The Sony A7 thread [Merged]

[jmr237]

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I have the 35mm Summicron ASPH and 50mm Summilux ASPH. Will they perform equally well on the a7 and a7s? Or will they perform better on the a7s?

 

I know there has been a ton of discussion on this, but I didn't find a comparison of the same lens on the two different bodies. Most of the tests compare different lenses on the same body.

[2wk]

Better with the A7S.

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[viramati]

I have the 35mm Summicron ASPH and 50mm Summilux ASPH. Will they perform equally well on the a7 and a7s? Or will they perform better on the a7s?

 

I know there has been a ton of discussion on this, but I didn't find a comparison of the same lens on the two different bodies. Most of the tests compare different lenses on the same body.

 

Have both cameras and the 50 lux. It will perform better on the A7s but is still not perfect wide open

[colonel]

As we are on post 241 its worth repeating again that the A7S is far superior to the others in using Leica lenses. In fact its far superior to any non-Leica camera on the market.

 

In terms of the A7ii I love everything except the extra weight.

 

My next Sony will be the A7Sii or the A7Rii if they include a silent shutter

 

toodle pip!

[beckzito]

Hi people,

 

 

Is it normal on a A7 with a new summarit 35mm f/2.4 to loose the magnification when focusing?

I am getting focus peaking but no magnificacion...

 

Thanks in advance

[TomB_tx]

Yes, with adapted lenses the camera can't sense when you turn the focus ring, but peaking only considers contrast levels. I keep my thumb on the focus select button on the back, set to mag when pressed (twice - the first press outlines the zoom area so you can move it, and a second press magnifies that area).

I've disabled peaking, as it is distractive and not accurate enough. I find it easy to judge sharpness without it, and usually hit focus well enough that magnifying is just confirmation, so I use it rarely.

The far corners do smear on the A7 with the Summarit 35, but you can still get great pictures with it.

Overall my Leica R lenses do great on the A7 even in the corners, but the Summarit is a nice small lens in spite of the corner issue of the A7.

[TomB_tx]

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Since I mentioned corner smearing on the A7 with the Summarit 35, I thought I'd make some crops to illustrate and compare to the M9 and other lenses. These were all shot in room light, hand held, at f2.8 on all lenses. The M9 was at ISO 1600 and the others at 2000 on the A7. The center of all pictures was excellent and equivalent with on-screen viewing, so I won't show those.

First is the M9 corner on the Summarit 35 2.5 at 2.8:

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Next the A7 corner, Summarit 35 2.5 at 2.8:

Then for comparison the Biogon 35 2.0 at 2.8 (which surprised me as I think of the Biogon as worse on the A7):

And finally the Leica Summicron-R 35 at 2.8:

Of course the Summicron R is huge compared to the Summarit (or Biogon), and takes a much thicker adapter on the A7 as well.

Overall the Summarit handles and feels best of these lenses on the A7, and most of the picture area is very good. So I would use it on the A7 (although prefer the M9 for 35mm lenses).

[jaapv]

I think the Summarit shot has motion blur. Do use a tripod for such tests.

[TomB_tx]

I think the Summarit shot has motion blur. Do use a tripod for such tests.

 

I should have used a tripod, as the smearing effect on corners due to astigmatism from the cover glass does look like motion blur, and does cause the majority of the blur in the corner crop of the Summarit. For comparison, here's a center crop of the same picture, which shows the amount of motion blur compared to the smearing of the corner:

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But if there were body rotation around the lens axis the corner would show more motion blur than the center, so I took the shot again on a tripod, and here's the Summarit corner for comparison:

Because the focus point for all these was on the lamp in the center of the picture and not on the clock, some of the differences may also be curvature of field differences between the lenses. However, the corner of the Summarit on the M9 still looks a lot better than the corner of the Summarit on the A7. (And the M9 shot used a shutter speed about half the A7. I do use the electronic first curtain on the A7 so shutter shock has little effect, but the mass of the M9 helps in shake reduction as well.)

Edited March 14, 2015 by TomB_tx

[jmahto]

...

This obscures the big advantage with Sony's is they can be charged from any USB cable. This is brilliant and I don't know why other manufacturers don't do this.

I can plug it in at my desk at work and it's charged in a few hours. I never have to take a charger to work.

Rgds

 

I was in a car (passenger, not driving) getting my spare battery charged in camera by USB cable. Suddenly a picture opportunity came and I lifted the camera to shoot. It won't fire !! Later I realized that I should have pulled the USB cable out of the camera to function. My bad, but I don't see in camera charging as advantage. If I have to carry appropriate USB cable anyway then I can also carry the charging unit as well. At least charging and shooting can take place in parallel.

 

It is just a minimalist approach to keep the cost down IMHO.

Edited March 24, 2015 by jmahto

[DigitalHeMan]

So this thread has been quiet for a while...... Have people just stopped using the A7? The 'original' A7 has come down to a very nice price now since the introduction of the A7 mk2 - at the current price point (around 1100 Euros) is it something worth considering as a backup to an M9?

[TomB_tx]

I still use my A7 quite a bit, normally with my collection of old SLR lenses, often with my Pentax-M series which are quite compact. With SLR lenses the corners are fine. I seldom use wider than 35 on my M9, so for my types of pictures it does work well as an M9 backup. I seldom use my CV 21 on the M9, but use a Pentax 20 f4 M (also a small lens) instead on the A7, which is more convenient than a separate finder on the M9, with more accurate framing.

[gyoung]

I finally got an A7 a couple of months ago, persuaded by the lower price.

Just getting the hang of it really, and very happy so far. The only m lens that I have which is unacceptable on it is the 35mm Summicron asph which is a well known 'problem'. And experimenting with the lens correction app and adobe flat field addon to find which gives the best results with the 21mm Elmarit asph. and the 15mm Heliar.

 

Gerry

Edited April 25, 2015 by gyoung

[DigitalHeMan]

I finally got an A7 a couple of months ago, persuaded by the lower price.

Just getting the hang of it really, and very happy so far. The only m lens that I have which is unacceptable on it is the 35mm Summicron asph which is a well known 'problem'. And experimenting with the lens correction app and adobe flat field addon to find which gives the best results with the 21mm Elmarit asph. and the 15mm Heliar.

 

Gerry

I also just picked one up, and have been having some fun with it this weekend. So far with the 50 Lux and 35 Summarit I am getting good results. The 28 Cron less so, but I need to do some more testing.

[Thomas Chen]

to find which gives the best results with the 21mm Elmarit asph. and the 15mm Heliar.

 

 

Thanks a lot, Gerry.

 

Thomas Chen

[jmr237]

The only m lens that I have which is unacceptable on it is the 35mm Summicron asph which is a well known 'problem'.

 

Does the 35mm Summicron ASPH work better on the A7s?

[gyoung]

I haven't an A7s of course, but the consensus seems to be that it has less colour cast and vignetting problems with wider lenses, but nothing can be done about the poor corner and edge resolution which affects some lenses, particularly the 35/2 asph Summicron. Thats caused by the thick coverglass on the sensor exacerbating the curvature of field the lens has. That's the same with all the A7 series, as a compensatuon the 35mm Summicron asph works beautifully on the nex 6 as a standard lens if you can accept the aps crop and 16mp

 

Gerry

[Thomas Chen]

Does the 35mm Summicron ASPH work better on the A7s?

For some settings, the performance of A7R (not A7S !) + Summicron 35 ASPH is moderately acceptable, depending on the extent how you will use the files.

 

The link below contains OCC jpeg files to demonstrate how well they may work out, using f/2, f/4, f/8 and f/11. Just avoid pointing toward the blue sky if edge color cast is not desirable.

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/d5fy1vzkaplrc5l/AACX7Mf08YVRYJqA8nhFQXbJa?dl=0

 

Best Regards,

 

Thomas Chen

[miamigator]

I've been blow away by doing video with the A7s with a 35mm summilux

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[gyoung]

For some settings, the performance of A7R (not A7S !) + Summicron 35 ASPH is moderately acceptable, depending on the extent how you will use the files.

 

The link below contains OCC jpeg files to demonstrate how well they may work out, using f/2, f/4, f/8 and f/11. Just avoid pointing toward the blue sky if edge color cast is not desirable.

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/d5fy1vzkaplrc5l/AACX7Mf08YVRYJqA8nhFQXbJa?dl=0

 

Best Regards,

 

Thomas Chen

Very nice examples of what you CAN do with it, its infinity lanscapes where it becomes problematic in my experience, you can mitigate the problem a little by focussing 3/4 of the way across the scene rather than centrally, or focussing in the centre then pulling the focus a little towards thecamera, but its not really satisfactory.  I got better results in terms of sharpness across the frame with my son's 35/2.8 Takumar M.  But its not the worst of my 35s, that is the Voigtlander 35/2.5 which (like the 21/4) never really gets sharp at the edges even at f/11.

And compared to the kit 28-70, the Sumicron is at least as sharp at the edges at f/8, and much sharper in the middle at all apertures.

I'm using a F mount Voigtlander 40mm Ultron SLII at the moment, and contemplating a 35/2.8 Elmarit R which I have fond memories of when I had an R4 years ago.

 

Gerry