They finally sent me a replacement label so I guess I'll give them one last try. They claim they will send one out immediately after they receive this one but if they start telling me I'll have to wait till June 1st I'm done with them.
Ironically I sent them my phone # and asked them to just call me so we could work things out faster and that was the first time they've ever replied more than 1 time in a day telling me they don't do phones and promising they'd send me the replacement lens the next day even though the site says they are out of stock till June 1st..
Btw I'm looking for recommendations for a lens to take out west to see all the nifty national parks like the grand canyon and rocky mountains and all the in-between. Any recommendations would be great.. I was going to use this for portraits and stuff and hope it would work well for everything in between but I've had a few say that I need a different lens as this one wouldn't be wide enough.
Any 20mm would be a nice companion. 24 is different enough, but if you're going to go wide, might as well go properly wild. I like the manual, and somewhat heavy, Viltrox 20mm 1.8 for value for money (especially 2nd hand) but the Sony is the gold standard. Tamron has a 20mm f2.8 with a ton of distortion, but a nice weather sealed, compact design and very good sharpness at a very low price.
If you happen to own one of the more expensive smartphones, you might have a pretty great wide angle option already, as most smartphones feature focal lengths below 30mm as their main lens - assuming you have daylight or a tripod, you can shoot landscapes with manual settings in RAW at very low ISOs (most people just never seem to bother to use their phone cameras in manual mode or do the post processing themselves, but it can be surprisingly effective on a normally bright day). Unless you intend to make humongously huge prints of course where you really need the 50 mp.
MrClaws wrote:
Any 20mm would be a nice companion. 24 is different enough, but if you're going to go wide, might as well go properly wild. I like the manual, and somewhat heavy, Viltrox 20mm 1.8 for value for money (especially 2nd hand) but the Sony is the gold standard. Tamron has a 20mm f2.8 with a ton of distortion, but a nice weather sealed, compact design and very good sharpness at a very low price.
If you happen to own one of the more expensive smartphones, you might have a pretty great wide angle option already, as most smartphones feature focal lengths below 30mm as their main lens - assuming you have daylight or a tripod, you can shoot landscapes with manual settings in RAW at very low ISOs (most people just never seem to bother to use their phone cameras in manual mode or do the post processing themselves, but it can be surprisingly effective on a normally bright day). Unless you intend to make humongously huge prints of course where you really need the 50 mp....Show more →
Wanted to give an update.. I mailed my old lens with a label they provided Monday. I know a lot of people hate USPS but they have always been good to me and they certainly didn't fail. They got it to them today at about 10 in the morning. They then put my new lens with UPS(sadly since they don't deliver on Sat) and it says it will be delivered Monday. Hopefully, it will be Friday but last time it just sat on the truck Friday and they delivered on the next "business day".
So I will say they at least kept their promise. They assured me they'd send me a new lens the same day they got my old(if the old checked out) and they did. So I will give them Kudos for that.
[Digital Par-Focal: Digital Par-focal is specialized for video shooting as it can maintain focus on the subject when zooming in or out. Since this function is usually mounted in expensive cine zoom lenses, it provides a more special experience and results to customers who use this zoom lens.]
This is marketing nonsense...and as you have seen it doesn't work. I routinely use a Sony 18-110 aps-c lens which is parfocal and for video usage event work or news gathering it is really necessary. I also use or have used plenty of other parfocal lenses and they all work the same way. You grab a quick focus on your subject zoomed all the way in and then you are set to zoom out or back in without focus issues. For stills work, it really is not needed. But the phrase "digital parfocus" is some advertising or marketing product manager's way of trying to enlarge the market for their lens. It also tells you they don't expect professional video people to buy this lens, and are aiming it at those who want to try out shooting video or want to save money using a stills lens for video and for some kinds of shooting it may be enough.
I'll receive my 35-150mm probably by tuesday or wednesday. Any formal tests someone would like to see from my A7R IV ? Otherwise I'll just provide a few infinity focussed snapshots (maybe 2-3 at portrait distances) around the city at different focal lengths along with links to raw dngs so people can evaluate for themselves - though of course with a 4x zoom range, sample variation will be a pretty big factor.
Here is an image of a bird I took with my new lens. Honestly, I've been crazy busy at work so not doing much. This was cropped and such. If you'd like me to upload the original ARW file I can do that as well.
So question.. I'm using this lens on an A1.. The focus box was direct on the subject and had them come at me. The subject was totally out of focus even though the focus box was "locked" on him. I assume this is caused by the lens not being fast enough? I ask this because honestly I'm coming from a dslr and this is my first mirrorless and I'm learning. The A1 by all accounts I've read should be dead accurate every time so assuming this is the lens.
First, with questions of this kind, it can be useful to know the details of your focus settings, the nature of the subject (bird, human, animal), and whether eye AF was engaged. Was the SS fast enough for the moving subject? What was your tracking frame per second rate?
Occasionally, I have experienced an AF problem with my A1 and 1.31 version of the firmware. I often use the small spot with tracking for AF. It can happen that the subject (typically a bird) would be out of focus despite the green box being squarely on the subject (in review). In these cases, the camera focuses on the background, for a reason I don't know. I don't know the percentage of such misfocused images. It is relatively small, but when this problem happens, this can be annoying.
Jerky_san wrote:
So question.. I'm using this lens on an A1.. The focus box was direct on the subject and had them come at me. The subject was totally out of focus even though the focus box was "locked" on him. I assume this is caused by the lens not being fast enough? I ask this because honestly I'm coming from a dslr and this is my first mirrorless and I'm learning. The A1 by all accounts I've read should be dead accurate every time so assuming this is the lens.
ruthenium wrote:
First, with questions of this kind, it can be useful to know the details of your focus settings, the nature of the subject (bird, human, animal), and whether eye AF was engaged. Was the SS fast enough for the moving subject? What was your tracking frame per second rate?
Occasionally, I have experienced an AF problem with my A1 and 1.31 version of the firmware. I often use the small spot with tracking for AF. It can happen that the subject (typically a bird) would be out of focus despite the green box being squarely on the subject (in review). In these cases, the camera focuses on the background, for a reason I don't know. I don't know the percentage of such misfocused images. It is relatively small, but when this problem happens, this can be annoying.
Thanks for your response
A1, 1.20 Firmware AF-C, Human child, first picture(right before this one as they are starting to move towards the camera is in perfect focus, this next one was completely out with the background in perfect focus, next one caught up but wouldn't be what I would call "sharp". All pictures show the box straight dead center on their face. The shutter speed should be "good enough" but I'll need to go back to A7info again and check. Also, I don't know what the tracking frame-per-second rate was. How do I check that? A7info as well?
So ran this same test three this time paying attention to the shutter rates and other things a lot more and attempting to remove me from the equation threw it on auto and let the camera figure its thing out. ISO was very low(around 100) shutter speed varies slightly but most around 1/800. It's literally a very bright clear day out so should have no issues. I know I should probably do a mechanical shutter for this test but frankly, I bought an A1 to use the electronic so electronic shutter..
First Test The kid is in the center of the frame jogging at the camera while I pull back the zoom. Out of 10 pictures non were what I would term "sharp", 4 were good if you didn't pixel peep, and 6 were bad. Like totally out of focus. AF-C wide
Second test no pulling back zoom.. just taking pictures as said kid runs at the camera. 35mm when they are out far away it's not as sharp and as they get closer the sharpness improves dramatically till they are basically a foot or two away. AF-C wide
Third test no pulling back zoom.. just taking pictures as said kid runs at the camera. 150mm sharp starting out. As they get closer it becomes less sharp. Only 1 picture out of all of these wasn't clear. AF-C wide
I'm fairly certain there wasn't any camera shake in these.. I took them on my knees and generally held my breath to ensure even my breathing movement wouldn't affect the camera. I need to get my tripod out but just don't have a lot of time. Honestly though feels like the autofocus on the lens just can't keep up. I wish I had more lens to test with but I've not got them ordered yet. If I'm being brutally honest if the Tamron 35-150 goes on sale again at Amazon this is going back. It honestly might just go back anyways and I pay full price for the Tamron. If the subjects are still it does take very good pictures. My wife captured some very nice ones of my kid's when we were taking a walk with my father's dog. All of them were still though. The ones where she tried to capture my son moving were not clear. Hence why I started these tests to see if it was something she was doing or not. Though she is experienced in taking pictures.. Honestly probably more than me. She just doesn't have the time to mess with things these days.
Btw probably expecting to much out of this lens tbh but just guess wanted to post my findings.
If you're wondering why I don't post the pictures I don't feel comfortable posting pictures of my kids online. Sorry.. If I can find a subject(like my dad's dog ) to test with I'll post them up.
MrClaws wrote:
I'll receive my 35-150mm probably by tuesday or wednesday. Any formal tests someone would like to see from my A7R IV ? Otherwise I'll just provide a few infinity focussed snapshots (maybe 2-3 at portrait distances) around the city at different focal lengths along with links to raw dngs so people can evaluate for themselves - though of course with a 4x zoom range, sample variation will be a pretty big factor.
