Said another way, if the Dear Susan user is right and there are not problems with E and A mount lenses, then the digilloyd users cannot be right in his speculation that the cause is excessive compression of the files going to the EVF. If that were a hardware problem like in the Nikon D800, then E and A mount lenses wouldn't work well. So, lets just hold our horses for a few days and we will know a lot more. In fact, I am sure Phillipe (philber) will be able to tell us a lot more tomorrow. He got his camera today and he made a short report that his ZM 35 f/1.4 looked very good with the new camera, which suggests to me that he didn't notice the problem straight away and if it is a bad as these two reports suggest you would think that he would have.
Fred Miranda wrote:
I remember I was the first to report the D800 liveview issue. I got hammered for saying it was not good for critical focusing in low light.
snapsy probably remembers it.
Yup, I've felt the same way trying to talk about the A7r's shutter vibration. I preordered both variants when they were first announced and compared them head to head, I wasn't making things up or repeating what I'd seen on Diglloyd. Didn't matter. Same thing sorta happened on the Nikon forum with the D600's oil and dirt issue. I don't know why people can't admit that a product they've purchased isn't perfect. It doesn't make them stupid for buying it! Nothing is perfect!
But anyway, I definitely hope you will post impressions because although I'm not in the market for the A7rII (no new camera until they upgrade those damn 640x480 LCD's they've used for 3-4 generations, is the rule I've set for myself) I definitely want to keep tabs on how EVF technology is progressing since I found the original A7 not ready for prime time unless you only shoot in daylight.
hiepphotog wrote:
Only affect 5x mode if true, still functional at 12.5x. Not too much of a deal-breaker
davewolfs wrote:
When you manually engage a loxia lens it doesn't do 12x it does the initial zoom which I think is 5. This would imply a change in usability. Which for me would be pretty shitty!
That really ought to be something you can choose in a settings menu somewhere.
Fred Miranda wrote:
I remember I was the first to report the D800 liveview issue. I got hammered for saying it was not good for critical focusing in low light.
snapsy probably remembers it.
You were definitely the first and I think only reviewer who gave it the attention it deserves. But this goes way back Here's my original thread on it at dpreview, a few days after the D800 first started shipping:
FOTOPHIL wrote:
Snapsy, I was too cheap to get fast shipping from B&H so you have a three day lead on me for Sony A7RII testing. Please let us know your findings. I doubt that Nikon even considered the D800 for manual lens focussing applications, but Sony knows that their new A7RII will see lots of manual focus lens work so we shouldn't have a problem.
Don't think I'll be the first - I'm still on the fence with my preorder scheduled to ship tomorrow.
2ndviolinman wrote:
Have I misunderstood the specs? I thought the resolution (pixels in the EVF) were the same, but the magnification of the optics is greater in the new body, so not greater resolution, just greater magnification? Maybe a coarser view of the same resolution is causing problems for some to "see" focus.
The pixel density of the EVF in the A7rII is less than that of the A7r due to your point above. I suspect you have hit the nail on the head. Some users will notice, some will not as much. I suspect I will fall into the first category as I already find I want more resolution than the A7r EVF offers. I'm sure Sony will end up putting a higher res EVF in the next upgrade (and I'm surprised they did not do so here).
Tariq Gibran wrote:
The pixel density of the EVF in the A7rII is less than that of the A7r due to your point above. I suspect you have hit the nail on the head. Some users will notice, some will not as much. I suspect I will fall into the first category as I already find I want more resolution than the A7r EVF offers. I'm sure Sony will end up putting a higher res EVF in the next upgrade (and I'm surprised they did not do so here).
I don't think this is the case, based on how the magnified view gets progressively better/easier to focus to from the A7s -> A7 -> A7r due to the higher pixel-density magnification. You can see this in the video I posted earlier in the thread.
Speaking of the LV clarity between the existing A7 series bodies, one thing that struck me as odd when I did the comparison is how the A7s had the absolute worst low-light LV feed in terms of noise even though it has the best-performing noise sensor and largest pixels for the 1:1 LV view (you can see this in the second video I posted). I theorized at the time that Sony switched to using the movie logic to deliver the LV feed at lower res and then up-sampled for the magnified view. I was thinking it was unique to the A7s but maybe it represents a change in the common 4K-support firmware, which would be a very bad thing.
snapsy wrote:
I don't think this is the case, based on how the magnified view gets progressively better/easier to focus to from the A7s -> A7 -> A7r due to the higher pixel-density magnification. You can see this in the video I posted earlier in the thread.
I don't quite follow your logic. If you magnify but there is no additional information enlarged, you end up with an image that looks less sharp (at least to some people) because the pixel density is less. In any case, I should have an A7rII next week to test so I will at least see how my eyes react to the new, magnified optics.
snapsy wrote:
I don't think this is the case, based on how the magnified view gets progressively better/easier to focus to from the A7s -> A7 -> A7r due to the higher pixel-density magnification. You can see this in the video I posted earlier in the thread.
+1
That and the difference in EVF magnification (# of pixels is the ~same) and number of sensor pixels is just not that much. If anything it's that the lenses are stopped down when in live view (my m43 lenses do this when this is too much light and the focus is definitely off) or the 5x feed is poorly downsampled. The users on Lloyd's web site indicated that the 12.5x was better. It could also be due to the sharpening/contrast settings of the image being shown in the EVF. If it really is a very poor magnified image then there will be a lot of returns to B&H on Thursday . . .
Tariq Gibran wrote:
I don't quite follow your logic. If you magnify but there is no additional information enlarged, you end up with an image that looks less sharp (at least to some people) because the pixel density is less. In any case, I should have an A7rII next week to test so I will at least see how my eyes react to the new, magnified optics.
If you watch the video I posted in the thread the opposite turned out to be true. I follow your reasoning but in practice the A7r provides the best magnified view for MF focus; it's noticeably sharper to focus to vs the A7 and miles better than the A7s.
snapsy wrote:
If you watch the video I posted in the thread the opposite turned out to be true. I follow your reasoning but in practice the A7r provides the best magnified view for MF focus; it's noticeably sharper to focus to vs the A7 and miles better than the A7s.
Yep.
Because you are at Sensor Pixel per LCD Pixel at these maximum magnifications and the image is much larger and details more resolved with the A7R - they all have the same number of LCD and EVF pixels, but the image of the things to try to focus on are larger, and hence easier to check the focus with.
Fred Miranda wrote:
Following this logic the A7RII should have the best magnified view for MF.
It should, unless Sony is using the movie feed and interpolating the magnified view from it like they appear to do for the A7s. If this is the case then not only will the A7rII have poor clarity but also very poor low-light LV performance, just like the A7s.
snapsy wrote:
It should, unless Sony is using the movie feed and interpolating the magnified view from it like they appear to do for the A7s. If this is the case then not only will the A7rII have poor clarity but also very poor low-light LV performance, just like the A7s.
snapsy wrote:
It should, unless Sony is using the movie feed and interpolating the magnified view from it like they appear to do for the A7s. If this is the case then not only will the A7rII have poor clarity but also very poor low-light LV performance, just like the A7s.
Continuing along those lines, perhaps Sony thought that using the 4K movie logic would provide sufficient resolution for the magnified view, instead of sampling the MF window area of the sensor at 1:1 like they do on the A7r and A7. This would allow them to consolidate the chip and firmware logic for both functions and also improve the magnified view when recording video (ie, provide same level of detail for stills vs movie magnification, unlike the jarring difference in clarity between the two modes on the existing A7 bodies).
/I have to say that I find focusing manually quite difficult (the EVF is nowhere near as good as the Olympus one in this respect) . It’s strange, but I find it quite easy to manually focus native or A mount lenses on the A7r2 but not so easy, in fact downright difficult, to focus legacy lenses, even when the lens is opened right up to the widest aperture. The subject matter makes quite a difference – buildings are easier than landscapes – but the native lenses are easier regardless of subject.
I do use focus peaking, but don’t totally trust it and I find the 5x magnified view of the EVF not to have sufficient detail to focus accurately, especially as the line between being in and out of focus is so fine. I must learn to trust the peaking facility but, like you, dislike the distortion it brings to the viewed image – a bit like the blinking zebras which must be capable of bringing on epilepsy in a susceptible person…!!!/
So, if video feed was being used instead of direct pixel readout then why the statement above about poor ability with legacy MF glass compared to native E mount lenses?
