PlayMemories Camera Apps “Smooth Reflection”
Best primes for the A5000 (DxOmark).
IBELUX 40mm f0.85 lens first seen in flesh at Newsshooter.
Making compact technical camera for A7/A7r at Chiek.co.kr. youtube http://youtu.be/YdYB3BWE08c
Quick test of A6000 with Zeiss lenses (in Swedish) at Fotosidan.
A7r RAW is not all that raw. The full discussion is at Dpreview forum.
Zeiss is having a Touit photo contest, 1st prize is a free touit (including the new 50mm)… “One year of Touit – show us your best image!” http://blogs.zeiss.com/photo/en/?p=4948
Alex: “Now I did something new. Again with the A7R + 50 Summilux 1.4 ASPH FLE I had an event at a bar where people had the chance to get a professional portrait. The best pictures I posted on my new Facebook page: Faces. All of them where shot at 1.4 or 1.8 and the difficulty was to get the people motivated while try to stay on focus because only a slight movement of few millimeters was enough to get the whole picture blurry. The challenge was also to not get one guy shot right but 12 on the same evening. I was very happy that I could hold my promise and every one got one really nice and professional portrait 🙂
So even though I wished I had autofocus it’s also possible to shoot manual if you try hard enough.”
James: “Sony HK has brought their pro camera support program online. I hope we get this in the US soon.”
Andres: “Not a rumour, but some findings about A6000:s PDAF system. It does not work with all lenses, and I guess it depends on what kind of focus motor is used. Here are the findings with the lenses I’ve tested:
Sigma 19mm f/2.8 – does not work
Sony 18-55/3.5-5.6 (old kit zoom) – does not work
Zeiss 24mm f/2.8 – works
Zeiss 16-70 mm f/4 – works
Sony 35mm f/1.8 – works
Sony 50mm f/1.8 – does not work
Zeiss FE 55mm f/1.8 – works
Kinda dissapointing since the 50/1.8 is one of my favourites, and I was looking forward to fast AF performance with that lens 🙁” SAR answer: Tried to perform the firmware upgrade??? 🙂
Michael: “Know you´re busy with the a77 stuff. But found this in a forum, and thought it was funny and a nice little feature (had in my powerzoom Canon years ago) that nobody talks about. I mentioned it to you some weeks ago: in a video it seemed as if the a6000 in fact allows you to take a still-picture while video-recording. Apparantly it does 🙂“
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1st blood 🙂
Most of those lenses just need a firmware update to be compatible with the A6000’s PDAF. Select the lens from the list at right, then click Drivers & Software to get the update.
http://esupport.sony.com/US/p/select-system.pl?PRODTYPE=38
Info about PDAF-supported lenses on A6000 is useful, thank you. Would like to see more tests with more lenses on that subject.
The list of supported lenses is already on the Sony site. All they had to do was look!
Got a question for everyone that have tried CPS or NPS. Does Canon or Nikon require you to be a professional per se to apply for their “professional” services? Because I’m reading the requirements from Sony Pro and it says I’m required to be a “professional” to apply to their program… I have 2 Zeiss Fullframe glass (buying a 3rd this week) and 1 G lens and a a850, but that requirement is leaving me with a few doubts…
doesn’t it also cost 5k the first time to get the pro service
Prices were in yen.
How do they define “professional”? Do they make you show them receipts and a portfolio or something?
No idea..would like to know since CPS and NPS have the same requirement (some plans offerings depend on what kind of equipment do you have).
It might be that you need to have a registered company with VAT and not only a private person. How successful your business is and if you charge for your photos or not, I do not think matters at all.
right
well..if it needs to have a registered company then sadly, I’m out. Will wait until it arrives to America (the continent) and see what they request for the memebership since the benefits are pretty nice. Thanks for your comment.
Hi rzero21, I had been CPS for years. They never asked to prove my professional status. Just had to pay the professional fee. I assume it would be the same with Sony.
My guess is having some kind of employment or photography business would be enough. If I had a small firm named osc photo, I guess I could take advantage of the pro service no matter how small the revenue.
How is it possible that the 50 1.8 doesn’t support PDAF, when it works with the NEX-5R and NEX-6 after the firmware update? Sony themselves include the SEL50F18 on the list of firmware update that gives hybrid AF, and it was confirmed by multiple people.
It works with my SEL-50F18. You have to update the lens with the A6000.
That’s good to know. I was about to pull the trigger on the A6000 and then sell my NEX 6. Do you know if the pdaf works on the 18-55? I prefer that over the 16-50.
I would also be interested in that… Hanging in for a reply.
Maybe a daft question but how do you go about updating the lens?
The instructions are on the Sony support pages.
As said before. The Sony lenses need a FW upgrade and then they work fine. Third party lenses however does not. I do not agree with the assumption that this has anything to do with type of AF-motor, but rather that it is not “genuine” PDAF in A6000. PDAF works on DSLR regardless of type of drive for the AF. My fear is that the AF-solution on A6000 will show to have some other drawbacks as well.
Since no A-mount-lens together with LA-EA1 or LA-EA3 get this AF on A6000, this even more disables the statement from Sony that there is compatibility between the mounts. This is also the reason why A77II and other A-mount cameras not will be mirrorless with an AF-solution like the A6000 and that the on-sensor PDAF technology is still far behind dedicated AF-sensors that require mirrors of one kind or another.
Anders (not Andres) posted this on a Swedish forum weeks ago and “we” also found the firmware update-info so problem is solved. By the fact that it ends up on SAR now, it seems that there is some delay for verifying bya Andrea and then the information is outdated.
yes the Creative Style effect the raw files on the a77 and if u set it to -1-1-2 u able to push it way harder in light room and look way better and bunch of people tried it in the a77 fb group.
You can take a picture while filming video on the A6000? Seriously?? That’s amazing. This might finally be a reason for me to ditch NEX and switch to Alpha. No joke. That’s killer.
it would be disappointing if not all lenses would be able to take advantage of the a6000’s fast PDAF. Hope firmware fixes this. Especially for those who use third party lenses like sigma’s.
Too right – that most of my lenses (I am assuming that if the sigma 19mm doesn’t work then the 30mm won’t either and same with the 18-55 and 55-210). That means I will have to by the new compact kit lens and it will be the only lens (of 6) that will focus well! If its a motor problem then I can’t see firmware updates doing anything to help.
Does any one know the other lenses will perform in terms of focus speed (particularly in low light)? Is the contrast detect system alone better (or worse??) than my current 5n? I am glad I found this out now – thank you Andrea!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BIcweHvdjXA
Well, this is not AF-C since he (you?) refocuses each time with the shutter button when reframing the picture. Also not possible to tell if there is any focus hunting like it would be visible during video for instance.
However, it shows that “leisure” AF works with Sigma-lenses. That however is not something spectacular, but rather expected.
Sigma 30mm f2.8 dn works. But only in the center.
Colin…it’s not true with regards to the Sony lenses…I can’t say for the Sigmas as I don’t have them. The firmware can be updated for the 18-55 kit lens and the 55-210mm lens, and PDAF works beautifully with both. Same for the 10-18mm lens, and the Sony 35mm and 50mm lenses. The only one so far that doesn’t have a firmware update to work with PDAF is the 16mm pancake.
It is up to Sigma to fix their lenses, not Sony. That’s the risk you take using third-party lenses, you potentially miss out on 100% compatibility because Sony can’t be bothered filling lens range gaps and Sigma do.
There is no AF Zeiss 24mm f/2.8, only a Zeiss 24mm f/1.8 and Zeiss 24mm f/2.
please , correct the above list for PDAF lenses !
Sony 50mm 1.8 OSS does support it, just make the firmware upgrade…
Dumb question, but how do you actually see that a lens uses PDAF on the A6000? Just got the camera and can’t find an option to turn it off/on to see the difference or any indicator on screen. Purely judging on what the focus speed feels like does not seem right to me. *slightly embarrassed*
PDAF should work with all those lenses listed with the right lens firmware(sigma should be center coverage only though).
Fairly certain the a6000 doesn’t take pictures during video. There is no way to fire the shutter while video. I’ve never seen an actual user comment that it was possible.
It takes 24, 25, 30, 50 or 60 pictures every second. Too bad they are ‘only’ full HD 😉
Sorry. My mistake, not Andrea´s. I posted it as a tip a week ago do so I didn´t think Andrea was gonna post it. I then didn´t think of warning him that in fact it appeared not to be true after all. It was actually posted quite convincingly in a thread somewhere by someone who insisted that that was the case. It´s not, apparently.
” It does not work with all lenses”
…and this is news why? It has ALWAYS been known that the A6000 PDAF requires supported lenses.
Can you use PlayMemories Camera Apps on a65/a77?
no, currently the only A mount to have this is the A77II ( ICLA-A77M2 )
We need a long exposure / bulb app.
+1 million billion !!! If Olympus can do it why not Sony. Will make life so much easier for a long exposure guy like me. 🙁