Why Sony’s Full Frame Pro Mirrorless Was a Fatal Mistake...

http://petapixel.com/2016/04/04/sonys-full-frame-pro-mirrorless-fatal-mistake/


If you are buying Sony FF mirrorless purely for size and weight advantage, you are kidding with yourself. And I agree completely.  As far as sensor performance is concerned - sure.

Don't want to start a war here, but I thought the article brings out few good points.

Oh here we go. Cherry pick some high quality big lenses and compare them to a DSLR rig. I notice the author failed to compare, let's say, the Loxia 21mm to the Milvus/Distagon 21mm on a 5D3? I know which I would rather carry!

He basically saying: Sony are giving you more choice with high quality glass (which more than out resolve current sensors), compact lenses which are very good, possibly the best image quality in any 35mm camera (and internal 4K video)... and you idiots fell for it!

Makes little sense to write the article unless he did it in a Ken Rockwellesque need for publicity?

I think 24-70 f/2.8 is a very popular lens and so is 85mm. Personally I use both of them commonly and makes sense to me. Like I said - for me this article made perfect sense and was able articulate reasons why I thought about the change but haven't acted on it yet. I should have added "YMMW" caution to my original post

I am not sure how much weight/size/price advantage Loxia 21mm offers.

Hmmm, on the other hand ... http://petapixel.com/2016/04/05/defense-sonys-pro-mirrorless-cameras/

baldsparrow wrote:Hmmm, on the other hand ... http://petapixel.com/2016/04/05/defense-sonys-pro-mirrorless-cameras/

Excellent. Love it. Like I had mentioned in my original post - performance should be the main reason for the switch....

The article is total BS in some areas as he is cherry picking to prove some sort of agenda.

I can do similar cherry picking and come up with this.  Nikon D810 + Milvus 21mm f/2.8 vs a7R II plus Loxia 21mm f/2.8 - noth lenses give similar class leading image quality.  Note that I cropped the Milvus picture to eliminate the lens hood for a fair comparison.
The article is clearly written by someone with an agenda and lacks objectivity in a lot of areas.  I'm just picking on the size thing here but there are other areas in the article that skew the information for the author's agenda.  There are also valid points, most of which were never an argument to begin with.

Just for fun, here is another comparison 5DSR+24-70 f/4 vs a7R + 24-70 f/4 - and note that these size comparisons ignore the more important metric for the traveling photographer - weight:

Seems to me most of the change in size and weight is from the smaller camera body.

So if you want the best, it seems Sony might be the one to choose, Lens Rentals thinks so:

https://www.lensrentals.com/blog/2016/0 ... nce-tests/

DChan wrote:Seems to me most of the change in size and weight is from the smaller camera body.

That holds more true for zooms than primes but in the end, whether DSLR or mirrorless full frame, the exit pupil still needs to cover the whole image circle for full frame so that ends up being a fundamental limitation.  But for primes, like the 21mm shown above, in many cases there can be a big difference in size but as the maximum aperture gets larger, the sizes get more and more similar so an f/2.8 prime for FF mirrorless is generally a lot smaller but a f/1.4 is not.  On the zoom side, all of the optics involved reduces the amount of miniaturization possible for equivalent performing lenses.

Neilyb wrote:So if you want the best, it seems Sony might be the one to choose, Lens Rentals thinks so:

https://www.lensrentals.com/blog/2016/0 ... nce-tests/

Definitely impressive results, it even beats what was previously the best lens like this ever made - the Canon 24-70 f/2.8L II.

E.J. Peiker wrote:

Neilyb wrote:So if you want the best, it seems Sony might be the one to choose, Lens Rentals thinks so:

https://www.lensrentals.com/blog/2016/0 ... nce-tests/

Definitely impressive results, it even beats what was previously the best lens like this ever made - the Canon 24-70 f/2.8L II.

I would say wait for the 100MP sensor and see which is sharpest

Neilyb wrote:So if you want the best, it seems Sony might be the one to choose, Lens Rentals thinks so:

https://www.lensrentals.com/blog/2016/0 ... nce-tests/

Going off here at a bit of a tangent ... but comment "below the line" in that link and others recently have complained about Sony's service standards. I only have a single experience of having used their outsourced service, and one swallow does not a summer make, but I have to say that the company they use in Canada fixed my camera effectively and returned it to me within ten days. I was very pleased.

Neilyb wrote:

E.J. Peiker wrote:

Neilyb wrote:So if you want the best, it seems Sony might be the one to choose, Lens Rentals thinks so:

https://www.lensrentals.com/blog/2016/0 ... nce-tests/

Definitely impressive results, it even beats what was previously the best lens like this ever made - the Canon 24-70 f/2.8L II.

I would say wait for the 100MP sensor and see which is sharpest

Their tests are done on an optical bench - it is completely independent of sensor.

Fatal mistake???

How many people died?

EJ is right on about the sizes. My pack has gone from a 5D2 with three lenses (17-40L, 70-200f4 IS, Samyang 14mm) to a Sony A7R with four lenses (Loxia 21mm , Nikon AIS 50mm f/1.8 Nikon 100mm f/2.8 E, and the Samyang 14mm , while I wait for the Voigtlander 15mm ) and it's smaller and lighter than ever.  Plus smaller 52mm filters!  Its everything I was looking for as a landscape photographer. Plus a much better sensor.

FWIW I now use an A7 for my family/landcape/casual photography, instead of a 5D2.

I had to fix some color rendition problems in LR (especially skin tones), but after setting a special DNG profile, now my A7 has canon colors ;o)

Of course the A7 body is lighter than a 5D2, but there is more : thanks to the short flange distance, you can mount leica M lenses, which are really smaller than their SLR counterparts, and smaller than the loxias, too. I currently use a 35/2.5 summarit, and have just ordered a 75/2.5 summarit.

Here is a 35mm comparison:
Note that to mount the M lens on the A7, you need to add a 10mm-thick adapter, which can include an helicoid for close-focusing.

Like I said above, we can cherry pick any system to be larger/smaller/heavier than an other system. For me the A7R with 21mm Loxia and 35mm filters is just a dream. Hopefully the new Voigtlander lenses will enable some ultra wide too, and they are kept small by not being f2.8.

I would cherry-pick leica M lenses everytime then, because they are often the smallest, seriously.
They are FF, sharp, contrasty and quite distortion-free, too.
As if optical laws were different when translated in german ;o)