There is a closer look at the Sony a7R II by Dpreview that unveils a couple of interesting info:
1) Something we think is very interesting is Sony’s claim that, due to the effective increase in lateral space for the active pixel area from going backside-illuminated (BSI), pixels are able to receive more oblique light rays, which helps with issues like extreme vignetting and color shifts at the peripheries of the image.
The current design in the a7R II should allow for high resolution (small pixels) and the ability to accept very oblique light rays – particularly important for legacy glass that has an exit pupil located very close to the sensor. This ability essentially makes the sensors more ‘film like’: film avoided many of these issues by having an essentially flat, 2D structure with very little depth.2) The faster sensor in the a7R II allows it to reset all 42 million photosites fast at the start of the exposure, meaning the mechanical shutter doesn’t even need to be used at the start of your exposure.
3) So what’s the big deal? Electronic front curtain plus no mirror is the big deal. No moving parts around the sensor means you don’t have to worry about keeping your shutter speeds high to make use of the full potential of all of those pixels. And on top of that, you’ve got in-body image stabilization (IBIS) to stabilize things for you further. And no shutter movement at the beginning of your exposure either, so nothing sudden for the image stabilization system to respond to and make matters worse.
4) Dual-gain implementation like the one found on the a7S exists in the a7R II. This architecture essentially boosts the signal even more, at around ISO 640 on the a7R II (and at 1600 in the a7S), really early on in the signal pathway, to ensure that any noise added by the camera has minimal effect on the (now ‘louder’) signal. This essentially means increased dynamic range at higher ISOs
5) The Sony RAW compression can limit dynamic range: The posterization artifacts are due to Sony’s lossy compression, which you can read more about in Iliah Borg’s excellent study here. You’ll also see in Iliah’s article that this can particularly be an issue with star(trail) shots, which tend to have sharp, high contrast transitions.
6) Sony claims a 40% increase in AF response compared to the original Alpha 7R, in particular because of faster contrast-detect AF, but we actually think this estimate is underselling the capabilities of the a7R II. Considering the accuracy of focal plane AF points, which is far higher than most AF points of DSLRs, the ability of the a7R II to focus quickly and continuously is no small matter.
7) Eye AF is potentially game-changing for wedding photography, newborn photography, and generally photojournalistic and candid photography where you need to react to a subject quickly. Combine this with the focus accuracy of on-sensor AF implementations, and you have a usable way of instantaneously and accurately focusing on the eye of a subject, even at 35mm F2
Really a very interesting contribute from the Dpreview team! And again, a big statement in favour of real lossless 14 bit RAW. I will keep annoying Sony until they will deliver it to us via firmware upgrade 🙂
New Forum discussions:
A7RII autofocus test: Commlite and Fotodiox Pro Adapters (SonyAlphaForum).
A7RII Backyard Hostas (SonyAlphaForum).
My Sony A7RM2 First Images From J Cole Forest Hills Drive Tour (SonyAlphaForum).
kingfisher , A7rII + SAL500mm F4 G (SonyAlphaForum).
Cleaning the New SteadyShot Sensor (SonyAlphaForum).
LR vs Capture1 for a7rii – help needed, c1 looks sharper (SonyAlphaForum).
A7rII preorder list:
In USA: at Amazon, BHphoto, Adorama, SonyStore US, FocusCamera, Uniquephoto.
In Europe at Sony DE, UK, FR, IT, ES, NL, BE, CH, AT, SE, FI, NO, PT. Wex UK.
In Asia at Digitalrev, CameraPro.
A7rII case:
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189 Responses
I believe Jim Kasson already did some tests on this:
http://blog.kasson.com/?p=11309
A7RII looks like it resolves alot of the Corner Color Casting issues.
Sounds exciting.
Edge performance is always an issue with smaller sensors.
That said, I’d love to see some head to head comparo’s on this.
Remember to cross that off the troll talking point list Esstee.
pardon? smaller sensors?
He’s really rambling now, possibly on the verge of a mental breakdown. 🙂
LOL =:)
Medium format sensors do very well in this regard.
Really? I seriously doubt that. I’ll check it out though. Any sources?
The word you’re looking for is diffraction. This is what makes MF so attractive for landscape photography.
Eh, I think that’s quite a different metric than corner performance.
It’s consequential.
The improvements in corner performance are due to being able to stop down without image degradation.
um… no? Many lenses have corner performance problems at wider apertures.
Stopping down = smaller aperture. ie, f16-22 etc. etc.
I know… and I’m talking about other issues.
Lost track of the initial point. And you’d be right about edge resolution as this rests on the optical advantages that come from the larger sensor and rear element designs. Which in turn produce far less distortion than on FF and APSC sensors. This is often referred to as true optical wide angle design, and known to produce the very best edge to edge image resolutions against smaller sensors.
This, is the sort of thing that happens. It DOES happen and it isn’t fiction. Again and again and again, Sony, please give full lossless raw compression:
“Above: The a7R II does not offer a lossless 14-bit Raw option, so
you may experience posterization at high contrast edges when pushing Raw
files, visible in the shot on the left.”
http://www.dpreview.com/articles/8792409826/tech-in-sony-s-a7r-ii-and-why-it-matters?slide=8
Which is also a crying shame when this is exactly how I feel about this:
“We think this is particularly a shame, especially as this camera is
aimed at professionals. More so when you look at how little extra noise
the pushed ISO 200 shot has compared to the ISO 6400 shot.”
Look at the image. That ISN’T exagerated work done to the photo.
A900 and a99 are still the closest Sony has come to a professional camera. They just don’t seem to care IMO about capturing that pro market- completely satisfied with Pro’s picking expensive A7 models up as a secondary system. With the lagging A99, now Sony has no true up-to-date answer to any competitor. This is a shame and I agree with the lossless compression. No, it’s not the end of the world for everyone shooting out there. However, when you are spending big bucks on a system- I don’t pay for limitations. It’s a crutch….and yes…I’ve had the posterization show up (although unfrequently)…it’s there.
Perhaps a “professional” would have shot the image at 6400 to begin with. 🙂
Nope.
And the reason you’re saying this is because you’re not a pro.
The reason I’m saying that is because I’m not an idiot, something you cannot say Esstee.
lol
A pro would never say that =:)
You’re a professional BS’er and troll, nothing else.
Thank-you
I’m honored to hear you say that 🙂
read your own comments. you sound more a troll than others. calling anyone disagreeing with you a troll makes you one
Please forgive me, I have a very low tolerance to BS’ers and trolls. If that confronts you too bad.
while others tolerated your bs and trolling
If the sensor is isoless, it doesn’t matter. You can shoot at ISO 200 and push in post or at higher ISO with similar noise (many posts show this). Additionally, you preserve the highlights which you wouldn’t by using spot metering.
Look at the article again, the ISO 6400 shot showed no artifacts: ” Have a look at the area around the sign in the ISO 200 + 5EV shot at upper left vs. the native ISO 6400 shot at the right.”
DPreview newest piece on the A7rii has a comparison, too. There you clearly loose the highlights: http://www.dpreview.com/articles/8792409826/tech-in-sony-s-a7r-ii-and-why-it-matters?slide=8 . If this is not important for a particular shot, I am fully with you and using higher ISO avoids it. From time to time it is, however. For this (and I know it works as my D810 can do it) an option for losslessly compressed 14bit would be nice.
I’m all for lossless compression, and I did own a D800 for about a year. Traded it for an A7r with the 35mm F2.8 as and even exchange. Use the A7r as I used the D800 (Studio & Landscape) and have never really had an issue related to the lossless compression. But still would prefer the option of selecting one or the other.
I am a professional and I don’t need to heavily underexpose to find artifacts in some of my images.
Can’t think of any scenario when one would intentionally shoot 5 stops under exposed. A technique I’ve used in back-lit situations is to spot meter off the subject then intentionally under expose by 2 to 2.5 stops (3 being the absolute max) then recovering the shadows in post processing. The “good” example of the 5 stop under exposure shows no posterization but does show an unacceptable amount of noise and color smearing. Both examples would be unusable in my opinion. I still want loss less compression regardless, but don’t see it as a “game changer”.
Lossless compression would not be a game changer but would add a bit of exposure headroom and might be usable in some very unusual situations. It would eliminate one troll talking point off the off the list.
It would also help move Sony out of the entry level category and into the pro market.
Come on Esstee, you don’t really believe this BS do you.
Well I am a pro after all…
A pro who underexposes 5 stops intentionally and frequently no doubt.
Of course.
And that’s how the pro’s do it.
That said, if you ever want to be a pro, then you’d be better served learning how to shoot like one. 🙂
If a person’s intent was to turn pro, he/she should disregard everything you have posted because it’s rubbish.
I don’t know about you, but most of the pros I’ve known tend to go for natural looking shots that are properly exposed. Super weird exposures with massively artistic trippy post-pro rarely happens.
Would the gains in DR outweigh the lossy raw anyway. Now if the 5Ds had lossy raw and you needed to push the image, artifacts would show up much sooner. But since the dynamic range is so good, those artifacts would stay buried with 99% of any dR adjutment. Am I looking at this correct?
mileage may vary. Go try it yourself for specific questions like this.
I’m just asking if my logic is the correct way of looking at the lossy vs lossless raw file correlation
Your logic may be technically correct. However, photography is far from a logic and spec only endeavor. Nobody can say for sure on some online review or opinion or other if it will work for you. Actually renting the camera, or going to a retailer and asking to try it out for some sample pics is the ONLY way you can tell for sure.
Yes, you’re logic is correct.
The 5DS only claims 12.x stops of DR. Though I’ve found that is quite good in terms of fidelity under high contrast situations. Such as when stopping down to preserve highlights.
Yes that and he’s not here to troll Canon only Sony.
Canon doesn’t show artifacts due to compression 🙂
Canon shows the most artifacts (noise) from shadow recovery, you don’t know what you’re talking about.
A rose by any other name, but it’s the effect that’s the issue. Is it not?
The 5ds is a decent improvement over the 5diii in DR. Just not d800/d810 levels which it should at least match imo.
Nikon has 14+ stops of DR. Though no one could ever use that either.
That said, there’s no disputing the D810’s DR capabilities. Which are bar none, the best on the market atm.
When it comes to shadow recovery, Canon is far behind Nikon and Sony raw files. My niece uses a 5DMIII, I’ve processed hundreds and possibly thousands of her files. This is a definite weakness of Canon, but it’s more of a sensor issue. You have to tread lightly when bringing up shadows otherwise noise and other artifacts creep in.
The term properly exposed is a fleeting one when it comes to photography. ie, when we shoot highlight, where do we draw the line between what is properly exposed and not? Fact is, we’ve adopted a standard from which we accept certain lighting conditions as proper and move-on from there. When in truth, we remain far from what the human eye can see.
Nothing like obfuscating the issue in an attempt to validate and invalid argument. 🙂
careful there, you might get those neurons twisted in a bunch =:)
Yes, but most people don’t insist that much on pushing every detail out of every shadow and highlight to create hyperdetailed more than real images.
Esstee
I am shooting auto iso, max 25,600, min 800
Min shutter speed 1/1000.
I am underexposing -1 to -1.3 f stops and am very plesed with the results.
I realize these may not be the best settings for your needs but I highly reccomend underexposing by 1.3 stops or 2 at most.
You tell us that the compression artifacts are ruining your shots, so try something differrent…my suggestion above may be a good place to start, or you may find something better…but if what you are doing does not yield satisfactory results try different things until you get the results you want.
There are millions of possible combinations possible with this camera, and I am absolutely certain that some of them will work and some of them will not. But it is a great camera.
I agree on the A7R II being a great camera.
Though the only alternative to shooting this way is to shoot multiple frames, and that’s not an option in my case.
That said, the problem with the A7R II and artifacts exists solely because other manufacturers offer similar shadow recovery without such issues. And so this makes the A7R II a compromise as a result.
That said, Sony would be doing itself a great service by releasing a FW to match as it would be better to take of this themselves, then to wait for the competition to implement Sony’s sensor and beating them to the punch line.
5 Stops of shadow recovery will look terrible from any manufacturer exhibiting noise and color degradation. Other than a specialized shot the results would be completely useless. Bogus argument.
Real world applications don’t always require 5 stops. ie, the example of artifacts posted by DPReview isn’t anywhere near 5 stops of shadow recovery.
No, it’s exactly 5 stops. Read the article. (ISO 200-6400)
I’ve post processed many files from Canon, Nikon, Sony and others. If 5 stops of compensation is required the results consistently look terrible and not usable.
I’ve shot with Pentax and Nikon and have pulled in excess of 5 stops. Though I’d add that 4 stops is usually enough in most cases. – ie, night/street photography
As for the noise, that’s not usually an issue in most cases for pro’s. 🙂
Show me your results with 5 stops of compensation, I don’t believe that any pro would accept the results unless it was for a crime investigation.
I believe Sony is working on lossless compression as a future firmware fix, so be patient.
With greater dynamic range the extreme level of shodow recovery necessary in some other cameras is not necessary here, and every camera is differrent so dont expect exerything that works for other cameras to work for this one.
I am certain if you are willing to experiment a little you will find a solution that works better for you, then both you and us will be happier.
When you do find a solution please share it with us.
I think the current solution are:
shoot multiple frames
avoid pulling shadows beyond xx stops in highlights
As for shooting at high ISO this won’t likely work in low light(night) photography where the objective is to preserve highlights and keep up shutter speed as higher ISO comes at the cost of DR.
I believe that is contrary to the accepted norm…that higher iso IS best to use in low light.
Obviosly you are not happy with the results of extreme shadow recovery….so try every solution that does not require extreme shadow recovery. I am sure you will find several differrent solutions.
It isn’t about underexposing, it’s about usable shadows. If the sensors have such magnificent dynamic range, which they do, why not take 100% advantage of that? I have RX1, RX100 and while great cameras in their own right, some pictures do get ruined by artifacts. They may not be as obvious as the DPReview sample, but they do exist and as a phojournalist I cannot move pixels around.
Perhaps that is why the A7rii images appear to be waxy, with smoothed out details as well (at least based on the A7rii files I have seen on Flickr they appear to be waxy) ~ with the lossy files, they are likely processed in-camera to an extent like jpegs.
I am not impressed with what I have seen so far, which may or may not be due to poor processing by individuals.
One thing I’m worried about it that Sony literally had or has no reason to intentionally remove lossless RAW. Which means it was removed as a necessity or as a tradeoff for another feature. As much as we’d all love for it to happen, adding lossless RAW might be a bigger issue than we think it is. But what could it be? Overheating again? Bandwidth? A problem with the Bionz?
I’d say most likely data throughput.
That said, Nikon seems to have done okay in this regard by offering different choices and letting the user decide what they want to prioritize. ie, image fidelity vs performance.
But if it’s a problem in the hardware, it can’t be fixed by software.
See my comments to Esstee
I have been renting an A7RII since Friday morning. I was really excited about the eye AF. But my experience with the FE Zeiss 55/1.8 is that it doesn’t work that well when shooting wide open or close to wide open (post above notes it works well at 35/2 – hmmm, not my experience at all). If I want a decent hit rate, I still need to use DMF.
There are many af related settings in many differrent places in the menu…play around with them and I expect you will find a combination that gives you more satisfactory results….this is a complicated camera with many settings and takes some getting used to.
A good cheat sheet would be good to have for this camera.
Trust me, I’ve put this camera through every AF setting including the new ones that aren’t on my A7. I don’t think it’s a difficult camera to learn if you’re coming from an A7x model already.
With eye AF, I can get sharpness that looks fine at the screen zoomed out level, but is quite soft when zoomed in. I want sharpness zoomed in. But I am also not discounting the potential conclusion that the A7RII I was shipped for this rental period is a bit faulty, so I do intend to try another at some point.
Interestingly enough..
I recently rented the Canon 5dsr for a week long shoot immeadiatly prior to my a7rii being available.
The 6dsr is a very complrx camera with many settings and lots of things abought it that I do not like.
I had to master the camera and use it in a reletively short time because the equipment I rented was quite expensive
Among the things I did not like about it was the autofocus…in particular the tracking autofocus was useless for rapidly moving animals, and the focus accuracy was terrible.
I doubt any amount of practice would enable the autofocus to track birds in flight with the 5dsr…but I suspect that given enough time to learn the equipment I would prpbably get better focus accuracy from it.
I have returned my rented 5dsr without resolving tjat issue, even though many or even most reviewers claim the accuracy is good….it os after all a very complicated camera.
The a7rii has even more functions than the 5dsr and is therefore an even more complicated camera.
I get fine af acuracy as do most reviewers…but I have been spending time learning the camera.
As a rental, time is a costly luxury..and from the problems I see most people who have problems with thid camera tjey seem to be related to the complexity of figuring out what every setting and combination of setting does and how that combination performs.
I truly hope some simplified guide is soon available, otherwise many people will get less than excellent results from a truly excellent camera.
Are the controls / layout different from a 5d3?
Yes they are significantly differrent….I have not mastered all the controls so do would not be comfortablele giving you a mor detsiled answer than that.
I use the BB AF in conjunction with face detection and eye AF and I get good results with the 35/1.4 WO. My definition of good may differ from yours, but I find it very impressive – especially watching the green boxes follow your subject.
I wonder if lossy RAW is a deal Sony’s done with the other manufacturers Sony supplies sensors too. A bit like, “if you cripple your cameras a bit so they don’t compete with ours then we’ll continue to buy your sensors”.
Some time ago, Sony gave FF sensors to Nikon and was holding it back for itself 6 months. Now Sony is in a position that the new sensor are made for the own models and other manufacturers get it 6 months later… The others have no choice: if they want the best sensor they have to wait for Sony allowing it to release.
I don’t think Sony is crippling its own cameras to give the other companies an advantage. It is just ignoring customers needs.
Sony knows, like many of us, that the compression is not an issues at all. Am yet to see it after 2 years of shooting A7 cameras…
That’s because you’re not a pro.
Sigh…….The rambling of a fool.
Like you I expect Nikon to use the a7rii sensor in a new camera 6 months after Sony does.
I am anxious to see what they come up with.
My bes guess is ff mirrorless f mount, buy not sure if it will be native f mount, E mount, or a newshort flange mount with adapter for f mount.
It will be interesting to see what(if) Nikon does with this sensor in the near future. My guess is that they will live-up to their reputation by squeezing every ounce out of this sensor on another conventional mirror body. Though I for one look forward to seeing what that will look like.
I don’t think the camera market in general is nice enough to allow for intentional crippling. Unless you are Canon and like to live on the edge of customer frustration.
It’s done so trolls like Esstee have something to live for.
Waiting for a99II
Hmm..
42 MP BSI sensor
Dual Bionz X processors (or hopefully a newer one)
14 fps
499 AF points
Dual SD cards
In body 5-axis stabilization
This would be more than enough to skip A7R II
Sounds awesome – as long as we then get an A9 with all those features but in e-mount!
Personally I don’t care much if it was A or E-mount .. I have many A-mount lenses and will use LA-EA4 adapter , so I’m using A-mount lenses anyway
Don’t forget uncompressed RAW.
This would totally put Sony further into the Prosumer territory.
Sure .. But Sony said that it requires software update only.. so it will be applied to all cameras when it becomes available
Come on Sony!
Except it’ll never happen.
R.I.P. A-mount…
I’m a huge fan of progress but a part of me wishes Sony would update the A99 to compete. And more importantly where I’d buy it if they did :p
Other than that, I don’t really care if they don’t extend the line for one more generation tbh.
I’d like to see a new one too, I really liked some of the A99, but the video was terrible so I left in favor of the A7’s as I didn’t want two lens mounts.
Sony is competing. They are doing it with the A7rII.
I’ll laugh my head off if it comes with no lossy compression. Half the depreciation speed of any FE camera to date….and lets not forget…..you can mount big boy glass from third party.
I so hope they drop this camera.
E-mount will die lol
What “big boy” glass are you talking about?
Really? Well, for me this includes any of the Sigma art lenses. Tamron 15-30 2.8 is on my list. 70-200mm 2.8, 24-70mm 2.8 Sony. 200mm 2.8 Minolta is still on my list of must haves. Heck, anything over 200mm is big boy in my opinion.
I was thrown off because I think of it the other way around I guess. The “big boy” glass, speaking in general terms, seems more compatible with the a7 FE cameras since you can put any great lens on it and a-mount only takes Sony. But I see what you’re saying now.
I was shooting with my a65 tonight instead of the a6000 I’ve been using recently. And the a65 just has a robustness to it that the e-mount lacks. The a99 even more so. Had Sony not kept the price on the a99 so high for so long (comparatively) I probably would have bought that camera.
I think Sony will bring out an a99 II. It wouldn’t make any financial sense to let the a-mount die (forget about all the whining and crying for a sec) because all those lenses they still own rights to have to be on the books for millions. And they just refreshed the 24-70mm and the 16-35mm.
I think Sony’s in a strange place with their two lens systems. If they were to market both at the same time then people wouldn’t be as enthusiastic about the E and FE mounts. And they might be a little confused.
But why people keep saying the a-mount is dead is beyond me. Sony would at least throw a current E mount sensor in an existing a-mount body and tweak some things.
Having been spiked by the ability to use all my lenses on the e-mount it’s hard to imaginelockingvmyself back in to the a-mount (or Canon or Nikon too). But if I was a professional photographer, it’d be different.
The Sony bashers are out in full force in the comments section (on DP). Bring ye popcorn!
Where can we write Sony and demand lossless raw? Maybe they are holding that for the new a99
Customer support? Product reviews? Have big guys like DP list it as one of the bigger flaws?
They better put that on the new A7SII or I’m not buying anymore of their cameras. I’m tired of correcting artifacts and hot-pixels!
It’s just a matter of stop taking pictures with the lens cap on you know…
http://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/Support/?XID=M:contactemail:esupport
community.sony.com
You can write them at any time. Only problem is they scan their mail into a lossless format before reading it. It’s possible that by the time it reaches anyone important…the words RAW, posterization or 8 bit will have been lossed.
A recent SAR post claimed that ” color fringing” with 3rd party wide angle lenses was reported by some people to be improved on the a7rii.
I commented on that post that the improvement was totally expected with the bsi sensor because the shorter distance to the microlenses allows less cross channel color interference.
My critics …who seem to be knowledgable individuals…posted that I do not know what I am talking about.
Now Sony is officially stating…in different words of course….exactly what I said in that earlier posting.
I hope my critics will notice this….although I suspect it will simply result in thier finding something else to critisize me for.
c’mon, don’t boast.
See my response to topdog.
a sony know-it-all
Verses a Sony know nothing.
verses animalsbybarry’s 2nd know-it-all but clueless identity
So you are a troll, that didn’t take long to expose.
you’re a troll who disguise yourself by calling others trolls
You’re a troll by nature, what exactly is your issue. Petty jealousy, simple fanboyism? Please tell.
you’re projecting
You’re a troll. No You’re a troll. Nuh uh!
You and Esstee should get married and live happily ever after.
that’s just a sad come back
=:)
I am often critisized as being wrong even thogh I am not…and proving I am right is difficult to impossible…here I have proven I was right..I certainly do not deserve to be critisized for being right.
i have read some of your posts (not the super lengthy ones) and some of your opinions are not consistent and there were many flip flopping on same issues. educated guesses are not the same as facts and sometimes the line is blurry in your posts.
an example was your opinion on comparing canon 5ds versus what you expected on a7rii without having used it at the time. well i have the a7rii and i can tell you for wildlife a77ii is still superior to a7rii when used with la-ea3 and sal75400 and sal2475z2. a7rii is not a ‘do everything camera’ as you stated
Perhaps that makes my comments seem more inconsistent than they actually are…if you read the entire string they might make sense.
Remember that many of my comments are responses to critisizm and therefore are very easy to take out of context..and do I ever flip flop..yes, sometimes I actually change my mind based on new facts, or sometimes even based on someone convincing me I was wrong.
But your critisizm would be more constructive if you critisize what I say that you think is wrong, rather than critisizing what I say because it is me saying it.
And just so this comment comes directly from me…I AM NOT ALWAYS CORRECT
you can’t draw conclusions based on incomplete data. your posts do tend to be conclusive and definitive. e.g. a99ii/a9
This is a rumor site.
If we had complete data they would not be rumors.
Drawing conclusions from incomplete data is exactly what we do, an I am very proud of my track record for predicting correctly.
Am I always rite..no…and as far as my prediction that there will not be a ne a99ii..I very much hope I am wrong…but I have said I do not think there will be one so often that I will stick with that prediction until and unless I am proven wrong.
If there is a a99ii I will admit I was wrong, until then I will stay with my prediction.
But remember I can still be wrong about some things and rite about others.
ok. you could be wrong, or you could be rite. kinda like guessing. you better hope a99ii/a9 will happen, because a7rii is too slow for serious wildlife photography. it’s my landscape camera and a77ii will remain the wildlife camera for now
Animalsbybarry is a professional wildlife photographer, so I value his opinion. I do hope an A99II is forthcoming, there are so many great long focal length Minolta lenses out there collecting dust that I could actually afford.
I am ALWAYS right, 100% of the time….except for when I’m wrong.
I am only critical when you take us all for idiots or behave like a jack@ss
I must correct myself, Barry you always behave like a jack@ss
If I am correct or if I know something you do not…that does not make you an idiot.
Here you have twice insulted me simply because I was correct …I have given you no cause to do so.
Whether people take you for an idiot..your words, not mine and I am not claiming you are one….is totally dependant on your own responses.
Calling me names and insulting me does far more to make you look bad than my comments that are in no way directed towards insulting you. unless it is a response to a previose insult by you.
Because you’re confusing two things — pixel vignetting and edge smearing.
At blog.kasson.com several of those wide angles were tested. Many don’t look that good.
The smearing has to do with the thicker cover glass, those “oblique light rays” those rays must travel through a thicker depth of glass than in the center. The thin filter mod helps combat the issue, and has had little effect on native lenses.
http://kolarivision.com/product/sony-a7-series-thin-filter-legacy-lens-upgrade/
The A7II has been added to the conversion list, I would assume the A7rII will also be added to the list at some point.
So, till Sony starts using a thinner cover glass, WA lenses(Rangefinder lenses in particular) will continue to have problems.
I do not understand you contention that the thikness of the cover glass is the issue.
Until the image reaches the microlens it has not gone through color filters and the individual colors have not yet been differentiated…so there are no color chanels yet to interfere with each other.
Once the light has passed through the microlens and color filter color chanels exist and can interfere with each other.
So the shorter the distance between microlens and absorption layer the less the potential for that interferrence.
I do not understand why you believe that a flat cover class is to blame for the color fringing.
I read the article refer to and am a little sceptical for 2 reasons..first the article is talking about a low pass filter…that has somewhat differrent properties than a cover glass, and secondly the article appears to be a sales pitch for some sort of conversion process they want you to purchase…I am by nature always a bit sceptical of sales pitches.
There is no question that bsi improves the performance, but possibly the elimination of the low pass filter also improves the perfomance.
Depends what you mean by improvement.
BSI improves colour shift in the corners and vignetting (two huge worries)
But it doesn’t improve the peripheral sharpness caused by a mismatch of the lens and coverglass.
Sony are never going to make their coverglass thinner. The current glass (actually fairly thin by digital standards) is computed as the last element of all the native lenses. And being thicker has advantages for cleaning and manufacturing tolerances. It’s not like rangefinder lenses *must* perform poorly on the thicker glass – look how a small redesign worked with the Zeiss Loxia lenses. Its just the ones computed for film or the Leica coverglass won’t perform as well (the ones computed for the leica coverglass perform better than the ones computed for film, though).
That’s nonsense. If anything, further engineered thin coatings and stuff will resolve those refracting issues.
I didn’t say anything about color fringing, I’m talking about detail and how it becomes smeared as you look deeper into the corner, there is a reason Leica uses a thinner cover glass than most cameras in their Digital M cameras, that’s because lenses designed for film are very sensitive to the cover glass thickness, this thread:
http://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/1340474?b=2
Goes into far more detail than I have room, the sample pictures are very interesting, in that even SLR WA lenses see major improvements in corner sharpness, the data that Roger @ Lens Rentals has gathered removes all doubt as to what the cause is.
Well, the cover glass is probably thick for a reason. What can that be?
Thicker glass means dust is more out of focus. Also it started with SLRs where thickness wasn’t a major issue.
Dust on lens or on sensor?
Will wait for Dpreviews full review to see what the camera can do, the interim articles are always clickbait
Definitely. Then wait for the firmware updates that sort the problems out. Don’t want to write this camera off quite yet but a sensible approach is called for in the buying decision process. This ain’t pocket change, well, at least for me.
I wouldn’t be surprised to see a firmware update in the first few months, similar to the A7II and A77II.
My camera body buying strategy has always been to ignore all launch hype but keep an eye on possibilities/specs. Wait for it to come out, read unbiased reviews, sort problems and firmware, post-launch price drop (so about 8-12 months) and then re-evaluate. Got a great deal on the A7r last year, less than half price for a new one.
These things, once you throw in lenses, once you’re in the middle of a system change, can get seriously expensive. As I’m not a professional photographer (and never will be) but do use this gear as a small part of my work I have to maintain some budgetary restraint.
I don’t think I’ve seen a camera launched yet that didn’t have problems, most of which were sorted out either through hardware recalls and/or firmware updates and I don’t expect this one to be any different.
Good strategy but I wonder if the price will drop that rapidly. The A7 & A7r had some serious shortcomings and were a new kind of product. The A7S has held its value really well. I think the A7RII may not be replaced for a while and may hold its value relatively well. Demand seems strong I this one.
Well if it doesn’t, it doesn’t. The other side of my strategy falls to bits when I fail to put all the old gear up for sale. Which I really must do at some point. The next purchase has to be cost neutral which means selling all the old gear likely to finance just one body and one lens. That’s an a7r, a K-3, all three Pentax FA Limited’s, 100 macro . . . and on and on. Too much gear accumulating. Not a good deployment of capital. Expecting heavy loses but have learnt less is more in this game.
I think you are right. There were a lot of reasons the a7 and a7r were discounted so quickly. But look at Canon’s prices on their 7D mkII, the 5D mkIII and 70D. Canon held their 5D mkIII pricing really close to retail for almost three years and then it fell by about $1K in a year. The 7D mkII probably only sold preorders at retail.
Pricing is strange and there are a lot of factors that influence it. I see the a7r mkII maybe falling to $2,999 in November and holdings there for about a year. I wouldn’t wait to buy this camera if price is the only thing holding someone back. There are lots of great reasons to wait, but I don’t think this will be discounted much. Nikon and Canon have a lot of work to do before there will be much competitive pressure from them to push prices down, as well.
You can get the A7s for $1700 right now. That’s quite a bit in one year.
I couldn’t agree more. When I was making a living doing photography an my primary income source I could easily justify the price tag. Now that it is back to being a hobby I have no idea how to justify this short of being a 10 year camera. Of course a 10 year camera in digital isn’t very realistic with the speed of development in sensor tech. I’m out of luck to justify the price tag on this thing.
As we get older we have less discretionary budget because everyone else has first dibs on our money. I feel this more and more these days.
TRUE!
Lol. 🙁
Who says you couldn’t use an A7R2 for 10 yrs?? Just because there will be something better out in 2 years doesn’t mean your camera instantly sucks.
Look at it this way, the image quality from a A7R2 is better than ANY film available in 35mm back in the day.
It’s easy to get caught up in the hype of new products but no one says you have to buy them:)
I agree to a point. I also know myself and that in less than 5 years I will get the itch to upgrade whether I want it or not.
Dpreview has released quite a bit of information already on the A7rII, and I’m sure will do a very comprehensive review. So far their impressions seem positive, weighing the pluses and minuses. Hope it’s published soon.
The problem with DPReview is that their reviews on Sony cameras come out just as a successor is about to be released.
Successor?
Like the A77II got very improved during F2, maybe Sony has promised further improvements.
I agree with what he said, but this is funny…..
I don’t see why the compression issue is so important as most people convert their files to 8 bit jpeg. I do hope Sony releases full uncompressed RAW to quiet all of this noise about nothing.
I convert to 16 bit. Ever since my NES took a dive…I refuse to do anything less than SNES quality.
The ‘problem’ is that when creating a viewable image (ie, during raw conversion) an S-shaped tone curve has to be applied to the linear raw data. This is necessary to match the human perception of a scene where the human image processing pipeline is doing something similar.
When you apply such a tone curve (or more generally any non-linear tone curve), you compress part of the tonal range of the original raw data and stretch other parts. That is why the raw file needs to have a higher bit depth than final viewed image because otherwise you would start to see banding in the tonal range where the raw data go stretched.
And as you make additional tone curve adjustments, you are stretching the tonal range for some tones even more. This is why raw files allow for more adjustment latitude, even after the standard S-curve, they still have a higher bit depth than an 8-bit jpeg (plus jpegs also clip part of the tonal range).
Do you have an example of this banding from a current Sony RAW file? I have only only seen artefacts on star trails that could be confused for CA.
I’ve never complained about the banding or the raw files. I have a number of examples of banding. It’s not the end of the world. It doesn’t happen often but it does happen.
There is no doubt that banding can occur, look at a pushed 5 stop Canon file with their lossless compression. But I think it’s wrong to suggest that banding occurs because of the Sony compression due to the where the loss of data is happening. I believe when Sony finally releases a lossless raw file we will see that some of these minor complaints will still exist.
Yup, maybe you’d like to get out of auto mode and see some of these artifacts and color pixels 🙂
These DPreview guys previews worth more than hundred blog based reviews where the blogger/smartas/artisan reads the specs out loud.
“It shoots 4K and in super 35 mode! Yeah! It focuses third party lenses, so i can use my whole Canon collection, and with IBIS. Guys, i can`t stress enough how good and convenient this is! I mean, is it a revolution or evolution or rotation? It tracks the EYE. I can shoot you in the EYE whenever i want to. You dont believe me? Gimme that EYE mofo! It is, like, one of the best cameras out there. Like totally. Yes, all previous cameras were one of the best, but this one is really one of the best! Now, take a drink and look at me unboxing it! Its reeaaly nice box there.”
And than you think, someone actually PAYS those people to write bs. Like you would pay someone for work. With real money.
Lol, Andrea, give us a list of words that trigger “waiting to be approved” event. I got some strange feeling that something is not quite right with it 🙂
So less color cast and less vignetting but no change to smear, the claims of Dpreview and Digilloyd don’t contradict each other.
Yes, and smearing is the big deal more so then colour cast. You can’t fix smeared corners unless you crop.
I think I know what you’re saying, but could I have a translation, please, just to be sure?
lol
No, you can’t. Sorry. When i am writing a comment that long, grammar is the last thing on my mind. I am content as long as it is better than grammar of 50% native english speakers. And still i never complain on them 😉
Gimme that EYE mofo!
Question: which modes switch the a7rii into 12 bit mode? Does any of the timer + bracketing modes switch to 12 bit? Just curious
Not timing, and maybe bracketing. However, if you are bracketing, you usually don’t care about bit depth anyway.
My understanding is that the combination of burst mode and silent shutter will do it…but that is just what I heard and I have not tested it.
Dear Sony
Personally I do not care about lossless raw…and from what I see more people prefer what they now have.
But clearly many people care very much abought lossless raw, and almost evwry harsh review and critisizm about Sony revolves around lossy raw compression.
Canon users in particular…who are looking for reason to elevate Canon by trashing Sony…continually bring that .
To further the goal of increasing Sony market share it is essential that a firmware solution be announced asap.
This solution needs to provide lossless raw compression, as well as allowing those that preffer to continue to use the current compression.
I hope they do provide Lossless raw. I am a Canon user. However, even if they did lossless update tomorrow, Canon/Nikon people will pick their lossless raw files to the nth degree.
I never really got the “whole” brand loyalty fanboy thing. Probably the same demographic of people who stand in line for days over a cellphone update or new video game version.
I’m excited about any technology by anyone who moves the needle. Look up the “angry photographer” on youtube.
That will eventually happen, but then people will go back on whining about why Sony didn’t released 30 years worth of lens work in 3 years yet.