If this is your first visit, be sure to check out the FAQ by clicking the link above. You may have to register before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages, select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below. |
|
|
Thread Tools | Display Modes |
#41
|
|||
|
|||
Sony a99 specs
Alan Browne wrote:
On 2012.08.31 19:39 , wrote: On Fri, 31 Aug 2012 13:42:01 +0100, "R. Mark Clayton" wrote: wrote in message ... On Thu, 30 Aug 2012 17:00:23 -0400, Alan Browne wrote: On 2012.08.30 06:15 , R. Mark Clayton wrote: Snip I'm curious, what glass do you own? 17-35 Cosina 50 f1.4 Minolta 35-70 Macro Minolta 70-200 f4 Sigma 28-200 f4 Tokina (superseded the about two that came with the back) And I am after a 500mm AF f8 Reflex Minolta, having passed up a manual focus 600mm some years ago. What is a Reflex lens? Is it like the mirror (telescope style) lens that I think Nikon used to make? Yes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minolt...mm_Reflex_lens Notably the later Minolta/Sony designs are AF. Usually such lenses are MF. I suspect Sony calibrates AF in their cameras so that the 500mm reflex is slightly out of focus -- not deliberately of course, just the way their standard calibration happens to work. It's hard to discover whether the AF is slightly off because it's such a long lens that it's very tricky to focus it accurately manually even on a really solid tripod. I discovered this slightly off AF by carefully adjusting the camera AF sensor plane until the AF gave spot-on focus. It doesn't always get it exactly right, especially in poor light, but I can't get near such sharply focused images with manual focus except now and then by sheer luck. I'm lucky to get exact focus manually in the best conditions once in four or five tries, and each try takes at least 20 seconds. Luckily that readjustment of my camera's AF also slightly improved the focus on most of my other lenses. I wouldn't actually have cared if it had made them a bit worse, since the kind of inaccuracy involved is usually swallowed by depth of field. All my other lenses are easily manually focused anyway, and usually are when I'm being fussy. But the 500mm is so hard to focus manually that having good AF really transforms its capabilities. It becomes a lens you can hand hold and snap moving targets with. And it's small and light enough you can carry it around just in case. Since Sony were the only camera maker with a 500mm AF reflex lens, and AF makes such a huge difference to it, I can't understad why Sony stopped making it. Michael Reichmann at Luminous Landscape even suggested it was so good with AF that for some enthusiasts that one unique lens would a good reason to go Sony. -- Chris Malcolm |
#42
|
|||
|
|||
Sony a99 specs
On 2012.09.03 04:49 , Chris Malcolm wrote:
Alan Browne wrote: As a general guide avoid zoom ratios greater than 3:1. (For 'walkabout' lenses, greater is fine until you find that subject that you'd like to spend some time on and the good lenses are back home). Unless it's a very good modern wide range zoom and you don't need a wider aperture than f8. I've been surprised by how good my Sony 18-250mm is at f8 when used on a tripod, image stabilisation off, and carefully manually focused. Hard (not impossible) to tell the difference between it and a good prime -- at f8. But it gets obviously worse when opened up wider than f8, whereas my primes tend to get better. I wouldn't even think of getting that lens. I often shoot wide open and in the few stops near there. The lens has to perform. -- "C'mon boys, you're not laying pipe!". -John Keating. |
#43
|
|||
|
|||
Sony a99 specs
On 2012.09.03 05:42 , Chris Malcolm wrote:
Alan Browne wrote: Yes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minolt...mm_Reflex_lens Notably the later Minolta/Sony designs are AF. Usually such lenses are MF. I suspect Sony calibrates AF in their cameras so that the 500mm reflex is slightly out of focus -- not deliberately of course, just the way their standard calibration happens to work. A lot of Sony cameras seem to rear up as needing focus adjustment on a lens by lens basis (you can store offsets for your lens collection). I don't have that issue with my a900. I test it from time to time with the angle to paper target method and it is fine. It's hard to discover whether the AF is slightly off because it's such a long lens that it's very tricky to focus it accurately manually even on a really solid tripod. I discovered this slightly off AF by carefully adjusting the camera AF sensor plane until the AF gave spot-on focus. It doesn't always get it exactly right, especially in poor light, but I can't get near such sharply focused images with manual focus except now and then by sheer luck. I'm lucky to get exact focus manually in the best conditions once in four or five tries, and each try takes at least 20 seconds. Even at moderate ranges, 500mm overwhelms the f/8 DOF. It's no surprise. Luckily that readjustment of my camera's AF also slightly improved the focus on most of my other lenses. I wouldn't actually have cared if it had made them a bit worse, since the kind of inaccuracy involved is usually swallowed by depth of field. All my other lenses are easily manually focused anyway, and usually are when I'm being fussy. I seem to have gotten a well calibrated a900. But the 500mm is so hard to focus manually that having good AF really transforms its capabilities. It becomes a lens you can hand hold and snap moving targets with. And it's small and light enough you can carry it around just in case. That belies the number of photogs leaving it at home as too limited by aperture/speed and occasionally unpleasant highlights. Since Sony were the only camera maker with a 500mm AF reflex lens, and AF makes such a huge difference to it, I can't understad why Sony stopped making it. Michael Reichmann at Luminous Landscape even suggested it was so good with AF that for some enthusiasts that one unique lens would a good reason to go Sony. I didn't know they had stopped making it. And I'm not sure if that's a good or a bad thing. As I've said elsewhere, cats are just most likely to end up as closet queens. -- "C'mon boys, you're not laying pipe!". -John Keating. |
#44
|
|||
|
|||
Sony a99 specs
Hi,
The A99 specs look good for sure. But I would strongly advise any Konica Minolta Sony owner with no experience of the electronic viewfinder, to extensively try the A99 before considering switching (to it or to any other EVF-based Alpha). Also, be cautious to noise, and smearing as the outcome of noise reduction. I have thoroughly used KM SLR's over time (600si Classic, then 9xi, then D7D), with decent glass (f/2.8 fixed focal or zoom lenses, both from Konica Minolta and from Sigma). I was perfectly happy with the 600si/D7D kit, the D7D being a digital version of the 600si, with an ergonomic design fully suiting my needs: one function, one button, direct access, no menu clutter. The 9xi was not in this philosophy, a nightmare with almost everything buried in menus and a couple Fn keys. Over time, I have had the occasional chance to shoot a few pictures with cameras from the Alpha range, from the Alpha 100 to more recent optical viewfinder products. I was always shocked by the amount of noise in all but very lit scenes, and with the more recent cameras, the very visible smearing that the camera would produce in order to hide this noise. Even more so, that the D7D at regular ISO (say below 400) has exactly zero noise, and is helped in low light by its sensor anti-shake, so with a bit of experience, it produces very good shots in low light, with zero noise nor smearing at all. My take on this is that when Sony bought Minolta, they kept the 5D camera chassis (which became the Alpha 100), but dumped all Minolta electronics from sensor to image processing, to put in their own stuff. And their lack of digital SLR experience was showing in this amount of noise, progressively more or less efficiently hidden by smearing (probably the outcome of some form of random direction bilinear filtering used as noise reduction). In 2011, with no good reason other than its ageing-sensor limited dynamics, forcing permanent extra-careful exposition and framing (apart from which the D7D is doing perfectly fine), I considered switching to a more modern camera, so I went and tried what Sony offered these days. My dealer told me that there were no more optical viewfinder cameras in the Sony range, and that there would be none in the future either. He offered me to try an Alpha 77, by then the top of the SLT (alias semi-translucent mirror, electronic viewfinder) range. At first I was blown away with the very interesting features that an EVF offers, mostly: - real-time maximum contrast highlight, the sharpness peaks shown helping focus controlling, - same for blown highlight and lowlight areas, - constant scene exposure in the viewfinder: the EVF compensates for low light situations by acting as a light amplifier, easing framing and focusing Also, the AF with my cam-driven lenses was a bit faster than my D7D, even though way slower than with modern motorized lenses, which I also had the occasion to try (I lurked, and still lurk, on the Sony Zeiss 16-50 f/2.8, mostly because with its 1.5 crop factor, my 28-70 on my D7D no longer was the wide angle it was on my earlier full frame film cameras). But there was this feeling of looking through a video camera viewfinder rather than through an SLR’s. This is a combination of lag (try panning pan with a SLT camera), lack of apparent resolution (accurate and fine focusing without zooming feels uneasy), and lack of “natural” aspect of the displayed image. So I told my dealer that I would like to spend ten days with the A77 before making a decision, which he agreed. I shot as often as I could during this evaluation, and also tried the video feature, in which I have a priori no interest at all, but which proved very usable on the A77, with continuous yet discrete AF, and very decent picture and sound quality. I was also blasted by the overall response of the camera, by its burst shooting abilities, by the ergonomics which are largely in line with my D7D’s and my preference for the “one function, one button” approach. The negative outcome of this trial period was twofold: - factoring in all pros and cons, I massively prefer the optical viewfinder over the EVF, - the A77 also has lots of low light noise, tentatively hidden by smearing, but the smearing is (for me) so bad looking that I would preferably prefer no noise reduction at all and live with untouched noise… but you simply cannot disable completely the noise smearing feature in the A77. All the low light pictures exhibited noise smearing, both in RAW and JPEG formats. I tried all noise control features in the A77 (and there are plenty, including multiple shot superposition etc.), but all my trials shown some smearing, with an aspect that I personally dislike a lot. So I decided to return the A77, and given that there would be no more optical viewfinder cameras in the Sony Alpha line-up, to switch to either Canon or Nikon. Let me just say in this non-thread relevant part, that after thorough evaluation of the 5DIII and the D800, I opted for the D800, mostly because of its really extraordinary sensor dynamics; the ergonomics, feature set and menu/setting structure being surprisingly in line with my D7D-based habits. Bottom line for KM to A99 switchers: I advise to spend some time with the EVF in order to assess if it works for you or not, and to pay very close attention to noise and artefacts of noise reduction. Maybe the A99’s newer EVF and newer, 14 bit sensor and processing will eventually cancel those drawbacks, but this remains to be seen first hand. You may consider this story long, but in fact it is short, I really spent a lot of efforts in assessing my compatibility with the A77, and after having decided it would not do, assessing which of the Canon and Nikon offerings would suit my likes... Regards, -- Stéphane |
#45
|
|||
|
|||
Sony a99 specs
On 2012.09.04 04:16 , Stéphane Guillard wrote:
Bottom line for KM to A99 switchers: I advise to spend some time with the EVF in order to assess if it works for you or not, and to pay very close attention to noise and artefacts of noise reduction. Maybe the A99’s newer EVF and newer, 14 bit sensor and processing will eventually cancel those drawbacks, but this remains to be seen first hand. You make a long rambling post on unrelated factors then come up with that? Really? I can say without a doubt that the difference between the KM-7D and the a900 was huge without even addressing pixel count. The 14 bit A/D of the a99 in itself should be a boon to image quality. I do have my reservations wrt the EVF. But assuming one can frame and focus on the subject, there shouldn't be any issues. -- "C'mon boys, you're not laying pipe!". -John Keating. |
#46
|
|||
|
|||
Sony a99 specs
Alan Browne wrote:
On 2012.09.03 04:49 , Chris Malcolm wrote: Alan Browne wrote: As a general guide avoid zoom ratios greater than 3:1. (For 'walkabout' lenses, greater is fine until you find that subject that you'd like to spend some time on and the good lenses are back home). Unless it's a very good modern wide range zoom and you don't need a wider aperture than f8. I've been surprised by how good my Sony 18-250mm is at f8 when used on a tripod, image stabilisation off, and carefully manually focused. Hard (not impossible) to tell the difference between it and a good prime -- at f8. But it gets obviously worse when opened up wider than f8, whereas my primes tend to get better. I wouldn't even think of getting that lens. I often shoot wide open and in the few stops near there. The lens has to perform. Fair enough. I guess you often shoot in low light and also often want te subject in sharper focus with blurred background which is out of the scope of a lens like the 18-250mm. I guess if I more often wanted to do that with a single general purpose lens I'd go for something like a good 16-50mm f2.8. But for general opportunistic camera-with-one-lens carrying I find I more often want a bigger range of focal lengths than I want wider apertures. Since most of my outdoor walk-about shots are done at f8ish for best corner-to-corner detail resolution whatever lens I happen to to be using, being restricted to f8 at the widest for best quality is not a serious restriction. If I'm not going to produce a bigger print than A4 (roughly 12" x 8") the 18-250mm at f8 and away from the two extreme focal lengths is hard to fault in image quality after post-processing. At 250mm it's getting a bit soft, even when carefully focused manually, and at 18mm the barrel distortion needs correction if there's any off-centre long straight lines. For best quality images or for low light work I have wide aperture primes at 24, 35, 50, and 85mm. I've twice been asked unexpectedly on the spot to photograph large paintings when all I had on the camera was the 18-250mm. So giving suitable warnings about not best image quality I've used it at around 50-80mm at f8. And been pleasantly surprised at how good the quality was on a carefully processed A4-ish sized print. I say "carefully processed" because there would probably be more contrast and micro-contrast applied to the 18-250mm image compared to the image from a prime. But I felt no need to offer a reshoot with a prime in order to improve the images. At A3 print size the image quality differences at f8 are starting to become obvious, clearly obvious at A2. Of course when photographing a flat object like a painting DoF and bokeh etc don't come into play at all. -- Chris Malcolm |
#47
|
|||
|
|||
Sony a99 specs
On 5/09/2012 9:42 a.m., Alan Browne wrote:
On 2012.09.04 04:16 , Stéphane Guillard wrote: Bottom line for KM to A99 switchers: I advise to spend some time with the EVF in order to assess if it works for you or not, and to pay very close attention to noise and artefacts of noise reduction. Maybe the A99’s newer EVF and newer, 14 bit sensor and processing will eventually cancel those drawbacks, but this remains to be seen first hand. You make a long rambling post on unrelated factors then come up with that? Really? I can say without a doubt that the difference between the KM-7D and the a900 was huge without even addressing pixel count. The 14 bit A/D of the a99 in itself should be a boon to image quality. I do have my reservations wrt the EVF. But assuming one can frame and focus on the subject, there shouldn't be any issues. I'm not "sold" on EVF (yet), but my impression trying out several EVF cameras was that resolution wasn't an issue with the a77. There's still some lag for sure, but it was /by far/ the best of what I tried when annoying the heck out of my local camera store folks. The most unappealing thing about the display to me was that (presumably default settings) the display was like something out of an '80s sci-fi movie with Arnie starring - too much going on for a human to comprehend. I assume most of that can be turned off, but I've had needed to RTFM. If the thing's that clever, why doesn't it just do it without the need to make such a display of what it's doing? |
#48
|
|||
|
|||
Sony a99 specs
On 2012.09.05 05:41 , Chris Malcolm wrote:
Alan Browne wrote: On 2012.09.03 04:49 , Chris Malcolm wrote: Alan Browne wrote: As a general guide avoid zoom ratios greater than 3:1. (For 'walkabout' lenses, greater is fine until you find that subject that you'd like to spend some time on and the good lenses are back home). Unless it's a very good modern wide range zoom and you don't need a wider aperture than f8. I've been surprised by how good my Sony 18-250mm is at f8 when used on a tripod, image stabilisation off, and carefully manually focused. Hard (not impossible) to tell the difference between it and a good prime -- at f8. But it gets obviously worse when opened up wider than f8, whereas my primes tend to get better. I wouldn't even think of getting that lens. I often shoot wide open and in the few stops near there. The lens has to perform. Fair enough. I guess you often shoot in low light and also often want te subject in sharper focus with blurred background which is out of the scope of a lens like the 18-250mm. I want a lens that performs well in all light conditions and the full range of aperture. I pay for this by having to change lenses. I guess if I more often wanted to do that with a single general purpose lens I'd go for something like a good 16-50mm f2.8. But for general opportunistic camera-with-one-lens carrying I find I more often want a bigger range of focal lengths than I want wider apertures. It's certainly convenient for that purpose. Since most of my outdoor walk-about shots are done at f8ish for best corner-to-corner detail resolution whatever lens I happen to to be using, being restricted to f8 at the widest for best quality is not a serious restriction. If I'm not going to produce a bigger print than A4 (roughly 12" x 8") the 18-250mm at f8 and away from the two extreme focal lengths is hard to fault in image quality after post-processing. At 250mm it's getting a bit soft, even when carefully focused manually, and at 18mm the barrel distortion needs correction if there's any off-centre long straight lines. It's always a tradeoff. -- "C'mon boys, you're not laying pipe!". -John Keating. |
#49
|
|||
|
|||
Sony a99 specs
On 2012.09.05 06:28 , Me wrote:
On 5/09/2012 9:42 a.m., Alan Browne wrote: The 14 bit A/D of the a99 in itself should be a boon to image quality. I do have my reservations wrt the EVF. But assuming one can frame and focus on the subject, there shouldn't be any issues. I'm not "sold" on EVF (yet), but my impression trying out several EVF cameras was that resolution wasn't an issue with the a77. There's still some lag for sure, but it was /by far/ the best of what I tried when annoying the heck out of my local camera store folks. Lag may be very distracting, such as in the studio when posing people and shots can be reactive to fleeting expressions. I hope that the lag is short enough to be barely perceptible. I can imagine shooting one eye in VF one eye out and having to deal with the difference. (Not my practice much as my left eye is dominate so my right eye is blocked with most cameras). It's bad enough, if I believe what I've read that the shutter lag is still 50 ms on a camera that doesn't have to move a mirror out of the way. Perhaps in manual exposure mode it's not that bad. The most unappealing thing about the display to me was that (presumably default settings) the display was like something out of an '80s sci-fi movie with Arnie starring - too much going on for a human to comprehend. I assume most of that can be turned off, but I've had needed to RTFM. If the thing's that clever, why doesn't it just do it without the need to make such a display of what it's doing? The user interface is something camera makers get really right or really wrong. Sony have a hit/miss record in that respect. IAC, I won't be rushing to get the a99. I'll let its reputation develop. I bet the images will be superb. I also want to see if there are image artifacts related to the pellicle as some early Sony SLT's had. -- "C'mon boys, you're not laying pipe!". -John Keating. |
#50
|
|||
|
|||
Sony a99 specs
R. Mark Clayton wrote:
wrote in message ... On Thu, 30 Aug 2012 17:00:23 -0400, Alan Browne wrote: On 2012.08.30 06:15 , R. Mark Clayton wrote: Snip I'm curious, what glass do you own? 17-35 Cosina 50 f1.4 Minolta 35-70 Macro Minolta 70-200 f4 Sigma 28-200 f4 Tokina (superseded the about two that came with the back) And I am after a 500mm AF f8 Reflex Minolta, having passed up a manual focus 600mm some years ago. The most interesting lens Minolta ever made was the 250mm MD reflex - a shame it was not adapted for AF use as this would keep the weight of the kit down! I note that its second hand price on Ebay exceeds the price of the new (and AF) 500mm reflex -- when it turns up, which isn't often. Be interesting to see how the second hand prices of the 500mm go once all the remaining stocks of new ones have sold out. Does the 250mm MD reflex need an optical converter for the alpha mount? MD lenses usually do, but these mirror lenses were usually built to focus past infinity. Enough past infinity not to need an optical converter to the alpha mount? -- Chris Malcolm |
Thread Tools | |
Display Modes | |
|
|
Similar Threads | ||||
Thread | Thread Starter | Forum | Replies | Last Post |
NEX-7 specs. Holy s---! | Chris Malcolm[_2_] | Digital Photography | 0 | September 3rd 11 07:38 AM |
NEX-7 specs. Holy s---! | David J. Littleboy | Digital SLR Cameras | 11 | September 1st 11 02:59 AM |
Canon 50D Specs | David Nebenzahl | Digital Photography | 81 | September 1st 08 11:38 AM |
please help with DX7590 specs... | Mario | Digital Photography | 2 | October 29th 04 04:51 AM |