The many Sony Holiday deals are about to end soon. And the full list of them can be found on that special Adorama page (Click here).
UPDATE: The A7II body only is back in Stock at BHphoto (Click here).
Current Sony US deals:
A-E mount cameras:
$200 off and free $50 gift card on the A58 with kit lens sold at BHphoto (Click here).
Free stuff worth $299 along the A7r (Click here)
Free stuff worth $219 along the A7s (Click here).
Free $50 gift card with the A6000 kit (Click here).
Lot of free extras with the A6000 double lens kit sold at BHphoto (Click here).
$400 off on the Sony A5100 with 16-50mm & 55-210mm Lenses at BHphoto (Click here).
$2,300 discount on the Hasselblad Stellar on sale at BHphoto (Click here)
Refurbished NEX-5t double lens kit for $399 on [shoplink 31431 ebay]eBay (Click here)[/shoplink].
$200 off on the Sony A7 at Amazon, Adorama, BHphoto and SonyStore.
$200 off on the Sony A7 with kit lens at Amazon, Adorama, BHphoto and SonyStore.
Free card and bag ($200 value) with all A7/r/s cameras sold at SonyStore.
$300 off on the Sony A77II with grip at Amazon, Adorama and SonyStore.
$600 off on the Sony A77II with lens and grip at Amazon, Adorama and SonyStore.
15% credit you get when trading in a camera for the A7/r/s or Fe lenses at BHphoto (Click here to see the special page).
If you trade-in an older camera you could now pay down to $950 only for the new A7 at Adorama trade-in (Click here).
E-mount lenses:
$150 off on the 18-200mm OSS at Amazon, Adorama, BHphoto and Sonystore.
$100 off on the 24mm Zeiss at Amazon, Adorama, BHphoto and Sonystore.
$100 off on the 18-200mm OSS at Amazon, Adorama, BHphoto and Sonystore.
$100 off on the 10-18mm at Amazon, Adorama, BHphoto and Sonystore.
$50 off on the 35mm 1.8 at Amazon, Adorama, BHphoto and Sonystore.
$50 off on the 16-50mm at Amazon, Adorama, BHphoto and Sonystore.
$50 off on the 5omm f/1.8 at Amazon, Adorama, BHphoto and Sonystore.
$25 off Sony 30mm f/3.5 at Amazon, Adorama, BHphoto and Sonystore
$50 off on the Bower 35mm T1.5 Cine Lens for E-mount at BHphoto (Click here).
$500 off on the world’s fastest native E-mount lens: Ibelux 40mm f/0.85 sold at BHphoto (Click here).
A-mount lenses:
$200 off on the 16-105mm f/3.5-5.6 DT at Amazon, Adorama, BHphoto and SonyStore.
$100 off on the 24-70mm f/2.8 Zeiss at Amazon, Adorama, BHphoto and SonyStore.
$100 off on the 135mm f/1.8 Zeiss at Amazon, Adorama, BHphoto and SonyStore.
$100 off on the 35mm f/1.4 at Amazon, Adorama, BHphoto and SonyStore.
$100 off on the 24mm f/2.0 Zeiss at Amazon, Adorama, BHphoto and SonyStore.
$100 off on the 16-80mm f/3.5-4.5 Zeiss at Amazon, Adorama, BHphoto and SonyStore.
$100 off on the 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6 G at Amazon, Adorama, BHphoto and SonyStore.
$50 off on the 100mm f/2.8 at Amazon, Adorama and BHphoto.
$50 off on the 11-18mm f/4.5-5.6 DT at Amazon, Adorama, BHphoto and SonyStore.
$50 off on the 16-50mm f/2.8 at Amazon, Adorama, BHphoto and SonyStore.
$25 off on the 50mm f/2.8 macro at Amazon, Adorama, BHphoto and SonyStore.
$25 off on the 85mm f/2.8 at Amazon, Adorama, BHphoto and SonyStore.
$25 off on the 35mm f/1.8 at Amazon, Adorama, BHphoto and SonyStore.
$25 off on the 30mm f/2.8 at Amazon, Adorama, BHphoto and SonyStore.
$50 off on the Bower 35mm T1.5 Cine Lens for A-mount at BHphoto (Click here).
Sigma A-mount lenses:
$200 off on the Sigma 70-200mm lens at Amazon, Adorama, and BHphoto.
$25 off ont he Sigma 70-300mm lens at Amazon, Adorama and BHphoto.
$300 off on the Sigma 150-500mm lens at Amazon, Adorama and BHphoto.
$300 off on the Sigma 50-500mm lens at Amazon, Adorama and BHphoto.
$200 off on the Sigma 18-250mm at Amazon, Adorama, BHphoto.
$100 off on the Sigma 10-20mm lens at Amazon, Adorama and BHphoto.
$75 off on the Sigma 12-24mm lens at Amazon, Adorama and BHphoto.
$50 off on the Sigma 8-16mm lens at Amazon and BHphoto.
68 Responses
One major Australian dealer just had a major year end sale on Sony A7 A7R and A7S at 50% of the US prices. The special were:
Sony A7 with kit zoom lens for 1000 AUS dollar=$800 USD,
A7R with kit zoom lens =$1200 USD
and A7S with kit zoom lens =$1500 USD.
It might be the same retailer I got my A7S from. $1345 USD ex-tax with Sony promo free Metabones and SEL2880 zoom.
That is a great deal.
I just bought A58 wt kit lense open box (condition-excellent) from BestBuy.com yesterday for $275; they throw in a DSLR camera bag,16GB SD card, and free shipping. Fingers crossed, wait and see once I receive it.
After nearly 3 years of shooting Sony, I am going back to Nikon. Here’s a comparison of the D810 and the A7r RAW files. Sony’s compression leaves 85% + of the values out of the file. This results in less dynamic range, less flexibility in post and lower resolution with equivalent lenses. Shutter shock is also an issue that haunts the Sony A7r too frequently and especially as low light comes into play. The A6000 is a fine camera for casual users but the A7r just isn’t there yet. (Sony A7r on left, Nikon D810 on right)
D810 really is a great camera. If you could figure out a way to get Canon glass on there it’d be even better. Or you could wait a wee while for the 5D4. Just sayin’
Very true.
Canon makes great skin colors but I started down the ZF.2 lens road a while back. Maybe Canon’s mirrorless will be a choice later.
Canon mirrorless? Aha ha ha ha ha ha ha, stop it Anton you’re killing me.
http://www.canonrumors.com/tag/mirrorless/
>Is Canon developing a full frame mirrorless camera? That’s what the latest rumor floating around out there is saying. I don’t buy it and don’t think Canon is going to develop a new line of lenses for a full frame mirrorless camera<
Did you read the article you quoted (I think we're stretching again)?
Do you have a chart showing a 14 bit raw file from the Nikon D750? Particularly one exhibiting the automatic flare rendering tool Nikon has included in it’s latest model. It’s important to record every last bit of data to fully appreciate this new and interesting feature.
No, we do not. But it doesn’t look too bad with the softer Nikon glass. If as CanonGuy states, we used the better Canon L glass, well, that just might become an issue.
Zeiss Otus 55mm and 85mm, the 135mm Apo Sonnar and the 21mm Distagon. The Leica, Nikon and Canon versions of these lenses don’t even come close.
Zeiss are my choice too. Just wish Nikon made a decent high acutance focussing screen like Canon do for the D600. Without a decent screen, the only current Nikon that’ll manual focus worth a darn is the Df.
No, its the 6D you’re thinking about. The D600 has a poor screen for MF.
Zeiss are my choice too. Just wish Nikon made a decent high acutance focussing screen like Canon do for the 6D. Without a decent screen, the only current Nikon that’ll manual focus worth a darn is the Df.
The FE 1.8/55 and OTUS aren’t close, you are clueless!
I have both. The FE55 gets within 10% of the Otus when Imatested but there are a number of things the Otus does far better that make it worth the $3k difference.
Show him a chart and prove that’s a factual statement Anton (It does smell a little fishy).
No. Going with the 810. Sony is great for ease of use but I can’t handle the shutter and file issues.
Oh crap, the D810 is on that examples list of flare-ridden cameras.
From Hogan’s site:
>The variation in AF sensor mounting height is one of those many manufacturing tolerance issues. You’re trying to align many different parts in DSLRs to get sensor/viewfinder/focus aligned, and even a very small location variation in one is trickles into all the others. In this case, the middle lens condenser appears to be getting mounted a bit high in some cameras, and is the source of the problem. In other words, it’s a hardware problem that requires camera modification of some sort. I’m not sure if you can actually just re-align everything that’s involved in a simple repair. So many parts all interact, it seems like it would be a fairly large teardown to adjust. <
Yeah, thats the type of issue that's an issue you can live with!
Another Nikon nightmare, anyone who bought one of these D750’s should return it immediately for a refund.
It’s like we’ve constantly said KISS. Sony are trying to implement this with the new “modular construction” and its paying off with the A7 bodies. Nikon are still stuck in this “sum of many totally different parts construction” for every different model.
I agree. Gaffers tape is a stupid fix.
Does this post have anything to do with the topic of this article? Are you just trolling Anton Berlin?
Personally I don’t have a clue what those graphs purport to show… I AM perfectly happy with the images my camera makes, so can’t say that I am in any way inclined to waste my time finding out.
May I suggest that you spend a little more time actually taking pictures & a little less time measurbating over a “problem” that 99.9% of us seem to have no problem with/dealing with/working around/or can’t actually find in the first place.
Berlin is too busy typing to do his homework. Give him a hand will you. All his Nikon’s made the fail-grade.
http://www.imaging-resource.com/news/2014/12/24/nikon-d750-flare-problems-heres-why-and-what-to-do-about-them-its-not-lens
I’ve taken 40K photos on a NEX7 and A7r, use the finest lenses in the world, Imatest every lens and sensor system completely, process with C1, use a wide gamut calibrated monitor.
The flaws in the Sony file are apparent in one way or another in nearly every file and especially in gradient night or blue skies. Sony uses a lossy algorithm that results in banding, posterization and insertion of false value pixels. When Sony fixes this, I will come back.
http://www.rawdigger.com/howtouse/sony-craw-arw2-posterization-detection
And many other places.
SHOW US SOME EXAMPLES OF ACTUAL IMAGES RUINED. YOU WON’T AS YOU DO NOT HAVE ANYTHING.
Here’s a screenshot of a properly exposed image pushed 1.5 stops with no other changes. This is exactly the predicted behavior of a lossy compression scheme. The Nikon files can be pushed 4 stops without issue.
Yeah, there’s nothing posted, nothing to see. Just as I suspected. Good grief……
Image isn’t here.
WHERE’S THE BEEF?
Wonderful, I’d toss that its devoid of any artist merit. Furthermore, it does nothing to bolster your delusional rant. IDIOT.
An underexposed 8bit screen-shot of NOTHING is your example of Sony’s incompetence. And they think I’m clueless…… Here, for you, I’ll pay your expenses. http://www.nyip.edu
Here’s some homework for you, 625 pages of images from people who’ve figured out how to take pictures with the worlds crappiest shutter & abysmal RAW files.
Here’s the link http://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/1255248?b=2 baby.
I always use a very sturdy tripod where necessary and most importantly, expose my pictures with a grey-card. Your example looks underexposed to my eye.
Good points Alfred, proper technique is often overlooked today.
If its properly exposed, why are you wanting to push it 4 stops? Just Sayin’
Why does your format say “cRAW”? Sony stopped offering cRAW format as an option after the A900/A850.
Also, get a decent RAW developer like DXO Optics Pro 10. DXO does amazing things with Sony RAW.
http://www.dxo.com/intl
Yeah, quote DigLloyd too next-time.
LOL what trolling nonsense! Sony RAW files never were compressed but they included the option to compress with “cRAW” back on the A900/A850. Sony’s 14-bit RAW format is notoriously meaty and that has been independently verified by multiple reviewers from DPreview on down. Even Sony’s 12-bit RAW images don’t produce graphs anything like that.
ASK BERLIN TO SHOW US SOME EXAMPLES OF “HIS” ACTUAL IMAGES RUINED.
Davey,
You may be right about some Sony Alphas (DSLRs) being able to output uncompressed files and it makes a huge difference. My issues are with the E mounts which all use the lossy compression.
http://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/1247655/147#12028909
http://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/1267511/0
Then read-on and find Fred’s article on said issue and note what camera he uses. In other words, “get the rest of the story.”
Get a grip, you are embarrassing the Nikon boys.
https://support.nikonusa.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/19336/session/L3RpbWUvMTQxOTg3MzI4Mi9zaWQvdkN5MWQ3Ym0%3D
Be careful, the grass isn’t as green as you may think it is!
http://www.imaging-resource.com/news/2014/12/24/nikon-d750-flare-problems-heres-why-and-what-to-do-about-them-its-not-lens
We get it. The 750 has an issue. Just as many of the pre XMAS rush to market releases have in the past. The XMAS season is a bad time to buy a puppy, look for a new girlfriend or buy a camera. The D810 has proven its worth.
$2,300 discount on the Hasselblad Stellar on sale at BHphoto (Click here)
It proves that you don’t have to be intelligent to be rich.
Absolutely brilliant looking internal flare in glorious uncompressed 14bit RAW Nikon goodness. Berlin, you are an idiot if your are complaining about those Sony non-issues!
There is no perfect camera. The 750 has this issue just as the 600 had the oil/dust issue. I’m getting the 810 which has neither of these (or any major issue to date). I’d like to use Sony but they have been way too slow in responding to fix the A7r major issues which could have been done with a software upgrade.
1. Eliminate shutter shock by keeping the A7r out of the danger zone ( about 40 to focal length or 2x focal length) See Kasson, Lloyd and others.
2. Give the option of a true 14 bit uncompressed file even at the expense of FPS.
I could be back in 6 months if Sony fixes these things but all of the bells and whistles in the world don’t matter if you can’t get clean images out of the camera.
I’ve reached the point where a Nikon makes a difference and I see the flaws in every Sony photo I take due to the lossy compression that yields a fraction of the file for the exact same photo taken at the exact same time through similar lenses.
Do your research or STFU about issues way beyond your pay-grade.
http://www.imaging-resource.com/news/2014/12/24/nikon-d750-flare-problems-heres-why-and-what-to-do-about-them-its-not-lens
Here’s a good explanation for you. No guarantee you will comprehend it.
http://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/1247655/147#12028909
The statement that 11 bits cannot support a dynamic range of 14 is not
strictly correct, as your edit seems to acknowledge. Any bit-depth can
express any dynamic range. A greater bit-depth simply allows for more
granularity in the levels recorded within a given dynamic range. Whether
11 bits does justice to the dynamic range is a qualitative judgment.
There is nothing unclear about the bit depth of the Sony RAWs. The
encoding algorithm used for the Sony a7/a7R RAWs takes the original 14 bit values and maps them to 11 bit space (a bit more on this below) and then the 11 bit values are further compressed into 8 bits per pixel by
delta-encoding them in fixed-length 16 pixel blocks as follows: 11-bit
minimum value for the block, 11-bit maximum value for the block, 4-bit
index of the minimum value in the block, 4-bit index of the maximum
value, 14 7-bit deltas from the minimum value for the other 14 pixels.
This uses 11+11+4+4+(14×7) = 128 bits per 16 pixels or 8 bits per pixel.
This encoding algorithm is why the a7R always produces files that are
just over 36 million bytes (7360 x 4912 single color pixels multiplied
by 8 bits per pixel divided by 8 bits per byte plus a small variable
overhead for metadata). A good aspect of this algorithm is that it is
computationally cheap as it does not need to do any data analysis and
simply encodes with one pass over the data. A bad aspect is that it is
not adaptive and as a result uses a fixed amount of storage which wastes space for images that don’t need it and doesn’t give additional space to files that would benefit from it.
Note that this encoding is doubly lossy: There is guaranteed data loss
on the first step (the mapping from 14 bits to 11) and potential data
loss on the second step (the delta-encoding in 16 bit blocks). The
reason the second step may not lose data is that if the difference
between min and max is less than 128 (the maximum value that can be
expressed in 7 bits) then this step ends up being lossless. Since smooth
gradients are most likely to have small deltas in values and since one
is most likely to notice dataloss in smooth gradients, the second step
is statistically more likely to be lossless when it counts most. It is
this delta-encoding step that almost certainly explains the artifacts
that some people have noticed on high-contrast transitions but these
seem to me to be negligible in the grand scheme of things. The first
step is for me much more concerning as it is lossy with regard to the
total tonal range expressible in the RAW. Without new firmware, the
a7/a7R will not produce a RAW file with more than 2048 values per
channel.
Circling back to the “doing justice” comment, the 14 to 11 bit mapping
is not quite as bad as it sounds as it is not a simple bit shift. A 3
bit shift would have the effect of binning every set of 8 consecutive
14-bit values into the same single value in 11-bit space. The Sony RAWs are instead mapped on a curve and devote more of the 11 bit space to the portions of the exposure range that should benefit from more tonality. I believe this is why Sony considers it “visually lossless”. This mapping approach means that for example the mid tones might consider every set of 2 consecutive values the same instead of every 8. However since there are still only 2048 possible values the piper then gets paid in the shadows where 16 values might get lumped together in the down conversion. At the end of the day no matter how well they slice the 11 bits it still does limit the total tonality of the image and it means
the files can’t take as much processing as losslessly stored 14 bit
files from the same sensor could.
No, its too complicated for me – SHOW ME SOME EXAMPLES OF YOUR PICTURES RUINED BY THIS CRAPPY SONY IMPLEMENTATION.
See below dear child.
Oh, we’ve been called out on our BS. Not happy about that are we!
Kind of a Catch 22 for old Anton isn’t it.
I like how you think Jen.
He don’t got none.
But Anton, your hero Fred Miranda disagrees with you:
“Aside from test shots under high contrast lighting conditions, I have not encountered IQ issues even after pushing my images in post. I don’t consider this to be a practical issue and I am very impressed with the A7R’s IQ.”
In other words. Anton is full of $hit and just trolling.
Fred Miranda would not approve of this.
For those have ignored Pentax, the latest flagship K3 introduced 12 month ago (one year old)is selling at $700 mark, about 50% of the intro price. It is not full frame, it has great capability and image quality.