Why did Sony put this on the 7 series ? No one seems to use it. I have lots of E-lens for my Nex 7 and A6000 and the results look pretty good at only 10 MP on my A7, yet i see no one posting cropped photos. On certain Nikons i believe the crop may speed up the frames per minute or increase the buffer. So is the reason to let E mount users use their lenses on the E mount full frame bodies, accepting cropped and less MP images ? I look at images on a LCD HD TV and the cropped A7 images look quite good. It wasnt too long ago that 10 MP was top of the line, so to speak.
I think Sony likes to make "feature-rich" bodies, if they have their druthers.
One of the things they have considered, is that some (many?) users of the A7 series may want their images to look "correct" from go as all they will do is shoot them, download then share them. They may never open, nor even want to open them in any editing program.
Especially if they have E-mount (not FE) lenses and shoot a ton of pictures on vacation...as an example. Such a user might think the extreme vignetted corners of a full-frame sensor capture through an E-mount lens look "bogus" or "crap".
For them, I'd say Sony wants to make a product that looks like it's working as intended, so the default setting is "crop, if E-mount", which connoisseurs can easily disable.
Reduces rolling shutter on A7s quite a bit (that's a common complaint around A7s for video shooters), so a lot of video shooters use crop mode when shooting action or with lots of camera movement. You can use a speedbooster and shoot something like the Sigma 18-35/1.8 zoom and get a fast lens with close to full frame look. It is also close to traditional Super 35 format used in film.
Kingfishphoto wrote:
Why did Sony put this on the 7 series ? No one seems to use it.
One of the reasons I'm considering an A7R (or a D810) is the crop mode. In crop mode I get a bunch of 'new' lenses free of charge and 15mpx files - more than a 'classic' 5D and good enough for most real world applications.
I know you can just shoot away and then crop later, but this mode gives you a framing outline so you can compose accurately on the spot, which I think is more useful and satisfying than shooting with a vague notion of cropping later. Also, if you like to get the shot 'in camera', it helps encourage a consistency of style... as opposed to encouraging arbitrary cropping.
Squinty wrote:
One of the reasons I'm considering an A7R (or a D810) is the crop mode. In crop mode I get a bunch of 'new' lenses free of charge and 15mpx files - more than a 'classic' 5D and good enough for most real world applications.
I know you can just shoot away and then crop later, but this mode gives you a framing outline so you can compose accurately on the spot, which I think is more useful and satisfying than shooting with a vague notion of cropping later. Also, if you like to get the shot 'in camera', it helps encourage a consistency of style... as opposed to encouraging arbitrary cropping....Show more →
Great advice. I have several E lenses for my NEX-5N and NEX-7. I also have an A7R and FE 35/2.8.
I was curious how OSS stabilization was working on the A7R as I am used to IBIS on my E-M5/1.
So I used my SEL50F18 50mm f/1.8 lens that has OSS on the A7R in crop and uncrop mode.
Half pressing the shutter very nicely stabilizes the image.
Also in crop mode with 15 MP one gets a rectangular image not that different from the 16 MP of the NEX-5N.
Equivalent to 75 mm for 135 film. Certainly useable until I buy the FE 55/1.8 lens. :-)
Just for the fun of it, this morning I put the E16-70mm f/4 on the A6000 to take a picture at the 16mm end and one at 70mm end, then put the lens on the A7R, did the same shots using crop mode, then put the FE70-200mm on the A7R and took a shot at the 70mm end. This is no scientific test, forget about white balance, exposures and other settings, I just wanted to see the angle of views. If the E16-70mm F/4 is proven to be equal to the FE 24-70m f/4 on an A7R in terms of IQ, it could effectively make a great 24-105mm walk around lens on the A7R, albeit you get only 15MP.
One other advantage of the crop mode is that you can trade resolution of the sensor for a smaller lens size. For example, you can use the Sony/Zeiss 16-70 f/4 in crop mode and have a lens about half the size as a 24-105 f/4 in FF mode. You would of course sacrifice resolution and noise would be more prominent, but for a convenient small package it might be worth it to some.
Kingfishphoto wrote:
Why did Sony put this on the 7 series ? No one seems to use it. I have lots of E-lens for my Nex 7 and A6000 and the results look pretty good at only 10 MP on my A7, yet i see no one posting cropped photos. On certain Nikons i believe the crop may speed up the frames per minute or increase the buffer. So is the reason to let E mount users use their lenses on the E mount full frame bodies, accepting cropped and less MP images ? I look at images on a LCD HD TV and the cropped A7 images look quite good. It wasnt too long ago that 10 MP was top of the line, so to speak....Show more →
the main reason for crop mode on a full frame sensor is so you can use DX lenses on them, at least from Nikon's standpoint. This allows a lot of users who have DX lenses to migrate to a full frame sensor and not have to scrap all of their lenses off that bat.
I sure there was some of the same logic from Sony when it came to FE mount and E mount lenses.
Crop mode makes more sense in these Sonys than it does in Nikons, if you ask me. Sure, you can always crop in post, but when you use the crop mode with an EVF you get an accurate view of the final image filling the VF. With a Nikon you just get some poor, unmagnified framelines.
It also makes a lot of sense for video, since you can get more reach from your lenses while still getting the same 1080p resolution.
TheEmrys wrote:
Interesting difference in WB. Were they both on auto?
I looked at the EXIF, the ones shot with the A6000 used auto WB, spot metering, the ones shot with the A7R used manual WB, multi segman metering. I have no idea what happened there, I don't even know how to do manual WB.
Steve Spencer wrote:
One other advantage of the crop mode is that you can trade resolution of the sensor for a smaller lens size. For example, you can use the Sony/Zeiss 16-70 f/4 in crop mode and have a lens about half the size as a 24-105 f/4 in FF mode. You would of course sacrifice resolution and noise would be more prominent, but for a convenient small package it might be worth it to some.
I understand the smaller resolution part, but why would noise become more prominent?
Jan 18, 2015 at 06:54 AM
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kdrk888 wrote:
I understand the smaller resolution part, but why would noise become more prominent?
It is more prominent because you are in effect getting more magnification. It is the same reason that on the screen noise looks worse at 100% magnification than it does at 50% magnification. Similarly, downsizing lowers the amount of noise that is seen for the same reason. Cropping always makes noise more prominent for the same size print and this is no different.
I'll pitch this into the conversation here. Having two a6000 bodies and an A7, I have a mix of cropped and full frame lenses, so naturally I'm prone to mixing them up and certainly have tried cropped mode on the A7 with my APS-C E-mount lens collection. What surprised me was when I used my full frame FE 28-70mm on the a6000. Results looked better than with this lens mounted on the A7. In doing some research in various blogs and boards on the Web I read where in using the center part of the light circle on the smaller sensor one gets the best part of what the lens can produce, eliminating the marginal edge and corner areas that are often not too sharp on the full frame. The effective focal length ends up being 42-105mm which in practical terms is a bit wider than a 50 "normal" focal length and a medium telephoto on the long side. Pretty effective for most day-to-day shooting, and with OIS, to boot!
kdrk888 wrote:
forget about white balance, exposures and other settings
Thank you for sharing!
In doing my own comparisons in the past, I have found that using "Auto Tone" (in Lightroom) or similar usually gives fairly comparable "looks" to the same scene. (Or selecting the same "neutral grey" to balance the images and adjusting exposure.)
I have found that if I don't normalize the images that way, the color of teh image can influence my perception of sharpness and resolution. For example, when I was comparing Canon and Zeiss lenses.
No criticism - I appreciate you sharing the tests! Just an FYI. Cheers!
) but I think if you look there are apparently others.