The Sony A7 thread [Merged]

[naturephoto1]

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How about Leica makes a mirrorless M with built-in EVF to counter?

 

That is something that we have suggested to Leica and may in many ways be an R solution to many of us Leica R users.

 

Unfortunately I am not sure if Leica would agree to making such a camera. But if they did it would also need to offer a scrollable EVF and also offer substantially longer shutter speeds as in the case of the Leica R camera bodies as well as offer the ability to accept an electronic release (without the Mult function grip).

 

Rich

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[Thomas Chen]

dwbell, as far as the Sony NEX VG900 pictures linked above I don' think that my statement is contentious. For differences in color rendition between the M9 and M240, my judgment is subjective based on work I see on the web. But it's the subjective aspect that matters. The best I can do is to quote two statements that I agree with.

 

fofografz writes: I remain unconvinced about the M240 image qualities and have passed up two opportunities to secure one from my dealer. This time I'll let others sort it out first ... or replace my M9 with another if the M240 never meets my subjective needs;

 

and charkesphoto99 writes: I do think that the higher iso's on the M9 are vastly underrated, and in general much prefer the image quality of the M9 to the M240. The M9 (and Monochrom by de facto) imo are truly two of the most unique digital cameras out there when it comes to the quality of the image. Not the "best" on paper but they have a look,an "umami" as the Japanese might say, that no other 35mm digital camera, comes close to.

 

On your view on my night pictures, I've no idea what your photography is like, since you don't list a website or a link to where your photo can be seen; so I'm not too excited.

 

—Mitch/Paris

Tristes Tropiques [WIP]

 

Mitch,

 

I don't have M9 only with a M8 and suppose they are in the same league except for the crop factor.

 

After obseving a batch of DNGs by M240 kindly provided by Professor Steven Pinker, I agree with how you describe the IQ of M9 : "Umami", i.e. taste, flavour, relish, the beauty, and of palatable (from Sansedo's new concise Japanese-English Dictionary).

 

Best Regards,

 

Thomas Chen

[Thomas Chen]

That's always been Sony's problem with the Nex, plenty of bodies, hardly any lenses and even the best are so so

 

I'm not sure whether Sony is smart enough to tune the NEX FF as to match Leica M lenses 28mm focal length and above, before the development of a series of good lenses.

[AlanG]

Well, they will have to introduce a complete new lens line, which will take some time. I would not be surprised to see a quite extensive electronic integration of the lenses to correct in firmware.

 

They just need to use their existing E mount to Alpha lens adapter. As a matter of fact, this would result in a smaller package than if you carried a bunch of lenses that each had longer barrels to compensate for the thinner body. (Assuming the same lens design.) And E mount lenses will work in a cropped mode. This makes it easy for current Alpha and Nex users to add this body to their Sony systems.

 

They probably will make some smaller FF lenses especially for wide angle, but those designs would probably prevent those lenses from working on the SLT bodies. And those lenses should also work on the Nex APS bodies.

 

Additionally, this camera will appeal to many Canon users as they can use their EOS lenses on it with AF and aperture linkage via the Metabones adapter. Perhaps other electronic conversion adapters will appear from other companies and/or for other brands of lenses. So this body will have access to an extremely large range of existing lenses immediately upon release... including all kinds of video lenses too. Compatibility with M wides is not going to be a factor in the purchasing decision for very many buyers. But compatibility with the Canon 17mm and 24mm TSE lenses surely will be a big plus.

 

Just assuming current Sony FF image sensor quality and a scaled up Nex 6, this camera would be a category killer. It will be kind of the Rosetta Stone of cameras allowing owners of various brands to use their current lenses plus buy and use select lenses from many other brands. Leica's thin M body would allow for similar compatibility but Leica has not embraced AF or electronic linkage and the high price of such a camera would hold too many back. But this is the wave of the future.

[colonel]

I'm not sure whether Sony is smart enough to tune the NEX FF as to match Leica M lenses 28mm focal length and above, before the development of a series of good lenses.

 

Whilst Leica lenses work fine on many APS-C mirrorless it is almost certain they can not be used on Sony's FF Nex. For them to work to the edges the sensor must have angled micro lenses and Sony will not do this if they continue to design their lens in the current way.

[rirakuma]

Does that only apply to wide angle lenses? If so I personally don't think thats much of a big deal because if you can use 35mm+ without problems I'm sure there will be many alternatives for a wide angle.

[lct]

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Sure but such alternatives would not come from Leica as far as M lenses are concerned.

[jaapv]

Does that only apply to wide angle lenses? If so I personally don't think thats much of a big deal because if you can use 35mm+ without problems I'm sure there will be many alternatives for a wide angle.

 

It may well be a problem on full frame with 35 mm lenses My 35 Biogon C struggles with red edge on the M.

[derleicaman]

I suggest you all take a look at this flickr stream

 

CV15 @ f/8 | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

 

This is from the guy using the Sony NEX VG900 with various 3rd party lenses, most of them Leica M. This stream starts out with the CV15. He also uses the 21 SEM, 28 Summicron ASPH, ZM 28, 35 Lux ASPH, 75 Summicron M, Zeiss 135. I may be leaving some out, but I'm sure you will agree that for sure the CV 15, 21 SEM, ZM 28 and 28 ASPH should be giving a FF sensor fits.

 

I see no red edges or other issues with any of these lenses and the FF sensor. Either he has used something like Cornerfix to take care of the red edge problem or has PP the hell out these images or there is no problem. I don't know the answer, but the results look promising to me.

 

The NEX VG900 may or may not be using the sensor that is going in to the NEX FF, but I think what we're seeing is proof that Sony can pull this thing off.

[algrove]

But when did they design that 35 Biogon C?

[xrogers]

I see no red edges or other issues with any of these lenses and the FF sensor. Either he has used something like Cornerfix to take care of the red edge problem or has PP the hell out these images or there is no problem. I don't know the answer, but the results look promising to me.

 

I'm sorry, but I don't like what I see in that photostream. The lenses need to be stopped down significantly to get decent edge sharpness (the 35 1.4 looks bad even at the center wide open, and even the 75 needs to be stopped down a fair bit). I'd definitely stick with the M9 rather than use whatever camera did that with my lenses.

 

I like Sony cameras, and hope the FF Sony is a great one, but I likely won't consider it until it has some excellent native lenses.

[derleicaman]

I don't think anyone can properly evaluate images on flickr. Original files would be much more informative as far as how good a camera and sensor and lens combination can/will be. The only point I was making was that given the images on this flickr stream, I could see no evidence of the typical issues FF sensors have with RF wide angle lenses.

 

At this point not one of us knows much of anything about what sensor, etc. the Sony NEX FF will be using. The NEX VG900 is the closest thing we have at this point. It is E mount, it is full frame and some folks have shot some M mount lenses on it with seemingly good results. The other link I posted in an earlier post compares the VG900 to an M 240 with Leica lenses.

 

Again, my only point is that the VG900 and M lens or M mount combination seems to work. I don't see any of the usual problems one would expect to see with M mount wides and a FF sensor. Will I sell my M9-P to get the NEX FF? Hell no, but it is interesting to see a development such as this. We will know the real answer soon enough after Sony releases the actual cameras. Until then it's anyone's guess.

[jaapv]

But when did they design that 35 Biogon C?

 

It is a current lens.

[AlanG]

As we all know there is generally a tradeoff between lens size, sensor microlens design and firmware correction. If the sensor has a lot of dynamic range, there will be less image degradation at the edges when vignetting and color shift is corrected to compensate for flaws in the optical system.

 

Limiting the size of w/a lenses also had issues on film and this explains why even Leica moved to retrofocus designs and many w/a and zoom lenses became so large.

 

If you look at the current Canon 24mm TSE, it is much larger than the version it replaced. And it is also much better. I don't think it would have been wise for Canon to have worried about making the lens "too big" if that would have reduced its quality. In the case of w/a view camera lenses, the solution was to use center filters to reduce vignetting... even at the cost of 2 or 3 stops of light. I guess these lenses would have been much larger and more expensive if they somehow could have been made to work well without the center filter. And even with a design requiring a center filter, the big 90mm f 4.5 Grandagon is many times larger than the tiny 90mm f6.8 Angulon due to the larger image circle and better overall image correction... neither lens is retrofocus. I generally used my 90mm Angulon when shooting with 6x9 film rather than bothering with the huge Grandagon which was overkill for that format and many applications that did not require much shifting.

 

As I mentioned elsewhere, there may be reasons to leave some flaws in lenses and correct those flaws in software, if this makes the lenses smaller and less expensive to produce. My Sony 16-50 Nex zoom is tiny and cheap and it has a lot of barrel distortion in the wide region. That distortion can easily be corrected in firmware (jpegs) or in post. But surprisingly, there are many times that I feel the distorted image produces a more natural depiction of the scene (especially of people near the edges) so I do not universally correct the distortion.

 

Thus it is hard for me to say that a well corrected lens is really better and worth the premium in price and size. Especially if I will end up adding barrel distortion via software to images from my corrected lens in order to improve those photos. Of course when it comes to lenses I plan to use primarily for architecture, minimal distortion and lack of vignetting are important factors. So in addition to design choices made by manufacturers, the size vs. performance vs. price are decisions that users have to make depending on their needs.

 

When you consider how many existing lenses will work on a full frame Nex body I think every possible need will be covered even if some Leica users do not feel they can get the best performance out of it with a few of their lenses that were originally designed for film cameras.

[naturephoto1]

Some information was released on SAR regarding the soon to be released Zeiss 35mm f/2.8 FE lens for the Sony FF NEX:

 

Zeiss 35mm f/2.8 FE lens has exactly the size of the 35mm f/2.0 from the RX1. | sonyalpharumors

 

Rich

[AlanG]

A tiny FF 35mm f2.8 is pretty easy to make so the additional size and complexity over this XA version will have to do with AF, better performance, and accommodating a sensor instead of film.

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[xrogers]

I don't think anyone can properly evaluate images on flickr. Original files would be much more informative as far as how good a camera and sensor and lens combination can/will be. The only point I was making was that given the images on this flickr stream, I could see no evidence of the typical issues FF sensors have with RF wide angle lenses.

 

The page at the link you posted has another link to a set of full resolution dropbox images. The sharpness is easy to evaluate from these images, take a look.

[jdlaing]

How about Leica makes a mirrorless M with built-in EVF to counter?

 

Ahhhhhh..........

 

I believe all M mount Leica cameras are mirror less now?

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[colonel]

Some information was released on SAR regarding the soon to be released Zeiss 35mm f/2.8 FE lens for the Sony FF NEX:

 

that's exciting

[naturephoto1]

that's exciting

 

Sony and Zeiss are walking a tight rope at least to begin the new FF NEX system. They have to build a lens line from the ground up that can not be too large and expensive to begin with; the mirrorless cameras are significantly shallower and frequently smaller and lighter than DSLRs. Sony and Zeiss need to begin with smaller, lighter, and less expensive prime and zoom lenses to capture enough interest of the public to buy into the new camera system. As the system grows they will introduce faster, larger, heavier, and inevitably more expensive lenses that may be of more interest to pros and those needing faster optics. But, to get to that point and for a mature lens line it is going to take years. In the mean time there will also be hundreds or thousands of legacy manual focus lenses available to those that purchase the new camera.

 

Leica too offers slower, smaller, lighter lenses in their system that are fine performing optics.

 

Rich