited when shooting in very harsh artificial light and studio work.

Slow time to clear the buffer. It really needs xqd dual card slots or uhs 3. Not 2. That's not fast enough.

Better weather sealing at the bottom of the camera

40mp file for cropping (cropping is very useful for sports and wildlife).
Click to expand...
I doubt that the A9 will become a high MP camera tbh, at least in the near future, as the A9 is all about speed. 24MP is the sweet spot imo so can see it raising to that. As for the buffer, can't the A9 shoot at 20fps with a buffer capacity of 241 raw files? Why would anyone need that many, or even close to that? I'm all for high bursts for panning motorsports, or BIF etc, but I may burst for 2-3s max. That would still equate to a crazy 60 shots on the A9 (I usually shoot around 8-10fps so get 30 frames max, usually a lot less), but what scenarios require you to be shooting at 20fps for 12s?
 
footman said:
I've made the decision to do all my photo editing on my Win10 machine from now on. I'm getting more and more into using third party plugins and the on the iMac this is excruciatingly slow. The Win10 machine is probably about 30% faster when using Lightroom alone but at least 3x faster when using Nik Software plugins.

I only started using Macs 4 years ago when my transition from Win7 to Win10 was fraught with problems. I found immediately that the Mac was a much more stable platform but it's taken me a while to get used to the file system, hardly surprising really.
I had built a Win10 machine for gaming only but I found this to be very unstable. I have solved that problem by stopping Windows driver updates by hacking the registry and only update the graphics drivers.

I believe it was a Mac user on here who said that when he viewed his pictures on other peoples non-Mac monitors he was surprised that they didn't look as good as they had done on his 5K Mac monitor.
FWIW My iMac specs:
Mac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, Late 2014), 3.5 GHz Intel Core i5, 16 GB 1600 MHz DDR3, AMD Radeon R9 M290X 2 GB.
My Win10 specs:
Intel i7-8700K @3.7GHz, 16 GB RAM DDR4 1200MHz, Radeon RX850 8 GB.
As far as I know Lightroom is not GPU intensive, relying on CPU and RAM power but Photoshop is more GPU intensive.
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I'm surprised you find Nik plugin slow on Mac, mine's fine tbh. LR is GPU intensive these days, unless of course you turn this off in the performance section under preferences
https://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom-classic/kb/lightroom-gpu-faq.html
 
The rumor site and Japanese mirrorless market report...

https://www.sonyalpharumors.com/the...rt-in-japan-sony-is-nearly-on-par-with-canon/

I'm always a little surprised that Canon continue to be the top sellers despite arguably lack lustre products. I suppose some of the Canon numbers could be made up of cheaper APS-C cameras and the Sony numbers could include some more expensive models so it'd be interesting to see how the numbers relate to money. I don't know why Nikon is nowhere to be seen. Maybe the numbers aren't available or maybe they're just not selling?

On other sites I've read reports of the new Nikon mirrorless offerings being very slow sellers in some markets, don't know if these reports are accurate or anecdotal.

It's interesting to see Panasonic lagging so far behind Olympus. I've had six Panasonic cameras and no Olympus. I suppose I prefer Panasonic cameras because they're more... functional... in design ethos maybe rather than the more flamboyant and consciously styled and photo filter festooned Olympus offerings :D

PS.
No Fuji's in the top 10. Maybe they're not cheap enough, but the A6400 gets in.
 
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woof woof said:
The rumor site and Japanese mirrorless market report...

https://www.sonyalpharumors.com/the...rt-in-japan-sony-is-nearly-on-par-with-canon/

I'm always a little surprised that Canon continue to be the top sellers despite arguably lack lustre products. I suppose some of the Canon numbers could be made up of cheaper APS-C cameras and the Sony numbers could include some more expensive models so it'd be interesting to see how the numbers relate to money. I don't know why Nikon is nowhere to be seen. Maybe the numbers aren't available or maybe they're just not selling?

On other sites I've read reports of the new Nikon mirrorless offerings being very slow sellers in some markets, don't know if these reports are accurate or anecdotal.

It's interesting to see Panasonic lagging so far behind Olympus. I've had six Panasonic cameras and no Olympus. I suppose I prefer Panasonic cameras because they're more... functional... in design ethos maybe rather than the more flamboyant and consciously styled and photo filter festooned Olympus offerings :D

PS.
No Fuji's in the top 10. Maybe they're not cheap enough, but the A6400 gets in.
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It’s no surprise to me Canon are still top, most aren’t willing to jump ship and a lot of people still see Canon as the top brand. A lot of people don’t know or don’t get concerned with the latest and greatest tech, they just see it’s a Canon and buy it.

I’m the other way to you, I’ve always preferred the controls of Olympus, particularly the EM1?
 
woof woof said:
Not really Sony relevant but does involve Sony kit.

The evil bay buyer is a crook but the seller gets money back in the end...

https://fstoppers.com/news/beware-e...u-both-your-camera-gear-and-your-money-392093

PS.
I had an ex who was at one time a big evil bay seller and she told many horror stories. I've bought off evil bay with some issues but I've never sold there.
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PayPal I hear is just as bad. I really hate selling on eBay for this reason, especially the more expensive items. But sometimes you are left with no choice :(
 
woof woof said:
https://fstoppers.com/news/beware-e...u-both-your-camera-gear-and-your-money-392093
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I've had both good and bad experiences with eBay, mostly good fortunately.

However this situation is tricky because we don't really know who's telling the truth, the seller could have stuck that NEX-6 in there, unless you send with a service that records the exact weight for both trips or rely on a third party to authenticate, how can you honestly tell? If you're a seller in good standing eBay may give you the benefit of the doubt but they still have to stick to their buyer guarantees too.

If someone wants to rip you off and they're determined enough they will find a way, most people are fine but there's always a few who spoil it for everyone else and if that thought is unbearable then when it comes to camera gear avoid places like eBay and stick to smaller places where you're less likely to run into thieves.
 
nandbytes said:
PayPal I hear is just as bad. I really hate selling on eBay for this reason, especially the more expensive items. But sometimes you are left with no choice :(
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I remember when I was loading off my Canon EF500mm Mk1, I advertised it as collection only. In the end, a buyer from Liverpool contacted me and we agreed to meet half way in Midlands. A long way but it is much better to deal in person for a hefty sum of money.
 
simonbarker said:
I've had both good and bad experiences with eBay, mostly good fortunately.

However this situation is tricky because we don't really know who's telling the truth, the seller could have stuck that NEX-6 in there, unless you send with a service that records the exact weight for both trips or rely on a third party to authenticate, how can you honestly tell? If you're a seller in good standing eBay may give you the benefit of the doubt but they still have to stick to their buyer guarantees too.

If someone wants to rip you off and they're determined enough they will find a way, most people are fine but there's always a few who spoil it for everyone else and if that thought is unbearable then when it comes to camera gear avoid places like eBay and stick to smaller places where you're less likely to run into thieves.
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Agreed, that why when i sell on Evil Bay I live record live the item getting packed, record serial numbers and then put a tamper proof seal sticker on the box. Just to give me as much protection as possible. It’s a sad world we live in that this is what’s required!
 
snerkler said:
I doubt that the A9 will become a high MP camera tbh, at least in the near future, as the A9 is all about speed. 24MP is the sweet spot imo so can see it raising to that. As for the buffer, can't the A9 shoot at 20fps with a buffer capacity of 241 raw files? Why would anyone need that many, or even close to that? I'm all for high bursts for panning motorsports, or BIF etc, but I may burst for 2-3s max. That would still equate to a crazy 60 shots on the A9 (I usually shoot around 8-10fps so get 30 frames max, usually a lot less), but what scenarios require you to be shooting at 20fps for 12s?
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It's not the capacity of the buffer, it's the slowness of clearing the buffer.

24mp is too low for sports and definitely for wildlife. Cropping is essential
 
Raymond Lin said:
My concern is that with an iMac, even though it cost more, i can usually get 5+ years out of it. It is currently 7 years and i don't feel the need to upgrade at the moment.

Anyone else using a 7 year old windows machine? Because if it can't last that long then it isn't really cheaper.
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My PC is 5 years old and going strong. Core i5 running at 4Ghz, 32GB Ram, 1TB of SSD space and 8TB of internal storage. Cost me slightly over a grand to build.

I am looking at upgrading, but it's a want rather than a need. Going to upgrade to a Core i7 Octacore, upgrade the RAM from DDR3 to DDR4. That'll cost me about £600.

Still less than the cost of an entry level iMac.
 
RX100IV coming today... so says the rumor site...

https://www.sonyalpharumors.com/sr5...he-new-sony-rx100vii-will-be-announced-today/

That's nice.

:D
 
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