pe1125 wrote:
If you haven't already seen Brad Hill's post, here is what he said on the RRS foot:
"If you have forked out way too much money for a Arca-Swiss compatible tripod foot for your 70-200mm f2.8S (like I did when I bought the LCF-21 from Really Right Stuff for my 70-200mm f2.8S) you can feel good that you can now use it with TWO lenses - the mount on the 100-400 is identical to that of the 70-200mm f2.8S."
Thanks very much! Had the 70-200 F mount and thought that was the one but it's the Z mount lens like you pointed out. Doh! Will have to get one!
My 100-400S turned up today along with my FTZ II in the UK. Feels good on my Z7 (Waiting for the Z9) and the build/weight is really nice. Naturally there's very dark cloud outside today so it might be a little while before I get to try it out properly.
Alright, here we go, diagnostic comparison images as discussed in the image thread. Nikon images on the left, Sony on the right for the 100% crop comparisons. In all shots, AF-S was used and focused on the battery charge percentage indicators.
At no point wide open does the Nikon appear to approach the Sony's level of critical detail. That said, the Nikon images look fine to me at normal viewing size.
The Nikon gets markedly sharper at f8 in all scenarios, no point to post the full so here are crops. Nikon left, Sony right. quick analysis is that the Nikon is just significantly softer wide open in all applications. This appears to simply be an aperture based behavior, and the Sony results also prove it's not technique based. So far, I don't see $3000 worth of sharpness wide open. If anyone can replicate this basic test (even without another camera/lens to use as a control) it would be helpful.
My impression is that they didn't focus to the same spot.
If you look into the battery scale, Nikon has more contrast, sharpness close, or Nikon little better.
If you look the front panel, Sony looks sharper.
This is for the the first test, wide open.
Ryan74 wrote:
I agree when I zoom in the Sony looks sharper
Don’t forget the Sony is higher resolution. You have to be careful not to consider larger with sharper. I definitely see the Nikon as a tiny bit sharper, but again, it is close enough to not even worry about it IMHO.
cvrle59 wrote:
My impression is that they didn't focus to the same spot.
If you look into the battery scale, Nikon has more contrast, sharpness close, or Nikon little better.
If you look the front panel, Sony looks sharper.
This is for the the first test, wide open.
Agree. But he said he focused on batter charge indicators. To me, these look better on the Nikon. More contrast, a little sharper.
Like I said, the regular viewing size is perfectly fine wide-open. I do feel like 1/640 improved the overall IQ for me while handholding. That’s a little disappointing, I was hoping to be able to go back down to 1/500 and take advantage of that lower base ISO. The Nikon files are still considerably cleaner than the Sony files from a noise perspective.
gdsf2 wrote:
No, the Sony is a higher res sensor. So it looks larger at 100%.
But I can say, if you like the Sony, you will be happy with the Nikon. These are too close to really care.
RoamingScott wrote:
Like I said, the regular viewing size is perfectly fine wide-open. I do feel like 1/640 improved the overall IQ for me while handholding. That’s a little disappointing, I was hoping to be able to go back down to 1/500 and take advantage of that lower base ISO. The Nikon files are still considerably cleaner than the Sony files from a noise perspective.
You also said Sony is always sharper and you don’t see $3000 worth of sharpness here. I don’t agree. I think the opposite is true.
But again, thank you for taking the time to do this testing. I know it is labor intensive.
George DeCamp wrote:
I didn't read which was which at first and liked the one on the left in all cases.
🤷♂️
Me too. And then I re-read his post and it made no sense to me. Left was Nikon, and I felt it had the edge. But they are very close. Nikon seems to have better micro contrast which helps perceived sharpness.
