Sony A7/A7R mirrorless full frames

An Exception said:
Yep it appeals to me. But for work I really need autofocus though. If focus peaking worked off the sensor and not the contrast on the LCD then that might be a viable option.
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sorry how do you mean off the sensor and not the lcd screen?

also I was more meaning the focus zooming as well, when looking through the viewfinder you can press a button for say 7.5 times magnification to get exactly what you want in focus without relying on the peaking system. It's the feature that really kills optical viewfinders for me now as if you have a couple of seconds to manually zoom your guaranteed focus.
 
DanF said:
sorry how do you mean off the sensor and not the lcd screen?

also I was more meaning the focus zooming as well, when looking through the viewfinder you can press a button for say 7.5 times magnification to get exactly what you want in focus without relying on the peaking system. It's the feature that really kills optical viewfinders for me now as if you have a couple of seconds to manually zoom your guaranteed focus.
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If you have a couple of seconds you can use contrast detect AF through live view and guarantee focus, or use phase detect and check focus on playback. A nice feature for sure but doesn't change the game.
 
Sure but you're just hoping that it's focused on the right thing. Putting a focus dot on someone's face, has it picked their nose, eyes or ears? If you use a camera a lot then you'll learn what it does but with a combination of zooming and peaking you just know :p
 
DanF said:
Sure but you're just hoping that it's focused on the right thing. Putting a focus dot on someone's face, has it picked their nose, eyes or ears? If you use a camera a lot then you'll learn what it does but with a combination of zooming and peaking you just know :p
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But if you have a few seconds then you can use live view, zoom in to 10x mag, pick the eyes as the focus point and focus there. Exactly what you are doing with the EVF except you can use a big 3.2" screen to do that work on.

Don't get me wrong, mirrorless and EVF definitely have the potential to be better than OVF. The very best (top end m43 viewfinders) are already very good. The mirrorless revolution will come, largely from economics reasons. Mirrorless design are much simpler, cheaper and mechanically reliable. I fully expect Nikon ad canon to drop the mirror in future bodies, starting at the low end. Optical will still be the choice for the best performance for the pros for some time though.

One thing I expect Nikon to do is maintain their F-mount and the same flange distance, so their carpmeras can be lighter and smaller but will maintain a similar depth around the mount. This way they maintain their entire lens line up with full support for 50years worth of lenses. No need to shave 15mm off the mount depth requiring redesigning a hundred lenses.
 
D.P. said:
If you have a couple of seconds you can use contrast detect AF through live view and guarantee focus, or use phase detect and check focus on playback. A nice feature for sure but doesn't change the game.
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Well on my A77 I have full time phase in live view and have the camera setup so that once focus confirms it drops straight into DMF peaking, you can also do that with the A99.

I'd be very surprised if something similar wasn't available on these bodies.
 
Columbo said:
Well on my A77 I have full time phase in live view and have the camera setup so that once focus confirms it drops straight into DMF peaking, you can also do that with the A99.

I'd be very surprised if something similar wasn't available on these bodies.
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Interestingly the A7r doesn't support phase detection at all.
 
An Exception said:
That's ok if you are a hobbyist. When making a living with photography I think it's better to focus on performance rather than nostalgia.
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Oh definitely. I'd never use a MF system for professional work as most jobs now require hundreds of shots as part of the contract, which manual focus and controlled gear is no way optimised for in today's market.

My argument would be is full frame actually needed? The fuji xtrans sensor tech delivers insanely good ISO performance, even when directly compared to fx, whilst being in a far smaller body. Still not sure this sony product is the way to go as I feel that people will buy it based on the megapixel count instead of anything else
 
D.P. said:
One thing I expect Nikon to do is maintain their F-mount and the same flange distance, so their carpmeras can be lighter and smaller but will maintain a similar depth around the mount. This way they maintain their entire lens line up with full support for 50years worth of lenses. No need to shave 15mm off the mount depth requiring redesigning a hundred lenses.
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They could do it with an adapter if they wanted to go this route, have native lenses for most casual people to buy all over again (more profit) but with a high quality adapter to mount existing F-mount, well I guess they already have this with the 1 system.
 
DanF said:
They could do it with an adapter if they wanted to go this route, have native lenses for most casual people to buy all over again (more profit) but with a high quality adapter to mount existing F-mount, well I guess they already have this with the 1 system.
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But adapters rarely work out as well as a native mount. The point would also be to avoid having to redevelop new lenses which takes time and money.
Any new mount to begin with is going to be very limited so having native support for all F-mount lenses would be a huge bonus. As it is Nikon struggles to keep up with new lens designs, they risk failure often try to segregate again.

Furthermore the switch won't be for the entire camera line up in one go, they will slowly roll it out from the bottom up starting with a D3x00 camera.s. As they work out all the issues they will push the technology slowly into higher models as it matures. R giggly or wrongly very few professionals will be willing to drop the optical viewfinder in their D4/1Dx for an EVF anytime soon, until technology further improves AND opinions swing in favor then optical viewfinders will be maintained in the high end cameras.

And at the end of the day it would only be about shaving 10-20mm off the depth of the camera at the mount point, which is simply not needed for most DSLRs (and those 10-20mm will have to be added to the lenses). Cutting out the mirror and viewfinder mechanisms will cut plenty of weight from the camera as it is. Also look at the canon 100D. Despite having a mirror and OVF it weighs only 400g, 70g less than the A7R.


Lastly, bringing the lens mount closer to the sensor causes all kinds of issues for optical design and sensor fall off. The Leica digital cameras have been plagued with colour shifts and aberrations due to the short flange distance.
 
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The thing that kills the Sony mirrorless series for me is that there's no in-body stabilization (important because almost none of the lenses include it in lens) and there's a huge lack of reasonably priced primes and no fast, constant aperture zoom. Otherwise, the low price, FF and video specs of the A7 would have had me right in there.
 
I have no idea why Sony dropped the sensor based IS. It is helpful feature for a mirrorless to keep lens size down.

Anyway, lots of noise on Nikon rumors about the long desired digital Fm2, a compact but solid body, D4 sensor, retro styling.
 
D.P. said:
I have no idea why Sony dropped the sensor based IS. It is helpful feature for a mirrorless to keep lens size down.

Anyway, lots of noise on Nikon rumors about the long desired digital Fm2, a compact but solid body, D4 sensor, retro styling.
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Which won't have IBIS either.
 
Columbo said:
Which won't have IBIS either.
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Nope and it isn't a mirrorless and isn't going for the ultra compact sizes up something nice to hold. However, since it is a n f-mount you can use all the lenses with VR, with this new sony system it is not clear to me if they will add IS? Perhaps one of the cheaper consumer zooms they announced already does and I didn't see it mentioned.

Sorry to confusion but my 2 sentences were no really connected.
 
As soon as Sony release an A7r body with IBIS I will be dumping all my Nikon gear and downsizing. Also would need a fast 35mm, not this F2.8 nonsense.

As it stands, I may even swap a D800E now and get the A7r. As at the moment it's an unbeatable landscape camera given you can use practically any lens without having to worry nearly as much about diffraction when stopping down.
 
I am wondering if there is a technical difficulty in adding IBIS, otherwise I can't see why they wouldn't? The other E-mount NEX cameras all [edit] DON'T have IBIS. I am wondering if it is related to the short flange distance and the size of the frame. It already causes side-to-side colour issues on lenses that are not corrected (Leica m9 suffers from this and firmware does some colour correction to the raw files AfaIK).

The A7r could be a fa tasted landscape camera - once all the lenses are out. Without something like the Nikon 14-24 and a 24mm PC/TS in native mount you won't find many people swapping.
 
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