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

jonneymendoza said:
I'm exactly like you. I won't cough into two systems and tbh the only reason I got the 55mm prime for my a7s is just to play around with a tiny native lens.

When I was in NYC most of my shots where taken with Canon glass on my a7s
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What Canon glass you using on the 7s mate? What were you shooting, mostly stationary stuff?
 
twist said:
Thought it sounded familiar. No point in using old failed technology.
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Well Canon stuck with DO for their Canon EF 400mm F4 DO IS II USM by delivering a MKII which according to Canon is a massive improvement and I've seen folks dumping the MK1 for this allegedly great [but really expensive] lens - so Canon don't see it as "old failed technology"
 
shoshone said:
Well Canon stuck with DO for their Canon EF 400mm F4 DO IS II USM by delivering a MKII which according to Canon is a massive improvement and I've seen folks dumping the MK1 for this allegedly great [but really expensive] lens - so Canon don't see it as "old failed technology"
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I dont know much about Canon gear, I assumed they dropped DO as havent heard much about it since. Ill take that back then if its working better recently for high end users.
 
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Not quite straight into the sun, just testing and getting to know the 35mm f2.8.

 
Things I've learnt about the a7r over the past couple of weeks...

1. The EVF is bigger enough than that of the X-E2 to make quite a difference
2. The shutter sound is LOUD!
3. Resolution is ridiculous, but because files are compressed, they take up a relatively small amount of space and are easy to work with in LR
4. High ISO is a LOT cleaner than that of the a7,,,far less chroma noise, making it better than that of the Canon EOS 6D (IMO)
5. AWB is terrible...everything goes orange once the light drops
6. I still dislike the auto ISO implementation
7. I still dislike the handling
8. I liked it more than I thought I would! It makes my Zeiss lenses sing :)
9. I definitely don't have time for another camera system! This one is being sold.

Few quickies from the limited shooting time I've managed this week:

_DSC1644 by ManualFocus-G, on Flickr

_DSC1656 by ManualFocus-G, on Flickr

_DSC1669 by ManualFocus-G, on Flickr

_DSC1671 by ManualFocus-G, on Flickr

_DSC1677 by ManualFocus-G, on Flickr
 
manualfocus-g said:
2. The shutter sound is LOUD!
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Relatively maybe but I used Canon APS-C for knocking on 10 years and most sounded like an anvil being thrown into a tin bath. My A7 is almost silent in comparison and generally shutter noise isn't an issue for me but I do look forward to having an electronic shutter for the 0.00001% of occasions when it could matter to me.

As to the rest... I'm amazed you've lasted so long with the system :D
 
woof woof said:
Relatively maybe but I used Canon APS-C for knocking on 10 years and most sounded like an anvil being thrown into a tin bath. My A7 is almost silent in comparison and generally shutter noise isn't an issue for me but I do look forward to having an electronic shutter for the 0.00001% of occasions when it could matter to me.

As to the rest... I'm amazed you've lasted so long with the system :D
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I thought the noise was quite cool tbh, it made a few people look and surprised me at the same time :D Kinda makes up for its otherwise somewhat boring looks :) I'm actually pretty positive about the a7r, it's a camera capable of amazing results in the right hands. The sensor is very, very good.

I did miss off one negative though, shutter shock. I'd forgotten about this until I tried shooting things between 1/60th second and 1/200th second. Could just be my technique though.

Edit: I don't have the right hands to get the most out of this camera at the moment BTW. I usually have a child pulling on at least one of them :D
 
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Boring looks? Personally styling is so far down the list of things I look for in a camera it's not even on the list.

Maybe you could buy some 70's style flame transfers often seen on cars back then or get some inspiration here...

http://www.pimpyourcam.com/

:D

Although I had had people say "That's a nice camera" I've never ever heard anyone say "That camera looks boring before." :D
 
Well I can't say I truly belong on this thread yet as I'm not yet an A7x owner, but I've 'just' part-ex'd my one remaining Canon camera body to pre-order the A7rII. It's a bit of a risk for me, but I've realised that over the last two years the Canon 1D Mark IV has only come out of the house for work purposes, and never because I wanted to shoot. As good a camera as it is, the old saying of 'the best camera is the one you have with you' was starting to ring true, as I never had it with me!

After a brief foray into the world of the Olympus EM-1 (great camera but bad quality control, sub-par durability, and the combination of a Diffraction Limited Aperture that rendered shooting below f/8 impossible and the Micro Four-Thids sensor just not providing enough for me), I've decided that Mirrorless is possibly the next path for me.

What was the deciding factor? Obviously the new advances in auto-focus, sensor quality / tech, DR and High ISO performance have all been major contributing factors, but I think what has largely made me switch is the apathy from Canon toward their users and their tech. The fact that Magic Lantern still has a place on Canon Cameras this many years on after the 5D Mark II is proof that Canon cripple their cameras so as to drive people to buy the more expensive gear.
So I had a WFT for my 1D Mark IV - this was actually proof to me that Canon make a basic piece of equipment and then whack a MASSIVE premium on top of it because 'only pro's buy it'. Well, yeah, they do, but that doesn't mean I'm happy spending £600 on a stupid Wireless Transceiver for the three shoots a year that I actually require it for, just because you think that pro's are rolling in the money and can afford to buy it. If there was a significant performance increase over consumer grade stuff, then thats fair enough to justify the price-tag, but the WFT is so poorly implemented by Canon on their pro-range that getting through the initial set-up is like pulling teeth - once you've got it configured, you only stand a 50% chance of it actually doing what it was supposed to do in the first place! Then Canon go and bring the WFT functionality to their basic consumer-grade DSLR's, basically because every other manufacturer has had in-body WiFi for the past 2 years and Canon are thinking their loosing the consumer market - Good on you, but then don't release two cameras that are the wrong side of £3400 and forget to put WiFi on the thing...
Even Canon's marketing is now riddled with this new ethos - Put Canon and Nikon at a (relatively minor) trade show (thinking the London Camera Exchange days they do down in Southampton), and Canon's stand will be maybe the side of two tables - if you're lucky there will be a few cameras there to play with and a couple of rather disinterest-looking staff. Nikon would have a stand that is at least twice as big, with every DSLR they make and a variety of lenses (though I've heard similar rants from disgruntled Nikon users recently too - maybe this is just the way of the DSLR industry now?)
The last trade-show I went to, even the Sigma stand was more engaging than Canon, with the staff showing interest in the people passing them and trying to find out more about their customer base.

Rant over - i know it seems like I really dislike Canon from this post, but its just not the case. I started out with Canon and will always love the kit they make - but maybe they're just forgotten who's buying their gear. If you can make something great, then why not make it great instead of just 'okay'?
For what they do right, their DSLR's are good! very good! Their AF system is(was?) revolutionary, and the Canon glass is superb. Will I ever sell all my Canon gear? Nope, as I love my 70-200 f/2.8L IS II USM (definitely getting a EF-to-Emount adapter for that one!). Oh, and I have a 400mm f/2.8 IS USM that I'll never be able to afford to replace, so like it or not, I'll always be a Canon user at some level. Though to quote a number of photographers, Canon might have just become the worlds largest third-party lens manufacturer. Certainly if my A7x plans pan-out, thats what they'll be to me for the next few years of my ProTog life.

Its 3AM now, so some of this was probably a little rambling / ranting. Either way, i'm REALLY looking forward to getting hold of the A7rII - it looks like a brilliant camera - just hope it lives up to its hype!
 
It may have been a rant but it seemed like a well thought out one! It feels like Canon are resting on their laurels and I think finally they may get stung.

For all the mirrorless vs DSLR stuff, the incredible advancement in mirrorless tech and the attitude of the companies making it is extremely refreshing. You've got Fuji doing unprecedented things with long term camera support and smashing it out of the park with every lens release, and you've got Sony who are literally throwing the kitchen sink at their camera bodies and being genuinely innovative.

Crucially both of them are not artificially hobbling cameras, something CaNikon have been able to get away with for a long time. Fuji have just released a camera with exactly the same internals as their flagship for nearly half the price, and Sony are about to release a camera that potentially harms sales in their own glass.
 
Well, just sold my A7 and cancelled the order for a 2nd body. Seeing a doctor first thing tomorrow :confused::help:
 
c-m said:
The reds on those flowers look completely blown out to me.

I've had that problem with my A7 when girlfriend wears a red or pink top. To make sure it wasn't my monitor I even bought a calibration devices and ran it on both my laptop and desktop.
Click to expand...
I think that's more Lightroom than the camera, it's default processing profie for the A7 is very poor, especially for reds. Try either using either camera calibration or something like capture one which produces far better results.
 
tfindley said:
Well I can't say I truly belong on this thread yet as I'm not yet an A7x owner, but I've 'just' part-ex'd my one remaining Canon camera body to pre-order the A7rII. It's a bit of a risk for me, but I've realised that over the last two years the Canon 1D Mark IV has only come out of the house for work purposes, and never because I wanted to shoot. As good a camera as it is, the old saying of 'the best camera is the one you have with you' was starting to ring true, as I never had it with me!

After a brief foray into the world of the Olympus EM-1 (great camera but bad quality control, sub-par durability, and the combination of a Diffraction Limited Aperture that rendered shooting below f/8 impossible and the Micro Four-Thids sensor just not providing enough for me), I've decided that Mirrorless is possibly the next path for me.

What was the deciding factor? Obviously the new advances in auto-focus, sensor quality / tech, DR and High ISO performance have all been major contributing factors, but I think what has largely made me switch is the apathy from Canon toward their users and their tech. The fact that Magic Lantern still has a place on Canon Cameras this many years on after the 5D Mark II is proof that Canon cripple their cameras so as to drive people to buy the more expensive gear.
So I had a WFT for my 1D Mark IV - this was actually proof to me that Canon make a basic piece of equipment and then whack a MASSIVE premium on top of it because 'only pro's buy it'. Well, yeah, they do, but that doesn't mean I'm happy spending £600 on a stupid Wireless Transceiver for the three shoots a year that I actually require it for, just because you think that pro's are rolling in the money and can afford to buy it. If there was a significant performance increase over consumer grade stuff, then thats fair enough to justify the price-tag, but the WFT is so poorly implemented by Canon on their pro-range that getting through the initial set-up is like pulling teeth - once you've got it configured, you only stand a 50% chance of it actually doing what it was supposed to do in the first place! Then Canon go and bring the WFT functionality to their basic consumer-grade DSLR's, basically because every other manufacturer has had in-body WiFi for the past 2 years and Canon are thinking their loosing the consumer market - Good on you, but then don't release two cameras that are the wrong side of £3400 and forget to put WiFi on the thing...
Even Canon's marketing is now riddled with this new ethos - Put Canon and Nikon at a (relatively minor) trade show (thinking the London Camera Exchange days they do down in Southampton), and Canon's stand will be maybe the side of two tables - if you're lucky there will be a few cameras there to play with and a couple of rather disinterest-looking staff. Nikon would have a stand that is at least twice as big, with every DSLR they make and a variety of lenses (though I've heard similar rants from disgruntled Nikon users recently too - maybe this is just the way of the DSLR industry now?)
The last trade-show I went to, even the Sigma stand was more engaging than Canon, with the staff showing interest in the people passing them and trying to find out more about their customer base.

Rant over - i know it seems like I really dislike Canon from this post, but its just not the case. I started out with Canon and will always love the kit they make - but maybe they're just forgotten who's buying their gear. If you can make something great, then why not make it great instead of just 'okay'?
For what they do right, their DSLR's are good! very good! Their AF system is(was?) revolutionary, and the Canon glass is superb. Will I ever sell all my Canon gear? Nope, as I love my 70-200 f/2.8L IS II USM (definitely getting a EF-to-Emount adapter for that one!). Oh, and I have a 400mm f/2.8 IS USM that I'll never be able to afford to replace, so like it or not, I'll always be a Canon user at some level. Though to quote a number of photographers, Canon might have just become the worlds largest third-party lens manufacturer. Certainly if my A7x plans pan-out, thats what they'll be to me for the next few years of my ProTog life.

Its 3AM now, so some of this was probably a little rambling / ranting. Either way, i'm REALLY looking forward to getting hold of the A7rII - it looks like a brilliant camera - just hope it lives up to its hype!
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Well said.

Canon are a joke and really p***ing about with its enthusiastic and pro users
 
tfindley said:
i'm REALLY looking forward to getting hold of the A7rII - it looks like a brilliant camera - just hope it lives up to its hype!
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You and me both... can't wait for a shipping date. Could be a good idea for Canon converts to the Sony A7RII to keep in touch and help one another with orientation / best usage advice although I'm sure experienced Sony A7X users would be prepared to chip in.
Maybe some time until shipping however a new Thread once shipped relating to A7RII early adopters would be welcome. Maybe entitled "So I have my new Sony A7RII baby....."
 
How do Canon lenses perform on A7 cameras, thought I read somewhere that you lose some edge/ corner sharpness or vignetting, or was that leica lenses?
 
rodd1000 said:
How do Canon lenses perform on A7 cameras, thought I read somewhere that you lose some edge/ corner sharpness or vignetting, or was that leica lenses?
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Mostly RF lenses, they improved a lot with the A7s, the original 7 and r were pretty poor. We'll have to hear what they say re the rii. d/slr lenses are generally okay.
 
shoshone said:
You and me both... can't wait for a shipping date. Could be a good idea for Canon converts to the Sony A7RII to keep in touch and help one another with orientation / best usage advice although I'm sure experienced Sony A7X users would be prepared to chip in.
Maybe some time until shipping however a new Thread once shipped relating to A7RII early adopters would be welcome. Maybe entitled "So I have my new Sony A7RII baby....."
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That sounds like a great idea! Its certainly going to be an interesting transition for me, and others who are switching too. A thread would definitely help.
Im using a Lumix FZ1000 as an interim camera right now, so it will be interesting to see how that compares too.
 
manualfocus-g said:
Fuji have spoilt me. Their beautiful cameras combined with leather straps and other retro accessories make up for my faded shorts and sicked on t-shirts. Or something.
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You're clearly mad (or a girl...) But there's room for madness, and girls.

Runs for cover...
 
c-m said:
The reds on those flowers look completely blown out to me.

I've had that problem with my A7 when girlfriend wears a red or pink top. To make sure it wasn't my monitor I even bought a calibration devices and ran it on both my laptop and desktop.
Click to expand...

I don't think that the A7 is worse than any other camera I've had and in fact it's probably better. I take a lot of flower shots and I always had to watch the reds with my Canon DSLR's and still need to with my Panasonic G1 and of the lot I think that the A7 is very probably the best. Going too far with the contrast, saturation and vibrance sliders will do it though.

Shot this recently and there seems to be plenty of detail in the reds on my screen, Photobucket may kill it though.

 
tfindley said:
...i'm REALLY looking forward to getting hold of the A7rII - it looks like a brilliant camera - just hope it lives up to its hype!
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Will look forward to reading your views.

I've thought about ordering an A7rII but the A7 really does 99.9% of everything I'd want. IBIS would be nice but I don't really need it and ditto the electronic shutter. I do think that the resolution and file sizes will be overkill for me but it's new shiny kit... :D
 
c-m said:
@woof woof I've always wondered why you persist in using photobucket given its limitations. Its dog slow too.
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To be honest even Flickr is pretty poor for posting on forums now unless you are happy to upload the photo to Flickr at a size native to sharing on a particular forum.

Do any photo sharing sites downsize images nicely? The weird thing with Flickr is that viewed smaller in Flickr itself they are fine, but as soon as you link back to them offsite they get a bit crummy.
 
woof woof said:
I don't think that the A7 is worse than any other camera I've had and in fact it's probably better. I take a lot of flower shots and I always had to watch the reds with my Canon DSLR's and still need to with my Panasonic G1
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I agree. I often had to be wary with strong reds on my Canon DSLRs or they would blow out easily.
 
c-m said:
@woof woof I've always wondered why you persist in using photobucket given its limitations. Its dog slow too.
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Good point :D

I think I persist because although I grumble about it I prefer using it to the thought of sitting down and learning something new.
 
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woof woof said:
Will look forward to reading your views.

I've thought about ordering an A7rII but the A7 really does 99.9% of everything I'd want. IBIS would be nice but I don't really need it and ditto the electronic shutter. I do think that the resolution and file sizes will be overkill for me but it's new shiny kit... :D
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When it arrives I'll be sure to post the mandatory unboxing video and try to feed back to everyone on here about how I'm finding it. Having never used an A7 before I will be limited to my views as a Canon user.
 
The improvements to the a7rII appeal to me, and I'll probably get one (read, "certain to unless the reviews are terrible") but wait a while before doing so - probably until the next Photography Show on the assumption of show offers. The a7r is the only digital camera I've found usable for a number of reasons (and even better when I'd turned autofocus off and switched to manual focus lenses).
 
woof woof said:
As an early buyer of the A7, I ordered mine before it hit the shops, I do know how tempting it is to jump in early but thinking about it wouldn't it be better to wait until it hits the shops and the better bloggers and rewiew sites report their findings?
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Agreed.
 
I think that it'd make sense for me to wait for the A7III as although in body IS and an electronic shutter would be very nice I'm not exactly desperate and I don't need 42mp files.
 
woof woof said:
I think that it'd make sense for me to wait for the A7III as although in body IS and an electronic shutter would be very nice I'm not exactly desperate and I don't need 42mp files.
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Do u have any ef canon glasses? That's a reason alone to get a a7r2 more then mp and stabilisation
 
No, I sold everything once I was happy with the A7.

Currently just have the kit lens, the 55mm f1.8 and 35mm f2.8 plus Minolta Rokkor, Olympus Zuiko and Canon FD manual lenses.
 
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