A99 Handheld with Carl Zeis 16 to 35 F2.8, Steadyshot On from The Lightshapers Studios on Vimeo.
Sigma 35mm f1.4 review at CameraLabs and Photozone.
Informal Lens Comparison: Sony 35mm f1.8 (NEX) vs Fujifilm 35mm f1.4 (X Mount) at ThePhoBlographer.
Sony DSC-RX100 review by Admiringlight.
A superb Vario-Sonnar T* 2,8/16-35 ZA tets report by Paul James on Zeiss Blog.
Sony NEX-3n image gallery at Whatdigitalcamera.
Sony’s moment of truth (The New Yorker).
sony 500mm f8+sigma tc 1.4x ex DG+vivitar tc 2x mc4 DGII on the sony nex 5n. A 2100mm test(!) on Flickr.
Replacing the NEX-6 LCD at Hellyeahpictures.
German NEX-5r review at Heise.
30 Responses
Going to give the 16-35 a ride in a couple of weeks in Napa Valley.
Grrrrrr. Why are you teasing us with Sigma 35mm reviews on non-Sony bodies!?
I cannot wait for this lens to ship. Hurry Sigma!
Regarding the video, you really should see what can be done with the RX100 and a little stabilization in post.
http://rungunshoot.com/walk-like-a-steadicam/
Steadier than the A99, I’d say.
Thats not about body its about skill. Nothing to do with camera.
Very impressive!!
BTW, I visit your blog regularily Brandon – great stuff there!!
BTW, I visit your blog regularily Brandon – great stuff there!!
Hey, thanks! Glad you like it. I have fun with it.
Wow – I’m impressed (re: steadyshot)!!
Oh – and sorry photoblogger but I much prefer the images from the Sony 35mm to the Fuji. 🙂
Have you seen the Fuji @ f/1.4? It is brilliant.
I think he is not referring to the sharpness but a picture lens makes.
It is all subjective. I have both NEX 5N, X-Pro, as well as A900 and between the three, the X-Pro produces the most impressive files, the A900 had the best lenses and the NEX gives great flexibility, especially with the LEA-2 adapter and Alpha lenses.
I’ve done several comparisons between the NEX and X-Pro using MF Zeiss lenses and the difference is clear in color, noise, dr and sharpness with the Fuji prevailing in all categories. Your mileage may vary but the difference is clear to me.
I agree. I prefer the sony colours but as someone says in the comments the white balance of the Fuji is off.
That’s a very strange lens review – all the conclusions are about the cameras and sensors without even mentioning the lenses!
Not sure I learnt a single thing about any aspect of either lens!
Yes, very subjective I think!
Often though I feel that we compare and rate lenses on their sharpness where, in actuallity, both lenses may be very sharp and the marginal difference between them isn’t really noticable without extreme pixel peeping.
Yet that’s what we do – compare marginal differences in sharpness – at the expense of overlooking other very important aspects of a lens (such as quality of bokeh, the ‘sweet spot’, and other qualties that make up a lens’ “charactor”) Personally, I’d rather have a lens with ‘great character’ than one with ‘clinical sharpness’. But obvious, ‘character’ is extremely subjective!
The steadyshot is impressive, though not impressive enough to guise the horrible editing and use of auto-mode.
And horrible music.
I rather like the music – a bit Skrillex like (maybe it is Skrillex??)
The video was an extreme demonstration of the awesomeness of the steadyshot..It was never meant to be a replacement for steadicams..rather if your a documentary shooter, out on the field and you have to chase out something..you would’nt have to deal with a mess of the ususal DSLR with an unstabilised lens with micro shake all over..you can just pick this uo, regardless of what lens is on it then get pretty decent shots..and with further stabilisation in post you can get really usable images. Here’s a properly shot steadicam on the A99 though, with the cheap ultrawide rectilinear Samyang 14mm. https://vimeo.com/60548561
With everyone using dubstep to set apart, it’s not really setting apart anymore, is it?
The clips are realy nicely done. steadyshot is awesome.
But what I am sick off is the juddering man can see in every, really every clip.
Why is that? I have that with my clips, too. Nice colors, awesome steadyshot, but this this juddering annoys me. Is it nit-picking?
I’m no video pro, so would be nice if somebody could explain me the reason.
The juddering comes from the live stabilisation of the Steadyshot, its similar to post style stabilizers (e.g. warp stabilizer) which crops and reposition frames to keep things stable. On very violent shake, this turns to a seemingly pulsating effect. But if your shooting handheld correctly…this should not appear all too often. We have a video to be posted soon where we shot with the crazy heavy Sony 70-200 G f2.8 handheld with the A99…and we have pretty stable shots only possible thru a monopod and/or tripod before.
SteadyShot is working while filming too? I thought, it`s only for stills.
The great thing about steadyshot is that you can use it (along with autofocusing) whilst you are on a steadicam.
Just set up video in AF, the fps to 24/25, and force the shutter to 1/50s (AEL lock is your friend), and set sharpness, colour and contrast to -2 or -3. Then use a warp stabiliser set to 1-5% in post, and you have some very good film-like Sony footage.
Overall quality of this video is really bad. I think stabilizing only in post would give better results (resolution, sharpness). There is zero sharpness and zero resolution in this video. A99 is known from bad compression of details even without stabilization in camera, with stabilization turned on this is mobile phone quality.
These kinds of videos are tricky to do well. You typically have to use a f stop for wider DOF, if not things will be out of focus etc. Moving around, there are are a lot of variables. Also, not sure what lens they used etc. I have seen extremely impressive A99 material before so wouldn’t judge too much.
I’ll yes if you post you direct us in your video creations. Don’t judge if you alone can’t deliver! right?
we already tried, it’s awesome! http://youtu.be/gZ5eNOELRJI
One tip about stabilizing in post: your main enemy is going to be rolling shutter; it causes a lot of the nasty warping artifacts. You can reduce rolling shutter artifacts by increasing shutter speed and by shooting in 60p, both of which force the sensor to do a faster readout. Then you stabilize the footage in a 60p timeline, and then nest the stabilized clip into a 24p timeline.
And in my experience Lock & Load is a far superior plugin to Warp Stabilizer, Smoothcam, or FCP X’s stabilizer. Mainly because you can keyframe each parameter of the effect. So when you’re turning a corner or passing an object that obscures the frame, you can turn off stabilization so that it doesn’t freak out and do weird things.
Terrible music! I couldn’t stand it after 15 seconds or so.