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Author Topic: The Mirrorless Revolution  (Read 32664 times)

ripgriffith

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Re: The Mirrorless Revolution
« Reply #40 on: August 29, 2014, 01:45:00 pm »

Of all the cameras mentioned. only the Sony A7 and the DSLRs deal well with dynamic range  which is, to  me, the single greatest drawback to the smaller sensors.  For street shooting, where it doesn't matter quite so much, I'll always grab one of my Panny m4/3, but when I know it will count, I will always go for the larger sensor.  Even an APS-C is quite superior to the m4/3rds cameras at this state of the art.  But I will say that my knees, legs, back and age are rapidly beginning to  trump sensor size with the concomitant lens size and weight.
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JayWPage

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Re: The Mirrorless Revolution
« Reply #41 on: August 29, 2014, 03:33:33 pm »

I embraced the mirrorless cameras when they first appeared on the market since their compactness and light weight were ideal for the type of photography I do (travel, backpacking/hiking). However, I was initially disappointed by the limited dynamic range and the difficulty I had in focusing manually "by wire".

Last year all these problems were solved for me when I got my Sony RX1 and I've never looked back since. I have never had a camera that was as easy to customize or use as this camera is. Initially I was not sure if I would like being limited to a single lens, but in practice I am now focused more on being creative with what I have, and I spend less time obsessing about the gear.
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Jay W Page

Chrisso26

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Re: The Mirrorless Revolution
« Reply #42 on: August 29, 2014, 06:10:06 pm »

Sure :) But you referred to people carrying a DSLR in a less than respectful way.

Err, how? Because I feel sorry for them lugging all that weight around?

Quote
Another questions is: Who was the video intended for? Was it the LuLa audience who are supposed to be interested in photography and enthusiasts and some professionals? If yes, then I think the discussion is not about tourists in the Sydney harbor, but about how the enthusiast market develops.

You seem to be irked more by the video than by me.
I'm not really interested in fighting over DSLR's. I don't own one, but at the same time I'm perfectly happy for other photographers to use them.
I thought the points made in the video were interesting and thought provoking. That's all.
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jenbenn

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Re: The Mirrorless Revolution
« Reply #43 on: August 31, 2014, 06:28:23 am »

Michael,

 in the video you say something along the lines "man the Zeiss lenses for the sony are so good". Now I have the FE 24-70 f/4 and  I have to disagree here. At 24mm my copy is just plain bad. 2/3 out to the borders the images gets terribly soft and in the corners of the frame  there is really nothing left you could call an image. The softness is symetric on all sides /corners, so I believe the lens is properly centered.  Whats even more frustrating is that stopping down does not make a difference at all. The lens is just as bad at f/8 as it is at f/4.  When zooming in, the border and corner softness somewhat eases, but stays unsatisfactory for most of the focal range.  At first I thought I was doing something wrong here or had a defective copy, but when photozone tested the lens and came to the same conclusions, I am now lead to beleive the lens is just designed badly.  Now you make this statement how good the zeiss lenses are with the fe 24-70 mounted to your 7r. Have you made a different experience? is your copy better than those tested out there?

Addiding to that: I beleive the mirrorless reviolution will not succeed without good quality fullframe  lenses. I bought my A7 with a hope to replace my 5DIII 24/105 combo. I do lots of big size gallery prints and the 24-105 is very adaquete for this. For the Sony there is however no standard af zoom which can reach the (not perfect) quality of Canons 24-105. This is VERY frustrating.
 
Can you maybe elaborate a bit more on your experience with the fe 24-70, so that I can judge wheter it makes sense to test a different sample? Thanks!
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pegelli

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Re: The Mirrorless Revolution
« Reply #44 on: August 31, 2014, 06:58:44 am »

@ jenbenn, here's a good thread and multiple references on the 24-70 : http://www.getdpi.com/forum/sony/50256-excellent-review-zeiss-24-70-f4.html.

In short, there's quite a big sample variation (ugh Sony, get your QA/QC in order, I think there's lots of room for improvement there) and the lens is best in the middle of the range and worst at the two extremes.
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pieter, aka pegelli

MoreOrLess

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Re: The Mirrorless Revolution
« Reply #45 on: August 31, 2014, 07:42:36 am »

Michael,

 in the video you say something along the lines "man the Zeiss lenses for the sony are so good". Now I have the FE 24-70 f/4 and  I have to disagree here. At 24mm my copy is just plain bad. 2/3 out to the borders the images gets terribly soft and in the corners of the frame  there is really nothing left you could call an image. The softness is symetric on all sides /corners, so I believe the lens is properly centered.  Whats even more frustrating is that stopping down does not make a difference at all. The lens is just as bad at f/8 as it is at f/4.  When zooming in, the border and corner softness somewhat eases, but stays unsatisfactory for most of the focal range.  At first I thought I was doing something wrong here or had a defective copy, but when photozone tested the lens and came to the same conclusions, I am now lead to beleive the lens is just designed badly.  Now you make this statement how good the zeiss lenses are with the fe 24-70 mounted to your 7r. Have you made a different experience? is your copy better than those tested out there?

Addiding to that: I beleive the mirrorless reviolution will not succeed without good quality fullframe  lenses. I bought my A7 with a hope to replace my 5DIII 24/105 combo. I do lots of big size gallery prints and the 24-105 is very adaquete for this. For the Sony there is however no standard af zoom which can reach the (not perfect) quality of Canons 24-105. This is VERY frustrating.
 
Can you maybe elaborate a bit more on your experience with the fe 24-70, so that I can judge wheter it makes sense to test a different sample? Thanks!

My guess is there are two issues here.

1.Sony is desperate to sell the FE system on compact size, even if it means significant compromises in image quality.

2.The very small flange distance(much smaller than even the M system) of the FE mount is creating issues with the digital sensor that idealy would need lens designs larger than an SLR system but issue #1 is standing in the way of this. Note that the only really high quality performer on the FE system so far is the 55mm 1.8 that's quite large for its specs.
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Hans Kruse

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Re: The Mirrorless Revolution
« Reply #46 on: August 31, 2014, 08:07:47 am »

Michael,

 in the video you say something along the lines "man the Zeiss lenses for the sony are so good". Now I have the FE 24-70 f/4 and  I have to disagree here. At 24mm my copy is just plain bad. 2/3 out to the borders the images gets terribly soft and in the corners of the frame  there is really nothing left you could call an image. The softness is symetric on all sides /corners, so I believe the lens is properly centered.  Whats even more frustrating is that stopping down does not make a difference at all. The lens is just as bad at f/8 as it is at f/4.  When zooming in, the border and corner softness somewhat eases, but stays unsatisfactory for most of the focal range.  At first I thought I was doing something wrong here or had a defective copy, but when photozone tested the lens and came to the same conclusions, I am now lead to beleive the lens is just designed badly.  Now you make this statement how good the zeiss lenses are with the fe 24-70 mounted to your 7r. Have you made a different experience? is your copy better than those tested out there?

Addiding to that: I beleive the mirrorless reviolution will not succeed without good quality fullframe  lenses. I bought my A7 with a hope to replace my 5DIII 24/105 combo. I do lots of big size gallery prints and the 24-105 is very adaquete for this. For the Sony there is however no standard af zoom which can reach the (not perfect) quality of Canons 24-105. This is VERY frustrating.
 
Can you maybe elaborate a bit more on your experience with the fe 24-70, so that I can judge wheter it makes sense to test a different sample? Thanks!

Have a look at the DxO measurements comparing the Sony Zeiss 24-70 f/4 on the 36MP A7R with the Canon 24-70 f/2.8L II on the 22MP Canon 5D mkIII. A clear sign that the lenses are key to resolution and a lot if pixels does not matter if you put the bottom of a beer bottle in front of it ;) I cannot understand Michaels comment on the good Zeiss glass! Maybe it is an unfair comparison as the Canon 24-70 f/2.8L II is the best 24-70 ever made and much better and smaller than the older Nikon 24-70 f/2.8. For my D810 I bought the Sigma 24-105 f/4 OS which is a great lens but not up to the standard of the Canon 24-70 which I have on my 5D III. I had tried the Nikon 24-70 on my D800E and wasn't happy with it. Soft in the sides and corners.

pegelli

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Re: The Mirrorless Revolution
« Reply #47 on: August 31, 2014, 08:34:29 am »

Hans, in your last two graphs you are now comparing the Sony/Zeiss "full open" and the Canon "1 stop closed from full open".
I would not have expected anything else in that comparison.

If you make the same comparisons with both lenses at 5.6 you'll see that at 24 mm the Canon is slightly ahead by a small margin, at 35 and 50 mm the differences are insignificant and at 70 mm the Canon is about 8-12 % (eyeballing) it better across the whole field.

So your observation that with your lens stopping down doesn't help might point at the fact you have a bad copy. Not uncommon with Sony (unfortunately). I would try to get it fixed or exchanged if I were you.
« Last Edit: August 31, 2014, 08:48:12 am by pegelli »
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pieter, aka pegelli

Hans Kruse

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Re: The Mirrorless Revolution
« Reply #48 on: August 31, 2014, 09:12:17 am »

Hans, in your last two graphs you are now comparing the Sony/Zeiss "full open" and the Canon "1 stop closed from full open".
I would not have expected anything else in that comparison.

If you make the same comparisons with both lenses at 5.6 you'll see that at 24 mm the Canon is slightly ahead by a small margin, at 35 and 50 mm the differences are insignificant and at 70 mm the Canon is about 8-12 % (eyeballing) it better across the whole field.

So your observation that with your lens stopping down doesn't help might point at the fact you have a bad copy. Not uncommon with Sony (unfortunately). I would try to get it fixed or exchanged if I were you.

I chose the same apertures in the comparison. Your comment is a bit odd in referring to me having a bad copy.... These measurements are DxO!

pegelli

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Re: The Mirrorless Revolution
« Reply #49 on: August 31, 2014, 09:24:59 am »

I chose the same apertures in the comparison. Your comment is a bit odd in referring to me having a bad copy.... These measurements are DxO!

Hans, my mistake and I confused your data with what jenbenn reported.

What I meant is that at f 5.6 and 35 and 50 mm the two lenses perform exactly the same according to DXO. At 24 mm there is only a maximun 5 % difference at 40 % in the field and 1-2% at 100%, the center is identical. At 70 mm the lens is indeed ~10% worse than the Canon, no question about about that.

In one of jenbenn's earlier posts he complained that stopping down his copy of the FE 25-70 didn't improve the sharpness.

Hence my conclusion that his (and not your) copy is probably a lot worse than the copy DXO tested, and may be a bad copy.

I hope this clears up what I meant.
« Last Edit: August 31, 2014, 09:30:00 am by pegelli »
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pieter, aka pegelli

ErikKaffehr

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Re: The Mirrorless Revolution
« Reply #50 on: August 31, 2014, 11:42:39 am »

Hi,

I sort of have noted that Zeiss lenses generally are regarded superior. I have or had 10 of them, 8 Hasselblad lenses (40/4, 50/4, 80/2.8, 120/4 (2 samples) 150/4 (2 samples) and 180/4 and 2 Sony Alpha zooms (24-70/2.8 ZA) and 16-80/3.5-4.5 ZA. I enjoy shooting with all of those lenses but I don't know if they are better than other lenses I had. On the Sony Alpha ZA zooms sharpness is excellent over a large sweet spot, but outside that sweet spot they need to be stopped down to f/8 for acceptable sharpness. The 24-70/2.8 ZA suffers for bad corner/edge sharpness even at f/8.

Regarding the 24-70/4, I have only seen tests about it. It is a new generation lens that is not corrected for distortion, that is handled in software. It doesn't shine in most tests, but Tim Ashley, who used to post a lot about lenses, is very happy with it.

So, my guess is that Zeiss lenses are OK, but may not live up to their reputation. Some lenses are excellent, like the 100/2 Macro, the 135/2 APO and the new Otus 55/1.4. Of the Hasselblad lenses I have the 180/4 is best. But, I have made excellent images with each of them.

Best regards
Erik

Michael,

 in the video you say something along the lines "man the Zeiss lenses for the sony are so good". Now I have the FE 24-70 f/4 and  I have to disagree here. At 24mm my copy is just plain bad. 2/3 out to the borders the images gets terribly soft and in the corners of the frame  there is really nothing left you could call an image. The softness is symetric on all sides /corners, so I believe the lens is properly centered.  Whats even more frustrating is that stopping down does not make a difference at all. The lens is just as bad at f/8 as it is at f/4.  When zooming in, the border and corner softness somewhat eases, but stays unsatisfactory for most of the focal range.  At first I thought I was doing something wrong here or had a defective copy, but when photozone tested the lens and came to the same conclusions, I am now lead to beleive the lens is just designed badly.  Now you make this statement how good the zeiss lenses are with the fe 24-70 mounted to your 7r. Have you made a different experience? is your copy better than those tested out there?

Addiding to that: I beleive the mirrorless reviolution will not succeed without good quality fullframe  lenses. I bought my A7 with a hope to replace my 5DIII 24/105 combo. I do lots of big size gallery prints and the 24-105 is very adaquete for this. For the Sony there is however no standard af zoom which can reach the (not perfect) quality of Canons 24-105. This is VERY frustrating.
 
Can you maybe elaborate a bit more on your experience with the fe 24-70, so that I can judge wheter it makes sense to test a different sample? Thanks!
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Erik Kaffehr
 

MoreOrLess

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Re: The Mirrorless Revolution
« Reply #51 on: August 31, 2014, 12:22:03 pm »

Hi,

I sort of have noted that Zeiss lenses generally are regarded superior. I have or had 10 of them, 8 Hasselblad lenses (40/4, 50/4, 80/2.8, 120/4 (2 samples) 150/4 (2 samples) and 180/4 and 2 Sony Alpha zooms (24-70/2.8 ZA) and 16-80/3.5-4.5 ZA. I enjoy shooting with all of those lenses but I don't know if they are better than other lenses I had. On the Sony Alpha ZA zooms sharpness is excellent over a large sweet spot, but outside that sweet spot they need to be stopped down to f/8 for acceptable sharpness. The 24-70/2.8 ZA suffers for bad corner/edge sharpness even at f/8.

Regarding the 24-70/4, I have only seen tests about it. It is a new generation lens that is not corrected for distortion, that is handled in software. It doesn't shine in most tests, but Tim Ashley, who used to post a lot about lenses, is very happy with it.

So, my guess is that Zeiss lenses are OK, but may not live up to their reputation. Some lenses are excellent, like the 100/2 Macro, the 135/2 APO and the new Otus 55/1.4. Of the Hasselblad lenses I have the 180/4 is best. But, I have made excellent images with each of them.

Best regards
Erik

Your really dealing with many different lenses produced by different sources that have the Zeiss tag put on them, you can pickup compacts with Zeiss lenses these days, to compare them purely on that brand is I'd say a waste of time.
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Hans Kruse

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Re: The Mirrorless Revolution
« Reply #52 on: August 31, 2014, 12:41:37 pm »

Hans, my mistake and I confused your data with what jenbenn reported.

What I meant is that at f 5.6 and 35 and 50 mm the two lenses perform exactly the same according to DXO. At 24 mm there is only a maximun 5 % difference at 40 % in the field and 1-2% at 100%, the center is identical. At 70 mm the lens is indeed ~10% worse than the Canon, no question about about that.

In one of jenbenn's earlier posts he complained that stopping down his copy of the FE 25-70 didn't improve the sharpness.

Hence my conclusion that his (and not your) copy is probably a lot worse than the copy DXO tested, and may be a bad copy.

I hope this clears up what I meant.

Yes, thanks :) But keep in mind that when the curves are aligned exactly that one is from a 36MP sensor with no OLPF and the other a 22MP with an OLPF. So the Canon lens is a lot better.

Slobodan Blagojevic

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Re: The Mirrorless Revolution
« Reply #53 on: August 31, 2014, 12:46:06 pm »

...Is there a trend? I can't see it...

I can... DSLRs are trending clearly down, mirrorless mildly up.

pegelli

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Re: The Mirrorless Revolution
« Reply #54 on: August 31, 2014, 02:17:17 pm »

Yes, thanks :) But keep in mind that when the curves are aligned exactly that one is from a 36MP sensor with no OLPF and the other a 22MP with an OLPF. So the Canon lens is a lot better.

I don't think that is necesarily true Hans.
DXO mark shows a graph of the percentage of the maximum sensor resolution tested (the so-called percentage of perceptual MPix)

This is what they write about it on their site:
Perceptual MPix: a much simpler tool to score and compare lenses

P-Mpix is the unit of a sharpness measurement. The number of P-Mpix of a camera/lens combination is equal to the pixel count of a sensor that would give the same sharpness if tested with a perfect theoretical optics, as the camera/lens combination under test.

For example, if a camera with a sensor of 24Mpix when used with a given lens has a P-Mpix of 18MPix, it means that somewhere in the optical system 6Mpix are lost, in the sense that as an observer you will not perceive the additional sharpness that these 6Mpix should have added to the photos if everything was perfect.

In other words it indicates the ability of the lens and other optical components of a camera to utilize, from a visual perspective, the number of pixels of the camera sensor.  P-MPix expresses the result using a figure that can easily be compared to the camera sensor’s MPix figure to show the quality of the lens.


Since the A7R is a 36 MP camera and the 5DIII a 22 MP camera this means that a 60% score on the A7R/lens combo 0.6 x 36 = 21,6 million "effective" pixels
A 70 % score on the 5DIII means the lens/sensor combination is using 0.7 x 22 = 15.4 million "effective" pixels
So 60% of the A7R score still has a higher resolution in the final resulting raw file then a 70% score of the 5DIII

This doesn't mean the Canon 24-70/2.8 is a less sharp lens then the Sony/CZ 24-70/4, it's only what DXO measures and reports for the lens/sensor combination of both cases.

To draw any conclusions on the lenses alone you would need to mount the Canon lens on the Sony body (with an adapter) and do a side-by-side comparison on the same sensor.

here's a link to the full story on the DXOMark website
« Last Edit: August 31, 2014, 04:03:18 pm by pegelli »
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pieter, aka pegelli

Telecaster

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Re: The Mirrorless Revolution
« Reply #55 on: August 31, 2014, 04:12:03 pm »

I haven't used a 24–70mm lens from any maker that I'd rate higher than "adequate" at 24 & 70mm. Note this doesn't include the current Canon f/2.8, which I understand is a step up from the previous version. The Sony/Zeiss f/4, at least my copy of it, is no exception to this. For a zoom it's fine. For a 14x21" print, as large as I've made from a photo taken with it, it's fine. The lens is relatively compact and light. I like it.

The best lens in the same coverage range I've ever owned & used is the m43 Olympus 12–40/2.8. It's at least as good as the Olympus & Panasonic "primes" within the same focal length range at same apertures.

-Dave-
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michael

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Re: The Mirrorless Revolution
« Reply #56 on: August 31, 2014, 04:56:25 pm »

What's that old phrase – a picture is worth a thousand words.

Here is a shot with the ZA 24-70mm at f/8.

I find this lens to be as good as any zoom I have every owned.

(Caution...this is a 7MB file)

Michael


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JV

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Re: The Mirrorless Revolution
« Reply #57 on: August 31, 2014, 11:45:30 pm »

For my understanding, will you also be able to use the about to be launched Zeiss Loxia lenses on the A7-series of cameras?

Without cropping and/or vignetting?

Thanks, Joris.
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David Anderson

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Re: The Mirrorless Revolution
« Reply #58 on: September 01, 2014, 12:53:41 am »


I find this lens to be as good as any zoom I have every owned.

Pretty impressive image quality..

The last Canon 24-70 2.8L I had was good enough in terms of image quality for function work and other off the cuff stuff, but I wouldn't have used it over one of the primes for anything set-up.
With that in mind, instead of getting the Nikon 24-70 when I switched to the D800e's,  I got a D7100, flash and Sigma 17-50 2.8 for shooting functions.
It's cheaper, can play the role of backup camera or remote camera and is more than good enough image quality for that sort of work.
It's also light..






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Morris Taub

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Re: The Mirrorless Revolution
« Reply #59 on: September 01, 2014, 05:05:17 am »

What's that old phrase – a picture is worth a thousand words.

Here is a shot with the ZA 24-70mm at f/8.

I find this lens to be as good as any zoom I have every owned.

(Caution...this is a 7MB file)

Michael



just curious. wondering what paper you printed this on. saw it, or a similar image, during your video. thanks. M.

and I'm with you on small, light, great image quality for bodies and lenses. personal preference now with age. also. I like being able to shoot around town and not attract gobs of attention with the big black boxes. lately shooting a ricoh gr. fantastic little camera. now waiting for something like it with a 50mm lens. I'd be happy. but like you pointed out in the video. full frame. 24-36mp. depending on need. and ok. If i can get it, something i could change lenses on would be practical.
« Last Edit: September 01, 2014, 05:11:47 am by Morris Taub »
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