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

nog said:
You can adjust ISO without pressing a button if you switch EASY ISO on in the menu (menu B3) but IIRC the actual ISO setting is not displayed on screen when easy iso is on.
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Thanks i will have a look at that , but dont think it works in manual Mode. I think i could assingn the iso to one of thefront fn buttons which would be a work around
 
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GreenNinja67 said:
I have the A73 and an old Tamron 500mm F8 catadioptric (mirror) lens with me at work today.

Now the sun is shining I'm hoping to give a test on full frame.

It was really awful on M4/3 but I have a feeling it's the design of lens which makes it unsuitable for use on anything other than full frame.

We shall see.

It also has a Tamron matched 2x teleconverter but I'm not holding out much hope of good images at 1000mm.
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Old mirror lenses tend to be poor - I have a Sigma 600 f8 , and what was tolerable in film days really looks bad now. I think the results with a superzoom compact at longer focal lengths would be better out of the camera.
 
ancient_mariner said:
Old mirror lenses tend to be poor - I have a Sigma 600 f8 , and what was tolerable in film days really looks bad now. I think the results with a superzoom compact at longer focal lengths would be better out of the camera.
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I'm not expecting miracles Toni.

More a bit of fun before I eBay it to be honest.
 
ancient_mariner said:
Old mirror lenses tend to be poor ...
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They certainly vary a lot.

My Tamron Adaptall 500mm works well for me, but it needs to be used on a tripod or monopod, even on a sunny day...

Crow in a tree 500mm E-PL5 P6200014.jpg
 
None I can share cos they’re of family, but I got some excellent shots with my Minolta 500mm AF mirror on a recent half term holiday. So they can do great. Though that’s a fairly high end more modern one, by mirror standards.

In particular there’s one head and shoulder’s shot of my niece on a high ropes course that’s one of my fav portrait shots ever - almost worth the cost of the lens alone to me.

All shot handheld with the IBIS generally at 500th or more usually 1000th, shoot raw, let the iso go wild and if needed bring it back with the AI NR in lightroom.
 
the_accidental said:
None I can share cos they’re of family, but I got some excellent shots with my Minolta 500mm AF mirror on a recent half term holiday. So they can do great. Though that’s a fairly high end more modern one, by mirror standards.

In particular there’s one head and shoulder’s shot of my niece on a high ropes course that’s one of my fav portrait shots ever - almost worth the cost of the lens alone to me.

All shot handheld with the IBIS generally at 500th or more usually 1000th, shoot raw, let the iso go wild and if needed bring it back with the AI NR in lightroom.
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I'd see the Minolta af mirror lens as being a serious piece of kit, rather a toy for the curious like my Sigma, hence the price difference.

I appreciate the chance to have tried a mirror lens, but as someone who uses other film-era lenses, was a bit shocked at how 'not very good' it was. I suspect better image quality would be obtained using a good 70-210 zoom and cropping.
 
Ordered a 50mm f1.2 to pretty much round of the collection of GM glass. May get version 2 of the 85mm F1.4 as the first one is really slow but the 1.8 covers most bases. Just when I thought the collection would be complete the A1 mkii announcement is just round the corner. Pre-capture may be too big a feature to resist and it works brilliantly on the A9iii

Got lucky with this shot as I was just about to swap for the 70-200 but stuck with the 400 just long enough

A9309103 by Simon Wootton, on Flickr
 
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T_J_G said:
I bought a car about 6 weeks ago, a few days ago someone went into the back of it :(
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No way mate you must be gutted. When I got my most recent car I only had it a few days and parked up at a local tourist attraction to shoot an elopement. As I was talking to the wedding planner I watched an elderly tourist with a large backpack squeeze in between the car and the wall I had parked in front off, and at the time I was thinking ouch but thought it would be okay. Got back to the car and seen a large scratch running the whole length of the bonnet and was absolutely gutted.

The day I got the scratch sorted I nipped into Tesco for literally 2 minutes, came back out and someone had dented the passenger side quarter panel. Was absolutely furious.

That is such bad luck. Is the car sorted now?
Mike.P said:
I bought my car a few months back now. It was from a dealer about 100 miles away and they delivered it by trailer.

They offloaded it and I managed to kerb 2 of the alloys within 5 minutes of starting it up.
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No way mate, again bad luck at least wheels are easy sorted.

I might be heading out car shopping with my wee bro later on today he is looking at moving from a McLaren 570s back to either a G Wagon or an AudI r8. We are going to have a look at a Mercedes AMG GTR as well. Will be interesting to see how the other half buy a car. I am just hoping to test drive something nice while we are there. :ROFLMAO:

The McLaren is such a great car but it is very unreliable and nobody can work on them here either, so its constantly having to be shipped to Glasgow for repair work and its turned into a bit of a nightmare.
 
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f/2.8 said:
The McLaren is such a great car but it is very unreliable and nobody can work on them here either, so its constantly having to be shipped to Glasgow for repair work and its turned into a bit of a nightmare.
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Nice problem to have though Tommy.

I bet he's shed many a tear into his Bollinger. :)
 
GreenNinja67 said:
Oh and I won't be posting any shots using the Tamron mirror lens.

They were utter sh.................. disappointing.
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You should post them. Even awful is useful as it's info. I've been very critical of some lenses on here (Artralab comes to mind) but of course in my case they're lenses very few people here would be interested in buying.

I think you should post pictures and a review... you can be brutally honest and it'll be both info and entertainment :D
 
f/2.8 said:
I warned him when he bought it! It's mental daily driving any super car never mind a McLaren. But he gotta have those photos for his Insta. :ROFLMAO:
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You only live once.

People having car trouble have my sympathy. I hope your luck turns.
 
woof woof said:
You should post them. Even awful is useful as it's info. I've been very critical of some lenses on here (Artralab comes to mind) but of course in my case they're lenses very few people here would be interested in buying.

I think you should post pictures and a review... you can be brutally honest and it'll be both info and entertainment :D
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I'll do that tonight Alan.

I won't be trying to sell the lens here so it won't matter :)
 
Some November deals on MF lenses. This is probably a US centric site but as they mention webshops perhaps the discounts will be good for the UK too.

phillipreeve.net

November Deals - phillipreeve.net

Introduction Christmas is around the corner so everyone wants to sell their goods in November. The industry came up with a bunch of stuff like Single’s Day and Black Friday and many camera and lens manufacturers are also using this opportunity. In this article I will collect the deals I think...
phillipreeve.net phillipreeve.net
 
When I bought the silver Focus those 7 years ago someone put an opening a door dent in it the first day! Luckily, it wasn't really noticeable. But even with things like that, when you know it's there...... it annoys!
 
LeeRatters said:
Oh, and the 'new' Focus has already had a jet wash, detail brush clean of all the nooks and crannies, wash, full clay bar, wash, black plastic trim, wheels and tyres..... :)
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Mine needs doing badly. (White with a month of road grime on it and ash from steam trains (park in Severn Valley Railway car park for work)).

But as I screwed my back up last weekend and have been walking like Galen all week (look him up) it'll have to stay filthy for now.
 
f/2.8 said:
No way mate you must be gutted. When I got my most recent car I only had it a few days and parked up at a local tourist attraction to shoot an elopement. As I was talking to the wedding planner I watched an elderly tourist with a large backpack squeeze in between the car and the wall I had parked in front off, and at the time I was thinking ouch but thought it would be okay. Got back to the car and seen a large scratch running the whole length of the bonnet and was absolutely gutted.
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Properly gutted, travelled 3.5 hours to get the right car and then this happens. Booked into the body shop on the 21st, new bumper and rear light so think I got away lightly
 
LeeRatters said:
When I bought the silver Focus those 7 years ago someone put an opening a door dent in it the first day! Luckily, it wasn't really noticeable. But even with things like that, when you know it's there...... it annoys!
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I see every mark on my cars, always have done, and it annoys me that every single one was put there by someone else.
 
Mike.P said:
I bought my car a few months back now. It was from a dealer about 100 miles away and they delivered it by trailer.

They offloaded it and I managed to kerb 2 of the alloys within 5 minutes of starting it up.
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Been there done that, a tiny bit annoying.
 
woof woof said:
I see every mark on my cars, always have done, and it annoys me that every single one was put there by someone else.
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Me too, 2012 Passat sport estate in white with 135k on the clock. FSH.

Not a dent I can see but needs a bloody good clean and clay bay.

Oh, and I must steam the limo tint off the back windows, reversing in the dark is a nightmare.


20210911_175544.jpg
 
Just my experience selling some film era lenses.

I sold some on here and no one got back to me saying they had an issue. I sent 20 odd to a company in Yorkshire and I wasn't happy as their initial quote looked good but upon receipt they nit picked and dropped their quote on just about everything and said that one lens was faulty. I maybe should have cherry picked the quotes and just sold a few to them but I just wasn't happy so I got the lot back and sent some, another 20 odd, to another company.

I then this second batch to a company up North. I'd stopped using them some time ago as a lens I'd sent in for a clean came back unusable due to completely trashed coating and they didn't even have the decency to tell me it was coming back but I thought I'd give them a go this time and I accepted their quote on all but one item. They didn't quote for some lenses including one that the Yorkshire company quoted well over £100 for but they did quote for the "faulty" lens and rated it as E+ which I'm hoping means excellent rather than E as in a lot worse than A. I can't be sure but that's how I'm reading it and how I rated the lens as to me cosmetically it looked unmarked and with marking that looked unworn and optically for me it worked flawlessly, for a lens of that age. They did say that some lenses were worthless and they'd dispose of them for me at no cost. well, no thanks, just send them back was my reply and today they arrived back. They'd gone to them well wrapped and packed and in a pristine box and they came back in a box which is ready for recycling rather than being able to be used again.

My thoughts on dealing with these two companies is that I don't completely trust either of them. I'm happy enough with the price I got for the lenses I sold and I've made well over £1,000 selling lenses I wasn't using much so I'm happy enough and I do realise that they have to pay me less than they sell the lenses for, that's fair. It's the differing opinion on lenses and the feeling that they're at least at times taking things a little too far that's lead to me not really trusting them 100%.
 
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GreenNinja67 said:
Me too, 2012 Passat sport estate in white with 135k on the clock. FSH.

Not a dent I can see but needs a bloody good clean and clay bay.

Oh, and I must steam the limo tint off the back windows, reversing in the dark is a nightmare.
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I'd like a really good valet on all my cars. The local car wash place does an OK job for IMO a slightly inflated price so a while back I rang a bloke who seemed to get good reviews and he and his son came and did all my cars at my home but really it's only just a better job than the local car wash, nothing to WoW me. I'd really like a good buff and polish on all of them. I used to really go to town on my cars but I'm passed that now, too much other stuff to do.
 
woof woof said:
I see every mark on my cars, always have done, and it annoys me that every single one was put there by someone else.
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Me too, although one mark was done by me, I scuffed an alloy on a hidden rock :mad:
 
woof woof said:
they did quote for the "faulty" lens and rated it as E+ which I'm hoping means excellent rather than E as in a lot worse than A.
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I must admit when you posted this a while back I initially thought E as in worse than A, but I guess it could mean excellent.
 
woof woof said:
Some things can't be helped. Paint chips caused by stones etc thrown at you at speed are another.
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Yep. I had a lorry fire something at me the other day whilst I was out on the motorbike, it hit my foot an didn't half hurt, still sore now. Thank god I where proper gear as I think it could've done some proper damage if I'd just got trainers or something on.
 
snerkler said:
I must admit when you posted this a while back I initially thought E as in worse than A, but I guess it could mean excellent.
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The quote was ok and in line with what I expected and looking at their website E does seem to mean excellent and they rated this one E+.

The lens in question is a Minolta 24mm f2.8. It's one of the later 49mm versions which some people would discount for the more plastic build and stronger coatings but optically I thought it was the best film era 24mm I've owned. Earlier lenses have a more metal build and possibly less effective/strong coatings, you pay your money and make your choice, it's horses for courses. The focus ring was described as being very stiff and in need of repair by the Yorkshire company but the Scottish company didn't mention that. I thought that it was stiffer than some but I prefer a slightly stiffer action as there's less chance of accidental movement when taking a picture and the movement is universal in feel so I don't think it is actually a fault. Anyone thinking it is or just not liking the firmer action could pay for a clean and thinner lubricant but that would add to the cost unless you DIY.
 
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Cars - it's nice when they're clean, but I really don't care. Living in the country, during the winter it only takes a day for the car to be plastered with mud.
 
GreenNinja67 said:
I'm surprised just how good my Olympus 50mm f1.8 and 28mm f2.8 vintage lenses work on the A73. They are exceptionally sharp for nearly 50 year old lenses.
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I've still got all my Zuikos. 24, 28 and 35mm f2.8, 50mm f1.8 and f1.4, 85mm f2 and 135mm f3.5.

I think these lenses are pretty much my ideal film era lenses but I have to be honest and say that compared to some other lenses optically they can be IMO rather ordinary (maybe some optical greatness was sacrificed to make some of the lenses smaller?) and with a IMO mechanically clunky aperture mechanism. The 50mm f1.4 in particular is IMO lovely for people pictures. People often enthuse about Takumars but IMO the Oly gives almost as nice a tone but with much better image quality at wide apertures. Of mine the 85mm f2 is probably the most valuable.
 
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