The "New Gear/Willy Waving" thread

Vertigo1 said:
Combined with their prices, I'd say they're definitely a grey importer. I'd be less concerned by the white box one of the lenses came in and more concerned about the lack of manufacturer's warranty. Ok they may provide their own warranty instead but this could be better or worse than the manufacturer's. There's nothing wrong with grey imports per se but I hate the way so many retailers try their utmost to hide this when it should be very clear.
Click to expand...

They don't want to be very clear as almost all of them are actively involved in tax evasion so writing in big letters on there website we sell imported lenses as knocked down prices probably isn't top of their priority list!

Still not sure why HMRC let them get away with it, having ordered a few things from digital rv it wouldn't be hard to spot the packages at the boarder and they'd only have to make a concerted effort for a month or two to devastate the trade.
 
New main camera. Sony A7,Sony FE 35mm 2.8 and Nikon 50mm 1.8 G mounted with adapter.

15365725153_484cc7cdfc_c.jpg
 
Ah cool, would love to hear about feedback, compare to your Canon. How the files are to process, push/pull capability and that (35mm?) lens, ergonomics, AF etc.
 
I've seen it for £999 with the kit lens, but I bought mine body only from MPB for £770, along with a new 35mm 2.8 with £100 cashback atm.

I'm finding it a joy to shoot with for what I do. I've been using a battered old Nikon D700 (still have) for the past year and before that a 5D2 and while I love the D700 files I don't enjoy the shooting experience.

It's not the quickest thing to focus but not as bad as I feared and I much prefer the ergonomics over Nikon. I have four seperate dials to work with for aperture, shutter speed, exp comp and ISO.

The EVF is actually very nice, it does get a bit choppy in low light but only in levels when you wouldn't be able to see much through an OVF anyway. The peaking makes focusing the Nikon lens with adapter really easy. So much so that I'll definitely consider manual focus glass before the Sony lenses.

The tilt screen is great as well, I shoot low down perspective a lot and have been struggling with the D700s awful live view for this, although Canon was much better. Also good for more discreet shooting.

AWB is a bit off, which looks strange in the EVF!

Battery life is as bad as stated in all the reviews, which is the cameras main downside imo, it also takes ages to charge.

As for the dynamic range thing vs Canon, well, it's definitely a lot better at pushing the shadows but on the flip side the highlight recovery isn't anywhere near as good, talking overexposed skies here mainly.

Overall, I'm loving it so far. I wouldn't shoot a wedding with it as a main camera but for my casual shooting it beats a DSLR really. Comparing it to a D600 for example, unless you needed that battery life I couldn't really see a reason to go for a D600, these are cheaper and I'm enjoying the manual focusing with adapters more than I thought...maybe I should return that 35mm.
 
Last edited:
Any kind of warranty? The main thing holding me back is I like nature photography and I'd miss the extra reach of the 1.5x crop factor. For my old manual lenses I like the IBIS on the A7 mk 2 and hope they put it on the A6000 replacement.
 
He's mentioned all the reasons why already.

EVF won't ever replace an optical viewfinder especially for low light comp and performance, at least not any time soon anyway and not to optical viewfinder levels. AF speed isn't as good as a fully fledged pro dslr either so 2 of the key things a camera needs to be good at for a workhorse tool especially in weddings.
 
the_director said:
Any kind of warranty? The main thing holding me back is I like nature photography and I'd miss the extra reach of the 1.5x crop factor. For my old manual lenses I like the IBIS on the A7 mk 2 and hope they put it on the A6000 replacement.
Click to expand...

MPB provide a 6 month warranty with all their used goods, I'v bought cameras from them before that have had issues (a D7000) and they bent over backwards to get me a replacement in time for Christmas.

If you knew what you were doing I'm sure you could work around the limitations of the camera and get stunning wedding images but it would be frustrating. The choppy EVF in lowlight, sluggish AF compared to DSLR and the battery life would get in the way. Not to mention the FE 35mm 1.4 isn't out yet so really you'd be limited to using their 55mm 1.8 as your only AF wedding prime, or manual focusing with adapters.
 
mrk said:
He's mentioned all the reasons why already.

EVF won't ever replace an optical viewfinder especially for low light comp and performance, at least not any time soon anyway and not to optical viewfinder levels. AF speed isn't as good as a fully fledged pro dslr either so 2 of the key things a camera needs to be good at for a workhorse tool especially in weddings.
Click to expand...

Regarding AF I absolutely agree, but regarding EVFs I'm a convert. The XE-2/X-T1's EVF gives borderline night vision. I've only noticed lag when I've accidentally bumped the Aperture to F16 or something silly in candlelight, and even then it's still usable.

I do have a slight concern that in really low light it bumps the ISO up to huge values to eliminate lag, which is fine for EVF usability, but I wonder if it heats the sensor up. I've not noticed a consequence in photos, but I've not gone looking for it either.
 
Don't get me wrong, I am actually really enjoying the EVF, in good and even low light its great, seeing live exposure and histogram is great. I don't miss the OVF but in near darkness it definitely gets choppy, at least on the original A7.
 
Best thing about EVFs is what you see is what you get. For me that was a huge change, optical viewfinders to an amateur meant I'd see something nice but the photo would come out completely differently. With an EVF I can see exactly what I'm achieving.

Main benefit is I only use manual focus lenses and the focus peaking and zoom to focus helps massively.
 
Couldn't touch an OVF now, I'm a total convert and particularly now I've grown to love the vari-angle EVF on my NX30. The only downside is that they absolutely kill the battery but hey ho just buy more batteries! But then again I don't shoot anything critical so if I miss a shot (and that happens a lot!) it doesn't matter.
 
the_director said:
Best thing about EVFs is what you see is what you get. For me that was a huge change, optical viewfinders to an amateur meant I'd see something nice but the photo would come out completely differently. With an EVF I can see exactly what I'm achieving.

Main benefit is I only use manual focus lenses and the focus peaking and zoom to focus helps massively.
Click to expand...

You need a 100% viewfinder camera. :)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom