Luminous Landscape Forum
Equipment & Techniques => Medium Format / Film / Digital Backs – and Large Sensor Photography => Topic started by: Chris Barrett on December 22, 2013, 01:17:18 pm
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Format support but no tethering yet.
Drag.
CB
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I would be very surprised if there is ever tethering. Unlike Canon and Nikon, Sony has never released a SDK. I'm curious as to whether the workaround we use on the A900 works with the A7r.
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Hi Chris,
apart from the issue of not having tethered support how do you find the Sony compares to a MFB? I often hire a P45+ back for furniture shoots but now wondering if this camera could save us quite a bit of money in rental fees (about 15-20K/year). I'd most likely be using a lens in the 50-90mm range for furniture.
Also for interiors have you tried using the Canon 17mm T/S?
Thanks,
Derryck.
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Hi Chris,
apart from the issue of not having tethered support how do you find the Sony compares to a MFB? I often hire a P45+ back for furniture shoots but now wondering if this camera could save us quite a bit of money in rental fees (about 15-20K/year). I'd most likely be using a lens in the 50-90mm range for furniture.
Also for interiors have you tried using the Canon 17mm T/S?
Thanks,
Derryck.
I think the D800E is still a better choice than the A7R. The Sony A7R has some issues with adapted lenses:
#1 (Non native lenses) lens performance in the corners is greatly reduced due to the glass in front of the sensor that is actually part of it. This was discovered by Roger Cicala of lens rentals.com, you can google the numerous threads online about this. This is an issue with wide angles 12-24mm range it seems. I read somewhere than a new adapter with a corrective glass is necessary to fix the issue. This is developing story so it has not reached a conclusion.
#2 internal reflections caused by the adapter's interior surfaces lower contrast when using lenses with large image circles like the 17mm and 24mm TS-E's. Can be fixed by lining the adapter with black velour.
#3 Flares in the sensor cause distracting reflections when light sources are in the frame. Specially troublesome when shooting at night. The sensor glass might be the cause also. Again, this is a developing story so nothing is set in stone yet.
All these are serious issues for critical use in a wide range of conditions.
Of course I think Nikon but specially Canon is loving these issues. The A7R is a great camera and a game changer for sure. Once these issues are resolved it will be even better.
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Regarding the P45+, You can get a P45+, DF+ and 80mm LS lens for about $14,000 ( HERE (https://digitaltransitions.com/blog/dt-blog/dt-exclusive-promos-p-series-bundles) ) , or a P40+ bundle for $11k. If you spend that much in rental in a year then it is worth buying for sure.
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Thanks Ken, appreciate the feedback.
I did happen to read the other threads regarding the issues around the A7R. Doesn't yet look like an realistic high MP option for Canon users. Though a D800 plus a lens isn't all that much. Might be worth investigating as a short term option for some clients who aren't willing to pay the additional cost of MFDB.
Yes, purchasing a DB kit has certainly been a consideration of late but we're currently able to add a decent markup so it makes me money at this stage plus helps a local rental studio with additional income. If these particular clients had a confirmed number of dates each year I would have already jumped in.
Cheers,
Derryck.
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Hi,
I would suggest that you may overstate this a bit. What Roger Ciala says is that the Sony lens performs better of axis than indicated by MTF. He found that lens to be about the best when using Imatest. The "Sony Zeiss" has the exit pupil more to the front than the other lenses, thus reducing the ray angle.
Thickness is a problem with all digital sensors. There is always an IR-filter in front of the sensor. Often there is also an OLP filter consisting of two Lithium Niobate monocristals and a wave plate. That optical package needs to be taken into account when designing optics. If the OLP filter is eliminated I would expect it to replace with optical glass of equivalent thickness. Leica has similar issues, they have reduced the thickness of the IR filter to an extreme, to counter it. I would not expect it to be a problem with DSLR lenses like the 14-24/2.8 or the Canon T&S lenses.
Regarding the problems with internal reflections in the adapter, I have seen something similar (but worse) when I adopted my Hasselblad lenses to my Sony with an Arax adapter. A much more expensive adapter from Mirex has movable internal baffles reducing reflections. It can be a problem for sure, and it needs to be adressed by adapter makers.
Regarding the third issue, I have not heard about it, but it is generally a problem with digital sensors that they reflect much more light than film. Lenses that are intended to be used with digital cameras usually have better multicoating on the rear elements. Reflections from aperture blades is also possible. I don't think this is a Sony problem, but it would be a problem using old lenses on Sony.
There is also a discussion about the shutter caused vibration problem.
Rogers article is a very good read: http://www.lensrentals.com/blog/2013/12/a-bit-of-a7r-sanity
Best regards
Erik
I think the D800E is still a better choice than the A7R. The Sony A7R has some issues with adapted lenses:
#1 (Non native lenses) lens performance in the corners is greatly reduced due to the glass in front of the sensor that is actually part of it. This was discovered by Roger Cicala of lens rentals.com, you can google the numerous threads online about this. This is an issue with wide angles 12-24mm range it seems. I read somewhere than a new adapter with a corrective glass is necessary to fix the issue. This is developing story so it has not reached a conclusion.
All these are serious issues for critical use in a wide range of conditions.
Of course I think Nikon but specially Canon is loving these issues. The A7R is a great camera and a game changer for sure. Once these issues are resolved it will be even better.
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I would be very surprised if there is ever tethering. Unlike Canon and Nikon, Sony has never released a SDK. I'm curious as to whether the workaround we use on the A900 works with the A7r.
How do third-party developers like DNA software make tethering work with Lightroom? They already have a plugin out for the A7/r which works well. Why do you need an SDK to do tethering? Surely the guys at Capture One are smart enough to do it too?
Ben
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Example of the "sensor flare" with night shots using the A7R , adapter and the latest 24-70mm lens from Canon. (f2.8L II)
http://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/1247661/94
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http://www.dyxum.com/dforum/my-first-result-with-a7r_topic102199_page1.html
Examples of portraits shot with E and A mount lenses on the A7R. Pretty awesome stuff.
Sony has no obligation to make any other lenses work properly on their cameras than their own. I dunno why people are getting all upset about it.
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I dunno... I'm pretty damn pleased with Canon lenses adapted to the Sony. I didn't have my TS-Es on this shoot, so this is with the far inferior 17-40 zoom which had to be cropped quite a bit to avoid tilting the lens. I have tested the 17 & 24 TS-Es with the Metabones adapter and didn't notice any contrast issues.
C1P sharpening turned off for both images.
A7r
(http://christopherbarrett.net/forum_images/A7r.png)
IQ260
(http://christopherbarrett.net/forum_images/IQ260.png)
CB
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Hi,
This is what I have seen on my Sony Alpha using a Hasselblad 120/4 Macro Planar with an Arax adapter. Left one is with standard lens shade and the right with compendium configured for 250 mm lens.
(http://echophoto.dnsalias.net/ekr/Articles/Z120MPlanar/InternalReflections.png)
Best regards
Erik
I dunno... I'm pretty damn pleased with Canon lenses adapted to the Sony. I didn't have my TS-Es on this shoot, so this is with the far inferior 17-40 zoom which had to be cropped quite a bit to avoid tilting the lens. I have tested the 17 & 24 TS-Es with the Metabones adapter and didn't notice any contrast issues.
C1P sharpening turned off for both images.
A7r
(http://christopherbarrett.net/forum_images/A7r.png)
IQ260
(http://christopherbarrett.net/forum_images/IQ260.png)
CB
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Ha! Maybe that's why I haven't seen any issues. I usually have three flags around the lens regardless of the camera I'm shooting.
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As many of us i'm very interested to see how the a7r works with rise...but i haven't found any good example.
Chris would you be kind enough to share a raw with the 24tse, vertical shot with 1cm rise @5,6 with no tilt?
Sincerely
Ps: or anyone else ;)
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As many of us i'm very interested to see how the a7r works with rise...but i haven't found any good example.
Chris would you be kind enough to share a raw with the 24tse, vertical shot with 1cm rise @5,6 with no tilt?
Sincerely
Ps: or anyone else ;)
I shot this recently with the A7R and 24mm TS-E fully shifted. I was facing the incinerator with the camera held vertically and fully shifted 12mm.
Then rotated left and right and stitched the 3 images together and cropped square for an equivalent 54MP. And a little post prod :)
Except for some slight blur on the extreme top edges of the stacks - at 40" it's very sharp.
(http://www.paulozzello.com/ExternalImages/incineratormtl.jpg)
Here are some full size crops from the equivalent 40" prints.
Close to center :
(http://www.paulozzello.com/ExternalImages/24_center.jpg)
and fully shifted :
(http://www.paulozzello.com/ExternalImages/24_edge.jpg)
In my opinion the A7R and 24 TS-E are a great combination for black and white photography.
Paul
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Hi Paul,
Thanks for posting! A very good example.
Best regards
Erik
I shot this recently with the A7R and 24mm TS-E fully shifted. I was facing the incinerator with the camera held vertically and fully shifted 12mm.
Then rotated left and right and stitched the 3 images together and cropped square for an equivalent 54MP. And a little post prod :)
Except for some slight blur on the extreme top edges of the stacks - at 40" it's very sharp.
…
In my opinion the A7R and 24 TS-E are a great combination for black and white photography.
Paul
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How do third-party developers like DNA software make tethering work with Lightroom? They already have a plugin out for the A7/r which works well. Why do you need an SDK to do tethering? Surely the guys at Capture One are smart enough to do it too?
Maybe smart enough, but if you need to reverse engineer things it will cost lots of time (and requires special expertise), which equals money. Maybe they wait until they see enough interest so it would pay the development effort. Writing own photo software I can tell you that a very large amount of development goes into figuring out the camera manufacturers' closed systems. I'm not thrilled about it.
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Hi,
I got the impression that DNA licensed the SDK.
I guess that Phase One could do that, too, but I guess they put their efforts on Phase One backs and DSLRs with dominating market share.
Best regards
Erik
Maybe smart enough, but if you need to reverse engineer things it will cost lots of time (and requires special expertise), which equals money. Maybe they wait until they see enough interest so it would pay the development effort. Writing own photo software I can tell you that a very large amount of development goes into figuring out the camera manufacturers' closed systems. I'm not thrilled about it.
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That's surely the case, if there *is* an SDK it generally costs a lot less to license than to figure it out. You can license SDK for Phase One backs too, we never did that though, for the narrow speciality type of software we do we generally choose to work extra time for free than to shell out money on expensive license fees and support agreements.
I got the impression that DNA licensed the SDK.
I guess that Phase One could do that, too, but I guess they put their efforts on Phase One backs and DSLRs with dominating market share.
Best regards
Erik
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Hmm... using Sony's "Remote Camera Control" software, I can shoot straight into a C1 Pro Session. Images show up in about 5 seconds. Slightly clunky to use 2 software at once but nearly as efficient as working wholly in C1 Pro.
The one drag is, C1Pro doesn't automatically apply custom settings I've made to the previous capture, i.e. crop, exposure, etc. This is usually enabled in the Capture Tab by selecting "copy from last capture" in the Next Capture pull down menu, but I guess C1Pro is not identifying the files as "Captures".
Hmm...
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Hi Paul,
Thanks a lot for this example, it helps a lot.
Could i ask you few question?
-did any sharpness has been applyed?
-Did you focus for the center or did you try to make the corner as good as possible ?
-What aperture did you used ?
-do you feel you could get better corner by making a different focus ?
Best
David
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Hmm... using Sony's "Remote Camera Control" software, I can shoot straight into a C1 Pro Session. Images show up in about 5 seconds. Slightly clunky to use 2 software at once but nearly as efficient as working wholly in C1 Pro.
The one drag is, C1Pro doesn't automatically apply custom settings I've made to the previous capture, i.e. crop, exposure, etc. This is usually enabled in the Capture Tab by selecting "copy from last capture" in the Next Capture pull down menu, but I guess C1Pro is not identifying the files as "Captures".
Hmm...
Chris, are you using a Sony cable or can any usb cable be used? Seeing any of the shutter bounce or compression artifacts some are reporting?
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Hi Paul,
Thanks for posting! A very good example.
Best regards
Erik
Thanks Erik !
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Hi Paul,
Thanks a lot for this example, it helps a lot.
Could i ask you few question?
-did any sharpness has been applyed?
-Did you focus for the center or did you try to make the corner as good as possible ?
-What aperture did you used ?
-do you feel you could get better corner by making a different focus ?
Best
David
Hi David,
No sharpness applied, but I upresed in Photoshop CC using preserve details for enlarging. I focused the center and shot at f8. That's a good question (corner focus), I'm not sure. Before converting to black and white it looked more like CA which I couldn't remove fully. I don't think it's focus related because the lens has very good depth of field even at larger apertures, from what I've read the extreme edges when shifted can be a little soft, but you really have to stick your nose up close to the print to even notice it.
Paul
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That's a very bad case of the stair stepping 'jaggies' in those images. Perhaps Phase One should work harder on their interpolation algorithms? :)
(http://christopherbarrett.net/forum_images/A7r.png)
IQ260
(http://christopherbarrett.net/forum_images/IQ260.png)
CB