Steve Spencer
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 p.15 #4 · FF Mirrorless, what's it going to take Sony, Canon, Nikon | |
Gunzorro wrote:
In practical terms for general professional use, I don't find Canon and Nikon that far off Sony for image capture and manipulation. I freely admit that Sony has an imaging edge with its DR, but match or exceeding the resolution has Nikon and Canon right there for normal daylight and studio work.
I have no use for either the a9, Canon 1DX2 or Nikon D5. I can get by on a couple FPS in the work I do, and I feel I have more in common with enthusiast shooters than Sports or Nature pros.
For me, I love the 42MP sensor of the Sony a7R2 (and I'm sure I'd like the a7R3 just as much, or more). But after going out today with Canon 5DsR 51MP and Sony a7R2, using Zeiss ZE glass, the Canon did great on architecture, surrounding landscaping, and still subjects. Actually, I was able to more easily focus the Canon with these manual focus lenses using the focus alert beep and viewfinder prompt along with confirming the hyperfocal distance scale on the lens, vs. magnified EVF on the Sony. Actually, the Canon was much faster to use with small aperture settings.
One area of ancient technology that I find useful in Canon DSLR (and Nikon too) is the Depth of Field Preview, especially useful for manual shooting with focus shift lenses. As far as I can tell, there is no handy button to check focus at shooting aperture on the Sony.
I really was impressed testing the Canon R, and if it had higher MP sensor (and IBIS would be nice), I would probably own one right now to go along with my Sony gear.
I know we are in a Sony forum here, and most members will probably not agree with me. But I find the brands are all very close and all produce tremendous results with very little effort. This frees me to concentrate on choosing subject and overall framing, then finishing to taste in PP.
Possibly coming from a large and medium format background, I find we have incredible choices in this era of electronic imaging. I'm grateful, and try to embrace the various systems as best I can.
I'm certainly curious about the 2020 Olympics about what Canon might have up their sleeve for Mirrorless and DSLR, and how much of an in-road Sony can make with the a9 or a9II.
For now, I'm doing fine with a7R, a7R2 and Canon 5DsR, 1Ds3/1D3 models. ...Show more →
Like you Jim, I don't need the AF or the frames per second of the Sony A9, but my wife has this camera and that doesn't mean there aren't still things that I really like about it that are unique. First, the fact that you can shoot everything except flash with the silent electronic shutter is a big deal. There are basically no penalties to using the silent shutter either. I think being able to shoot silently matters to a lot of people in a number of situations. Second, I love the blackout free viewfinder. Again until you shoot with it and experience what it is like to have to not have the view finder even blink when you are shooting it is hard to appreciate how nice that is.
By the way Sony does have a shooting effect preview setting that you assign to any of the custom buttons. If you do it works much like depth of field preview but you get more including the effects of any exposure compensation in the viewfinder as well. Shutting this off the camera focusses at the widest aperture, but with it on the camera focusses at the shooting aperture. So, if that matters to you it is a good thing to set to a custom button.
Finally, I do agree that all the top cameras from the major manufacturers have very good IQ, but I won't be going back to a DSLR. For me magnification in the viewfinder is something I won't give up for shooting manual focus and when I have to shoot AF it is so handy to not have all the focus points clustered in the centre. I also really like having exposure previewed in the viewfinder, and now the ability to shoot silently is also a huge advantage. None of these things would I be willing to give up and go back to a DSLR, but people clearly have different preferences and understandably, YMMV.
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