Luminous Landscape Forum
Site & Board Matters => About This Site => Topic started by: Kevin Raber on October 31, 2017, 11:39:27 pm
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I have just published on the LuLa homepage an article on my afternoon with the NEW Sony a7r III. It includes 2 videos as well as images you can zoom to 100% to see image quality. Myself as well as many other journalists and content providers were really blown away by the performance of this camera. Yes, I am a Sony user as many of you know. It's my camera of choice and works well for what I do. I am very excited about the a7r III. I'll be shooting more with this camera soon and will provide more images when I do. And, I did order a camera.
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In you article about the new Sony, this first pic of the model - at 100% she has a checkerboard on her iris. Is this the camera or is there some weirdness to here contact lenses (if she's wearing any?) or what? The man does not exhibit this peculiarity.
Cheers,
Brian
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So far I haven't seen any statement from Sony telling their customers what materials they can safely use to clean sticky dirt from their sensors. While the technical performance of this line of cameras is excellent - I use an a6300 and think it's superb - it would complete the picture if other users could update the community on what products they have successfully used on Sony sensors to clean them.
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As I stated in the caption below the model in the article. A number of were thrown by the checkerboard pattern in the eye. Turns out it is some kind of contact lens. We were all ready to jump on Sony about a problem. The Sony engineers were scratching their heads. Then we talked to the moel and she showed us the contact lens.
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Mark, you just can't let that one rest. I'll ask a service person I know and get back to you. I have had my sensor cleaned a number of times at Roberts and they do a great job. I'll ask them too what is used. Need to give me a couple of weeks though since I am on the road for a while.
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Hi Kevin - no I won't let it rest till I have an answer that works for me. We don't have a "Roberts" in Toronto. Wish we did. Vistek won't touch them - advice from them is to take the camera to the Sony service center, a Sony sub-contractor sixty miles out of Toronto. Thanks but no thanks. I'm not holding out on this one just to be cantankerous for the sake of it, that's not who I am - there's a practical issue for which I am trying to find a trustworthy practical solution and Sony has been of no help.
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And thanks very much for offering to look into it. That will be most welcome and helpful.
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Hi Mark,
I am in the UK and use a product, which I have just checked and it is, in fact, made in Canada.
A company by the name VisibleDust.
I have used their products, fluids / swabs for many years on Sony's A900 & more recently A99 II and have had no issues.
I prefer the Smear Away fluid to Sensor Clean but both do the job.
Obviously it is up to the individual to make a judgement on cleaning sensors and what method to use so this is not a recommendation, as such, just my personal experience
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That's great Jeff. Understood on the question of recommendation - the important point is just to gather peoples' experience and from that be guided by what to do.
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Hey Kevin, no such thing as a 12-24 G-Master ;) The 12-24 is not part of the GM line.
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As for cleaning the sensor the Sensor GelStick that is made specifically for Sony (the orange one, not the blue one) works well. You do have to lock down the IBIS which is done by initiating a sensor clean from the menu with the shaker. That results in the IBIS being locked down until the camera is powered up again.
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Thanks, EJ, my editor though since everything else was G-Master that I messed up. It is corrected.
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As for cleaning the sensor the Sensor GelStick that is made specifically for Sony (the orange one, not the blue one) works well. You do have to lock down the IBIS which is done by initiating a sensor clean from the menu with the shaker. That results in the IBIS being locked down until the camera is powered up again.
I bought one of those... it left a really nasty mark on the sensor... luckily I was able to clean with aeroclipse... I’m basically using that with some sensor swabs on my Sony A7 II
http://dgpfotografia.com
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I've used the Sensor Gel Stick (orange) with appalling results. VisibleDust has not removed the gunk the gel stick left.
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Sensor cleaning on my old Canon 5D was a real hassle. Life was much better with the 5DII thanks to the built-in sensor shake.
But my current "big" camera is a Sony, and it never needs cleaning!
It's the RX10 III, with the built-in Zeiss zoom lens that goes from (FF equivalent) 24mm to 600mm, tack sharp, with excellent stabilization. ;)
No more lens changing or sensor cleaning, and hardly ever a tripod. Bliss!
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Kevin,
When you review the A7RIII, I'd be interested in finding out how much the battery discharges [overnight] while inserted in the camera. The A9 seems to be pretty bad in this respect.
If the battery is dead after say a week without the camera being used, then that will probably affect the number of spare batteries you might buy with the camera.
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Battery capacity is not good on the a6300 either. The Watson batteries are better than the Sony batteries. Depends on how much in-camera reviewing you do. If I review each shot I don't get more than about 130 frames per battery charge. If I do no reviewing it can be well over 200 - still not good. So I keep four batteries handy. That's easily enough for a day's work, and recharge them all at night with a Watson charger that does two at a time efficiently.
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Interesting on the Sensor GelStick - I buy mine from the manufacturer and have had excellent results with them. I know there were a lot of fakes being peddled a while back on some sites. Is it possible you got one of those?
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This battery self drain is a major pain for part time users.
My H6D-100c is terrible, my Nikon bodied are great at this.
Cheers,
Bernard
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Just a little typo for you: "If it looses the eye for any reason"
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Hi Kevin, many thanks for putting this together.
Dis you get the chance to try the pixel shifting feature? Or do you have anything more to add to what's writen already? In my opinion and for my use it could be the most important feature but I can't find anything substantial on it.
Thanks again, your articles are always a great read
Aristotle
Sent from my SM-N950F using Tapatalk
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None of us had the chance to try the Pixel Shift yet. It requires a PC not a MAC so it may be hard for me to test. I'll know more in the next few weeks as I get a chance to work with this camera again.
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Interesting on the Sensor GelStick - I buy mine from the manufacturer and have had excellent results with them. I know there were a lot of fakes being peddled a while back on some sites. Is it possible you got one of those?
It could be... I bought it in Amazon UK... not sure... it was quite difficult to find it in a shop in Europe, maybe I will go directly to the manufacturer webpage
http://dgpfotografia.com
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are you able to switch the focus between the detected eyes?
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I believe it picks one eye. Not sure if you can switch it. I will be shooting with the a7r III for the next several days. I will try and see if there is a selection for EYE-AF.
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None of us had the chance to try the Pixel Shift yet. It requires a PC not a MAC so it may be hard for me to test. I'll know more in the next few weeks as I get a chance to work with this camera again.
Honestly, Kevin, they're very easy and inexpensive to purchase and easy to run. I'm a little surprised you can't even borrow a PC from someone, let alone just buy one and run the software. You don't need a beast of a machine - converting a few images using the software and then throwing them back over to your Mac would easy. Or, you could just Bootcamp or any of the various ways available to run Windows on one of your Macs. This really shouldn't be a major hurdle for you guys, unless you're just frightened you'll end up liking the PC ;-)
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Phil . . .it's like going to the dark side. I'll do some pixel shift images over the next few days and then BORROW a PC.
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https://img00.deviantart.net/56ec/i/2007/233/4/a/dark_side_of_the_force_xp_by_eduardowojcikiewicz.jpg
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Ignoring the fact that the Sony software for Mutishot may be a bit of a dog - ??? - does anyone know whether the mark 3 with multishot gives a higher quality capture than the mark 2 using Sony's Smooth Reflections app? An app that the mk 3 will not be able to use, by the way.
I shoot architecture and for interiors have found the Smooth Reflections app to be a Godsend. Although this use was not the original intention of this app I set it to take 16 shots, which it does in short bursts, and after in-camera processing produces one lovely Raw file with no noise and superb detail.
I think the mk 3 is actually a mk 2.5, which is okay with me if multishot delivers, If it's little or no improvement over the Smooth Reflections app, then I'll take a pass.
Fred Miranda has done extensive testing of Smooth Reflections with good results and has an active discussion on the subject on his site.