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

Some A7 and Voigtlander 35mm f1.2 pictures.

Walking to church. Mrs WW was very happy that it snowed on her birthday.

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We had a little mini break in Whitby. It was cold and mostly shut.

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Our hotel. We can recommend it :D

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Into the warmth.

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My little review...
It is indeed a very nice lens. It's not razor sharp at f1.2 but perfectly useable and it sharpens ok, there's some ca and it can be affected in backlit situations but all in all it is IMO a very nice lens.

One last one, a pano of the view from the hotel garden.

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Anyone else getting snow? It's snowing quite hard here now and it's laying. I'm glad I don't have to drive for a few days.
 
mstphoto said:
Just the odd flurry of sleety stuff.
Might be different out in the sticks though ;)
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I was nervous of the drive to and from Whitby but it was ok and this heavy stuff only started when we got home.

The last time I drove in conditions like this on the moor road was in my MX5.
 
woof woof said:
Anyone else getting snow? It's snowing quite hard here now and it's laying. I'm glad I don't have to drive for a few days.
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Just a light dusting this morning, been very cold though the past few days (-3 degrees)
 
Did a quick experiment this lunchtime to see if I could use the 20-70mm as my main walkabout lens instead of the 16-35mm (I've ruled out the 17-50mm) and I was surprised on two counts. Firstly to get the same width of frame from 16mm to 20mm I only had to step back about 1ft, I couldn't quite believe this. Also the difference in compression is much more than I was expecting. Clearly the difference you need to move to get the same width of frame is neither here nor there, however the difference in perspective I'm not so sure about. I do like how much more UWA's stretch things out :thinking:

Edit: Looking again it's not actually the same width, I was using the fence posts as a guide but beyond those you can see the frame is wider on the 16mm. I'll have to do some more experiments ;)


Screenshot 2023-11-30 at 18.00.11 by Toby Gunnee, on Flickr
 
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woof woof said:
May interest some.

phillipreeve.net

Review: Megadap ETZ-21 PRO vs Techart TZE-01 - Using Sony E Lenses on Nikon Z Cameras - phillipreeve.net

Introduction Do you want to use Sony E mount lenses on your Nikon Z cameras? Maybe you want to switch systems and go from Sony E to Nikon Z, but you have some or many Sony E lenses you want to keep and use. Or maybe you just like one of the Sony GM lenses … Continue reading Review: Megadap...
phillipreeve.net phillipreeve.net
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I'm still surprised that Sony lenses can work so well on Nikon Z-mount. I've read a number of reviews and comments which have made me a bit concerned about how tight it sits against the mount and the play in it plus some comments here about AF performance not being as good as expected, it's mainly the 100-400mm I want to use on Z-mount where the AF performance is important.
 
GooGaBu said:
Guess we have about 30cm of snow .. but seeing as I live in Finland.. it might not count ;-)
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WoWza :D

We had some during the night but it's thawed a bit since and the side road where we live is just slushy now.

Are you going to post some pictures? :D
 
Our Christmas "Let it snow" hats arrived today and we had a nice surprise :D as they have lights on them with three modes :D This I suppose explains why they were rather expensive for woolly hats at about £10 each :D

A7 and Voigtlander 35mm f1.2. She wanted the scene outside in the picture to send to friends and family overseas.

Hope you can see the lights on her hat.

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We'll have fun wearing those and out matching Christmas pullovers on Christmas day :D

This lens does have a couple of issues but on balance it is easily the best 35mm lens I've ever owned, I suppose beating the Sony 35mm f2.8 on flexibility (as it's f1.2) and build quality and the Sony 35mm f1.8 on a number of counts. It also beats the Voigtlander 35mm f1.4 on every count except size and weight and it beats the Pergear f1.4 on a number of counts too. It is MF though which would rule it out for many.
 
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woof woof said:
WoWza :D

We had some during the night but it's thawed a bit since and the side road where we live is just slushy now.

Are you going to post some pictures? :D
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With the temps here at around -15 celsius.. no risk of thawing for the moment.

Sun has already set a while ago here.. so let's see if I manage to take a camera out tomorrow.
As you might imagine - not great deal of fun for the fingers at these temperatures.
 
GooGaBu said:
With the temps here at around -15 celsius.. no risk of thawing for the moment.

Sun has already set a while ago here.. so let's see if I manage to take a camera out tomorrow.
As you might imagine - not great deal of fun for the fingers at these temperatures.
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I've never been to Finland but went to Kazakhstan several times and experienced -21 or so, or so I was told. My cameras survived :D I'm sure you'll take some very nice pictures, I'll look forward to seeing some :D
 
When I got my Sony 55mm f1.8 I couldn't believe how good it was. I've read peoples complaints but I mostly disagree with them. I think it's a good lens and with quite pleasing bokeh too The only real things I can criticise it for are some ca in some situations and being 55mm not 50mm. This latter criticism is the thing I've struggled most with :D

Good luck with it noneforit.
 
woof woof said:
Mucho Praise for the A9III.

petapixel.com

Using the Sony a9 III for Concerts as Dave Matthews Band's Photographer

There is a lot in Sony's new camera that make a big difference for concert photographers.
petapixel.com petapixel.com

"An impressive, big leap."
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A good review indeed, forgive me if I’m a little skeptical of how much a game changer it is, banding and rolling shutter aren’t an issue 99.9% of the time on some cameras, and as for 120fps separating the crème fe la crème out with Olympic photography I just don’t buy it.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s very impressive and I’m sure someone can find a situation where it prevents banding compared to other cameras, I just think ‘we’ go OTT sometimes on how much of a “game changer” things are.
 
snerkler said:
A good review indeed, forgive me if I’m a little skeptical of how much a game changer it is, banding and rolling shutter aren’t an issue 99.9% of the time on some cameras, and as for 120fps separating the crème fe la crème out with Olympic photography I just don’t buy it.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s very impressive and I’m sure someone can find a situation where it prevents banding compared to other cameras, I just think ‘we’ go OTT sometimes on how much of a “game changer” things are.
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It's something that will be much more significant for some than it is for others.
Silent shutter with zero distortion will matter a lot for some people.
120fps to almost guarantee that perfectly timed shot (runner breaking the tape in 100m final, for example) will matter for others
No sync speed limit on flash will be important for others.

It's a 'game changer' because it's the first of a new generation of sensors, in the same way the original A9 was the first with the fast readout speed - it becomes a challenge that Canon and Nikon need to have an answer for, because if they don't, and Sony is able to bring out A1, A7R and A7 global shutter cameras while Canon and Nikon still have rolling shutters in their main cameras, then there could be a whole bunch more people choosing Sony over Canon / Nikon.
 
Faldrax said:
It's something that will be much more significant for some than it is for others.
Silent shutter with zero distortion will matter a lot for some people.
120fps to almost guarantee that perfectly timed shot (runner breaking the tape in 100m final, for example) will matter for others
No sync speed limit on flash will be important for others.

It's a 'game changer' because it's the first of a new generation of sensors, in the same way the original A9 was the first with the fast readout speed - it becomes a challenge that Canon and Nikon need to have an answer for, because if they don't, and Sony is able to bring out A1, A7R and A7 global shutter cameras while Canon and Nikon still have rolling shutters in their main cameras, then there could be a whole bunch more people choosing Sony over Canon / Nikon.
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Yeah I get that it’ll matter more to some than others, and as I said I’m not underplaying that it’s a great achievement, I’m just not convinced it’s a gigantic leap. The A9’s, A1 and Z9 have no perceivable distortion. I can see the benefit of flash sync, but I still don’t see why you need any more than 30fps. I have 30fps and don’t use it (except for experimentation). Clearly people believe that it will be useful though (y)
 
snerkler said:
A good review indeed, forgive me if I’m a little skeptical of how much a game changer it is, banding and rolling shutter aren’t an issue 99.9% of the time on some cameras, and as for 120fps separating the crème fe la crème out with Olympic photography I just don’t buy it.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s very impressive and I’m sure someone can find a situation where it prevents banding compared to other cameras, I just think ‘we’ go OTT sometimes on how much of a “game changer” things are.
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I think that review maybe shows how niche these abilities may be but if shooting in those conditions I suppose very few cameras are going to get you such results.
 
woof woof said:
I think that review maybe shows how niche these abilities may be but if shooting in those conditions I suppose very few cameras are going to get you such results.
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As the review says you can just swap to mechanical shutter and job done so it’s not really an issue for older cameras. Yes it saves you having to adjust shutter speed if needs be to eliminate banding which is nice and one less thing to worry about, and yes it allows you to shoot crazy frame rate.

For me going from DSLR to mirrorless with full frame AF coverage and then eye AF were a bigger more useful leap, then going to blackout free shooting with 0 perceivable rolling shutter was another fairly big step.

As I said though I acknowledge that the global shutter is an impressive achievement and I don’t want to underplay that, it’s just the A9’s, A1 and Z9 are almost there in terms of what they can achieve (y).
 
snerkler said:
A good review indeed, forgive me if I’m a little skeptical of how much a game changer it is, banding and rolling shutter aren’t an issue 99.9% of the time on some cameras, and as for 120fps separating the crème fe la crème out with Olympic photography I just don’t buy it.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s very impressive and I’m sure someone can find a situation where it prevents banding compared to other cameras, I just think ‘we’ go OTT sometimes on how much of a “game changer” things are.
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I noticed that to demonstrate the problems with rolling shutter and how much better the A9III's global shutter is he uses the A7R V not a stacked sensor camera, if you read the article with that in mind (even though he mentions stacked sensors) his comments about electronic shutters make more sense. I think it's fair to say the A9 was a game changer and while the newer stacked sensor and A9III make improvements on that, it's not been the same jump.

I can certainly see for shooting in mixed lighting banding from electronic shutters could be an issue although I'm curious the benefits of an electronic shutter is for that use, when I previously used to do those short of shots being silent is no benefit in a loud environment, nor is blackout free shooting or high speed. It doesn't help the entire article reads like a marketing piece where he oddly has to state all the flagship specifications and try to justify how those apply to his use when they clearly don't, his explanations of seeing things he's never seen in someone playing an instrument and needing the high speed AF seem a stretch to me. And he's a bit vague about the high iso capability which for me was one of the main issues when shooting live music and concerts for me, although perhaps only having pre-release jpegs needs to be taken in account.
 
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JohnMcL7 said:
I noticed that to demonstrate the problems with rolling shutter and how much better the A9III's global shutter is he uses the A7R V not a stacked sensor camera, if you read the article with that in mind (even though he mentions stacked sensors) his comments about electronic shutters make more sense. I think it's fair to say the A9 was a game changer and while the newer stacked sensor and A9III make improvements on that, it's not been the same jump.

I can certainly see for shooting in mixed lighting banding from electronic shutters could be an issue although I'm curious the benefits of an electronic shutter is for that use, when I previously used to do those short of shots being silent is no benefit in a loud environment, nor is blackout free shooting or high speed. It doesn't help the entire article reads like a marketing piece where he oddly has to state all the flagship specifications and try to justify how those apply to his use when they clearly don't, his explanations of seeing things he's never seen in someone playing an instrument and needing the high speed AF seem a stretch to me. And he's a bit vague about the high iso capability which for me was one of the main issues when shooting live music and concerts for me, although perhaps only having pre-release jpegs needs to be taken in account.
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Yeah I agree (y)
 
wookie6262 said:
A little bit of what was meant to be Aroura hunting but turned out more Aroura dodging as the best was before, after and during our hot chocolate break. A shooting star cheers us up and the usb heated vests made a big difference. a 6 hour shift tomorrow will be hard going.

Portobello Aroura by Simon Wootton, on Flickr
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This is nice, looks very noisy though have you run it through any noise reduction?
 
snerkler said:
As the review says you can just swap to mechanical shutter and job done so it’s not really an issue for older cameras.
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I don't think he says that. What he says is...

On banding.

"I solve for this currently by using the mechanical shutter only, disabling my e-curtain front shutter, and keeping my shutter speed no higher than 1/500 second.

For our stage setup these adjustments work well to negate most banding problems I have. However, if you’re shooting only the first three songs of a band you don’t typically shoot, especially in a small club with low quality lights, banding can frustrate you or ruin a great shot."

Also,

"It’s also worth noting that the a9 III has blackout free shooting for any frame rate you choose."

And further on,

"It is another reason I use a mechanical shutter on my cameras, but in doing so, I lose some features that make Sony cameras so powerful."

So this may not be a simple case of switching to mechanical shutter and it being "job done."

If these are significant limitations of the mechanical shutter or not I don't know. I used to take indoor pictures and my Panasonic cameras (the only cameras I have with electronic shutters) give banding under flickering lighting so I used to switch to the mechanical shutter but I had no need to exceed 1/500 and indeed I probably couldn't have due to ISO limitations and then I was also into excessive noise which could well be an issue with other older kit.

Another issue when using the mechanical shutter not mentioned in the review as far as I can see is shutter noise which could be an issue or not depending on the noise the camera makes, the ambiance and the people involved.

As above I do agree that this cameras "special" abilities are niche and maybe even completely irrelevant to some of us but the camera isn't aimed at people who don't need these special abilities, it's aimed at people who do need these abilities, niche shooters. It could also be a teaser for whatever tech may trickle down in coming years.
 
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JohnMcL7 said:
I can certainly see for shooting in mixed lighting banding from electronic shutters could be an issue although I'm curious the benefits of an electronic shutter is for that use, when I previously used to do those short of shots being silent is no benefit in a loud environment, nor is blackout free shooting or high speed.
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But that's you. What if someone isn't in a noisy environment or wants blackout free shooting? I'd also add to that overly tetchy people even in a noisy environment.

This camera just isn't for me and significant trickle down tech may be too late for me but I am sure some people will use this cameras abilities.
 
woof woof said:
But that's you. What if someone isn't in a noisy environment or wants blackout free shooting? I'd also add to that overly tetchy people even in a noisy environment.

This camera just isn't for me and significant trickle down tech may be too late for me but I am sure some people will use this cameras abilities.
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There’s clearly times when it will be of benefit and there’s no doubting how good and significant this tech is, I just think people are OTT in their praise ;) For example he marvels how you can shoot with zero distortion, well you’ve been able to do that since day dot with a mechanical shutter, and you’ve been able to do that with an electronic shutter since the launch of the A9 (y)
 
wookie6262 said:
A little bit of what was meant to be Aroura hunting but turned out more Aroura dodging as the best was before, after and during our hot chocolate break. A shooting star cheers us up and the usb heated vests made a big difference. a 6 hour shift tomorrow will be hard going.

Portobello Aroura by Simon Wootton, on Flickr
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Nice. We didn't see any green, I don't think. Just importing the 824 A7Riii files at the moment. I think I'm nearly thawed out :)
 
snerkler said:
There’s clearly times when it will be of benefit and there’s no doubting how good and significant this tech is, I just think people are OTT in their praise ;) For example he marvels how you can shoot with zero distortion, well you’ve been able to do that since day dot with a mechanical shutter, and you’ve been able to do that with an electronic shutter since the launch of the A9 (y)
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Trying to rewrite history? :D "Still, the subtle warping seen above is light years ahead of any other electronic shutter, and really only shows up in specific circumstances."
admiringlight.com

Shooting Golf with the Sony A9 - Admiring Light

I took the new Sony A9 out for some golf shooting at the 2017 Memorial Tournament
admiringlight.com admiringlight.com

I do look back and think when I was choosing my first camera system for full time photography, it was between the 1DX, 5D4, Nikon D4/5? and the A9

The A9 was pretty new and I didn't know much about it, I knew I'd be shooting sport where the 1DX would excel but I couldn't have the sound of a gatling gun for concerts, I also needed a deeper buffer than the 5D4 for a fashion show catwalk. I watched some AF performance comparison videos where the A9 held it's own, and in the end was the certainly the optimal choice to cover such a huge variety of situations.

I welcomed all the improvements the A1 had to bring and I'm very happy with them for professional work, but... the A9 III is of some interest to me for theatre and it's LED lighting. It would be nice just stick it on 1/500th and just focus on shooting.

I photographed a candlelit choir a couple of nights ago with the A1, I was asked if my cameras were silent - i thought it was because it was such a delicate audience event.. but it was because they had microphones everywhere and didn't want to pick me up
 
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dancook said:
Trying to rewrite history? :D "Still, the subtle warping seen above is light years ahead of any other electronic shutter, and really only shows up in specific circumstances."
admiringlight.com

Shooting Golf with the Sony A9 - Admiring Light

I took the new Sony A9 out for some golf shooting at the 2017 Memorial Tournament
admiringlight.com admiringlight.com

I do look back and think when I was choosing my first camera system for full time photography, it was between the 1DX, 5D4, Nikon D4/5? and the A9

The A9 was pretty new and I didn't know much about it, I knew I'd be shooting sport where the 1DX would excel but I couldn't have the sound of a gatling gun for concerts, I also needed a deeper buffer than the 5D4 for a fashion show catwalk. I watched some AF performance comparison videos where the A9 held it's own, and in the end was the certainly the optimal choice to cover such a huge variety of situations.

I welcomed all the improvements the A1 had to bring and I'm very happy with them for professional work, but... the A9 III is of some interest to me for theatre and it's LED lighting. It would be nice just stick it on 1/500th and just focus on shooting.

I photographed a candlelit choir a couple of nights ago with the A1, I was asked if my cameras were silent - i thought it was because it was such a delicate audience event.. but it was because they had microphones everywhere and didn't want to pick me up
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That's the first time I've seen rolling shutter with the A9, it can happen then :oops: :$ It would be interesting to see how the A1 fairs in the same scenario as that has a 50% faster readout.
 
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