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

Raymond Lin said:
I hardly use the 17-28/2.8 Tamron so this lens isn't for me.

But 25mm makes more sense since 24mm onwards is usually covered by the 24-70. Not many zooms starts at 35mm so 16-35 always felt weird to me....but it did come in super useful one wedding when my 24-70 died!
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35mm is a nice perspective to use for me so the 16-35mm is useful as a walkabout lens, plus I can use it in crop mode as a kind of 50mm if I wish. We all have our own preferences and uses (y)
 
I have fallen out of love with f2.8 zooms in general (especially on FF).

I'd like to see slower, smaller more versatile zooms like 20-70mm or 70-200mm f4 with macro or looking at canon 14-35mm or nikon 14-30mm etc.
And would like to see smaller fast primes like sigma 50mm f1.2 DN, 35GM, 50GM, 300GM, 500mm f5.6 DN etc.

at least for me that gives the best mix of speed, versatility and size.
 
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The half light that passes for daylight in what seems to be the majority of the year here makes me nervous of f4 zooms.

This reminds me of the first time I went to Kazakhstan, the quality of the light even indoors struck me as it was very nice. That was the first time the quality of light in another place had struck me. Here, not so much :D
 
nandbytes said:
I have fallen out of love with f2.8 zooms in general (especially on FF).

I'd like to see slower, smaller more versatile zooms like 20-70mm or 70-200mm f4 with macro or looking at canon 14-35mm or nikon 14-30mm etc.
And would like to see smaller fast primes like sigma 50mm f1.2 DN, 35GM, 50GM, 300GM, 500mm f5.6 DN etc.

at least for me that gives the best mix of speed, versatility and size.
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I’ve never been particularly interested in fast zooms. If they offer some optical advantage then great, but I’d never buy them purely for the aperture. F2.8’s not ideal for subject separation and lovely bokeh, and then for other shots you’re stopping down anyway so you’re paying a premium and carrying extra weight for very little (IMO) benefit. It surprises me how many people on the Sony FB group recommend and swear by the 24-70mm f2.8 and 70-200mm f2.8 as the holy grail of wedding photography lenses. Firstly the package is a hefty weight, then you’re not getting great isolation or you’re shooting from a long way away at 200mm :thinking:
 
snerkler said:
I’ve never been particularly interested in fast zooms. If they offer some optical advantage then great, but I’d never buy them purely for the aperture. F2.8’s not ideal for subject separation and lovely bokeh, and then for other shots you’re stopping down anyway so you’re paying a premium and carrying extra weight for very little (IMO) benefit. It surprises me how many people on the Sony FB group recommend and swear by the 24-70mm f2.8 and 70-200mm f2.8 as the holy grail of wedding photography lenses. Firstly the package is a hefty weight, then you’re not getting great isolation or you’re shooting from a long way away at 200mm :thinking:
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Exactly!
Also when shooting at 200mm aperture makes less of a difference compared to distance from the subject and the distances between the background and subject.

I have really enjoyed my 20-70+70-200 f4 combo. I think that's going to stick around a while now.
My main issue is the white colour of the 70-200mm :LOL:
Really stands out everywhere and turns heads even though it's no larger than the 70-300mm it replaced
 
snerkler said:
I’ve never been particularly interested in fast zooms. If they offer some optical advantage then great, but I’d never buy them purely for the aperture. F2.8’s not ideal for subject separation and lovely bokeh, and then for other shots you’re stopping down anyway so you’re paying a premium and carrying extra weight for very little (IMO) benefit. It surprises me how many people on the Sony FB group recommend and swear by the 24-70mm f2.8 and 70-200mm f2.8 as the holy grail of wedding photography lenses. Firstly the package is a hefty weight, then you’re not getting great isolation or you’re shooting from a long way away at 200mm :thinking:
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I guess it just depends on your use case. I've been using slower zooms for the last few years and find at times they can be limiting because the iso is just going too high so I have to compromise on the shutter speed, I've been able to go back to the 24-70/70-200mm F2.8 lenses which have been a breath of fresh air giving a bit more headroom when I'm trying to squeeze every last drop of light available. The shallow depth of field can be a challenge in some cases but like everything in photography you need to balance it all out.
 
JohnMcL7 said:
I guess it just depends on your use case. I've been using slower zooms for the last few years and find at times they can be limiting because the iso is just going too high so I have to compromise on the shutter speed, I've been able to go back to the 24-70/70-200mm F2.8 lenses which have been a breath of fresh air giving a bit more headroom when I'm trying to squeeze every last drop of light available. The shallow depth of field can be a challenge in some cases but like everything in photography you need to balance it all out.
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Yup.
 
The big deal with f2.8 zooms is that they used to be optically to a much higher standard than food grade consumer zooms. That's no longer really true now and so size may be more of a differentiator than optical performance.
 
JohnMcL7 said:
I guess it just depends on your use case. I've been using slower zooms for the last few years and find at times they can be limiting because the iso is just going too high so I have to compromise on the shutter speed, I've been able to go back to the 24-70/70-200mm F2.8 lenses which have been a breath of fresh air giving a bit more headroom when I'm trying to squeeze every last drop of light available. The shallow depth of field can be a challenge in some cases but like everything in photography you need to balance it all out.
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Yeah I guess there’s that, it’s very rare I’ll use zooms in low light so it’s not high up my consideration but I can see for some it’ll be an advantage.
 
It is weird, but I think it is a good idea. I have the CZ 16-35 F4, doesn't get used that often, but when it does I'm pretty sure it doesn't often go beyond 25 mm. I can see market for it if only for weight and size
 
snerkler said:
35mm is a nice perspective to use for me so the 16-35mm is useful as a walkabout lens, plus I can use it in crop mode as a kind of 50mm if I wish. We all have our own preferences and uses (y)
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£1250 and not a GM though...the Tampon is like £700 on Amazon, or £460 on grey! £460!!!!! That difference is too big to justify that 1mm on the wide end for me. The Tamron is tiny anyway.
 
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Raymond Lin said:
£1250 and not a GM though...the Tampon is like £700 on Amazon, or £460 on grey! £460!!!!! That difference is too big to justify that 1mm on the wide end for me. The Tamron is tiny anyway.
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The Tamron is very good value, it’s a decent lens at a good price. Especially when you consider that the rebadged Nikon version is £1200.

The main issue with it is at the wide end there is a big difference between 16mm and 17mm.

I liked the one I had but found myself not using it an awful lot as when I needed a wide lens it was often not wide enough.
 
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Raymond Lin said:
£1250 and not a GM though...the Tampon is like £700 on Amazon, or £460 on grey! £460!!!!! That difference is too big to justify that 1mm on the wide end for me. The Tamron is tiny anyway.
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That is cheap.
 
I'm considering the A7III as a bargain option to have some fun with and use for reviews. Anybody else think it's the best bang for buck, at least bargain end of the budget, FE mount camera?
 
Damian Brown said:
I'm considering the A7III as a bargain option to have some fun with and use for reviews. Anybody else think it's the best bang for buck, at least bargain end of the budget, FE mount camera?
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Best value for money e-mount camera at the moment has to be a used A9.
 
Damian Brown said:
I'm considering the A7III as a bargain option to have some fun with and use for reviews. Anybody else think it's the best bang for buck, at least bargain end of the budget, FE mount camera?
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For reviews I'd use a high resolution sensor. The A7RIII in sales is a really good deal if you are able to collect it.
 
snerkler said:
Yeah I guess there’s that, it’s very rare I’ll use zooms in low light so it’s not high up my consideration but I can see for some it’ll be an advantage.
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It's not so much low light more just shall we saw 'Scottish light', I wasn't really using my standard zooms much out the back in winter because to get the shutter speed I wanted for motion shots the iso was just going super high so the wider F2.8 aperture helps. I don't know if it matters so much these days but at other apertures it's going to be stopped down more than other lenses which will have to be wide open. I find when into proper low light F2.8 doesn't really cut it and it's onto primes. That is just my use though and can absolutely see why some people favour the F4 lenses which are clearly popular these days.

I'm surprised there were people recommending the 24-70mm F2.8/70-200mm F2.8 lens for wedding use though because while researching for doing the first wedding in a while (not by choice) recently the general attitude seemed very much against those lenses and instead a 35mm/85mm combo.
 
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snerkler said:
Looks like it’s suffering from corner blurring due to lens corrections, seems a bit of a trait of the recent G lenses in order to save size and weight.
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I think the way it works would be more noticeable to me, zooming out to go wider is just wrong.
 
JohnMcL7 said:
It's not so much low light more just shall we saw 'Scottish light', I wasn't really using my standard zooms much out the back in winter because to get the shutter speed I wanted for motion shots the iso was just going super high so the wider F2.8 aperture helps. I don't know if it matters so much these days but at other apertures it's going to be stopped down more than other lenses which will have to be wide open. I find when into proper low light F2.8 doesn't really cut it and it's onto primes. That is just my use though and can absolutely see why some people favour the F4 lenses which are clearly popular these days.

I'm surprised there were people recommending the 24-70mm F2.8/70-200mm F2.8 lens for wedding use though because while researching for doing the first wedding in a while (not by choice) recently the general attitude seemed very much against those lenses and instead a 35mm/85mm combo.
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I could be wrong but the 24-70mm/70-200mm combo for weddings seems to be an American thing, maybe they have a different style. They'll definitely get better weather/light :LOL:
woof woof said:
I think the way it works would be more noticeable to me, zooming out to go wider is just wrong.
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I'm used to that and it's never bothered me. Having the zoom ring turn in the opposite direction (is it Tamron that does this?) is more of an issue for me.
 
snerkler said:
I could be wrong but the 24-70mm/70-200mm combo for weddings seems to be an American thing, maybe they have a different style. They'll definitely get better weather/light :LOL:

I'm used to that and it's never bothered me. Having the zoom ring turn in the opposite direction (is it Tamron that does this?) is more of an issue for me.
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Nikon do that too or at least that's how my film era lenses work. I can see the logic but when everything else is opposite I do find it irritating.
 
snerkler said:
I could be wrong but the 24-70mm/70-200mm combo for weddings seems to be an American thing, maybe they have a different style. They'll definitely get better weather/light :LOL:
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Maybe with the very old school crowd.

Even in the states the most popular choice is 35/85. A lot of the trendy photographers only use a 35mm. Doesn't really matter anyway as a lot purposely shoot everything out of focus, because it's a vibe. :oops: :$
 
f/2.8 said:
Maybe with the very old school crowd.

Even in the states the most popular choice is 35/85. A lot of the trendy photographers only use a 35mm. Doesn't really matter anyway as a lot purposely shoot everything out of focus, because it's a vibe. :oops: :$
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Maybe just the folk on the Sony FB group then :LOL:
 
f/2.8 said:
The thing with reviews is that there never seems to be any negative ones.

I can’t remember anyone ever saying this lens is a bit trash.

They are always positive.
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I haven't looked at all the reviews and I might not have seen anything from some of those reviewers but what I can say is that I have seen some of those reviewers give negative reviews. So it can happen.
 
ancient_mariner said:
16-25 is even more daft than 17-28. 16-35 is at least not unreasonable as a walkabout lens in a city.
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Thinking about it I think this lens could well be aimed at the video crowd who like to hold a camera at arms length whilst they walk and talk with the kit pointed at themselves. Maybe?
 
Ooooh. This is interesting...

There's an anamorphic 50mm f2.9 in FE mount in the for sale section and the seller has included a couple of vids.
 
woof woof said:
Ooooh. This is interesting...

There's an anamorphic 50mm f2.9 in FE mount in the for sale section and the seller has included a couple of vids.
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Couple of interesting lenses from the same seller.
The 7artisans 25mm T1.05 seems very interesting too.

Would love to try both but sadly I'm out of cash till pay day :(
 
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Oh wow, I would love them too but I am so skint after the Fuji X100VI and bought flight and hotel this week.
 
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It seems as though my 16-35mm GM II is showing some signs of decentering at 35mm (seems OK at 16mm), here you can see the leaves in the bottom left corner (right picture) are very blurry compared to the top left corner (left picture). I did wonder if it was movement as it was a bit breeezy at times, but it was quite consistent (although not 100%) and shutter speed was 1/2500 so would have thought that would counteract any movement. Also it never looked like this in the other 3 corners.

Screenshot 2024-04-17 at 19.37.22.jpg


Another example showing the same thing (200%)
Screenshot 2024-04-17 at 19.38.18.jpg




This time I shot it so just the building was in the corner to rule out movement of the leaves, there doesn't look a lot in it although the very bottom edge is ever so slightly softer. Can anyone hazard a guess why the leaves consistently look really bad in the bottom left corner of the frame?

Screenshot 2024-04-17 at 19.47.33.jpg
 
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