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

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theghostie said:
Hi Everyone,


Amazon have got this lens (Sigma 24-70 2.8 DG DN) for £779 so just bought it and will be delivered later.

I am hoping for a bit of advice - is it a decent lens for the money?

Going to be using it as an all purpose general lens - with a view to also using it for portrait photography.

I already have a Sony 20mm f1.8 and a Sony/Zeiss 50mm 1.4, I also have the Sony 70-200 f4 but that’s not really getting any use so thinking of selling it.

Any advice, hints/tips - if there is anything better out there let me know, however the price needs to be a factor for instance the Sony 24-70 is £1699 am I going to notice £920 worth of difference between the two?

Thanks,


Paul
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For an all purpose lens with a bit of portraiture I'd have picked the 24-105 G. 70mm f2.8 isn't going to give nice smooth backgrounds, and the 24-105 has built-in image stabilization.

But you could just try the sigma and see how it goes.
 
theghostie said:
Hi Everyone,


Amazon have got this lens (Sigma 24-70 2.8 DG DN) for £779 so just bought it and will be delivered later.

I am hoping for a bit of advice - is it a decent lens for the money?

Going to be using it as an all purpose general lens - with a view to also using it for portrait photography.

I already have a Sony 20mm f1.8 and a Sony/Zeiss 50mm 1.4, I also have the Sony 70-200 f4 but that’s not really getting any use so thinking of selling it.

Any advice, hints/tips - if there is anything better out there let me know, however the price needs to be a factor for instance the Sony 24-70 is £1699 am I going to notice £920 worth of difference between the two?

Thanks,


Paul
Click to expand...
The Sigma is a very good lens, and a good general purpose lens. Whether it's good for portraiture will depend largely on how much you like your blurred backgrounds and subject isolation, your 50mm f1.4 will be much better at this.

There's very little to choose between the Sigma 24-70mm DG DN Art and the Sony 24-70mm GM Mark I.
 
snerkler said:
We're very lucky in that we get all sorts of birds on our garden, but this year we've been getting a couple of new varieties too. I'm pretty sure the bright yellow ones are siskins but I don't know what the lighter ones are? Sorry about the IQ, extreme crops and high ish ISO.

1.

A1_02125-Edit by Toby Gunnee, on Flickr

2.

A1_02230-Edit by Toby Gunnee, on Flickr

3.

A1_02321-Edit by Toby Gunnee, on Flickr

4.

A1_02387-Edit by Toby Gunnee, on Flickr
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Both Siskin mate (y)
 
According to the highlights on the Sony page for the A1 it has a “low finder frame limit” to aid shooting when performing slow shutter (less than 1/60) panning shots, however I can’t find this in the menus and I can’t find it in the manual, can anyone shed any light on the please.

Here’s a screenshot from the Sony page

BC92C550-29F9-4C8F-90BF-7BFA0A2265C2.jpeg
 
theghostie said:
Hi Everyone,


Amazon have got this lens (Sigma 24-70 2.8 DG DN) for £779 so just bought it and will be delivered later.

I am hoping for a bit of advice - is it a decent lens for the money?

Going to be using it as an all purpose general lens - with a view to also using it for portrait photography.

I already have a Sony 20mm f1.8 and a Sony/Zeiss 50mm 1.4, I also have the Sony 70-200 f4 but that’s not really getting any use so thinking of selling it.

Any advice, hints/tips - if there is anything better out there let me know, however the price needs to be a factor for instance the Sony 24-70 is £1699 am I going to notice £920 worth of difference between the two?

Thanks,


Paul
Click to expand...

It depends very much on how you see things & shoot I guess. I haven't owned a standard zoom lens since about 2011/12 [which was the Canon 24-105L] & I still don't have any real desire to get another :)

At a guess I wouldn't have thought you'll find any faults with your decision. The Sigma stuff is pretty well regarded generally.
 
theghostie said:
Hi Everyone,


Amazon have got this lens (Sigma 24-70 2.8 DG DN) for £779 so just bought it and will be delivered later.

I am hoping for a bit of advice - is it a decent lens for the money?

Going to be using it as an all purpose general lens - with a view to also using it for portrait photography.

I already have a Sony 20mm f1.8 and a Sony/Zeiss 50mm 1.4, I also have the Sony 70-200 f4 but that’s not really getting any use so thinking of selling it.

Any advice, hints/tips - if there is anything better out there let me know, however the price needs to be a factor for instance the Sony 24-70 is £1699 am I going to notice £920 worth of difference between the two?

Thanks,


Paul
Click to expand...
I've questioned how accurate this is at times, but if this is a real representation then the Sigma stands up very well against the Sony GM Gen I in terms of sharpness
www.the-digital-picture.com

Sony FE 24-70mm F2.8 GM Lens Image Quality

View the image quality delivered by the Sony FE 24-70mm F2.8 GM Lens using ISO 12233 Resolution Chart lab test results. Compare the image quality of this lens with other lenses.
www.the-digital-picture.com www.the-digital-picture.com
 
The new Sigma 17mm f4 looks small. I'm thinking this and the 20-70mm f4 could be a good replacement for my 16-35mm f4 and 24-70mm f4.

Screenshot 2023-04-03 at 13.19.09.jpg
 
So today I called up the insurance company to add my shiny new A7iv to the 'all risks/out of the home' section of my house insurance, as it was over the individual item limit, and hoping they wouldn't sting me too much for it.
I was pleasantly surprised to discover that the change was a reduction of £23 per year!!!
 
Just some A7 and Pergear 35mm f1.4 pictures.

f1.4. I took a similar picture when I got the Voigtlander 35mm f1.4.

Dne3NEc.jpg


Flowers at just about MFD and f5.6.

W2Da9ut.jpg


A hyperfocal shot, f5.6.

eKTS0LS.jpg


And a two picture panorama of the scene from the pier. It was sunny but cold.

GPUkxZH.jpg
 
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snerkler said:
I didn’t take any notice of the price, that is a bit crazy :oops: :$
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It's pricy but what's the competition? Mostly not as good or bigger and heavier and more expensive? I think the appeal is in the mix of image and build quality in the small package. It's not going to be a low light hand held lens and it probably isn't for astro but for people who value small size ahead of f1.x or even f2.x I imagine this is going to appeal to them and the close up ability could be handy too.
 
ancient_mariner said:
IIRC the Sammy 18 f2.8 is quite a bit less than that (£309 on Amazon) how does image quality compare?
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I had one and thought the IQ was very good. Build wise it feels cheap, but that's to be expected for the price. The only reason I wouldn't consider another is because I'm used to 16mm and there's quite a bit of difference between 16mm and 18mm, but 17mm would be a decent compromise.

In an ideal world I'd have the 16-35mm f4 PZ and 20-70mm f4 but it's a very costly upgrade and not one I could justify. All this being said I'm not buying anything else for a while so it'll give all these options to reduce in price, likewise the 50mm f1.4 GM ;)
 
ancient_mariner said:
IIRC the Sammy 18 f2.8 is quite a bit less than that (£309 on Amazon) how does image quality compare?
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Stopped down to f/4 would expect it to be at least good if not better although then you have to play the Samdung lottery.

£550 for an f/4 prime lens seems absolutely nuts to me especially for a third party lens, maybe around that money at f/2.8.

I get that its small, but cant see them shifting too many of these maybe that is why it's so over priced.
 
In the above vid Christopher Frost says the Sammy isn't as good.
 
Manny reviews the ZV-E1 and says he's going to buy one...

 
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snerkler said:
According to the highlights on the Sony page for the A1 it has a “low finder frame limit” to aid shooting when performing slow shutter (less than 1/60) panning shots, however I can’t find this in the menus and I can’t find it in the manual, can anyone shed any light on the please.

Here’s a screenshot from the Sony page

View attachment 385485
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I had a look on my A1 and can't see anything. Perhaps a setting that has now been automated and is applied when you drop the shutter speed and it senses movement
 
snerkler said:
How’re you getting on with the A1 and 600mm f4?

I’m not naive enough to think that things won’t move on but it’s hard to imagine what else you could want from a camera. 50mp is more than enough, 30fps is already too much (imo), colours are great, AF nails anything you want, it has blackout free shooting and can use flash with electronic shutter.
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Loving it

30 fps has its uses though, especially with trying to get "the" shot of a heron/egret throwing a fish to position it for swallowing etc. Got 10 of them today, literally every time the bird was successful, so was I lol.
 
wookie6262 said:
I had a look on my A1 and can't see anything. Perhaps a setting that has now been automated and is applied when you drop the shutter speed and it senses movement
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I found it in the end, but it’s not where you expect it to be :rolleyes:

E92F0504-6B74-426E-A1A1-997ED5393B1F.jpeg
 
woof woof said:
Gerald likes it too.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2rMgWP-Qvo8
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I quite like some of the ideas with this camera but it's a shame it's not much use as a stills camera as I'm certainly not a vlogging person.

The weather has been lovely here so I had Bertie out to a Loch where he was enthusiastically smashing his way through the water which the A9 did its usual great job with. Bertie is very like my first spaniel Jake who also adored the water and some of the shots the two are hard to tell apart but in Jake's time I was using an Olympus E-3 and I was pleased to get a couple of good shots in one session, it makes me appreciate how much I take the A9's much better performance for granted.
 
Tried the pixelshift out last night, works well as it now has movement compensation in the software but tbh in the final image at normal viewing sizes it's only marginally better than a single shot for this kind of thing, I assume standard landscapes it would work better.


A1_02667_PSMS16-Edit by Toby Gunnee, on Flickr
 
Despite previous thoughts, according to the response I got from Sony changing from PAL to NTSC does more than just change video.

Screenshot 2023-04-04 at 09.53.53.jpg
 
snerkler said:
According to the highlights on the Sony page for the A1 it has a “low finder frame limit” to aid shooting when performing slow shutter (less than 1/60) panning shots, however I can’t find this in the menus and I can’t find it in the manual, can anyone shed any light on the please.

Here’s a screenshot from the Sony page

View attachment 385485
Click to expand...
Just looked through my menu and can't see anything with that name, only thing I can see is the Finder Frame Rate. Can't say I've ever had a problem with panning and usually I'm 1/60th or lower and always with electronic shutter. .

‍Edit, nvm, just saw the later post :headbang::ROFLMAO:
 
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snerkler said:
Despite previous thoughts, according to the response I got from Sony changing from PAL to NTSC does more than just change video.

View attachment 385607
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Aren't they referring to video functions though? If you change between NTSC and PAL then I'd expect you'd see the symptoms they mention in video due to the different in mains power frequencies.
 
JohnMcL7 said:
Aren't they referring to video functions though? If you change between NTSC and PAL then I'd expect you'd see the symptoms they mention in video due to the different in mains power frequencies.
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Well that's what I asked and that's the reply I got. I don't know how these cameras monitor for anti flicker etc, whether they can adapt to any frequency or whether they work on set parameters such as 50hz and various multiples vs 60hz and various multiples :thinking:
 
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