Off Brand: Sony Announces the A7 & A7R Full Frame Mirrorless Cameras

[jd7]

I have to say I've always struggled with comparing systems with different sensor sizes.  If I'm missing something, I'm happy to learn!

Read this, it is the bible for comparing systems. 

http://www.josephjamesphotography.com/equivalence/

Thanks PBD. I had a quick look at the link but it looks like I'm going to have to put a bit of time aside to read the whole thing! I'll get there though - it looks interesting.

[jd7]

Ah OK, you meant "faster" in that sense.

Going back to what I said in my last post - am I right in saying that if shooting the same scene, the Canon 6D + 70-200 2.8 set up is going to require about the same shutter time to expose the scene as the EM-5 + 35-100 2.8 set up if both cameras are set at the same ISO? 

You are right but you have no reason to shoot at the same ISO. In light limited conditions, you can shoot with a larger sensor at a higher ISO. Noise (photon one) is not created by the ISO.

It is like having a car with 3 speeds vs. a car with 6 speeds. You do not use the same speed, say, 3, under the same conditions just because they are numbered the same.

I take your point that lenses don't have a shutter time - but I'm comparing the two set ups as a whole.  And I take your point that in absolute terms, the Canon set up lets in more light in a given time - but it also has to expose a larger surface area.  That larger surface area provides benefits such as lower noise, but has other effects too such as giving a different depth of field.  That does bring us back to the position in my earlier post, doesn't it?

More light comes with less DOF (assuming the same QE, etc.). There is no other way. That is why the best way is to think in equivalent terms. 100/2.8 on m43 is like 200/5.6 on FF. Same DOF, same FOV, same noise, same diffraction softening (but different resolution in general). In that sense, 70-200/4 is 1 stop faster that the 35-100/2.8 which is 70-200/5.6 equivalent. BTW, the recent m43 bodies have really good sensors.

Thanks Pi. I'm still struggling but I think I'm starting to get it. If I understand, 100/2.8 on m43 is equivalent to 200/5.6 in terms of the photographic characteristics you mentioned, including in terms of the total light falling on the sensor.  However, because the 35mm sensor has a larger surface area, the intensity of light is less and hence the exposure is less - meaning you need either a longer shutter time or a higher ISO to achieve the same exposure.  And then, if shutter time is a limiting factor, it just comes down to the fact the 35mm sensor can use a higher ISO without noise become (more of) a problem - and as you say, since the sensor has that "gear", use it!

Do not mention this to an m43 (only) owner. This makes them mad. They would insist that the 35-100/2.8 is 70-200/2.8 equivalent.

Awww, but it would be fun!   

I have to say I've always struggled with comparing systems with different sensor sizes.  If I'm missing something, I'm happy to learn!

Joe's essay, linked above, is an excellent read. Joe actually posted here a few months ago.

Will give it a read!  Hopefully by the time I've read that I'll finally understand all this properly.

[moreorless]

[...] DSLRs work. They're tried equipment with a good and stable track-record. [...]

So were horse and carriage

More like the difference between a car and a motorbike.

The big misperception a lot of people seem to have for me is that mirrorless at some point replacing DSLR's when the latter offer no viewfinder/AF/battery advantage means that the kind of mirrorless systems we currently see will dominate.

I'd argue that todays mirrorless market is really the story of manufacturers who lost out on the DSLR market looking to chase the previously underserviced compact high quality market. This market didn't just appear out of nowhere, you had systems like the Contax G offering something similar pre digital. These camera's didn't kill off the market for larger FF bodies though which offered balance with larger lenses and a lot of space for controls.

[mememe]

It's amazing how Sony got 35mm sensor in a tiny body. As you can see, olympus om-d e-m5 Vs A7/A7R body size.

That's pretty easy if there is no need for a mirror or any optical viewfinder...

[Dylan777]

It's amazing how Sony got 35mm sensor in a tiny body. As you can see, olympus om-d e-m5 Vs A7/A7R body size.

That's pretty easy if there is no need for a mirror or any optical viewfinder...

Yeap....its' easy for you and me to say.

[roguewave]

The topic of "payment to shill" isn't really funny, so I didn't take it as a joke.  When it comes up, it appears to be a baseless attempt to undermine my statements and attack my character.  As I'm not anonymous, I respond to that as I did.

I'll qualify my initial statement that DR, resolution and color are "amazing" with Canon gear by saying they are amazing to me.  I don't claim they are "class leading" or whatever.  But they are amazing to me because I know where we've been with DR, resolution and color in the past, and the technology has come a long way since then, to the point that it is amazing to me and meets my needs amazingly well.  Based on that, I am "biased" toward Canon ... to the point that I willingly buy and use their gear (as many other people here do).

I expect the A7/A7r to be amazing too, but not because of DR, resolution or color — none of which I have complaints about with my current gear.  Instead, the amazing part is the dramatic reduction in full-frame camera size & weight.

Most of us on this forum give credit to Canon where it is deserved, both explicitly and implicitly by buying their products. This is not bias, because most people at the same time acknowledge areas where Canon could improve.

Bias is when somebody has a history of controversial statements, praising everything Canon all the time, even where they currently fall short of the competition. It should not come as a surprise to you when people start questioning your motives, even if the joke itself was not funny or appropriate, for which I apologized. Btw., I was not the one who said it first.

Anyway, I think this discussion is not contributing to the thread, so I suggest we stop it at this point :-).

[Chuck Alaimo]

while is for sure an interesting development, earth shattering it is not.  The prelude to the demise of the dslr market, it is not.  If mirrorless can get off the ground and run, if people buy into it at this price then we will see interesting developments.  But, markets are weird - and the camera market is especially weird nowadays (screw mirrorless, and FF, and anything that isn't a cell phone - many say the whole upper end of the camera market will crumble because consumers are more and more opting out of having a stand alone camera at all because their cell phone is right there - so the race for quality may be lost for the bulk of the market in favor of ease of use and networking.  Yes, any slr with wifi now can be run with the cell phone, and images can easily be shared via social networks...but that's like 3 steps more than just snapping the shot with the cell phone - which is what the vast majority want. 

With a consumer market increasingly ditching cameras for cell phones, this widens the gap in IQ which I think will make life a little easier for pros.  But, not easy for a mirrorless system like this.  I think Sony may have put the cart before the horse here.  The A7 and A7r do on paper look impressive, but without more glass it will be a hard sell.  And as many pointed out, while its a FF sensor, there are many little known things that suck about it (battery life of up to 300 shots...SD cards...), and the unknown - how does the EVF perform?  I have toyed with a sony mirrorless and an olympus -- the olympus EVF wasn't as bad as the sony, you could tell it was an electronic translation of the world though - while the sony - I really did not like looking through the EVF, maybe it was because it was lower light, but there was a huge delay in what was seen vs what was happening - which says to me ---- mirrorless is a long way from taking over the market!

[Ricku]

First RAW files available online.

Not sure how to process them though.

http://www.sonyalpharumors.com/exclusive-first-sony-a7r-raw-files-for-download/

[privatebydesign]

First RAW files available online.

Not sure how to process them though.

http://www.sonyalpharumors.com/exclusive-first-sony-a7r-raw-files-for-download/

Convert to DNG.

[zlatko]

The topic of "payment to shill" isn't really funny, so I didn't take it as a joke.  When it comes up, it appears to be a baseless attempt to undermine my statements and attack my character.  As I'm not anonymous, I respond to that as I did.

I'll qualify my initial statement that DR, resolution and color are "amazing" with Canon gear by saying they are amazing to me.  I don't claim they are "class leading" or whatever.  But they are amazing to me because I know where we've been with DR, resolution and color in the past, and the technology has come a long way since then, to the point that it is amazing to me and meets my needs amazingly well.  Based on that, I am "biased" toward Canon ... to the point that I willingly buy and use their gear (as many other people here do).

I expect the A7/A7r to be amazing too, but not because of DR, resolution or color — none of which I have complaints about with my current gear.  Instead, the amazing part is the dramatic reduction in full-frame camera size & weight.

Most of us on this forum give credit to Canon where it is deserved, both explicitly and implicitly by buying their products. This is not bias, because most people at the same time acknowledge areas where Canon could improve.

Bias is when somebody has a history of controversial statements, praising everything Canon all the time, even where they currently fall short of the competition. It should not come as a surprise to you when people start questioning your motives, even if the joke itself was not funny or appropriate, for which I apologized. Btw., I was not the one who said it first.

Anyway, I think this discussion is not contributing to the thread, so I suggest we stop it at this point :-).

Of course Canon can improve.  That's not the point.  Every company can improve on some things, including Canon.  I don't praise everything Canon all the time, so you must have mistaken me for someone else.  I don't care for the EOS M's autofocus.  I wish that Canon offered mirrorless cameras similar to the A7, X100S, X-Pro1 and EM-1.  I wish the 5D3 had AF points that light up properly.  I wish the latest firmware update didn't introduce a problem with flash.  I wish they made a better 50/1.4 & 50/1.8.  If I thought long and hard, I might find a few other things to criticize.  None of them is a big deal for me.

My statements are only controversial in the sense that they go counter to the complaints of a few anonymous people on the internet who seem to make very problematic photos (banding, shadow noise, limited DR, etc.) and blame them on Canon's technology.  Ardent critics of Canon's sensors are typically anonymous people whose credibility can't be assessed.  Such critics promote the idea that their technical problems would be solved if only Canon did something like some competitor, and yet such critics don't seem to have the sense to solve their problems by buying the products of that competitor.

My statements reflect my personal satisfaction with the current state of Canon's technology.  And they are supported by many other photographers choosing Canon despite Canon not ranking highest on some chart on a testing site.  Canon may not be "class leading" on some technical parameter, but there are plenty of excellent, talented, knowledgeable, non-anonymous, even "class leading" photographers who choose Canon over competitors.

[roguewave]

Of course Canon can improve.  That's not the point.  Every company can improve on some things, including Canon.  I don't praise everything Canon all the time, so you must have mistaken me for someone else.  I don't care for the EOS M's autofocus.  I wish that Canon offered mirrorless cameras similar to the A7, X100S, X-Pro1 and EM-1.  I wish the 5D3 had AF points that light up properly.  I wish the latest firmware update didn't introduce a problem with flash.  I wish they made a better 50/1.4 & 50/1.8.  If I thought long and hard, I might find a few other things to criticize.  None of them is a big deal for me.

My statements are only controversial in the sense that they go counter to the complaints of a few anonymous people on the internet who seem to make very problematic photos (banding, shadow noise, limited DR, etc.) and blame them on Canon's technology.  Ardent critics of Canon's sensors are typically anonymous people whose credibility can't be assessed.  Such critics promote the idea that their technical problems would be solved if only Canon did something like some competitor, and yet such critics don't seem to have the sense to solve their problems by buying the products of that competitor.

My statements reflect my personal satisfaction with the current state of Canon's technology.  And they are supported by many other photographers choosing Canon despite Canon not ranking highest on some chart on a testing site.  Canon may not be "class leading" on some technical parameter, but there are plenty of excellent, talented, knowledgeable, non-anonymous, even "class leading" photographers who choose Canon over competitors.

We are starting to converge in our opinions :-). I agree that every company has strengths and weaknesses and I agree with your Canon wish-list.

We still differ in that you refuse to acknowledge that Canon sensors need improvement. If you just argue against the extreme opinions of a few Canon haters, I have no objection. However, you seem to indicate that Canon sensors are great the way they are. It may not be important to you, but other people wish for better IQ in the 70D, for example. While dual pixel AF is a great feature, the IQ apparently has not really improved compared to the old sensor from years ago. Landscape photographers may wish for more resolution and DR on their FF cameras. These expectations are not unreasonable, if the competition was able to deliver on them.

These points are more or less general consensus rather than just complaints of a few anonymous people. True, distinguished photographers don't waste their time critisizing Canon sensors, but neither do they sing accolades - because they are too busy shooting :-). That does not mean that they are perfectly happy with these sensors and do not wish for improvements. As long as the sensor is not so bad as to be a dealbreaker, people would continue choosing Canon products for other reasons. Some great photographers may use the 50/1.4 - and yet you yourself admit that it could be better. Similarly, the fact that great photographers use Canon sensors does not mean that the sensor problem does not exist. More so, the sensor that particularly needs IQ improvement is the APS-C sized one, which is less frequently used by the pros.

I believe that the problematic photos you mentioned are simply used to emphasize and demonstrate the problem, just like a brick wall photo is used to evaluate distortion and does not represent the photographer's actual art.

I also agree with you that Canon can't and needn't top every chart on every testing site. On the other hand, when after years of stagnation, their APS-C sensor is outperformed by almost every other company's sensor and even by the smaller MFT sensors, I find that frustrating.

[HankMD]

All those overlapping focal lengths. 



Luckily, Samyang is brining all their razor sharp primes to the table in 2 months, including the 14mm!

My Japanese is rather limited but the roadmap above does promise a wide-angle zoom, a fast prime, and a macro lens for 2014.

[moreorless]

while is for sure an interesting development, earth shattering it is not.  The prelude to the demise of the dslr market, it is not.  If mirrorless can get off the ground and run, if people buy into it at this price then we will see interesting developments.  But, markets are weird - and the camera market is especially weird nowadays (screw mirrorless, and FF, and anything that isn't a cell phone - many say the whole upper end of the camera market will crumble because consumers are more and more opting out of having a stand alone camera at all because their cell phone is right there - so the race for quality may be lost for the bulk of the market in favor of ease of use and networking.  Yes, any slr with wifi now can be run with the cell phone, and images can easily be shared via social networks...but that's like 3 steps more than just snapping the shot with the cell phone - which is what the vast majority want. 

With a consumer market increasingly ditching cameras for cell phones, this widens the gap in IQ which I think will make life a little easier for pros.  But, not easy for a mirrorless system like this.  I think Sony may have put the cart before the horse here.  The A7 and A7r do on paper look impressive, but without more glass it will be a hard sell.  And as many pointed out, while its a FF sensor, there are many little known things that suck about it (battery life of up to 300 shots...SD cards...), and the unknown - how does the EVF perform?  I have toyed with a sony mirrorless and an olympus -- the olympus EVF wasn't as bad as the sony, you could tell it was an electronic translation of the world though - while the sony - I really did not like looking through the EVF, maybe it was because it was lower light, but there was a huge delay in what was seen vs what was happening - which says to me ---- mirrorless is a long way from taking over the market!

One thing that's notable to me is that after all the years of hype the A7 really isn't THAT much smaller and lighter than the 6D, a camera that offers more in the way of controls, a top plate LCD and a larger battery. Could it be that because the sensor makes up a larger percentage of a mirrorless body and a good eye level viewfinder is desired by higher end FF users that a lot of the size advantage of mirrorless is removed?

Lens balance with something like a 24-70mm F/2.8 is likely to be an issue but personally I get the impression that a lot of Sony's announced lens lineup has rather modest specs not because there need to balance the system but because there needed to play up size difference.

It seems to me that there might still be potential for a FF DSLR smaller than the 6D as well with features more inline with the A7.

[Ricku]

while is for sure an interesting development, earth shattering it is not.  The prelude to the demise of the dslr market, it is not.  If mirrorless can get off the ground and run, if people buy into it at this price then we will see interesting developments.  But, markets are weird - and the camera market is especially weird nowadays (screw mirrorless, and FF, and anything that isn't a cell phone - many say the whole upper end of the camera market will crumble because consumers are more and more opting out of having a stand alone camera at all because their cell phone is right there - so the race for quality may be lost for the bulk of the market in favor of ease of use and networking.  Yes, any slr with wifi now can be run with the cell phone, and images can easily be shared via social networks...but that's like 3 steps more than just snapping the shot with the cell phone - which is what the vast majority want. 

With a consumer market increasingly ditching cameras for cell phones, this widens the gap in IQ which I think will make life a little easier for pros.  But, not easy for a mirrorless system like this.  I think Sony may have put the cart before the horse here.  The A7 and A7r do on paper look impressive, but without more glass it will be a hard sell.  And as many pointed out, while its a FF sensor, there are many little known things that suck about it (battery life of up to 300 shots...SD cards...), and the unknown - how does the EVF perform?  I have toyed with a sony mirrorless and an olympus -- the olympus EVF wasn't as bad as the sony, you could tell it was an electronic translation of the world though - while the sony - I really did not like looking through the EVF, maybe it was because it was lower light, but there was a huge delay in what was seen vs what was happening - which says to me ---- mirrorless is a long way from taking over the market!

One thing that's notable to me is that after all the years of hype the A7 really isn't THAT much smaller and lighter than the 6D, a camera that offers more in the way of controls, a top plate LCD and a larger battery. Could it be that because the sensor makes up a larger percentage of a mirrorless body and a good eye level viewfinder is desired by higher end FF users that a lot of the size advantage of mirrorless is removed?

Lens balance with something like a 24-70mm F/2.8 is likely to be an issue but personally I get the impression that a lot of Sony's announced lens lineup has rather modest specs not because there need to balance the system but because there needed to play up size difference.

It seems to me that there might still be potential for a FF DSLR smaller than the 6D as well with features more inline with the A7.

If Canon released a high resolution, high DR, full frame sensor in a small and light package (similar to the EOS SL1) at an affordable price (Not Leica or 1D price tag), I would be all over it!

But let's face it. They won't.

I've preordered the A7R, and I intend to use it with my EF lenses. But I'm also going to buy a couple of native lenses, in order to have the size advantage when I want it. Perhaps two from Zeiss and then the ultra cheap but ultra sharp Samyang 14mm for landscapes.

I will not buy another camera from Canon until they get back on the iron throne of innovation and image quality. That's all I have to say.

[Seta]

I sold my 5D mkII three weeks ago, will keep the money to get the Sony a7; I do macro photography and I am already using Canon MP-E and Canon macro lenses on NEX-5n via Metabones adapter.

I would buy the a7r but electronic first shutter curtain is a must for me and the a7r does not have it.

The superior dinamic range of Sony sensors is important to me and a reason I will not look back at Canon for a long time.