Sony A7 II and IBIS in Sony dSLMs

[allegretto]

Because...

a) they are not expensive as bodies go... not cheap, but not crazy, my proposed line up is

- A7s for walking around and low light.... considering just about everything in the Market this is a no-brainer
- A7R for tripod-style photography and portraiture
- a6000 for action and high frame rates that solid tracking is needed

own the first two and they are doing just what I'd expect.. will be renting an a6000 to see if it really AF's sufficiently fast and furious

$5200 buys all three brand new, figure another $1000 - $1200 off on eBay for MINT

There is just no single camera that does it all from any manufacturer right now..

My real question is to keep my Canon 6D for the EF-lenses since the adapters just won't do what I want or are a waste of resources, and touchy. The 24mm TS-E II and maybe the Zeiss 100mm f2.0 Makro Planar are the only EF's I will certainly keep. A good Canon body like the 6D won't go completely to waste though it feels quite large after handling the A7's for a bit

If you want high resolution buy the A7R, low light the A7s, 5-axis IS the A7II, fastest AF the A9, etc.

Don't ge me wrong, it is extremely impressive what Sony is doing and they look very well positioned to take a larger chunk of the market next year.  I am also very pleased with the A7s...

but as a consumer it would also be nice to have one stable body that looks like it might be around for a while accompanied by some native primes...

[JV]

Because...

a) they are not expensive as bodies go... not cheap, but not crazy, my proposed line up is

- A7s for walking around and low light.... considering just about everything in the Market this is a no-brainer
- A7R for tripod-style photography and portraiture
- a6000 for action and high frame rates that solid tracking is needed

own the first two and they are doing just what I'd expect.. will be renting an a6000 to see if it really AF's sufficiently fast and furious

$5200 buys all three brand new, figure another $1000 - $1200 off on eBay for MINT

There is just no single camera that does it all from any manufacturer right now..

My real question is to keep my Canon 6D for the EF-lenses since the adapters just won't do what I want or are a waste of resources, and touchy. The 24mm TS-E II and maybe the Zeiss 100mm f2.0 Makro Planar are the only EF's I will certainly keep. A good Canon body like the 6D won't go completely to waste though it feels quite large after handling the A7's for a bit

All true as well, as usual there are multiple ways of looking at things.  I think I will stick with one body though, till things clear up a bit...

[MoreOrLess]

Honestly this body seems a lot closer to what Sony probably should have released last year, the disadvantage is they now already have a system based on in lens stabilisation and the weight saving compared to something like the D750 is getting more marginal.

[Isaac]

Maybe "last year" BC had them persuaded there was no market :-)

Maybe "last year" Sony didn't have this camera.

[scooby70]

There are a few comments here about lenses and I just wanted to add that the lens road map is out there and Googling should lead anyone who's interested to it.

I suppose that one possible complaint is cost as Sony seem to be aiming at the higher end of the market, but these lenses do seem to be getting good reviews.

Personally I'm happy with (slightly) lesser lenses

The best lenses I had and used on my Canon 5D were Sigma, 50 and 85mm f1.4 and 150mm f2.8. If lenses of the quality of those could be made in a slightly more compact form I'd be happy. The Sony 55 and 35mm primes and the latest wide angle may very well be amongst the best mass market lenses available or indeed ever made but some of us don't need the very very best If these cameras are a huge success maybe it'll be worthwhile for Sigma to develop lenses but recent Sigma releases have also been aimed at the higher end so we may not see any bargains from them.

PS. I'm very happy with my A7 but if it dies a similar camera with IBIS would be great.

[Telecaster]

image is coming from sensor... if IBIS is working why 'd your EVF get stabilized feed ? you seem to allege (below) that camera then wastes CPU/battery to undo IBIS effect ? and for what logical reason then (not even talking about implementation and not a word in camera manuals/forums about that since the dawn of IBIS) ?

My point was that Oly's IBIS has two different modes: one that engages the sensor assembly with a shutter button half-press (and allows a stabilized EVF/rear screen display); and a second that engages only with a full shutter button press. Seems to me the second mode is more likely to be effective (which, in fact, it is) if computationally IBIS is always switched on with a half-press.

-Dave-

[bcooter]

Where this type of stabilization is needed is in the video modes.

If it works, doesn't warp, etc., then I'm sure we'll see it in the A7s.

I would imagine, (just a guess) that the A7 was the lowest in sales as it didn't have stellar video or high still mpx., two of the main selling points today.

I think adding the stabilization was to get more sales in the middle . . . but that's just a guess.

I think, like all things digital, we'll see a lot more updates to this line.

IMO

BC

[Torbjörn Tapani]

I think the A7 was the camera Sony designed. Then they had this high mpix sensor on the shelf so they made a R version just because they could.

So iterating the sensible A7 first makes perfect sense to me.

[BJL]

At the moment I'm wondering about the amount of computing power needed to move 5 axis stabilization with a full frame sensor especially when the camera is attempting sophisticated metering functions and EVF at the same time. No company can debug every possible combination of circumstances.

I would advise early adopters to expect some odd results and much changing in firmware before things settle down.

I doubt that modern GHz speed processors have much trouble handling camera motions that on the scale of milliseconds; the inertia of the sensor is probably the bigger challenge, and it is still probably not as heavy as the lens elements that are moved in long lenses with in-lens stabilization.  What is interesting is features like compensation for rotation around the optical axis, which is impossible with in-lens stabilization.

Also, my guess is that the algorithms for this new 5 axis IBIS are not so new, but are based on those developed by Olympus, as part of the technology sharing announced with Sony's investment in Olympus. Hopefully in exchange Sony continues to put its latest sensor developments into sensors for MFT, even if it is competing with Panasonic for those sensor sales.

[deejjjaaaa]

lens elements

did you see an OIS moving more than one element ?

[Guillermo Luijk]

my guess is that the algorithms for this new 5 axis IBIS are not so new, but are based on those developed by Olympus, as part of the technology sharing announced with Sony's investment in Olympus.

They claim Sony's IBIS was developed independently. Who knows the true with 'secret' latest technologies...

http://www.43rumors.com/update-on-the-sony-5-axis-system-they-say-its-not-from-olympus/


Price, native lenses sizes and lineup, and body IS were Olympus key differentiators in the mirrorless world vs Sony. It seems body IS is not anymore.

[CptZar]

The Sony A900 and the A850 and the A99 already had IBIS.

[CptZar]

The Sony A900, the A850 and the A99 already had IBIS.

[Isaac]

The Sony A900 and the A850 and the A99 already had IBIS.

Not 5 axis IBIS; and although the A-mount cameras (and P&S) had IBIS, the E-mount cameras hadn't and A7 II is an E-mount camera.

[allegretto]

I just don't see any upside to getting A_mounts and use Sony's adapter. It likely works better than the MB, but it's still a band-aid and puts an additional lever in the lens system and body... ugh...!

I'll wait for the E-mount versions. Hopefully they will be even better glass than the A-mount legacies from Minolta.

As far as IBIS... OK... IS of any flavor is good. The A7s is so fast though one can almost always amp shutter speed to quiet things down. Further with my photography it's usually the subject that blurs the image, thus IS systems are useless.

As far as shutter shock... not sure the IBIS would, or even could be tuned to work at that frequency, but perhaps... the electronics are amazing, but accelerating the mass to that frequency that quickly may be more difficult than it first looks. The sensor of course likely has much less mass than a lens element(s) but whatever... not worth the battle over it.

[Telecaster]

As far as IBIS... OK... IS of any flavor is good. The A7s is so fast though one can almost always amp shutter speed to quiet things down. Further with my photography it's usually the subject that blurs the image, thus IS systems are useless.

IBIS is fab, though, for handheld pics where you want to record subject motion. Optical stabilization is great for this too. The first stabilized lens I bought soon led to an NYC trip specifically to photograph people walking, cars & buses & trains moving, escalators running, etc. It's a style of pic-taking I still enjoy doing.

-Dave-

[allegretto]

Sounds cool really

what sort of subject motion especially attracts your eye?

Think about it... predators do exactly this to look for the slow ones... hmmmm... maybe you're a hunter at heart...!

IBIS is fab, though, for handheld pics where you want to record subject motion. Optical stabilization is great for this too. The first stabilized lens I bought soon led to an NYC trip specifically to photograph people walking, cars & buses & trains moving, escalators running, etc. It's a style of pic-taking I still enjoy doing.

-Dave-

[tnargs]

any EVF will show IS effect by definition... you can't really start IS operation after the shutter release - otherwise it will increase the lag to the actual exposure start and you can't keep IS on all the time - dSLMs do not have big battaries... so by defintion you will see in any EVF IBIS effect (image starts to stabilize when you for example halfpress the shutter release) if camera has IBIS.. unlike OVF

Not my Panasonic GX7. IBIS operates only when a still image is being recorded. There is no detectable lag. Battery life is extended. It cannot be turned on via settings.

[hjulenissen]

...At the moment I'm wondering about the amount of computing power needed to move 5 axis stabilization with a full frame sensor especially when the camera is attempting sophisticated metering functions and EVF at the same time. No company can debug every possible combination of circumstances.

At current state of embedded computing, you can afford to read 5 scalars, do a lot of maths, then write 5 scalars at 100 or 1000 updates/second. Say that you've got a 4 cores working at 2 GHz doing 4 (float) to 16 (int8) SIMD elements at a time. That is what I've got in my Sony cellphone. Cameras might be lagging somewhat behind (battery requirements, lower sales), possibly compensated by higher price.

So how much is "a lot of math"? Is this problem solved using some Kalman filtering or what? And is 100-1000 updates/second a sensible temporal resolution? I don't know.

I would advise early adopters to expect some odd results and much changing in firmware before things settle down.

Based on what?

One should always confirm that essential features of a new product works as claimed, IBIS or no IBIS.

-h

[peterottaway]

My first computer was an IBM 360 and  had some decades actually trying to work out what parts of various all signing and all dancing bits of software actually did something like they were supposed to. And then to find workable or more reliable ways to actually safely save the data so that ordinary staff could access and manipulate the data without having a room full of nerds take a month to do so.

But hey everyone has their own little phobias and fantasies - so feel free to run  as you will.