The "New Gear/Willy Waving" thread

Rojin · 31 Jul 2014 at 14:11

Above&Beyond said:
No taxes to pay. The A7R is even more impressive given you can mount just about any 35mm lens ever made on it. The RX1 + having to buy an EVF and being limited to 35mm and f/2 was a good first attempt but the A7 line really takes it to a whole new level.

If you import from HK to the UK you have to pay tax.

D.P. · 31 Jul 2014 at 15:15

Above&Beyond said:
No taxes to pay. The A7R is even more impressive given you can mount just about any 35mm lens ever made on it. The RX1 + having to buy an EVF and being limited to 35mm and f/2 was a good first attempt but the A7 line really takes it to a whole new level.

Its a pity the AF is just not there yet and the Sony RAW format is poor (you certainly don't get 14bit clean RAW like canon and Nikon provide). The latter is easy to fix so I don't know why they dont do that sooner.

Rojin · 31 Jul 2014 at 15:37

D.P. said:
Its a pity the AF is just not there yet and the Sony RAW format is poor (you certainly don't get 14bit clean RAW like canon and Nikon provide). The latter is easy to fix so I don't know why they dont do that sooner.

Everytime I see an A7 for sale I nearly buy it, it's a slippery slope to expensive alt glass though!

D.P. · 31 Jul 2014 at 16:09

Rojin said:
Everytime I see an A7 for sale I nearly buy it, it's a slippery slope to expensive alt glass though!

The lens roadmap does look interesting for people/event/street type work, less so for wildlife and landscape (no promising wides or teles forthcoming but plenty of fast normal primes). Future iterations of the camera could easily solve the current short comings.

Rojin · 31 Jul 2014 at 17:32

I toyed with the idea of going all Sony, I like the A99. Ultimately though I couldn't see why I'd use the A mount adapter on an A7 rather than just using the A99 or A77. So they'd still be pretty seperate systems. It's good to have lots of choice

Lightroom is really slow processing RAF files which is annoying me. I don't know if upgrading my laptop will help (probably, it's old), so I've even been considering picking up a D800 if the price is right... Assuming the D810 release prompts early upgrades. There has been a rise of late in D700 sales, some as low as £600. If it just a bit more than 16mp I'd be really tempted, I still am!

An Exception · 31 Jul 2014 at 17:45

D.P. said:
The lens roadmap does look interesting for people/event/street type work, less so for wildlife and landscape (no promising wides or teles forthcoming but plenty of fast normal primes). Future iterations of the camera could easily solve the current short comings.

For landscapes I'd be happy to just use an adaptor and take advantage all the lenses it makes available. Wildlife is more of an issue though, although you could use an A mount lens with SLT adaptor. Not ideal though.

Columbo · 31 Jul 2014 at 19:26

D.P. said:
Its a pity the AF is just not there yet and the Sony RAW format is poor (you certainly don't get 14bit clean RAW like canon and Nikon provide). The latter is easy to fix so I don't know why they dont do that sooner.

Nothing wrong with the Sony RAW format, I can't tell the difference between the 14 bit RAW's from my D7000 and the 12 bit RAW's from my A77. Both have huge amounts of wiggle room for editing so I'm not sure what you class as 'clean'.

crinkleshoes · 1 Aug 2014 at 01:02

Some new hard drives... along with tripod & circular polariser.

_DSC5350 by CosmicLogos, on Flickr

_DSC5353 by CosmicLogos, on Flickr

_DSC5355 by CosmicLogos, on Flickr

_DSC5458 by CosmicLogos, on Flickr

I am loving what this polariser is doing to certain pictures... especially when it comes to portraits... it seems to extra so much detail in the eyes that I was only able to emulate in photoshop, to not as good quality as these direct shots

Straight from cam through lightroom, no real tweaking in LR:

_DSC5317_c1 by CosmicLogos, on Flickr

100% crop:

_DSC5317_c2 by CosmicLogos, on Flickr

_DSC5316_c by CosmicLogos, on Flickr

100% crop:

_DSC5316_c_2 by CosmicLogos, on Flickr

D.P. · 1 Aug 2014 at 04:10

Columbo said:
Nothing wrong with the Sony RAW format, I can't tell the difference between the 14 bit RAW's from my D7000 and the 12 bit RAW's from my A77. Both have huge amounts of wiggle room for editing so I'm not sure what you class as 'clean'.

Well that depends what you look at
http://www.rawdigger.com/howtouse/sony-craw-arw2-posterization-detection

The Sony RAW format is lossy compressed that leads to posterization, colour artifacts and visual issues. For starters it is only 11bit for 2 pixels out of. 32pixel row, the other pixels are then stored as 7bits differences to the max and min.

There is a clear visual difference between the D800 and A7R. I personally wouldn't touch Sony until they add a real lossless compressed RAW. There compressed mode might be a nice option to have and die to the space savings undoubtedly leads to Sony's FPS and deeper buffer but it would be nice to get clean straightforward 12 or 14bit RAWs.

An Exception · 1 Aug 2014 at 08:26

D.P. said:
The thing is you could a Fuji X with their fast 35mm f/1.4 and 56mm f/1.2 lens
and be in a similar or better DoF and light gather ability.

The system isn't quite there yet for mass appeal. Lack of lenses and mediocre AF.

That's true. Although that's only really the case because Sony seems somewhat lagging in it's FE lens releases. They they release some nice 1.4's then the gap is there again.

Rojin · 1 Aug 2014 at 09:44

They'll still be full size FF glass though, for me that handles better on a DSLR. I just got the grip though for the X-T1 and that does improve things a lot, so the same probably goes for the A7.

An Exception · 1 Aug 2014 at 10:03

Yes I would go for a grip when using heavier fast glass. However you then have the option to remove it and use slower glass if size and weight are more important.

robj20 · 1 Aug 2014 at 10:38

No matter what you mount to it, its still a smaller overall setup, and lighter. The 35mm keeps it very compact i can get it in my coat pocket no problem.

Rojin · 1 Aug 2014 at 11:06

robj20 said:
No matter what you mount to it, its still a smaller overall setup, and lighter. The 35mm keeps it very compact i can get it in my coat pocket no problem.

That's the point though, a small body with a large heavy lens is not comfortable at all. A DSLR handles much better in this regard. Even with a grip I wouldn't want to shoot all day with a 70-200 f2.8 on a small body. For me the attraction would be alt glass and moderately fast f2 native glass. Anything bigger and faster and I'll stick it on a DSLR.

There's a rumour about Olympus delaying a FF mirrorless with the E Mount. No in body IS though. It's an odd rumour to be honest.

Rojin · 1 Aug 2014 at 11:07

An Exception said:
Yes I would go for a grip when using heavier fast glass. However you then have the option to remove it and use slower glass if size and weight are more important.

Pfft, slower glass, yeah right. Who are you and what have you done with the real An Exception?!

Columbo · 1 Aug 2014 at 11:51

D.P. said:
Well that depends what you look at
http://www.rawdigger.com/howtouse/sony-craw-arw2-posterization-detection

The Sony RAW format is lossy compressed that leads to posterization, colour artifacts and visual issues. For starters it is only 11bit for 2 pixels out of. 32pixel row, the other pixels are then stored as 7bits differences to the max and min.

But the real world end result of that tech spec talk is that you cannot tell the difference. I've processed over 23k of photo's from my A77, 7k from my A580 and 9k off my D7000 (which share the same sensor) meaning I think I've got enough experience of both without needing to look at some graphs or some pixel peeping CSI software that means nothing to me or has any effect on my day to day use.

I can easily without any hassle at all get as much detail out of either of the Sony's as I can when using the Nikon (that's the only bit that matters to me personally), whether that changes when you get to FF or not I don't know as I don't have any experience of them but I have to admit to only reading a small portion of that link you provided before I closed it because such info holds zero interest to me and frankly sucks the life out of me.

Hopefully someone else may find it useful though.

D.P. · 1 Aug 2014 at 12:30

Columbo said:
But the real world end result of that tech spec talk is that you cannot tell the difference. I've processed over 23k of photo's from my A77, 7k from my A580 and 9k off my D7000 (which share the same sensor) meaning I think I've got enough experience of both without needing to look at some graphs or some pixel peeping CSI software that means nothing to me or has any effect on my day to day use.

I can easily without any hassle at all get as much detail out of either of the Sony's as I can when using the Nikon (that's the only bit that matters to me personally), whether that changes when you get to FF or not I don't know as I don't have any experience of them but I have to admit to only reading a small portion of that link you provided before I closed it because such info holds zero interest to me and frankly sucks the life out of me.

Hopefully someone else may find it useful though.

I realize it is not for everyone but that kind of information fascinates me, the best days at work involve me developing algorothms like sonys compression.

The format is fine for most things but it isn't lossless. Saying that it doesn't make a difference is wrong though, it does make a difference but only under specific scenarios, specifically you need some light or dark pixels (e.g. Specular highlight, star trail, etc) and an area of smooth colour to show the color issues. When the area affected is highly textured you don't notice the errors, this is much like high ISO noise. If you shoot at ISO 3200 you don't really see noise when shooting a highly detailed scene but you do against smooth areas (zing hot sky, blue sky, out of focus background).

There are plenty of example online where the Sony algorithm performs really badly and the posterization badly affects areas of blue sky for landscape photos, or the night sky around stars.

It is a nice format for general use but if you want to get the most out of the sensors then you need a 14bit lossless compressed RAW. There is a visual difference between the D800 and A7r despite the sensor being similar. If you search google you get lots of people complaining at banding, posterization and colour artifacts in Sony RAWs. The other part of the issue is Sony advertises the output as a 14bit RAW but it is an 11bit RAw representation after applying a 14bit tonal curve and then compressing the data to 7 bit offsets from 11bit. Even when everything is optimal you really only have an 11but file, and when you have stronger extremes in a pixel block those 7bit are no where near enough.

Thom hogan has some good info
http://www.sansmirror.com/cameras/a...ony-nex-camera-reviews/sony-a7-and-a7r-review

Anyway, I like the format but Sony would have to add a lossless 14bit (and 12) bit RaW option.

Tysonator · 1 Aug 2014 at 14:43

al4x said:
finally got the quick release plate

so monopod,
gimbal,
plate

I do like the Gimbal head !

robj20 · 1 Aug 2014 at 16:25

Rojin said:
That's the point though, a small body with a large heavy lens is not comfortable at all. A DSLR handles much better in this regard. Even with a grip I wouldn't want to shoot all day with a 70-200 f2.8 on a small body. For me the attraction would be alt glass and moderately fast f2 native glass. Anything bigger and faster and I'll stick it on a DSLR.

There's a rumour about Olympus delaying a FF mirrorless with the E Mount. No in body IS though. It's an odd rumour to be honest.

Makes you wonder how we managed with SLRs that are the same size.

An Exception · 1 Aug 2014 at 16:36

Rojin said:
Pfft, slower glass, yeah right. Who are you and what have you done with the real An Exception?!

Lol, I'm currently waiting on a 35mm 1.8. If I prefer the weight difference over the F1.4 DOF, I might convert to being an F1.8 shooter.

Also regarding handling heavy lenses on light camera's, I tend to hold the lens more than the camera if possible.