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Author Topic: The Present State of Mirrorless: Part 1  (Read 1643 times)

Jonathan Cross

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The Present State of Mirrorless: Part 1
« on: August 09, 2019, 07:58:40 am »

I am thankfully not surprised by this article which, IMHO, is coming to a 'horses for courses' conclusion.  As someone with both an X-T2 and X-T3 and a variety of lenses and who only prints up to A3+ (13" x 19"), I am very happy with the thrust of this article.  While I do crop sometimes, I have not found that an issue when printing.  Thanks, Josh, for putting this article on Lula.

Best wishes,

Jonathan

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Jonathan in UK

josh.reichmann

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Re: The Present State of Mirrorless: Part 1
« Reply #1 on: August 09, 2019, 11:17:02 am »

I am thankfully not surprised by this article which, IMHO, is coming to a 'horses for courses' conclusion.  As someone with both an X-T2 and X-T3 and a variety of lenses and who only prints up to A3+ (13" x 19"), I am very happy with the thrust of this article.  While I do crop sometimes, I have not found that an issue when printing.  Thanks, Josh, for putting this article on Lula.

Best wishes,

Jonathan

Glad you’re enjoying his work. So am I.
Dan is a preternaturally clear writer. His approach is information rich but not so dense as to bore, and he’s got a wide assortment of expertise. More from him is coming.

Regarding Mirrorless, I think a mix of fear and burnout can cause hesitation when people are looking at this space. No one wants to invest poorly or prematurely etc.
Thanks
Josh
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Compassion and wisdom are inextricably linked.

VidJa

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Re: The Present State of Mirrorless: Part 1
« Reply #2 on: August 13, 2019, 05:49:05 pm »

Thanks for the great article. It clearly demonstrates we should not haunt the latest greatest.
A 24 MP whatever camera would probably outperform any of my desired final print sizes.

That said, i would chose a 16 bit 24MP sensor over a 40 MP 14 bit sensor immediately.
Jm2c
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Joe S

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Re: The Present State of Mirrorless: Part 1
« Reply #3 on: August 17, 2019, 01:20:34 pm »

Very enjoyable and informative article.   It ends up with the standard dogma of the importance of lens quality without any examples.  I would love to see some images showing the difference between the Sony A6400 and the Fujifilm X-T2 kit lens so we can judge if this is valid for our situation.   
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Dan Wells

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Re: The Present State of Mirrorless: Part 1
« Reply #4 on: August 18, 2019, 11:56:53 pm »

I'm working on a bunch of sharpness tests. I'm going to use a Z7, which is the highest resolving body I own, and will look at diffraction, shutter shock, stabilization and, yes, lens quality (among other things). I want to hold the body constant (other than a cameo appearance by a borrowed GFX 100 to look at the effect of a lot more pixels).

Presently beating the bushes for the lousiest Nikkor I can buy or rent cheap! An early 18-55, some execrable 18-200 or beyond travel lens (yes, I know the 18-55 is a DX lens, as are most of the travel lenses - the Z7 has a pretty darned good DX crop mode), and the first, poor quality variable aperture version of the 24-120 are all suggestions I've received...

I considered that Sony 16-50 power zoom lens on an adapter (it has the dubious honor of being one of the worst lenses in DxOMark's database, and the very worst that isn't either:
On a much smaller sensor (Nikon 1 lenses, built-in lenses on compact cameras, the worst Micro 4/3 lenses, most of which are also 10x zooms)
A 10x or greater zoom
A very inexpensive telephoto

I ended up not wanting to deal with a 3rd party adapter, especially with a power zoom lens.

I have the very sharp 50mm f1.8 Z (and other things - all the Z lenses are darn sharp) for a sharp lens.

I don't have an A6400 around, and it's harder to test with a whole bunch of variables at once. I've used that 16-50 occasionally, and it's terrible (it's notably worse than other "kit" 18-55s). I do have an X-T2 with the 18-55 f2.8-4, and that's a very nice little lens.

Dan
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PDeXplore

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Re: The Present State of Mirrorless: Part 1
« Reply #5 on: August 19, 2019, 02:10:18 pm »

Part of the conclusion in regards to Fuji vs Sony is that the main difference between the sensors are really only present in large prints. I was always led to believe FF will always have a big edge in low light, regardless of print size, and thus is the default choice for things like night scape and milky way photography. Is that not true?

If we can say they're rather equivalent, it would seem to come down to lens choices. I've done a rather deep dive into the options available for both systems, and can't say either looks too amazing, at least on specs alone. However both systems seemed to have fairly equivalent options, at very similar weights and prices. I tried putting a few beginner landscape kits together, mostly a wide angle zoom, 35mm prime, and a lightweight telephoto, and both systems were about the same. Which makes me question why to go aps-c in that case.
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Dan Wells

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Re: The Present State of Mirrorless: Part 1
« Reply #6 on: August 21, 2019, 10:02:57 pm »

Full-frame's edge in low light is ~1 stop (either by using more pixels for the same size print, or by using the same number of pixels as APS-C on a larger sensor). The high pixel count cameras are sometimes said to have a very small edge over 24 MP FF at the same print size, but that's extremely close.

Both Fuji and Sony are very worth considering - don't overlook Nikon Z for landscape, either. Nikon's 35mm prime is excellent and their compact 14-30mm wide-angle zoom is equivalent to or better to anything Sony has (although one of Sony's ultrawides does start at 12mm). The light telephoto would have to be an adapted lens at this point (and there are, of course, many F-mount Nikkors to adapt). Depending on the focal length you want, there are Phase Fresnel options (300mm and 500mm) that are significantly lighter than conventional designs.

Fuji's telephoto options are limited above 90mm. The only prime above 90mm is the 200mm, but it is an f2 lens, and not exactly light (or cheap). There is a relatively light, relatively inexpensive 55-200 f3.5-4.8, which is a real possibility depending on exactly what you want. There is a very slow, cheap 50-230mm f4.5-6.7 (note the aperture at the long end!). Above 230mm, your only option is the 100-400mm f4.5-5.6 - a very sharp lens, but also the heaviest lens in the system, except for that 200mm f2.

Sony certainly has the widest range of native telephotos, although few of them could reasonably be described as light...

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PDeXplore

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Re: The Present State of Mirrorless: Part 1
« Reply #7 on: August 22, 2019, 12:22:42 pm »

I found this article/video (https://www.thephoblographer.com/2018/12/05/comparing-the-dynamic-range-of-the-sony-a7-iii-canon-eos-r-fujifilm-xt-3-and-nkon-z7/) looking at the dynamic range and noise of each of the main mirrorless options which i thought was fairly interesting. It does seem like the Sony has a significant 1 stop advantage in dynamic range over the Fuji. But it also shows some pretty crazy artifacts that look like would be a nightmare for astro photography. The Fuji though has apparently much worse dynamic range and noise at high iso, though other tests I've seen have shown much more comparable results.
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