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

nandbytes said:
So who here is queuing up for the new Leica 21mm f2 SL
m.dpreview.com

Leica delivers SL 14-24mm F2.8 and SL 21mm F2 to add ultra wideangle options to L-mount

Leica has announced the Super Vario Elmarit SL 14-24mm F2.8 ASPH and Super Apo Summicron SL 21mm F2, adding two ultra-wideangle lenses for the L-mount.
m.dpreview.com m.dpreview.com

Only 5grand, and weighs just a ton.
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Leica is doing a great job marketing all the Sigma lenses. Now I seriously want that 14-24mm, and I will be happy enough with Sigma-own badged version.

Not 5 grad, obviously and frankly couldn't care less about the other bit.

The 21mm looks like is 5 grand, but I wonder if it is related to Sigma 20mm f/2 contemporary at all? TDP has great samples off that lens, much better than the fancier 1.4 ART across the whole aperture range, other than 1.4 for the obvious reasons. Good glass is always exciting. I wouldn't mind picking either one up on ebay for a fraction of RRP :LOL:
 
LongLensPhotography said:
Leica is doing a great job marketing all the Sigma lenses. Now I seriously want that 14-24mm, and I will be happy enough with Sigma-own badged version.

Not 5 grad, obviously and frankly couldn't care less about the other bit.

The 21mm looks like is 5 grand, but I wonder if it is related to Sigma 20mm f/2 contemporary at all? TDP has great samples off that lens, much better than the fancier 1.4 ART across the whole aperture range, other than 1.4 for the obvious reasons. Good glass is always exciting. I wouldn't mind picking either one up on ebay for a fraction of RRP :LOL:
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I went through two copies of the sigma 14-24mm DN, both were decentered. Second copy actually worst than the first. So I just gave up on it.
May be Leica branded one will have better quality control :p

Tbh I never really understood rebadging lenses. Who actually buys them I wonder when the original is available in the same mount
 
nandbytes said:
I went through two copies of the sigma 14-24mm DN, both were decentered. Second copy actually worst than the first. So I just gave up on it.
May be Leica branded one will have better quality control :p

Tbh I never really understood rebadging lenses. Who actually buys them I wonder when the original is available in the same mount
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Well that is quite worrying then. Do you have to pay 2.5K to actually get a good sample or is even that no guarantee? On 8K+ sensor I am not particularly impressed with Canon zooms either, hence looking at these.
 
Just picked myself up a nice A7 ii from WEX. So I know I will need a few batteries for this, what are the best options ? I think I need some with a dock, it only came with the cable you can charge in camera with
 
LongLensPhotography said:
Well that is quite worrying then. Do you have to pay 2.5K to actually get a good sample or is even that no guarantee?
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Well depends on how much patience you have. I know some people on this thread who have been through like 6 copies of samyang lenses till they got a good one!
But I could have been just unlucky.

LongLensPhotography said:
On 8K+ sensor I am not particularly impressed with Canon zooms either, hence looking at these.
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I think you and many other people inc. me have different expectations of their lenses. I am pretty happy with my Sony 20-70m f4 and 70-200mm f4 Gii.
I have GM primes too and they are of course better, and sharp corner to corner f2.8 upwards but really no one apart from me cares about that even on big-ish prints.

Having said that I am not a fan of some Canon RF zooms/primes which have like 4-6 stops of vignetting. Then there is the RF70-200mm f2.8.... don't even get me started on this one!
 
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leaky5 said:
Just picked myself up a nice A7 ii from WEX. So I know I will need a few batteries for this, what are the best options ? I think I need some with a dock, it only came with the cable you can charge in camera with
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I stick with Sony batteries.
 
snerkler said:
I stick with Sony batteries.
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me too normally but this was very tempting to try:

The batteries so far actually hold charge better than Sony ones. Even ignoring the batteries, it acts as a charger which charges via. USB-C so same as my laptop, phone etc etc which is really nice. Acts as power bank which is also really nice. Lastly nice that it also has SD card storage.

Its working quite well for me :)

Sorry can't help with the older NP-FW50 batteries. I normally stuck to Sony ones myself when I used them.
 
nandbytes said:
I went through two copies of the sigma 14-24mm DN, both were decentered. Second copy actually worst than the first. So I just gave up on it.
May be Leica branded one will have better quality control :p

Tbh I never really understood rebadging lenses. Who actually buys them I wonder when the original is available in the same mount
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This sort of thing re. Sigma is what worries me about buying the Sigma 40mm 1.4, a lens that in particular I suspect will be very unforgiving to any imperfections. The dock thing is a bit annoying as well.
 
gman said:
This sort of thing re. Sigma is what worries me about buying the Sigma 40mm 1.4, a lens that in particular I suspect will be very unforgiving to any imperfections. The dock thing is a bit annoying as well.
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IME UWA lenses are generally worst than non-UWA lenses and zoom are worst than primes. Put both together i..e UWA zoom and chances are higher (this is purely anecdotal).
I think you'll be fine with a 40mm f1.4.
 
leaky5 said:
Just picked myself up a nice A7 ii from WEX. So I know I will need a few batteries for this, what are the best options ? I think I need some with a dock, it only came with the cable you can charge in camera with
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Unless you're doing many hundreds of pictures per day you may find the original battery pretty ok. Also if the A7 II is like my III then you can run it from an external power supply. I have used non-Sony batteries and there's usually a warning message about compatibility but the batteries work fine.

Enjoy your new camera.
 
leaky5 said:
Just picked myself up a nice A7 ii from WEX. So I know I will need a few batteries for this, what are the best options ? I think I need some with a dock, it only came with the cable you can charge in camera with
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I use third party batteries in both my cameras.

One set is RavPower but they are a few years old and not about now I don't think. Post a reminder later and I'll check the brand when at home.
 
LeeRatters said:
I use third party batteries in both my cameras.

One set is RavPower but they are a few years old and not about now I don't think. Post a reminder later and I'll check the brand when at home.
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I've got 5 off brand batteries and they work fine with my A9, I use Sony batteries for teh A1s and A9ii as the warning annoys me. I have a fair collection of them now as I buy them whenever I see a deal
 
leaky5 said:
Just picked myself up a nice A7 ii from WEX. So I know I will need a few batteries for this, what are the best options ? I think I need some with a dock, it only came with the cable you can charge in camera with
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I have one Sony battery and 3 3rd party. One of the 3rd party batteries no longer charges to 100% but other than that they'll all still going after years of use.
 
ancient_mariner said:
One of my original Sony batteries has noticeably less life than the other, both the same age.
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Have you tried refreshing it by draining it to zero and doing a full charge. While it shouldn't be the case can sometimes bring the Sony batteries back to life. I do mine every now and again and have had batteries that would only charge to 79% etc come back to life.
 
gman said:
This sort of thing re. Sigma is what worries me about buying the Sigma 40mm 1.4, a lens that in particular I suspect will be very unforgiving to any imperfections. The dock thing is a bit annoying as well.
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40mm was the only real dud out of all the art lenses I bought. I know it was just bad luck. Returned for full refund next day since they didn't have any more stock. That's what you do, don't sit on it without testing or if not happy. It should be stellar if you get good one
 
nandbytes said:
Well depends on how much patience you have. I know some people on this thread who have been through like 6 copies of samyang lenses till they got a good one!
But I could have been just unlucky.



I think you and many other people inc. me have different expectations of their lenses. I am pretty happy with my Sony 20-70m f4 and 70-200mm f4 Gii.
I have GM primes too and they are of course better, and sharp corner to corner f2.8 upwards but really no one apart from me cares about that even on big-ish prints.

Having said that I am not a fan of some Canon RF zooms/primes which have like 4-6 stops of vignetting. Then there is the RF70-200mm f2.8.... don't even get me started on this one!
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You do expect no crazy field curvature where you can never get edges, not even corners, in good focus. And you expect left to be equal to right. I think canons QC standards don't extend beyond the centre point, at least in their UK service centre last I spoke with them.

1/6 is very poor show. Very. I wonder if many / any of them start off of good and slowly tilt away due to weak plastic internals. Perhaps by just only sitting on their own weight in the bag or box. 24-70s felt very prone to it.

Newer canon lenses go insane with vignetting. This appears to have started with EF 16-35 iii. It is plainly insane at 2.8 (4+ stops), and it really is f4+ lens as a result. RF 15-35 tops that by another stop down and doesn't appear to much improve the sharpness, only 1mm wider... I see no point buying one until they are down to a maximum of £750 in mint condition.
 
f/2.8 said:
Have you tried refreshing it by draining it to zero and doing a full charge. While it shouldn't be the case can sometimes bring the Sony batteries back to life. I do mine every now and again and have had batteries that would only charge to 79% etc come back to life.
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I normally run a battery until the camera no longer works, then change over. Put the flat one on charge when I get home (don't leave it sat flat for weeks).
 
LongLensPhotography said:
You do expect no crazy field curvature where you can never get edges, not even corners, in good focus. And you expect left to be equal to right. I think canons QC standards don't extend beyond the centre point, at least in their UK service centre last I spoke with them.

1/6 is very poor show. Very. I wonder if many / any of them start off of good and slowly tilt away due to weak plastic internals. Perhaps by just only sitting on their own weight in the bag or box. 24-70s felt very prone to it.

Newer canon lenses go insane with vignetting. This appears to have started with EF 16-35 iii. It is plainly insane at 2.8 (4+ stops), and it really is f4+ lens as a result. RF 15-35 tops that by another stop down and doesn't appear to much improve the sharpness, only 1mm wider... I see no point buying one until they are down to a maximum of £750 in mint condition.
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Lens manufacturers are now heavily reliant on lens corrections in a bid to make smaller lighter lenses with high sharpness. Look at some of the modern lenses without correction and the distortion and vignetting is horrendous. That being said it’s the final image that counts so I don’t mind if it can be corrected.

Obviously things like decentering are unacceptable.
 
snerkler said:
Lens manufacturers are now heavily reliant on lens corrections in a bid to make smaller lighter lenses with high sharpness. Look at some of the modern lenses without correction and the distortion and vignetting is horrendous. That being said it’s the final image that counts so I don’t mind if it can be corrected.

Obviously things like decentering are unacceptable.
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I think it depends on case by case scenario. Let's say in exhibit A we have iso 100 well exposed and fairly low contrast scene. Pretty much any modern camera can pull this back and it will, if only just, look fine. Worst case you may need some Denise ai. Now exhibit B is taken at very high ISO, 3200 or above, is fairly underexposed full of deep shadows. Late night wedding images, sports and astro work and video are prime examples. The corners are effectively iso 30000+, maybe 100000+. Cleaning that up is now a major work and loss of detail and colour information is expected and unavoidable.
This basically suggests the manufacturer favours cost savings (which may not be typically passed on to the consumer) and smaller size over ultimate image quality.

I think 2-3 stops wide open are still reasonable, 1-2 desirable, 1 and below ideal. 4-6 is just a fake headline aperture spec. There's no way such optics should cost nearly 3k.

Some distortion correction comes with a lower penalty and that's what sigma was mainly doing with some lenses while keeping vignetting to reasonable levels. You lose some sharpness, and that's more notable with lower resolution cameras. In many cases perspective correction is required regardless, so it makes little difference where you start.
The biggest worry here is about adapting such distorted optics. It may simply be not very practical without ability to enable in camera corrections.
 
LongLensPhotography said:
I think it depends on case by case scenario. Let's say in exhibit A we have iso 100 well exposed and fairly low contrast scene. Pretty much any modern camera can pull this back and it will, if only just, look fine. Worst case you may need some Denise ai. Now exhibit B is taken at very high ISO, 3200 or above, is fairly underexposed full of deep shadows. Late night wedding images, sports and astro work and video are prime examples. The corners are effectively iso 30000+, maybe 100000+. Cleaning that up is now a major work and loss of detail and colour information is expected and unavoidable.
This basically suggests the manufacturer favours cost savings (which may not be typically passed on to the consumer) and smaller size over ultimate image quality.

I think 2-3 stops wide open are still reasonable, 1-2 desirable, 1 and below ideal. 4-6 is just a fake headline aperture spec. There's no way such optics should cost nearly 3k.

Some distortion correction comes with a lower penalty and that's what sigma was mainly doing with some lenses while keeping vignetting to reasonable levels. You lose some sharpness, and that's more notable with lower resolution cameras. In many cases perspective correction is required regardless, so it makes little difference where you start.
The biggest worry here is about adapting such distorted optics. It may simply be not very practical without ability to enable in camera corrections.
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Totally get what you’re saying. It’s ‘acceptable’ on consumer lenses, but when we’re talking very expensive ‘pro’ lenses it shouldn’t be this way.
 
snerkler said:
Lens manufacturers are now heavily reliant on lens corrections in a bid to make smaller lighter lenses with high sharpness. Look at some of the modern lenses without correction and the distortion and vignetting is horrendous. That being said it’s the final image that counts so I don’t mind if it can be corrected.

Obviously things like decentering are unacceptable.
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The thing that worries me, mainly with wide glass is if the lens correction robs you of focal length. Like a corrected 14mm photo ends up being more like 16mm when it's gone through correction. I'm probably not explaining very well :ROFLMAO:
 
NewBeetle said:
The thing that worries me, mainly with wide glass is if the lens correction robs you of focal length. Like a corrected 14mm photo ends up being more like 16mm when it's gone through correction. I'm probably not explaining very well :ROFLMAO:
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You explained fine. As I understand it the Sony 24-105 is more like 22mm at the wide end to give room for correction. Personally I prefer it un-corrected most of the time.
 
NewBeetle said:
The thing that worries me, mainly with wide glass is if the lens correction robs you of focal length. Like a corrected 14mm photo ends up being more like 16mm when it's gone through correction. I'm probably not explaining very well :ROFLMAO:
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That’s exactly my worry with it too. I’m waiting for reviews on the 17-50mm to see if the corrected image is a proper 17mm. If I swap I’ll already be losing 1mm over my 16-35mm, if it ends up being closer to 18mm I might well give it a miss.
 
snerkler said:
Totally get what you’re saying. It’s ‘acceptable’ on consumer lenses, but when we’re talking very expensive ‘pro’ lenses it shouldn’t be this way.
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I don't mind corrections being applied to a lens like the Sony 16-50mm pancake zoom lens for APS-C as I don't mind compromising the IQ a bit to get a very small lens, I've seen the uncorrected images and there's quite a bit of distortion at the wide end. However I agree it has no place on more expensive lenses which shouldn't need the correction in the first place.
 
I went for the 28-75 kit lens for now. Having not used a full frame camera for about 40 years, I want to get used to it again and work out what I need long term.

I have quite a bit of cash left over from the sale of the Olympus kit, so can upgrade when I am ready.

WEX London do have a 24-105 in stock, I might be tempted to try it out when I am working up there this week
 
leaky5 said:
I went for the 28-75 kit lens for now. Having not used a full frame camera for about 40 years, I want to get used to it again and work out what I need long term.

I have quite a bit of cash left over from the sale of the Olympus kit, so can upgrade when I am ready.

WEX London do have a 24-105 in stock, I might be tempted to try it out when I am working up there this week
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Sony 28-70mm f3.5-5.6?

As previously, I have one (if that is what you've bought) and I think it's a good basic kit lens and a valid choice for days out and holidays.

Good luck with the new kit. Don't forget to post pictures and opinions :D
 
leaky5 said:
I went for the 28-75 kit lens for now. Having not used a full frame camera for about 40 years, I want to get used to it again and work out what I need long term.

I have quite a bit of cash left over from the sale of the Olympus kit, so can upgrade when I am ready.

WEX London do have a 24-105 in stock, I might be tempted to try it out when I am working up there this week
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The 28-70mm lens is quite decent stopped down but it's obviosuly not going to show the best of the capabilities of the camera/sensor. Nice enough for a starter though.
 
snerkler said:
The 28-70mm lens is quite decent stopped down but it's obviosuly not going to show the best of the capabilities of the camera/sensor. Nice enough for a starter though.
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I think a nice sensor can offer advantages with even poor by todays standards lenses for example a nice clean high ISO performance and the general niceness you get from a FF sensor might matter more to some than maintaining performance across the frame and even into the corners.

Apart from on screen viewing printing pictures recently I have been impressed how good a relatively technically poor picture can look when printed and viewed even closely but of course I have lower standards than some and that's obvious as I often use bargain basement lenses.
 
I always thought the 28-70 kit lens was pretty decent in the 28-40 range but was never impressed at the longer focal lengths.
 
Does anyone know if there's a solution for the "this accessory is not supported by this device error" on the A1 (but assume other Sony cameras too) ?

I know the issue is caused by water getting on the contacts on the multi-interface shoe on the top of the camera but keeping the plastic cover on doesn't help. My day was almost ruined by this issue on Friday and the camera was barely wet. Are there any shoe covers or something that will actually stop this issue?
 
Jase said:
Does anyone know if there's a solution for the "this accessory is not supported by this device error" on the A1 (but assume other Sony cameras too) ?

I know the issue is caused by water getting on the contacts on the multi-interface shoe on the top of the camera but keeping the plastic cover on doesn't help. My day was almost ruined by this issue on Friday and the camera was barely wet. Are there any shoe covers or something that will actually stop this issue?
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Just stick a bit of tape over when it is really wet. I've shot in very wet conditions and not had an issue with the OEM hotshoe protector
 
Jase said:
Does anyone know if there's a solution for the "this accessory is not supported by this device error" on the A1 (but assume other Sony cameras too) ?

I know the issue is caused by water getting on the contacts on the multi-interface shoe on the top of the camera but keeping the plastic cover on doesn't help. My day was almost ruined by this issue on Friday and the camera was barely wet. Are there any shoe covers or something that will actually stop this issue?
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I've never seen or heard of this, what are you trying to connect?
 
woof woof said:
I think a nice sensor can offer advantages with even poor by todays standards lenses for example a nice clean high ISO performance and the general niceness you get from a FF sensor might matter more to some than maintaining performance across the frame and even into the corners.

Apart from on screen viewing printing pictures recently I have been impressed how good a relatively technically poor picture can look when printed and viewed even closely but of course I have lower standards than some and that's obvious as I often use bargain basement lenses.
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You may be partially right, but essentially you are throwing money away for 8k+ camera, when you can only resolve as much as 24mp / 6k one, particularly where such sensor would have better snr and high ISO performance at nearly half the expense. In canon analogy you get nearly same out of r6 / r3 / 1dx whatever Vs 5ds / R5 when using most of the zoom lenses. 8k one just leads to frustration and bloated file sizes for the most part. With a good prime on it the difference is night and day. The morale is match your kit and don't spend more than you really have to
 
snerkler said:
I've never seen or heard of this, what are you trying to connect?
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OK, it's a pretty well known issue. Basically if the multi-interface (hot shoe) gets wet, it shorts the connectors so the camera thinks you are trying to connect something when you are not. It's not a permanent fault but it's not something that clears by wiping it and the message will constantly pop up meaning its very difficult to use the camera.

I used a hairdryer on low heat on it when I got back to the hotel and sorted it, but that's not really something you can do in the field (and I was literally in the middle of a field photographing wildlife when it started).

What surprises me is that it doesn't need much water (rain in this case) to cause the issue, I always keep the cover over it to try to stop this happening but that obviously doesn't work.

I recall reading that Sony were going to address (but they haven't) so I was wondering if there was a workaround or third party products to use on it. I don't really want to go down the route of taping it up etc,
 
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