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

shoshone said:
SAR reports
Sony to Release α7RII Firmware Adding Uncompressed 14-Bit RAW on October 19th!
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I'll almost certainly try uncompressed raws if and when they're available for my A7.

Whilst looking at the rumours site I read the following about the Zeiss 21mm f2.8...

http://www.sonyalpharumors.com/loxi...-preoders-up-at-bh-and-adorama/#disqus_thread

Diglloyd writes:

The ZEISS Loxia 2.8/21 is marvelous for Sony mirrorless, indeed it should be considered essential for any serious shooter. It trounces the Sony 16-35mm f/4 in sharpness, and is a full stop faster, more compact, just a gem on the camera. At least for me, mastering one focal length is far better than jack of all trades zooms; I always make better images with fixed focal length lenses, which do not allow foot-dragging laziness by zooming instead. I felt frustrated having to return the test lens to ZEISS, knowing I would be deprived of it until my own sample arrives from the first production run.

I'm mostly a prime user myself but even so this seemed to me to be a particularly fatuous stream of drivel.

IMO even as primarily a prime user zooms and zoom users don't deserve this criticism. Yes, you can stand in one place and zoom in and out and shoot everything whilst rooted to the spot but you can also engage your brain and position yourself for the composition and perspective you want and set the focal length to suit and when used that way a zoom is really just a whole long list of prime lenses.

Maybe I just need a cup of tea but that does seem a particularly lazy and generalising sentence.
 
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Very much doubt Sony will release any further A7 firmware updates, I feel the updates to date have been quite poor.
Fuji lead in my eyes in terms of significant feature and bug updates including listening to its customer base.
 
woof woof said:
I'll almost certainly try uncompressed raws if and when they're available for my A7.

Whilst looking at the rumours site I read the following about the Zeiss 21mm f2.8...

http://www.sonyalpharumors.com/loxi...-preoders-up-at-bh-and-adorama/#disqus_thread

Diglloyd writes:

The ZEISS Loxia 2.8/21 is marvelous for Sony mirrorless, indeed it should be considered essential for any serious shooter. It trounces the Sony 16-35mm f/4 in sharpness, and is a full stop faster, more compact, just a gem on the camera. At least for me, mastering one focal length is far better than jack of all trades zooms; I always make better images with fixed focal length lenses, which do not allow foot-dragging laziness by zooming instead. I felt frustrated having to return the test lens to ZEISS, knowing I would be deprived of it until my own sample arrives from the first production run.

I'm mostly a prime user myself but even so this seemed to me to be a particularly fatuous stream of drivel.

IMO even as primarily a prime user zooms and zoom users don't deserve this criticism. Yes, you can stand in one place and zoom in and out and shoot everything whilst rooted to the spot but you can also engage your brain and position yourself for the composition and perspective you want and set the focal length to suit and when used that way a zoom is really just a whole long list of prime lenses.

Maybe I just need a cup of tea but that does seem a particularly lazy and generalising sentence.
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The only thing the 16-35 doesn't have is the faster speed and ultimate quality, you get however much wider lens and versatility we don't all always want to be stuck with a prime. I would like to add the 16-35 to my collection, plus im keeping my eye on the new 10mm f5.6 that could be an interesting lens.
 
woof woof said:
I'll almost certainly try uncompressed raws if and when they're available for my A7.

Whilst looking at the rumours site I read the following about the Zeiss 21mm f2.8...

http://www.sonyalpharumors.com/loxi...-preoders-up-at-bh-and-adorama/#disqus_thread

Diglloyd writes:

The ZEISS Loxia 2.8/21 is marvelous for Sony mirrorless, indeed it should be considered essential for any serious shooter. It trounces the Sony 16-35mm f/4 in sharpness, and is a full stop faster, more compact, just a gem on the camera. At least for me, mastering one focal length is far better than jack of all trades zooms; I always make better images with fixed focal length lenses, which do not allow foot-dragging laziness by zooming instead. I felt frustrated having to return the test lens to ZEISS, knowing I would be deprived of it until my own sample arrives from the first production run.

I'm mostly a prime user myself but even so this seemed to me to be a particularly fatuous stream of drivel.

IMO even as primarily a prime user zooms and zoom users don't deserve this criticism. Yes, you can stand in one place and zoom in and out and shoot everything whilst rooted to the spot but you can also engage your brain and position yourself for the composition and perspective you want and set the focal length to suit and when used that way a zoom is really just a whole long list of prime lenses.

Maybe I just need a cup of tea but that does seem a particularly lazy and generalising sentence.
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Strange sentence indeed zoom just is nicer for some, for myself a fixed would need to be between 16-18mm and at least able to manage f4 bit faster may be nice though ibis for my need is more useful
 
border_all said:
If you buy 6 and put end 2 end you will be close :D

Mind though as you suggested fo me the Samyang 135 is a good bit of kit you could get one and take a small loss when one comes you like better:)
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The Samyang looks great, but I like AF.
 
twist said:
f1.4 is where its at for me, on a 85 Ill just about forgive f1.8 and at 135mm Ill settle for f2. :D
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Agreed. I'm missing my sigma 85 1.4. I must confess.
Considering buying it in canon or Sony a mount and getting an adapter.
 
A camera sized boxed arrived today addressed to myself. Got all excited and nervous at the same time wondering if I had ordered something after a few.

No such luck..

image.jpeg
 
addicknchips said:
Agreed. I'm missing my sigma 85 1.4. I must confess.
Considering buying it in canon or Sony a mount and getting an adapter.
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I had that lens and used it on my 20D and indeed the 85 together with the Sigma 50mm f1.4, 20mm f1.8, 150mm f2.8 and 12-24mm pushed me into changing my 20D for a 5D. I do miss those lenses and with the announcement of the latest Sigma Art lens it occurred to me that a FF DSLR plus a range of Art lenses would be a very attractive proposition.

For the momrnt I'm reasonably happy with my manual focus 85mm's and the 45mm f1.8 I have for MFT. I could well be tempted by a nice (and I hope reasonably compact) AF 85mm of at least f1.8.

Come on Sony! :D
 
From the rumour site...

"Amateur Photographer interviewed Kimio Maki from Sony. As you know Canon recently did show a new 120MP Canon DSLR prototype with the target to go on sale in 2017. Asked about the High megapixel future of Sony Kimio Maki answered:

“If the customer needs 100-million pixels, if the customer needs more than 100-million pixels, we will create such kind of a product. Right now we don’t get a strong demand from the customers for this.”

Link to the rumour site...
http://www.sonyalpharumors.com/sony...-create-such-kind-of-a-product/#disqus_thread
 
woof woof said:
From the rumour site...

"Amateur Photographer interviewed Kimio Maki from Sony. As you know Canon recently did show a new 120MP Canon DSLR prototype with the target to go on sale in 2017. Asked about the High megapixel future of Sony Kimio Maki answered:

“If the customer needs 100-million pixels, if the customer needs more than 100-million pixels, we will create such kind of a product. Right now we don’t get a strong demand from the customers for this.”

Link to the rumour site...
http://www.sonyalpharumors.com/sony...-create-such-kind-of-a-product/#disqus_thread
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Can't wait that long running out of years:D
 
The rumour site is reporting that the firmware update to allow uncompressed raws is now available for the A7rII.

Sadly I don't have an A7rII so I'll have to wait :D

Maybe those with the camera could post their views on compressed v uncompressed once they've had time to evaluate the results.
 
I'll give it a try later, but considering that I've never encountered any real world image quality problems from compression with any A7 model, I'm not expecting to see any differences.
 
I bought the A7 to be my luxury kit for when I'm out by myself and also for shots of family and friends etc as I thought it'd be nice to have some really good top technical quality shots. So, although I've never seen any compression issues I will probably download the update if and when it becomes available for my A7 and the question will then be what to do with it... leave it enabled and shoot uncompressed raws all the time or just select it for the occasional very special shot? Those bigger files though...

What will you guys do?
 
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I will probably use it, im not short on storage so may as well go for the best file quality there is.
 
Yup. Once you've taken a compressed raw shot you can't uncompress it but I suppose when shooting uncompressed you can always save a smaller file and archive the big jobbie.
 
Im all for compression, i find it odd that sony went for uncompressed rather than a lossless compression, maybe the processor isnt up to it in any decent amount of time.

Reading on SAR there is zero difference to 99% of people, but those that like to zoom, zoom, zoom will see the difference. Files are twice the size. So im not sure its worth it.
 
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The new firmware 2 for the A7R2 is reportedly buggy, I will try to find the link and add it.
 
robj20 said:
Im all for compression, i find it odd that sony went for uncompressed rather than a lossless compression, maybe the processor isnt up to it in any decent amount of time.

Reading on SAR there is zero difference to 99% of people, but those that like to zoom, zoom, zoom will see the difference. Files are twice the size. So im not sure its worth it.
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I think thats the problem, the hardware isnt up to the job in terms of processing from what Ive read. Uncompressed will no doubt also effect write speeds/buffer.
 
Well, we'll soon know what issues will be fixed and what issues will be created. I'd imagine that any write speed issues will possibly be more likely to affect the rII with its higher resolution and bigger files than the other lower resolution models but even so it may not be a issue for many people as I doubt a machine gunner would be going for an A7 series camera.
 
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david357 said:
The new firmware 2 for the A7R2 is reportedly buggy, I will try to find the link and add it.
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Are there any reports of genuine bugs, or just the guy who claimed it reduced his number of megapixels but in reality was just using a crop lens?
 
Well pretty much as I expected, no real world difference.
  • The red "saving" light on the camera stays on for about 30-40% longer after taking a photo.
  • With exposure boosted (+5 exposure and +100 shadow recovery in Lightroom CC) to the point where you're pulling detail out of pure black, there's a more accurate, less magenta bias and blacks are a little blacker. You have to be pretty much at 1:1 or more to really tell though.
  • Even at 4:1 zoom on the highest contrast edges I couldn't see any sign of compression artifacts in either.
  • Without heavily pushing exposure, I couldn't tell the difference even at 4:1.
  • File size is indeed double (41MB > 81.2MB), but both compressed down to a 26.5MB dng.
I'm sure there'll be a few niche situations where it will be worth the extra processing time and double storage space, but otherwise I'll be leaving compression on.
 
Crossroads said:
Well pretty much as I expected, no real world difference.
  • The red "saving" light on the camera stays on for about 30-40% longer after taking a photo.
  • With exposure boosted (+5 exposure and +100 shadow recovery in Lightroom CC) to the point where you're pulling detail out of pure black, there's a more accurate, less magenta bias and blacks are a little blacker. You have to be pretty much at 1:1 or more to really tell though.
  • Even at 4:1 zoom on the highest contrast edges I couldn't see any sign of compression artifacts in either.
  • Without heavily pushing exposure, I couldn't tell the difference even at 4:1.
  • File size is indeed double (41MB > 81.2MB), but both compressed down to a 26.5MB dng.
I'm sure there'll be a few niche situations where it will be worth the extra processing time and double storage space, but otherwise I'll be leaving compression on.
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There's more difference than that and it's well documented online. Posterisation, highlight artifacts in dark scenes and artifacts when pushing files in post. The thing is.... if you can't see it then you just stick with compressed. (y)
 
twist said:
There's more difference than that and it's well documented online. Posterisation, highlight artifacts in dark scenes and artifacts when pushing files in post. The thing is.... if you can't see it then you just stick with compressed. (y)
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Yet for me a quick test scene and headshot demonstrated none of that. As i said, I'm sure there a few niche situations where it will matter. For me it doesn't. No practical visible difference. For people taking photos of neon signs in the middle of the night and blowing them up to life size - sure, they'll benefit from it, and I've never claimed otherwise.
 
I noticed posterisation when shooting landscapes with nice blue skies. IIRC the lens i used vignetted a bit and the transition between lighter to darker blues looked pretty bad, way too "stepped" in appearance. Glad Sony have sorted this with the new models, although I appreciate that it's something that happens with certain types of shots, rather than all the time.
 
manualfocus-g said:
I noticed posterisation when shooting landscapes with nice blue skies. IIRC the lens i used vignetted a bit and the transition between lighter to darker blues looked pretty bad, way too "stepped" in appearance. Glad Sony have sorted this with the new models, although I appreciate that it's something that happens with certain types of shots, rather than all the time.
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I've seen posterisation a few times with my A7. I've seen it in shots I've posted here via photobucket but I blame photobucket for that. I've also seen it in at least one jpeg on my pc but the same shot when saved as a tiff was perfect so I don't really know what to make of that and of course it may not be a camera issue and may be a CS5 or DNG issue. Maybe CS5 or DNG has issues with A7 files in the way that Adobe still has with Fuji files. I don't know what the ultimate cause of posterisation is but if it means saving one file in a few thousand as a tiff rather than as a jpeg I can live with it.
 
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Can anyone recommend cheap flash receivers for using off camera flash. I picked up some real cheap ones that did a fine job on my Nikon.
 
More raw stuff...

http://www.sonyalpharumors.com/sony...r-test-image-quality-file-size/#disqus_thread

"Sony A7rII firmware 2.0 is out (Download here for Windows or Mac). I checked the first tests done by the community and so far that’s what people noticed when shooting uncompressed RAW images:

1) You get 80+ megabyte files
2) Buffer size is much less (You can shoot around 10 frames of RAW until you reach the limit on a fast card).
3) Image quality difference is only visible in extreme conditions (when you push files at +5EV). Artifacts in high contrast situation are gone"

So, compressed v uncompressed... it doesn't matter... or does it...
:D
 
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