p.1 #1 · Talk to me about a6500 / a6300 focusing on manual lenses?
There are quite a few cheaply-priced 3rd party primes offered for the Sony line. In the past I've used the Canon 50mm f/1.8 and Sigma 30mm f/1.4 lenses on older Canon bodies and I can't for the life of me imagine being forced to use manual focus on these lenses with their shallow DOF (not to mention these lenses usually didn't start to get acceptably sharp IMO until f/2.8 for the f/1.8 and f/2.0 for the f/1.4). Back in the day using only an optical viewfinder, manually focusing at f/1.4 or even f/1.8 was impossible due to the razor-thin DOF. What I had to do was basically sway in and out and take lots of shots, similar to what I do for macro, and later in review select the ones that happened to land on good focus.
Does the Sony have some kind of built-in manual focusing aid for completely manual lenses? I know that on the electronic lenses the LCD magnifies automatically when the manual focus ring is turned. Can this happen on manual lenses as well?
p.1 #2 · Talk to me about a6500 / a6300 focusing on manual lenses?
Yes there is enlarged view and focus peaking. Speaking of which, the A7 maybe better for adapting than a6xx series. Used prices for the a7mk1 is relatively low.
p.1 #4 · Talk to me about a6500 / a6300 focusing on manual lenses?
You can turn focus peaking on and leave it on.
It doesn't know to turn magnification on. You have to do that yourself.
By the way, I don't know how the NEX compares to the A7 series in this respect, but one thing I really (really!) liked about my A7 and A7R was that the magnification was a very clear max of 14x. This made it easy to nail focus. I switched to Fuji X-T2 recently and as much as I like this camera, the Sony A7/R was better with manual lenses.
+1 to a nice used A7 by the way. It's an excellent camera and your old film lenses will have the "right" angle of view.
fuzzybabybunny wrote:
How does the camera know to automatically turn on image magnification and focus peaking if you're shooting with a totally manual lens?
p.1 #5 · Talk to me about a6500 / a6300 focusing on manual lenses?
The A7R is much easier to focus using MF lenses than the A6500. Maybe it's the 1.5x crop factor, but I had some difficulty nailing the focus on the 6500......
p.1 #6 · Talk to me about a6500 / a6300 focusing on manual lenses?
I have an A6000 which I use with manual lenses only. For me the focus peaking is awful. But the magnification tool is amazing. I've assigned magnification to the C1 button so its easy to use for every shot. I find its nearly impossible not to nail a perfectly focused shot every time with this tool. Try it out, I think you'll be more than pleased.
p.1 #7 · Talk to me about a6500 / a6300 focusing on manual lenses?
With a7R and a7R2, I never use focus peaking or zebras -- just the magnified views for precise focusing. Also, the Zeiss manual focus lenses (Loxia) offer automatic magnification whenever the focus ring is moved -- great feature and makes this the best manual focusing experience ever -- plus IQ is amazing with the Loxia line.
I completely agree that you would be better served with either a used a7 or a7R for manual focusing compared to the Nex types.
p.1 #8 · Talk to me about a6500 / a6300 focusing on manual lenses?
Cadaver wrote:
I have an A6000 which I use with manual lenses only. For me the focus peaking is awful. But the magnification tool is amazing. I've assigned magnification to the C1 button so its easy to use for every shot. I find its nearly impossible not to nail a perfectly focused shot every time with this tool. Try it out, I think you'll be more than pleased.
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Focus peaking on the A6000 makes some practice. I believe it focuses on the closer object or part of object. Focus magnification helps a lot. You have to program magnification by going into the menu, and as someone else said you can assign magnification function to the C1 button.
