The Amazing Sony A1/A7/A9/APS-C & Anything else welcome Mega Thread!

woof woof said:
Going back to my design / manufacturing / product approval days and trying not to generalise one thing I will say is that you can't necessarily judge either quality or reliability from the badge on the box or even be sure who actually designed and / or made it.

I've seen some utter s***t with a supposed quality name on it and of course conversely I've seen some good stuff with a name you'd associate with lower end products.

Oh, and IMO Made In Xxxx means nothing.
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what can you judge it on then?

the likes of canon L and Nikon lenses are all top quality. how have they been judged then?

Also i cant find much info on bad copies of batis lenses and it has been out for nearly a year as i stated.

If we shouldnt believe the internet, why should i believe u lot then lol?
 
Anyone else think the g master 85 is one ugly
Mf-er?
Personally like the look of the Batis. Pretty cool.
 
Zeiss lenses do have that traditional Zeiss look and "pop", wonder if the Sony 85mm GM has that look and feel.
I'd agreed with the comments, it's too early to tell if the GM is way better than the Batis and in what area's.
 
jonneymendoza said:
Also i cant find much info on bad copies of batis lenses and it has been out for nearly a year as i stated.
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"out for nearly a year" may be exaggerating the Batis' availibility. :( Hard to put out bad copies when you don't even put out many good copies!
 
FYI I emailed sigma and they replied , they did not test the metabones nor wanted to but they say the adaptor works exceptionally well with all canon sigma glass, I wonder how it differs then from metabones.... Anyway looks promising

We do not test Metabones products so I cannot comment on the differences between the two adaptors. The Sigma MC-11 is designed for use with Sigma “Global Vision” lenses and will fit and function correctly with the Sigma 150-600mm Contemporary lens in the Canon EOS EF and Sigma SA lens mounts.
 
Rizvan said:
A lot of lenses have the cats eye bokeh in certain conditions, even the Otus has it apparently.

That said, the Sony 85mm GM looks rather tasty but it's also a very hefty lens..... :)
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I think it's a feature of the Batis more than something that occurs occasionally in certain conditions... TBH I thought they'd done it deliberately to recreate the look of something (I forget what) they made years ago I've no idea what optical formula produces this effect but assuming that Zeiss know what they're doing (and I'm sure they do) then I think it's likely that they have indeed gone for this look? Could be? :D

Actually, now I know :D ...

http://toothwalker.org/optics/vignetting.html#fig3

"Cat's eye effect
The consequences of optical vignetting for a subject that is in focus (cf. Fig. 1) is merely a reduced brightness towards the image corners. However, optical vignetting can also have a pronounced effect on out-of-focus parts of the image. Because the shape of an out-of-focus highlight (OOFH) mimics the shape of the clear aperture, the bottom left situation of Fig. 2 leads to the so-called cat's eye effect [1]. Figure 3 evidences the resemblance between the appearance of OOFHs and the aperture shape. With an increasing distance from the optical axis the shape of the OOFH progressively narrows and starts to resemble a cat's eye. The larger the distance from the image center, the narrower the cat's eye becomes."

And one from me...



:D
 
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woof woof said:
I think it's a feature of the Batis more than something that occurs occasionally in certain conditions... TBH I thought they'd done it deliberately to recreate the look of something (I forget what) they made years ago? I've no idea what optical formula produces this effect but assuming that Zeiss know what they're doing (and I'm sure they do) then I think it's likely that they have indeed gone for this look? Could be? :D
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I think it the 9 elements in the batis. Where as with 11 you get rounder bokeh. Something like that..

**edit** 9 aperture blades rather.
 
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addicknchips said:
I think it the 9 elements in the batis. Where as with 11 you get rounder bokeh. Something like that..

**edit** 9 aperture blades rather.
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Correct, 11 blades will produce a more rounder bokeh effect compared to the 9 bladed lenses.
Zeiss lenses are better known for their Zeiss pop, colour and contrast. I think both the GM and Batis lenses have positives and negatives.
 
Rizvan said:
Correct, 11 blades will produce a more rounder bokeh effect compared to the 9 bladed lenses.
Zeiss lenses are better known for their Zeiss pop, colour and contrast. I think both the GM and Batis lenses have positives and negatives.
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But it doesn't produce cats eye specifically which is what he's talking about, the balls are just rounder especially when stopping down with more blades. Do you then think every lens that doesn't have 11 blades produces cats eye in most cases.
 
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I'm sure that people will like and indeed love the cats eye look and I'm sure it's a deliberate choice. Pretty sure anyway :D
 
I'm still not sure I understand what causes this, if the lens is wide open the number of aperture blades wont matter will it? I assume that if the lens is wide open the aperture will be circular? Or will it? :D

I'll have to think about this :D

Anyway, I'm still pretty convinced it's a deliberate design choice.
 
twist said:
But it doesn't produce cats eye specifically which is what he's talking about, the balls are just rounder especially when stopping down with more blades. Do you then think every lens that doesn't have 11 blades produces cats eye in most cases.
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True, the general opinion's out there say the Batis lenses are not lacking quality etc.
I think I may stick to Zeiss for my primes, hope they do a Batis 135mm f2.0 next :)

Some of the Flickr images using the Batis lenses are wonderful and pleasing to my eye.
Zeiss pop and contrast. :)
 
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woof woof said:
I'm still not sure I understand what causes this, if the lens is wide open the number of aperture blades wont matter will it? I assume that if the lens is wide open the aperture will be circular? Or will it? :D

I'll have to think about this :D

Anyway, I'm still pretty convinced it's a deliberate design choice.
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That's correct. Number of blades won't matter AFAIK.
 
Just trying to understand what causes the cats eye, if the aperture is circular it shouldn't happen unless the lens barrel gets in the way and thus turns the aperture circle into a cats eye shape but if there's still some aperture shape still visible at maximum aperture maybe that would cause it.

Clearly I have no idea :D
 
Yes, it's got nothing to do with the aperture blades, in fact quite the opposite - stopping a lens down will usually lessen the "cats eye" effect". And the number of blades will just affect the bokeh shape when shooting at higher apertures. Six blades will give a hexagonal bokeh, eight blades will give an octagonal bokeh, etc.

It's caused by physical obstruction of the lens opening->sensor path within either the lens or camera that gets worse as you move out to the corner of the sensor. So if you were sitting in the middle of the camera sensor looking out through the lens (as if you were one of those specs of sensor dust people worry about), and as you move further and further out to the edge you start to see something start to block your view of the lens opening from one side, getting worse as you move further. That's also why you normally don't get a perfect "cats eye" effect, but rather the half of the bokeh facing inwards remains circular, and the side facing the edge of the image looks flatter.

It's also why lenses showing the effect more tend to have more vignetting - the edges of the images are effectively exposed from a smaller aperture, and in extreme cases can cause the "swirly bokeh" effect so many people like in a bunch of old lenses.

If all that bumf doesn't make sense this image (from twist's link above) might help visualise the cause of the effect.
 
Changing the subject a little, I did a wedding party on Saturday with the A7R2, and while for MOST of the time it was just brilliant, I found it pretty annoying on more than one occasion where I missed the "decisive moment", eg trying to catch dance moves and things being thrown/caught. At that point I really noticed the shortcomings of a mirrorless camera over a dslr. It is an issue I was aware of, but this was the first time that the shutter lag has got in the way of a good picture, so I am about to purchase a little bit of Nikon to go with my Sony. Time to sell the A6000 and some of the less frequently used lenses, and I will start with a D600 probably, with Sigma 35 and 85mm lenses. Bl**dy expensive this game, I've just got rid of all my Nikon gear:(
 
david357 said:
Changing the subject a little, I did a wedding party on Saturday with the A7R2, and while for MOST of the time it was just brilliant, I found it pretty annoying on more than one occasion where I missed the "decisive moment", eg trying to catch dance moves and things being thrown/caught. At that point I really noticed the shortcomings of a mirrorless camera over a dslr. It is an issue I was aware of, but this was the first time that the shutter lag has got in the way of a good picture, so I am about to purchase a little bit of Nikon to go with my Sony. Time to sell the A6000 and some of the less frequently used lenses, and I will start with a D600 probably, with Sigma 35 and 85mm lenses. Bl**dy expensive this game, I've just got rid of all my Nikon gear:(
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I have my 5d3 still
 
david357 said:
Changing the subject a little, I did a wedding party on Saturday with the A7R2, and while for MOST of the time it was just brilliant, I found it pretty annoying on more than one occasion where I missed the "decisive moment", eg trying to catch dance moves and things being thrown/caught. At that point I really noticed the shortcomings of a mirrorless camera over a dslr. It is an issue I was aware of, but this was the first time that the shutter lag has got in the way of a good picture, so I am about to purchase a little bit of Nikon to go with my Sony. Time to sell the A6000 and some of the less frequently used lenses, and I will start with a D600 probably, with Sigma 35 and 85mm lenses. Bl**dy expensive this game, I've just got rid of all my Nikon gear:(
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I have done a few weddings with my a7r2 did you have it set to continuous drive cant say I missed anything that much with it ( may have been luck on my part of course) I have a few canon bodies also so switch between the 3 on the day so it sounds similar to you but with Nikon... sigma 35mm is a fine wedding lens
 
david357 said:
Changing the subject a little, I did a wedding party on Saturday with the A7R2, and while for MOST of the time it was just brilliant, I found it pretty annoying on more than one occasion where I missed the "decisive moment", eg trying to catch dance moves and things being thrown/caught. At that point I really noticed the shortcomings of a mirrorless camera over a dslr. It is an issue I was aware of, but this was the first time that the shutter lag has got in the way of a good picture, so I am about to purchase a little bit of Nikon to go with my Sony. Time to sell the A6000 and some of the less frequently used lenses, and I will start with a D600 probably, with Sigma 35 and 85mm lenses. Bl**dy expensive this game, I've just got rid of all my Nikon gear:(
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Also why I use 2 systems, cover all bases. I would've liked to have thought the a7r2 would be pretty code to the d600 in performance, I know it's no 5d3 / d750 though.
 
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david357 said:
Changing the subject a little, I did a wedding party on Saturday with the A7R2, and while for MOST of the time it was just brilliant, I found it pretty annoying on more than one occasion where I missed the "decisive moment", eg trying to catch dance moves and things being thrown/caught. At that point I really noticed the shortcomings of a mirrorless camera over a dslr. It is an issue I was aware of, but this was the first time that the shutter lag has got in the way of a good picture, so I am about to purchase a little bit of Nikon to go with my Sony. Time to sell the A6000 and some of the less frequently used lenses, and I will start with a D600 probably, with Sigma 35 and 85mm lenses. Bl**dy expensive this game, I've just got rid of all my Nikon gear:(
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I had the same issue a couple of times shooting a 30th birthday a few weeks ago with my A6000/50 and a hotshoe flashgun. To be fair though, it was only twice through the whole evening when the subjects where in shadow. On the dance floor it locked every time.

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/apxao8yudvpzdyb/AAAOd5NVTaV-qJ86MNU6w9Uwa?dl=0

I'm the one with the eye patch ;0)
 
I quite like the look of that new Nikon 25-500 bridge... Save me a few quid as my second body over a d500 lol or 5dm4
 
owenb said:
I have done a few weddings with my a7r2 did you have it set to continuous drive cant say I missed anything that much with it ( may have been luck on my part of course) I have a few canon bodies also so switch between the 3 on the day so it sounds similar to you but with Nikon... sigma 35mm is a fine wedding lens
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AF wasn't much of a problem, but the shutter lag was on a few occasions, and definitely a warning shot that it just won't be good enough for sports or nature purely because that "moment" is so difficult to predict. (I'm sure some will say they have no problem anticipating, but I know that I will miss shots).
 
david357 said:
AF wasn't much of a problem, but the shutter lag was on a few occasions, and definitely a warning shot that it just won't be good enough for sports or nature purely because that "moment" is so difficult to predict. (I'm sure some will say they have no problem anticipating, but I know that I will miss shots).
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I noticed this on all my EVF cameras and also find it annoying for moving subjects. Good to hear the AF was alright though.
 
david357 said:
AF wasn't much of a problem, but the shutter lag was on a few occasions, and definitely a warning shot that it just won't be good enough for sports or nature purely because that "moment" is so difficult to predict. (I'm sure some will say they have no problem anticipating, but I know that I will miss shots).
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oh no defo not a sports or wildlife camera totally agree
 
david357 said:
AF wasn't much of a problem, but the shutter lag was on a few occasions, and definitely a warning shot that it just won't be good enough for sports or nature purely because that "moment" is so difficult to predict. (I'm sure some will say they have no problem anticipating, but I know that I will miss shots).
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I've never found shutter lag in my A6K but haven't used an A7 series. The delay I've seen is where the AF hasn't locked on fully so the shutter won't fire leading to annoying stabbing to get it lock! I shot a wedding with the A6K and a D750 a few weeks ago and even in the lower light of the Reception meal/speeches I found the A6K locked on with no problem so it's definitely an intermittent issue depending on the scene.
 
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