Scott Stoness
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 p.76 #16 · Sony A7 and A7r Full Frame with Canon Lenses | |
dgdg wrote:
I am eager for Jim, Scott and others to test this with the ts-e lenses. Otherwise, the reviews indicate the auto focus will be too slow for action, tracking, and low light which is what I frequently need and appreciate from my 5D. Of course, as mentioned more than once, the appeal with this group is largely landscapes which hopefully don't move that much! Since I would often need to put this camera with other gear on carryon for vacations, I'd like to see a significant difference in IQ. Otherwise, I'd get better photos putting the money towards a trip. ...Show more →
see page 73 with some pictures but I will repeat it here.
I agree that the focus is very slow with the adapter and ef lens. Slower than the similar settup on EOS by 50% or so with metabones. eg my test of 24-70 in low light was 3s vs 2s on eosm and <1/2 on 5diii.[ also described on page 73 of this thread]
My tentative conclusion is if you have a 5diii, unless you want 36mpx and higher dynamic range (the latter is achievable by AEB and blending anyway) ; the 5diii is better for landscape. I will do some in the field work this weeend and update this conclusion and try to indicate whether the resolution is worthwhile.
In addition to the above, I am expecting that the a7r will replace my eosm for hiking after I spend another $2000 on small E lens - sigh. I am now debating leica rangerfnder 35mm or sony/zeiss 35/2.8 which is a bit slow. I will try the a7r with zeiss 35/2 and voightlander 35/? to see how it goes for walkabout.
Let me know what kind of tests you desire.
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On Saturday I picked up my a7r.
Here are my first impressions and some sample pictures:
1) It yields higher resolution based on my pixel peeping
2) It works fine as far as I can tell with my ts17 and ts24 which is the main reason I bought it to match with. I was worried that the edge fixes sony had implemented to fix extreme light angles might help rangerfinder lens but hurt regular lens. I could not find any distortion from this affect. So it passed the most important challenge for me. Including shifting to extremes and merging.
3) All my zeiss lens worked great 25/2, 15/2.8, 35/1.4. In fact I think with less vignetting. So again, it did great on with my eos mount zeiss's. No visible vignetting.
4) All my ef lens that I tried worked - 24-105 focussed and stabilized, 100-400 focussed and stabilized, 24-70 v1 focussed, 17-40L focusses, 70-300 5.6 focussed and stabilized, 50/1.8 (but no focus). I used with metabones III. But it seemed really slow to focus. My impression is a bit slower but comparable to than the same lens on my eosm with adapter. The 85/1.8v2 worked but it would only permit me to go to f1.3 not f1.2 - strange.
5) As expected it chews batteries. I can get 1000 or more pictures with 5diii but way less on a7r.
6) It features feel like the Russion version of the 5diii. It all works but not smoothly
- it seems to have more vibration on shutter release than the 5diii on mirror lockup.
- it does not time off to save battery easily or at least I have not found it easily
- I found a infared remote shutter release for alpha and of course I can't get it to work [works now the battery was dead. But good luck finding a wired one - Sony does not seem to have the momentum on landscape photography. They exist but are rare. And the ir one only works if you point it from in front or catch reflection which is not ideal. This will all be solved with time though]
- finding the magnify on liveview was tiresome - the manual is useless and cryptic
- I cannot sync for remote shutter release with my iphone 4s - don't know if not supported or just can't figure out - no manual [got this to sync but it would not actuate the shutter with the iphone. No clue why. Needs update of A7r software?]
- The canon wired remote shutter has an easy plug in. The sony equivalent feels like it will break at first slight touch. Ditto on sd card cover and battery cover.
7) The liveview focus did not seem to have a much resolution as my 5diii. Could be wrong. [I have experimented with this again this evening and my conclusion is that th a7r is as good to focus in live view as canon 5diii. I was confused because the sony does a 7x and 14x magnification vs 5x and 10x for sony. Of course 10x is easier to focus than 14x because 10x is more foregiving. But if you have a very good lens on a solid tripod the 14x would be better to focus. My experience in the wild is that 5x is the appropriate amount for most lens - their sharpness does not allow more focusing (eg 24-105) but the zeiss 25/2 is better and sometimes i go to 10x. So in summary, they are different. Likely 10x is better than 14x, but it is just a different set up.]
8) The histogram implemenation is way too small compared to the 5diii and thus it makes it difficult to get the exposure right wthout multiple trys
9) You can download the sony raw image processor. It works and stops working randomly. Mac Tower 8core, 32GB 10.6. I don't know why but it is frustrating. Eventually you will get through the conversions if you restart from where it stops and freezes. Aperture does not have raw converter yet. Nor does cs6.
10) There is no red light to indicate you are in the middle of a long exposure. In addition its hard to tell where you are in the sequence when you do an AEB - 3 AEB sort of makes a galloping noise and you have to hold it down to the end for it to complete its cycle. The 5diii was more intuitive with a red light on during exposure and 1 noise per shutter.
11) As noted elsewhere, using an L plate to be able to shoot portrait and landscape without turning the tripod head sideways, is yet to be perfected. The generic L plate I found, did not permit the body to be taken off the adapter because the turned body was too close to the L plate. Having to srew the l plate on and off to use the camera without the L plate is a pain. I have ordered a spacer for the adapter to give it more height and hopefull this solves my problem. This will be solved soon by someone responding to the market (Kirk, RRS, ...:?) but as of now, its not clear who.
12. Focus peaking is nice for manual focus handheld. I turned on the red. It shows the focus points which makes manual focus photography easier. However, for landscape I found that pickiing the point I want in focus and magnifying to 13 times and adjusting was the best and the focus peaking was too inprecise so far.
13) The highlight blinking is different than canon - it blinks on over and underexposed. Which is harder to manage than just overexposed.This is too much visual information. I like the just overepxosed blinking. But it provides this pre picture as opposed to post picture (5diii) so it is overall better with distracting undereposed.
Edited on Dec 05, 2013 at 12:00 AM · View previous versions
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