p.17 #1 · First Sighting: A7rii Thin filter in action
Hi Makten, the shutter speed at f11 of 240 went to 1/25. This is still within one over focal lenght and I braced front end of the lens firmly against window glass. (I shot through window). But of course, some camera movements could happen and I strongly needed to have coffee then. I used tripod though for the wardrobe sets as they were done at home.
Nevertheless, A7 NKIR is consistently better than M240 for all apertures from f2.8 to f8.
p.17 #2 · First Sighting: A7rii Thin filter in action
Hi artur5, today I had a chance to compare FE 50mm 1.4 on A7 UT and stock A7. The image is slightly worse on edge and peripheral areas on the A7 UT. Then why the Loxia 50mm is better on the UT mod? Probably this is because Loxia 50mm design was derived from the ZM 50mm 2 with some modification to compensate for thick cover glass. But it is not design from the start for the A7x series. Thus, the lens still performs very well or even better on ultra thin mirror stack camera. If this theory hold true, then the Loxia 50mm and 35mm are the only two exceptional lenses that perform better on the UT stack camera than stock camera. Make sense?
May 21, 2017 at 04:55 AM
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p.17 #3 · First Sighting: A7rii Thin filter in action
teeraash wrote:
Hi artur5, today I had a chance to compare FE 50mm 1.4 on A7 UT and stock A7. The image is slightly worse on edge and peripheral areas on the A7 UT. Then why the Loxia 50mm is better on the UT mod? Probably this is because Loxia 50mm design was derived from the ZM 50mm 2 with some modification to compensate for thick cover glass. But it is not design from the start for the A7x series. Thus, the lens still performs very well or even better on ultra thin mirror stack camera. If this theory hold true, then the Loxia 50mm and 35mm are the only two exceptional lenses that perform better on the UT stack camera than stock camera. Make sense? ...Show more →
The key variables are exit pupil and aperture. The FE 50 f/1.4 at f/1.4 would be expected to be worse as fast aperture contributes to cover glass issues. I am still not convinced that the Loxia 50 is better on the A7 UT, but rather it seems to me that it is more likely it just isn't worse. There will be a lot of lenses with longer exit pupils and at narrower apertures which are not affected, but I am not sure any including the Loxia 50 and 35 are actually better. I don't want to slag your testing as I very much appreciate it and know how hard such testing is to do, but when the differences are as small as we were seeing and it isn't clear that they have similar sharpening, judging sharpness is pretty hard.
Despite those concerns I think your tests do show just how useful the UT mod can be. You could use the camera with lots of great adapted glass and the Loxia 50 would still perform very well on it. Other native mount lenses would need to be tested on a lens by lens basis, but we can expect lenses with shorter exit pupils and larger apertures to show the strongest effects of the thinner cover glass.
p.17 #5 · First Sighting: A7rii Thin filter in action
I've got the ZM C Biogon 35 and Loxia 21 rentals coming on Friday and I should have time to do some more extensive testing on some of the others this weekend.
Any bets on the Loxia? Logically, it should be worse on the UT, right?
p.17 #7 · First Sighting: A7rii Thin filter in action
my primary purpose for getting the kolari UT conversion was to keep things really small. to that end i've been curious about what i could get by converting lenses from fixed lens rangefinder cameras.
the first two lenses i've tried are the rokkor 40/1.7 from a HiMatic and a zeiss 35/3.5 from a yashica T5. performance is pretty good except for the extreme corners. here's comparisons to my other pancakeish 35mm (contax g 35).
p.17 #8 · First Sighting: A7rii Thin filter in action
freaklikeme wrote:
I've got the ZM C Biogon 35 and Loxia 21 rentals coming on Friday and I should have time to do some more extensive testing on some of the others this weekend.
Any bets on the Loxia? Logically, it should be worse on the UT, right?
I guess not, but let's see the experiments. For those long exit pupil new designed for Sony lens, the UT mod get worse, like planar or sonnar designs. Also expected to be worse on complex lens like Otus. Others distagon biogon not. I owned A7R2 NKmod_v1(0.7mm+0.8mm cover=1.5mm) with many native lens includes Batis 85, FE1635ZA, FE24240 and see no visible degradation on that. Also mount with Leica 35/1.4 FLE (11663) for my major lens and results very good images. I did not tried apple to apple match on those lens, but some shots from FE1635ZA@16mm seemed to be slightly better even compared to original stack A7R2. The NKmod_v1 problem was IR leak that cause red bias in cloudy day, easily to be post fixed but not good for cine videos (even with PP). I am sending my v1 A7R2 to be replaced with v3+ that remove cover glass and put new IR/UV cut glass (0.75mm) on it, and then will have some comparison until the camera is back.
p.17 #10 · First Sighting: A7rii Thin filter in action
I'm not sure it's IR leakage, but probably just the difference in spectral response of the different filters. I was able to deal with that by making custom profiles using ColorChecker. I have posted those (as have others) for a variety of mods in the various threads on this topic. I have also (more recently) experimented with tweaks to the channel gains in the Adobe LR profiles - see my post from a day ago in the Combined Testing thread for an example.
Michael
wiley.tw wrote:
These shots in cloudy day seemed to be red shift by IR leaking. Am I right ?
p.17 #12 · First Sighting: A7rii Thin filter in action
There is a (better IMO) alternate possibility to this thin filter mod.
Do a "full spectrum" mod with no extra glass added and use one of the newly available clip filters from Astronomik or STC to white balance. These are thin filters well.
The added benefit of this approach is the possibility to do IR captures by changing the clip filter.
p.17 #13 · First Sighting: A7rii Thin filter in action
I am on page 8 of this thread (not an easy read) and still could not understand the following:
1. The latest mod from Kolari, the UT, does indeed give the same performance on the Sony sensors as any modern Leica M digital cameras?
2. Until page 8, (when the initial prototype of the UT showed up), the WB was all over the place and did not look good at all. Is this now fixed or every shot will have to get its WB fixed in post?
3. The A7RII sensor is the one that best performs with this UT mod, correct? How far back is the A7S with the UT compared to the A7RII?
p.17 #14 · First Sighting: A7rii Thin filter in action
nampramos wrote:
2. Until page 8, (when the initial prototype of the UT showed up), the WB was all over the place and did not look good at all. Is this now fixed or every shot will have to get its WB fixed in post?
Can't comment on others, but WB is not an issue. On this and on some other threads we have had few people trying to not use RAW-benefits and tried to shoot auto-wb etc. Auto-wb will never be good, as there are some assumptions what color scenes generally should be and if you have color cast and non-linear color errors, one just have to accept that auto-wb is not very good solution (I hate it even with standard camera). If you ONCE check real values for sunny, cloudy, shade, tungsten and then use those you are much better situation that the auto-wb-people ever will be. If in addition you buy calibration target and create ACR/Lightroom profile performance is same/better than using Adobe default for standard camera.
p.17 #15 · First Sighting: A7rii Thin filter in action
nampramos wrote:
I am on page 8 of this thread (not an easy read) and still could not understand the following:
1. The latest mod from Kolari, the UT, does indeed give the same performance on the Sony sensors as any modern Leica M digital cameras?
Not the same performance. But perhaps in terms of FC, the UT is there.
2. Until page 8, (when the initial prototype of the UT showed up), the WB was all over the place and did not look good at all. Is this now fixed or every shot will have to get its WB fixed in post?
UT has unique WB. Some say it's fine, and easy to adapt to. Certainly I don't hesitate to use it for that reason. But WB is giant can of worms.
3. The A7RII sensor is the one that best performs with this UT mod, correct? How far back is the A7S with the UT compared to the A7RII?
I love the NKIR tests above, thanks so much for those. Kolari is now confident about pulling the base coverglass, as NKIR does. My own A7r2 is yet to be modded, so we might use that one for some tests. I was about ready to send it to NKIR in the spring, but I needed it for work.
Honestly I was thinking of the S8612 for my own camera. Just because the performance seems so good. Very dry here.
p.17 #17 · First Sighting: A7rii Thin filter in action
hopt to see Kolari without coverglass A7RII mod soon
recently,I saw m240 vs A7RII nkir v3+ w ZM25/2.8 / 11663 fle test.
hope u will see it soon
uhoh7 wrote:
Sry for the very late reply.
I love the NKIR tests above, thanks so much for those. Kolari is now confident about pulling the base coverglass, as NKIR does. My own A7r2 is yet to be modded, so we might use that one for some tests. I was about ready to send it to NKIR in the spring, but I needed it for work.
Honestly I was thinking of the S8612 for my own camera. Just because the performance seems so good. Very dry here.
p.17 #18 · First Sighting: A7rii Thin filter in action
uhoh7 wrote:
Sry for the very late reply.
I love the NKIR tests above, thanks so much for those. Kolari is now confident about pulling the base coverglass, as NKIR does. My own A7r2 is yet to be modded, so we might use that one for some tests. I was about ready to send it to NKIR in the spring, but I needed it for work.
Honestly I was thinking of the S8612 for my own camera. Just because the performance seems so good. Very dry here.
I will update you guys
Hmmm...I've been saving for the UT mod, but maybe I'll end up saving for a removed coverglass mod instead! I'm probably not going to have the budget for it until probably February
p.17 #19 · First Sighting: A7rii Thin filter in action
samlee.hk wrote:
hopt to see Kolari without coverglass A7RII mod soon
recently,I saw m240 vs A7RII nkir v3+ w ZM25/2.8 / 11663 fle test.
hope u will see it soon
I can't thank you enough for all your help, Sam.
Also please convey our gratitude to NKIR for his cutting edge A7 mods. In terms of ray-angle performance, his have been the best, I think. Once we can really establish effective practices, I believe there will be customers for good techs who use them all over the world.
The mod might have a wider potential customer base than the locally obsessed like myself It's the movies.
1) A7r2 and s models are now legendary in film/video making. They are in wide use, and gaining popularity. The r2 has some unique capabilities. It can drop to ISO800 in a broadcast grade capture (S2 cannot), it is better in lowlight than anything except the S2, and as a full featured 4K platform, it is tiny. The video people think they are dirt cheap also, for what they can do.
2) The Film/Vid people often do not use AF, so that reason to stay native may not be there.
3) High speed and heavy bokeh are even seen now at times on the PBS nightly news. Think picking lenses for particular "looks", the film guys are all over exotic lenses.
4)4K means you can tell more about the lens. When the projection is sharper, the lens characteristics and deployment really stand out.
5)IR control is serious issue. Some current Prosumer video cameras, i.e. blackmagic need additional help with IR control in some situations, a PITA. So any mod for film should have good IR control. Mod glass must be chosen accordingly.
in short, for some video shooters just a nice IRcut right over the sensor, friendly to the "looks" of many lenses, could be very attractive.
p.17 #20 · First Sighting: A7rii Thin filter in action
Some test shots from A7R2 with NKIR thin mod v3plus (0.75mm removed cover glass)
Direct jpg output from camera with all defaults. M lens company with TAP.
Edit: I found some slightly decentering on my Techart Pro adaptor, cause image sharper on the left part of image on Noct and 35FLE especially at wide open. Just ignore that out of focus sharpness, and watch how good the focus point / bokeh on mod A7R2 can go.
It's the movies. 
