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Archive 2014 · A7 or A7R with Vintage MF glass? Poll Inside!

  
 
sebboh
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p.3 #1 · p.3 #1 · A7 or A7R with Vintage MF glass? Poll Inside!


redisburning wrote:
you mean those IPS panels Samsung makes for them? and has made for more than a decade?


how come i couldn't get a laptop with that resolution till apple came out with the retina, were they only selling them for medical applications?

redisburning wrote:
anyway I'm into pixel peeping I just look at it from a further back view. I look at images at 100% of their final output size. if you compare the A7r and A7, you do need to properly downsize the A7r files to 24mp and look at 100% then. IMO.


you are correct, which is what i said i did if you read my whole post.




Apr 01, 2014 at 09:25 AM
redisburning
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p.3 #2 · p.3 #2 · A7 or A7R with Vintage MF glass? Poll Inside!


ddd

Edited on May 01, 2014 at 07:11 PM · View previous versions



Apr 01, 2014 at 10:26 AM
uhoh7
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p.3 #3 · p.3 #3 · A7 or A7R with Vintage MF glass? Poll Inside!


sebboh wrote:
i shot the same scene with the rokkor 24/2.8, rokkor 28/2, 58/1.2, contax g 28/2.8, contax g 45/2, and leica m 40/2 summicron-c on both the a7r and the a7 (but on different days). only the contax g 28/2.8 looked worse on the a7r when downsized to 24mp, all the rest looked sharper (even in the corners) on the a7r. i will try to normalize white balance etc and make crops when i have time to post the comparisons.



Well it would not be the first time I was wrong about something

Obviously a good test would be something like:

Infinity past 30 meters. 35mm 28mm 20ish mm SLR glass.

wide open f/4 5.6 8 11 and 16.

At any of those FLs superior corners wide open with A7r would really surprise me.

I've been having a email corespondence with Dan at Maxmax which I don't think he will mind if I share:

Me:
Have you had a chance to work on a Sony A7 sensor?

Are you ready to do so?

Dan:
We need to update our website, but, yes, we can converted quite a few A7 and A7R cameras. We plan to do a monochrome conversion at some point, but do have a lot of other work to get done first.

me:
Would be very interested to talk with someone who has a maxmax HR conversion on the Sony A7 (not R).

Thick sensor toppings seem to limit the A7 with Leica M wide angles, .i.e soft edges. Does the HR conversion reduce this problem?

Does the HR conversion effect auto-focus?

What would be the downside of a HR conversion on a Sony A7.

cost would be 450USD?

TY so much for you time and info.

Dan:
Hi Charlie,

I have gotten some questions about this from others as well.

The Sony A7 ICF/AA stack is 1.75mm thick which is relatively thick. The lens flange to sensor distance is also short. If you think about the path of light exiting the lens as it goes to the sensor, it has to pass through the ICF/AA. If the light is going through the center, then the path is the shortest. As you move toward the sensor edges, the light has to travel at greater distance because the light is going through the ICF/AA at an angle. The effect is the same as if the ICF/AA stack changes thickness getting thicker towards the edges. The lens design and aperture also will affect this. A wide aperture longer lens will have less of a problem than a small aperture wide angle lens.

When we do an HR conversion, we remove the stock ICF/AA and replace it with a new ICF-Only having the exact same thickness. If you don't use the correct thickness, then you change the focal plane of the camera. So, our HR conversion AF will work correctly. Biggest downside on HR, and this changes depending on the camera ICF/AA design, is that the AA part of the stack is clear while the ICF has a teal tint. The new ICF-Only has a thicker ICF which shifts WB toward the cyan. Most just set a custom WB if it is an issue, but some don't like it. The thinner the ICF/AA stack, the less of a color shift.

To fix the A7, you would need to go with a thinner ICF. A thinner ICF is going to move the focal plane towards the lens. To get correct focus, you would need to move the sensor closer to the lens which is hard to do on the A7. You would have to either mill the sensor mounting points and modify the camera body sensor mounting points. Neither is an attractive option. Possible, but it would be a lot of work and easy to spend a lot of time trying to get it just right.

The Sony conversions are $550 because their bodies are all really hard to take apart.

me:
Can't thank you enough for the detailed reply.

I'm hearing that it would be 1.75mm before and after HR conversion, hence edge performance with short flange wide angle lenses is unlikely to improve. Moving the sensor would only cause the same issue.

Here's the thing: many of us are using the A7 for manual focus lenses only. Hence auto focus is not an issue.

On special request, would maxmax apply a thin ICF stack, and how thin could it be?

Is there some special reason the HR ICF has a teal tint, and could that be avoided, since Sony auto WB is actually very good?

TY so much,
I will get this information out to many interested Sony owners at FM and RFF forums.
Charlie

Dan:
Hi Charlie,

If I could put and a thin ICF and move the sensor closer to the lens, then the camera would focus. If put in a thinner ICF, then the camera will become near-sited. You would need to focus past infinity for focus or use one of those adapters that moves the lens back and forth. The thickness of the ICF/AA stack is the problem - you would still have the issue with a thinner ICF, but not as bad.

A quick check shows I have a 0.58mm ICF that I can cut to fit.

Most camera ICF/AA stack have a teal tint to the ICF layer. On a DLSR, typically, there is something like BG38 IR absorbing glass which has a teal tint and then vapor deposition coatings to help block IR as well. Since I put in a new ICF only that has the same thickness as the stock ICF/AA, the WB gets more teal. If I used 0.59mm, I don't think you would see much WB shift. There would be some shift somewhere because the stack is changing. Also, not sure if the Sony auto WB is off the sensor anyhow rather than a separate sensor like a typical DLSR.

end of conversation

So I think what jumps at me right away, is that we could go to .58 and maybe have some great performance with RF wides, but our adapter infinity would be 1.17mm off. We would need to shave this amount.

My new Hawks has an adjustable infinity, but I'm not sure it's that much.

I bet he would make a custom one...what a fun experiment that would be





Apr 01, 2014 at 03:20 PM
wfrank
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p.3 #4 · p.3 #4 · A7 or A7R with Vintage MF glass? Poll Inside!


That sounds mighty impressive though I wouldnt dare to risk it myself, I stick with the std :-)

A bit OT but if sensor topping is the main culprit (as seen in that conversation and elsewhere in the discussions in this forum) one wonders what strong reasons Sony had to make them thick. I cannot believe it's just because of cost.



Apr 01, 2014 at 03:46 PM
uhoh7
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p.3 #5 · p.3 #5 · A7 or A7R with Vintage MF glass? Poll Inside!


wfrank wrote:
That sounds mighty impressive though I wouldnt dare to risk it myself, I stick with the std :-)

A bit OT but if sensor topping is the main culprit (as seen in that conversation and elsewhere in the discussions in this forum) one wonders what strong reasons Sony had to make them thick. I cannot believe it's just because of cost.


probably to perform various other tricks, but what a shame.

Can anyone tell the R from the plain 7 in the A7(r) images thread?

Yet a good shot M9 + 50 Lux is hard to duplicate.



Apr 01, 2014 at 04:04 PM
Dudewithoutape
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p.3 #6 · p.3 #6 · A7 or A7R with Vintage MF glass? Poll Inside!


A part of it is the CCD sensor in the M9 versus the CMOS sensor in the A7/R and just about every other single modern day camera. CMOS gets better high ISO performance, CCD gets better low ISO performance. Just as you mentioned, you'd rather never shoot above 800 on the M9.


Apr 01, 2014 at 04:35 PM
tennclay
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p.3 #7 · p.3 #7 · A7 or A7R with Vintage MF glass? Poll Inside!


wfrank wrote:
So besides the something like 20%+ linear more pixels, what would the other advantages be that you find clearly visible all the time?


Along with the other reasons cited by Sebboh, more detail is available in the A7r photos. And I didn't say advantages are visible "all the time". I stated that I see the A7r advantages with all the SLR lenses I have used on both thus far.


And, BTW, tripod is good tool for harvesting that potential extra resolution instead of throwing them away with some spontaneous live type of photography.


Again, Sebboh helped out here. There is no problem shooting the A7r handheld - at hand held speeds, the same is true of the A7. But the "hand held speeds" may be different for each camera. I have seen that the A7r is more prone to shutter blur, but that didn't surprise me when I bought it. I was more surprised to see the problems that occur with the A7 EFC at some shutter speeds; that is, the dark banding at the top of the frame.

And, of course, a purist could claim, and some do, that a tripod is needed to get the best from any camera - not just the A7r. But I have shot most of my cameras handheld, except my 8x10 View cameras - not because of shutter shake, but more elbow shake...



Apr 01, 2014 at 06:30 PM
Dudewithoutape
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p.3 #8 · p.3 #8 · A7 or A7R with Vintage MF glass? Poll Inside!


At what shutter speed did you notice the banding? I read about it for shots longer than 1/6th ish. But the thing is you can turn ECFS off, but the A7R lacks it completely.


Apr 01, 2014 at 06:59 PM
sebboh
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p.3 #9 · p.3 #9 · A7 or A7R with Vintage MF glass? Poll Inside!



uhoh7 wrote:
Can anyone tell the R from the plain 7 in the A7(r) images thread?


I expect not.

uhoh7 wrote:
Yet a good shot M9 + 50 Lux is hard to duplicate.


I disagree. I think if you ask any of the photographers who own both an a7 and an m9 to take a bunch of pics with the 50 lux (any version) and process them to taste you won't be able to tell the difference at websize or in print except in situations that provoke heavy corner smearing from the a7 or bad moire from the m9.

to me the most distinctive things about the m9 are high per pixel contrast/sharpness and poor color. the sharpness gets equalized by downsizing/printing and the extra pixels of the a7(r). the color can be mostly fixed with color profiles and tweaking.




Apr 01, 2014 at 07:01 PM
snapsy
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p.3 #10 · p.3 #10 · A7 or A7R with Vintage MF glass? Poll Inside!


uhoh7 wrote:
Yet a good shot M9 + 50 Lux is hard to duplicate.

That's because getting the focus perfect on an M9 is so hard



Apr 01, 2014 at 07:03 PM
tennclay
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p.3 #11 · p.3 #11 · A7 or A7R with Vintage MF glass? Poll Inside!


snapsy wrote:
That's because getting the focus perfect on an M9 is so hard


Particularly with an SLR lens!

Interesting how the M9 has drawn so many comments in a thread concerning the Sonys and SLR lenses! My M9 shots with SLR lenses really stunk, so I sold it - I keep an M8 for use with my RF lenses and nostalgia, though. (And everyone knows that the M8 sensor is equivalent to a cropped M9 sensor, right? )

I am not knocking anyone's preferences (e.g., I don't question Lomographers' choices). I can understand someone preferring a particular look, not matter what the rationalization. But to try to state that the old M9 is technically better than anything the A7/A7r can do at 50mm is not very credible. Pair the superior sensor of either camera with the Otus or 55 and I doubt an objective reviewer would make that claim.

Why not get back on subject and discuss the advantages of the A7 or A7r over the other with proper SLR lenses? I have only had the A7 a short period of time, but so far I am not seeing advantages in image quality in the corners, color shifts etc. with MY SLR lenses.

I may do some A/B testing this weekend, but in the meantime, let's see some controlled comparisons, if you have them...



Apr 01, 2014 at 07:52 PM
sebboh
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p.3 #12 · p.3 #12 · A7 or A7R with Vintage MF glass? Poll Inside!


tennclay wrote:
Why not get back on subject and discuss the advantages of the A7 or A7r over the other with proper SLR lenses? I have only had the A7 a short period of time, but so far I am not seeing advantages in image quality in the corners, color shifts etc. with MY SLR lenses.

I may do some A/B testing this weekend, but in the meantime, let's see some controlled comparisons, if you have them...


it seems i deleted my a7 test shots made to match the ones i took with the a7r after i looked at them. will have to retake them.




Apr 01, 2014 at 11:41 PM
wfrank
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p.3 #13 · p.3 #13 · A7 or A7R with Vintage MF glass? Poll Inside!


tennclay wrote:
Along with the other reasons cited by Sebboh, more detail is available in the A7r photos. And I didn't say advantages are visible "all the time". I stated that I see the A7r advantages with all the SLR lenses I have used on both thus far.

Again, Sebboh helped out here. There is no problem shooting the A7r handheld - at hand held speeds, the same is true of the A7. But the "hand held speeds" may be different for each camera. I have seen that the A7r is more prone to shutter blur, but that didn't surprise me when
...Show more

I'm with you. What I am trying to say, I guess, is that I am usually a too sloppy user - or too demanding - too be able to harvest that extra grain the A7r can give. And of course you dont need a tripod to use the A7r but as not only I have said (or "realized") is that the extra resolution is not a given, it comes with a price. It may matter to person #1 whereas #2 dont care and the opposite, regardless if it's about responsiveness, filesize, corner effects, print size, type-of-photography or whatever.

Both cams got pros and cons, none can be placed on top objectively.



Apr 02, 2014 at 04:52 PM
uhoh7
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p.3 #14 · p.3 #14 · A7 or A7R with Vintage MF glass? Poll Inside!


snapsy wrote:
That's because getting the focus perfect on an M9 is so hard


Not sure which is more amusing, those who get M because of RF, or those who won't use M because of RF.

It's a perplexing method, sometimes working really good other times not hardly working .

Yesterday I left my lens cap on for a classic shot, today I had my cap off, but did not inspect lens which had acquired a leaf fragment.

Why bring up M9 in A7 vs R discussion? Well it's the only other direct competitor, identical form factor, a grand more money, but in many circumstances results are superior. Many of us dreamed of the A7 as RF lens platform. So to compare with the body where they are designed to go is natural enough.

If I could get the same results with either Sony, I'd be over the moon. Yet without the Sonys I would never have tried the M9, which I always found too big.

If you have a few RF lenses now, the M9 cost is about the same as the A7r, since you won't be buying the 35, the 55 and whatever else comes down the pike.

Using both cameras everyday some things stand out. The Sony feels alot easier to break, with all it's little doors and windows. But I prefer it in the hand, since it has a grip and thumb rest. People prefer being shot with the Leica, though they often mistake the Sony for a film camera also. They just do not tense as much when you put the camera to your eye.

The Sony shutter, for me is the worst part of the camera, besides the 1.75mm sensor cover. Crazy loud, that's bad enough but the feel for me is still unpredictable. I cannot hold the camera as steady.

The Leica is a trickster. I use the idiot "a" setting alot, but it can be bumped to something else very easy. The camera locks up on a regular basis. You are shooting away, and then....no shutter. You can use the menu. First time this happened I had a heart attack, but doesn't phase me now. You pop the bottom plate, release the battery and push it back, then you are back in business like nothing ever happened.

Anyway all that said, they make a great pair, the M9 and the A7. If you shoot mostly primes, it's nice to have two bodies anyway.





Apr 02, 2014 at 08:22 PM
sebboh
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p.3 #15 · p.3 #15 · A7 or A7R with Vintage MF glass? Poll Inside!


alright, i reshot the my a7 comparison shots today so i can show the comparison. sadly i didn't look at my a7r shots as i was taking them so framing is a bit different and the light was different between days, but i think you can get a general idea.

test lens is the rokkor MD W 28/2 since charlie indicated that he thought wide angle slr lenses were more troublesome on the a7r and i figured a fast lens would be more problematic. i only shot it on the a7r at f/2 and f/8, so that's what you get.

here is the whole image at f/8 from the a7r:
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7097/13596143263_ef0ce30c48_o.jpg
and the same on the a7:
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7029/13596143753_3451391f91_o.jpg

all shots were focused to the lenses infinity stop (which i confirmed to be best focus with focus magnification) mounted on the same adapter ($12 noname adapter that i shimmed for infinity on my nex-7). all images received the same processing in LR except for some exposure/blacks tweaking to match exposures. i used adobe's default sharpening and checked the CA correction box. i set WB to the same point in each image.

i downsized the a7r images to 6000x4004 (no idea where those extra 4 pixels came from?) in PS CC using bicubic (smooth gradients). i then took matched crops from the corner, midzone, and center of the image. finally, since the framing was slightly off i took a crop, that i labeled as "unfair", of the same lamp post that is closer to corner of the frame in the a7r shot than in the a7 shot, thus handicapping the a7r.

here is the comparison:
http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3828/13596142863_e5e7b96eae_o.jpg



Apr 03, 2014 at 12:59 AM
sebboh
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p.3 #16 · p.3 #16 · A7 or A7R with Vintage MF glass? Poll Inside!


bonus comparison with the rokkor 24/2.8 at f/11.

a7r whole frame:
http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2836/13604096635_8c7f8200a6_o.jpg

a7 whole frame:
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7266/13604453684_68f70a7583_o.jpg

direct comparison:
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7417/13604099185_9683b8be0d_o.jpg

conclusions:
1) there is no increased degradation with the a7r + wide angle slr lenses in the corners compared to the a7.
2) the a7r is better even in the extreme corners with wide angle slr lenses.
3) the difference is tiny and won't be noticed by anybody unless you print huge or do a direct comparison like this.
4) i'm not going to bother taking additional test shots, the a7r still did better despite much worse conditions.




Apr 03, 2014 at 10:34 AM
FlyPenFly
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p.3 #17 · p.3 #17 · A7 or A7R with Vintage MF glass? Poll Inside!


In the larger apertures, the A7 looks better?


Apr 03, 2014 at 10:43 AM
sebboh
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p.3 #18 · p.3 #18 · A7 or A7R with Vintage MF glass? Poll Inside!


FlyPenFly wrote:
In the larger apertures, the A7 looks better?


no look at the f/2 shots with the 28mm. the a7r is still slightly better.

i didn't post the larger apertures for the 24/2.8 because i was lazy and the corners were to blurry to really see anything at all (field curvature puts the corners way oof with that lens).




Apr 03, 2014 at 10:46 AM
tennclay
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p.3 #19 · p.3 #19 · A7 or A7R with Vintage MF glass? Poll Inside!


uhoh7 wrote:
Why bring up M9 in A7 vs R discussion? Well it's the only other direct competitor, identical form factor, a grand more money, but in many circumstances results are superior. Many of us dreamed of the A7 as RF lens platform. So to compare with the body where they are designed to go is natural enough.



The point is why drag out that M9 in this thread? How does it fare with Minolta MD, Canon FD, or Contax C/Y Lenses?
I think it is clear that there is no relevance to this thread. Or is it that you didn't bother to read the what the thread was about?

Look, I like the M9/M8 - I had one for years and it was pretty nice, I just decided that I liked higher image quality, reliability, and versatility more than the simplicity of it. Now I generally consider the M system as film gear and use it for B&W photos that the M9/M8 can't approach. Try to understand that others have much more experience with the M9, and a lot decided that there were better options and have moved on to other systems.

Its clear that you are enamored with your "new" Leica and want to scream from the mountaintops about you new love affair, but why not give some thought about the topic of the thread before crapping it?






Apr 03, 2014 at 05:55 PM
tennclay
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p.3 #20 · p.3 #20 · A7 or A7R with Vintage MF glass? Poll Inside!


sebboh wrote:
no look at the f/2 shots with the 28mm. the a7r is still slightly better.

i didn't post the larger apertures for the 24/2.8 because i was lazy and the corners were to blurry to really see anything at all (field curvature puts the corners way oof with that lens).



I haven't done controlled testing, but your results were basically as I would expect. Thanks for posting the test...



Apr 03, 2014 at 06:54 PM
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