After using the A7r and 1Dx together nearly a year, I just want a new sensor which is significantly improve the IQ in actual shooting and PP, not just the number increase on paper
Although you may have read something into what I wrote, I did not conflate anything. I'm just explaining my perspective on the issue as a person who has a fine Canon DSLR body and a system of Canon lenses, and I have repeatedly acknowledged (and even linked to) folks I respect who came to a different conclusion.
Dan, I don't think anyone is trying to convince you that you should buy an A7r. Let me go back to what you wrote:
Despite the compelling and wonderful features of the Sony A7r and the Nikon D800/D810 bodies (either as replacements for Canon systems or to augment Canon lenses), the extent to which moving to them in the interim between their introduction and Canon's eventual upgrade is a good value proposition will vary depending upon a lot of factors: how large one thinks the improvement in IQ is, how significant that improvement is relative to the work that one actually produces, to what extent the minuses outweigh the pluses, one's patience, and how deep the photographer's pockets are. For some, the answer is "move now." For others, the answer is "patience."
All that is fine and good...but this is where I think you conflated things which I percieve to be different. You use the terms "replacements" and "augment," but then talk about pluses and minuses. Pluses and minuses need to be evaluated if you move from one system from another. If you augument, you don't have minuses, because you are getting pluses from both cameras. That's the point I'm trying to get across.
You bring up the "waiting" point regarding the Fujifilm system. This is a pretty different situation, and I'm a bit surprised you don't see that.
I'm suprised you don't see that an A7r, being a mirrorless camera, is closer to what your Fuji is than being a DSLR. You purchased your mirrorless Fuji to augment (not replace) your DSLR system. So it goes with many photographers who have purchased an A7r to augment their DSLR systems.
Scott Stoness wrote:
You are right to be concerned. Since buying my a7r, I have spent about $4000 in native lens for the beast, mutliple adapters, ..... which adds up to way more than the $8-9k rumour. And although I am happy with the body dynamic range and mpx, I don't like - using adapters, lousy battery performance, lousy electronic rangefinder view in bright light, the colors of sony vs canon, vibration issues near 1/100 shutter, the lack of a small uwa that works with it, .... . I will sell the a7r unless there is a uwa solution soon, when/if canon delivers this body. The a7r does not work well for me for landscape and hiking.I assume that a7r v2 might fix these problems but its obvious that sony strategy is to throw lots of stuff at the wall and see what sticks.
The only additional investment I made for my A7R is an external Sony battery, the charger (which I think Sony should have added to the A7package), a generic IR remote control, the MB Canon EF adapter and four inexpensive MF adapter rings. No need for any of the FE lenses if you are landscape shooter, MF is fully sufficient there. I am now using lenses which I kept for decades unused. So the additional investment for my A7R predominatly used for landscapes was about $500. Any points mentioned as issues above I cannot confirm from my usage of the A7R. If Canon at some point(?) comes out with a 5D MkIV, I won't be interested in anymore. I like it small and light-weight, mirrorless is for me the way to go. The photos which I am taking with my A7R and small MF lenses speak for themselves.
Scott Stoness wrote:
You are right to be concerned. Since buying my a7r, I have spent about $4000 in native lens for the beast, mutliple adapters, ..... which adds up to way more than the $8-9k rumour. And although I am happy with the body dynamic range and mpx, I don't like - using adapters, lousy battery performance, lousy electronic rangefinder view in bright light, the colors of sony vs canon, vibration issues near 1/100 shutter, the lack of a small uwa that works with it, .... . I will sell the a7r unless there is a uwa solution soon, when/if canon delivers this body. The a7r does not work well for me for landscape and hiking.I assume that a7r v2 might fix these problems but its obvious that sony strategy is to throw lots of stuff at the wall and see what sticks.
Thanks Scott, I have followed your well balanced posts on the A7r and they are one of the reasons I haven't pulled the trigger yet. I'd like a Canon solution, and at this point am willing to give them more time to produce the camera we all want to see. Whether that happens is anyone's guess but we can hope.
Scott Stoness wrote:
You are right to be concerned. Since buying my a7r, I have spent about $4000 in native lens for the beast, mutliple adapters, ..... which adds up to way more than the $8-9k rumour. And although I am happy with the body dynamic range and mpx, I don't like - using adapters, lousy battery performance, lousy electronic rangefinder view in bright light, the colors of sony vs canon, vibration issues near 1/100 shutter, the lack of a small uwa that works with it, .... . I will sell the a7r unless there is a uwa solution soon, when/if canon delivers this body. The a7r does not work well for me for landscape and hiking.I assume that a7r v2 might fix these problems but its obvious that sony strategy is to throw lots of stuff at the wall and see what sticks....Show more →
Compromises are inherent in any camera system choice, unfortunately, and there is not nor will there likely every be a perfect camera.
DID GM, Ford and Chrysler invest heavily in Nissan, Toyota and Honda when they were sent to rebuild Japan after WWII
DID they let the unions dictate terms in the US, knowing there profits were secure with their foreign investments
DID Canon invest in Sony stock
Fascinating that the OP finally drops back in with this bombshell and it is completely ignored. Why do you guys always argue so much about small details that you fail to understand the bigger picture?
gdanmitchell wrote:
Compromises are inherent in any camera system choice, unfortunately, and there is not nor will there likely every be a perfect camera.
The only bit annoying imperfection of the A7R to me is that the sensor glass thickness limits the use of prime rangefinder wide angle lenses. Everything else you find workarounds or get used to.
retrofocus wrote:
The only bit annoying imperfection of the A7R to me is that the sensor glass thickness limits the use of prime rangefinder wide angle lenses. Everything else you find workarounds or get used to.
That is exactly why I don't purchase anything made by Sony anymore. I don't have the time nor patience to find workarounds or suck it up and get used to something anymore. The only good thing about the a7 series is that it is a small flange distance full frame camera. You can put tons of lenses on it but none of them (except for like 3 first party lenses) work stupendously. The whole thing is a compromise. They should have done it right the first time instead of releasing a beta version to sell for public testing.
super35 wrote:
Fascinating that the OP finally drops back in with this bombshell and it is completely ignored. Why do you guys always argue so much about small details that you fail to understand the bigger picture?
I think because there a couple of ways to read it and some of us are not quite sure which one is being implied.
kezeka wrote:
That is exactly why I don't purchase anything made by Sony anymore. I don't have the time nor patience to find workarounds or suck it up and get used to something anymore. The only good thing about the a7 series is that it is a small flange distance full frame camera. You can put tons of lenses on it but none of them (except for like 3 first party lenses) work stupendously. The whole thing is a compromise. They should have done it right the first time instead of releasing a beta version to sell for public testing.
I know the Fred is using this camera and seems to have good success with the Canon TSE lenses. I guess thos eare rangefinder lenses though.
Chris
kezeka wrote:
That is exactly why I don't purchase anything made by Sony anymore. I don't have the time nor patience to find workarounds or suck it up and get used to something anymore. The only good thing about the a7 series is that it is a small flange distance full frame camera. You can put tons of lenses on it but none of them (except for like 3 first party lenses) work stupendously. The whole thing is a compromise. They should have done it right the first time instead of releasing a beta version to sell for public testing.
Did you ever use the A7 series? It doesn't sound like it. If you had used it, you would know that it works extremely well with most lenses out there, especially with older MF lenses. Some wide angle rangefinder lenses are the exemption of the rule. It's a great camera if you simply use it and take photos.
artd wrote:
Dan, I don't think anyone is trying to convince you that you should buy an A7r. Let me go back to what you wrote:
Despite the compelling and wonderful features of the Sony A7r and the Nikon D800/D810 bodies (either as replacements for Canon systems or to augment Canon lenses), the extent to which moving to them in the interim between their introduction and Canon's eventual upgrade is a good value proposition will vary...
All that is fine and good...but this is where I think you conflated things which I percieve to be different. You use the terms "replacements" and "augment," but then talk about pluses and minuses... If you augument, you don't have minuses, because you are getting pluses from both cameras.... ...Show more →
and
I'm suprised you don't see that an A7r, being a mirrorless camera, is closer to what your Fuji is than being a DSLR. You purchased your mirrorless Fuji to augment (not replace) your DSLR system. So it goes with many photographers who have purchased an A7r to augment their DSLR systems.
Sometimes I get the impression that some folks are just looking for an argument — and that the only thing I could post that would meet with your approval would be along the lines of "The A7r is the best camera the world has even seen. It is perfect! Go out and buy one now! Nothing else is worth using." ;-)
Of course if I did post such a thing, then I'd see the posts about how two-faced I was for changing. ;-)
super35 wrote:
Fascinating that the OP finally drops back in with this bombshell and it is completely ignored. Why do you guys always argue so much about small details that you fail to understand the bigger picture?
retrofocus wrote:
Did you ever use the A7 series? It doesn't sound like it. If you had used it, you would know that it works extremely well with most lenses out there, especially with older MF lenses. Some wide angle rangefinder lenses are the exemption of the rule. It's a great camera if you simply use it and take photos.
I bought one and tried it for a week before sending it back because it kept crashing and requiring hard reboots every few hours. The button layout was miserable. The shutter lag was worse than my iPhone. And as much as people want to believe that they work well well all sorts of rangefinder glass, hopes and dreams won't fix the problems with the angles of incidence on rangefinder glass 35mm and wider without a tele centric design. They work GREAT with big heavy telecentric lenses, like most SLR lenses but the a7 series does not work well with anywhere close to all rangefinder glass. Maybe it's because of the thick sensor glass, maybe it is the small aperture of the E mount, it's probably both but it shows that sony is running into problems with designing small WA lenses for it when the new 16-35 FE is about the same size as the canon 16-35 IS, and the new FE 35/1.4 is quite large and heavy too. On top of all of that, the very real sensor shaking issues should have been worked out in R&D.
Sorry, I just don't buy into the idea that sony deserves a pat on the back until they resolve the button layout, and find a way to actually build a responsive camera.
At least when canon f***ed up with the 1D3 they eventually owned up to it and tried to fix it after countless hours of complaining by customers. Sony, as a company, has never shown even that little compassion towards its customers. There is a reason they are 12 billion down over the last 8 years.
I've noticed that the edges and corners on my 16-35 f/4 IS are noticeably softer on my A7 than they are on the 5D3 or 1Ds3. At first I thought it was a problem with my adapter, but all of my other lenses seem alright and it seems pretty even around the frame. I wonder if it has something to with the sensor glass thickness.
whumber wrote:
I've noticed that the edges and corners on my 16-35 f/4 IS are noticeably softer on my A7 than they are on the 5D3 or 1Ds3. At first I thought it was a problem with my adapter, but all of my other lenses seem alright and it seems pretty even around the frame. I wonder if it has something to with the sensor glass thickness.
Maybe 16-35 isn't quite sharp enough to pull off 36MP FF at the farthest edges?
kezeka wrote:
I bought one and tried it for a week before sending it back because it kept crashing and requiring hard reboots every few hours. The button layout was miserable. The shutter lag was worse than my iPhone. And as much as people want to believe that they work well well all sorts of rangefinder glass, hopes and dreams won't fix the problems with the angles of incidence on rangefinder glass 35mm and wider without a tele centric design. They work GREAT with big heavy telecentric lenses, like most SLR lenses but the a7 series does not work well with anywhere close to all rangefinder glass. Maybe it's because of the thick sensor glass, maybe it is the small aperture of the E mount, it's probably both but it shows that sony is running into problems with designing small WA lenses for it when the new 16-35 FE is about the same size as the canon 16-35 IS, and the new FE 35/1.4 is quite large and heavy too. On top of all of that, the very real sensor shaking issues should have been worked out in R&D.
Sorry, I just don't buy into the idea that sony deserves a pat on the back until they resolve the button layout, and find a way to actually build a responsive camera.
At least when canon f***ed up with the 1D3 they eventually owned up to it and tried to fix it after countless hours of complaining by customers. Sony, as a company, has never shown even that little compassion towards its customers. There is a reason they are 12 billion down over the last 8 years....Show more →
I am also not too excited that the new Sony FE lenses come close in size to regular DSLR lenses. Likely Sony/Zeiss are pushing out existing DSLR lens designs with slight modifications to fit the E-mount because it is faster than designing small lenses for the E-mount from scratch. To me personally it doesn't matter since I am mostly using my A7R either with Canon EF lenses anyway or more often so with MF lenses. The latter are indeed a lot smaller and as powerful. Rangefinder lenses above 35 mm work fine with the A7 series - my Leica Summicron-M 2/50 is the sharpest 50 mm lens I have. And the whole thing (camera, lens, small adapter ring) is easily portable and light. I am in the majority taking photos below 100 mm focal length, so far I did not experience the vibration issues. Sorry to hear that you suffered from malfunctions of the camera after you received it - I had none of those issues described. I personally love the button layout with exemption of the position of the C2 button (consider it a minor thing to get used to). Everything else I can control with my right hand and still looking through the EVF. Using my DSLR now feels cumbersome in comparison.
Archive 2014 · OMG - 1DsX in NYC...
kidding, Frank.