Sony A77II ordered

[Guy Mancuso]

Admittedly Im not a expert in LR yet but here is a case when C1 just screwed me . I have no Raw support for either the A6000 or A77II. But I have it in LR and one reason I bought it plus it has all the lens profiles.

 

[Guy Mancuso]

When I test something it usually is at the extremes as I need to know the limits of these cams. Here is no exception a very tough scene for any cam.

First one just the sharpening applied , the second image I processed it for what looks best.

 

[Guy Mancuso]

Obviously I worked the highlights and the shadows to expand the DR on it plus I added a little saturation and vibrance which does make it pop some. Now I could even go further on the highlight and shadows so I am not at the top of the adjustments which is very good to have that extra elbow room.

I might add here the extra DOF of the APS sensor is kind of handy to have. These are at F8 which does carry the whole scene very well.

 

[Guy Mancuso]

This is pretty impressive. 100 percent crop

 

[Guy Mancuso]

Nice lens corrections

 

[Georg Baumann]

Thanks for the pics Guy. :thumbup:

That is pretty impressive in deed for a 1k a-mount DSLR. The price seems very attractive in deed.

Do you have the 70-400mm as well?

Geeze, that would bring this lense up to a 600mm without and 840mm with a 1.4 extender. Combined with that blazing fast focus, this sounds very nice for wildlife.

Did you get her with vertical grip as well?

I am so used to this, I could not live without.

 

[ryc]

I just played with one and could not believe how light it was. I thought it was a prop.

 

[Guy Mancuso]

Just finishing up a big gig with it shooting all my glass but the light was total crap inside this meeting room had to shoot at ISO 2500 1/160 at 2.2 with the 135 and 85. Tough gig but files are looking pretty good. I never usually go over 1600 but again no choice. 2 great things the AF is amazing and Im never selling my 85 1.4 or 135 1.8. I just need fast glass and no way getting around it. Its very light and very comfortable to shoot. Battery life i shot about 700 images today with chimping before i had to switch batteries. So stop listening to the whiners on battery, all cams eat batteries buy more. I have 5 for the A77II and 6 for the A/E cams. But even with steady shot and on monopod you still need to shoot above 1/125 with these focal length lenses as movement from subject is gonna kill ya. Down the road I may get a A7S too. But that will be after Photokinia as i am waiting for more Sony surprises.

 

[Georg Baumann]

Down the road I may get a A7S too.

:ROTFL: Hehehehe!!!!!! Didn't take long.... didn't take long at all!

You know, there is that thing with uneven numbers. Should have placed the order for A7S as well.

Whether you order now or in a few weeks, order you will! :grin:

Na I'm hooked up really well now.

 

[Cindy Flood]

Guy,
Now that you have used the A77II for a while, I was wondering if you could answer this question? If you could only have A6000 or A77II (given that you had a few FE, E and A mount lenses in your kit), which one would it be?

 

[Guy Mancuso]

Great question as much as I like the form factor of the A6000 and the files for WORK its a little limited compared to the A77II. Now i say that because more of the A77II abilities in focusing and the options that you have . The A6000does not have the Expanded Flex Spot nor the Lock on AF spot with 79 AF points to do continuous tracking. Now if you don't need that than the A6000 is awesome. One other little nit moving the AF point with the joystick on the A77 II is a breeze as with the A6000 you have to dive into either a custom button and than move it or a FN function ( what I have set up) and than move it. Much slower in practice compared to the A77II which is on the fly. I won't bring up lenses as that will change on the FE side of the house down the road but I will say the A glass is the fast glass and if you need speed than A it is except for the 55 FE. Now having said that even with the adapter limitations on the A6000 I have no issues shooting the bigger A glass on it. Maybe not a handheld 300mm 2.8 but even the 135 its not bad. Maybe better said if I did not need it for Pro work the A6000 is a huge hit and seriously anyone that has a 7 series body should have this as a backup or even a primary for travel. One the new 16-35 comes out it will make that even more powerful. But the kit lens I sent you is really not bad either just slow. Now i have used and do use my Sony DT 16-50 2.8 on the A6000 as well with adapter and although a little big it works great and I love the Zeiss 12mm as well. In all honesty if I had life my way it would be the A7r and the A6000 and all FE glass for the weight and size. But like many hobbyists sometimes we need those fast lenses and other options. The A77II gives me that option plus a vertical grip. I don't want to downplay the A77II either as it is a very powerful cam in many many ways but we are back to our DSLR days but this one at least is pretty small and light. I would buy both of them again in a NY second though so that says a lot for both of them. I never liked the older Nex bodies even had one but this one I like a lot. Here is the good news they are both cheap and screaming deals with lenses. Seriously buy from B&H get the 14 day return and try them or even rent them at Lensrentals and even renting them is dirt cheap for 4 days. I been doing that lately try it first and see. The A77II i knew I needed it so I just preordered it from the specs. No regrets either not for 1200 dollars

Now for the A7s body it has everything I would want but not the focusing of the A77II and thats the key feature on the A77II is the AF as none of the 7 series has this new AF setup of the A77II. Im hoping that will change at Photokinia and if it does than i would be fully committed to the A7 series , right now i am not and one reason I have mostly all A glass as Im in a holding pattern on my final destination. But Im working without struggle and I am enjoying it even though I have 3 bodies to get what i want its not a lot of money so right now that makes it just fine financially. And 1 or 2 gigs both of them are paid for.

Let me add something else on the ROI side of the house and this applies to everyone as well. The commitment to Sony has not been very expensive at all compared to the same commitment to lets say a Leica that 5K for one lens has pretty much outfitted me with at least one body and several lenses to boot and extremely good lenses. Im a lens whore as we all know and I demand good glass, I am not lacking in IQ for even a split second. So I can still produce outstanding technically great images and keep costs down. Thats not a bad deal at all for everyone. Given I spent a lot of time on 5 MF digital backs thats a serious compliment to Sony. I don't throw that comment out to often coming from Medium Format.

 

[Guy Mancuso]

Quick one from yesterday and Im starring at over 2000 images to process right now in LR. Yuk

Anyway shot at ISO 2500 with the 85 1.4 ZA lens at 1/160 at F2.2 on a monopod. BTW the best underrated tool out there in photography land. I did leave Steady shot on as i thought it might help even though I am truly a rock at handheld or monopod work. Little noise as you can see but not bad.

 

[kapil Syal]

... Given I spent a lot of time on 5 MF digital backs thats a serious compliment to Sony. I don't throw that comment out to often coming from Medium Format.

hmmm. that's also throwing the gauntlet down at the MFD manuacturer/s

 

[Guy Mancuso]

LOL. You know there are many many opinions on this one and sometimes the bottom line is ease of use and fluidity is just the better option. Maybe better said or said in a different way is you just might be better as a photographer without the absolute need for a tripod. I have about 30 more of these comments but its gotten so close and yet there is a little difference between them but if they do NOT innovate and the market just settles for less than there in big trouble. Biggest issue is and let me be so frank is smartphones are killing the photography business end of it , be it your a bottom feeder or a top notch Pro its having a affect and any one that denies that fact is got there preverbal head in the sand.

 

[Guy Mancuso]

BTW did i show you my A77II with a little upgrade to it. LOL

 

[iiiNelson]

I had no qualms about the A77 when I owned it. Great camera and probably the only dSLR that I REALLY liked. It looks like the A77II improves every little niggling issue A77 owners had - namely AF accuracy and tracking in lower light. Sony and Zeisshad some great A-mount lenses which gives me hope for future FE lenses. I only really sold my A77 because I just didn't use it enough. Just about everything I shot was with my M9. Well the A7/A7R has actually gotten me to sell my M9 but I held on to the lenses until after Photokina when one of two thing will end up happening - I buy a Monochrom or put the Leica lenses (I'm keeping the Zeiss and Voigtlander lenses regardless of outcome) up for sale toward an entry level MF system.

 

[Guy Mancuso]

Yes in the last three days on 2 gigs I clocked in about 3000 images on it in total and my first real shoot with it and maybe the most important feature was just ease of use. No struggles getting it to do exactly what I wanted to do and very fast to get around the deck as they say. For a Pro working in a PR type environment that is all you can ask for is just work and don't get in the way. Now I say it is a very nice ISO 1600 cam and maybe I am picky on this end of it but even these ISO 2500 images look good at 50 percent than downrezed they look pretty good . At 100 percent pixel peaking level one may not like it as much but usually these high ISO kinds of shooting the end use is usually lower res output anyway. For the money this is a good buy.

 

[mjr]

Quick one from yesterday and Im starring at over 2000 images to process right now in LR. Yuk

Anyway shot at ISO 2500 with the 85 1.4 ZA lens at 1/160 at F2.2 on a monopod. BTW the best underrated tool out there in photography land. I did leave Steady shot on as i thought it might help even though I am truly a rock at handheld or monopod work. Little noise as you can see but not bad.

Hi Guy

No disrespect but I'm not sure this shot looks particularly special, as in, I don't believe that the A77II got it any better than any other modern camera could have captured it. It is noisier than it could have been, monopod, rock steady pro and steady shot, couldn't you have reduced the shutter speed a lot lower than 1/160 and used a much lower ISO? She doesn't look like she was moving quick!

I'm all for being enthusiastic about the kit we have but it just doesn't feel like there is anything particularly special here, all cameras nowadays have great IQ, it's sort of a given.

Have you used the focus tracking in anger yet? I saw the video in the link you posted before with the tracking of the football players, very impressive but the thing that struck me was that it tracked the players chest everywhere he went, who needs accurate focus of his chest? Why wasn't it tracking his head? I don't believe it's possible for a camera to know what we want to focus on, it's great if it does happen to pick the right thing but in fast moving action, does it regularly know what you want it to lock on to?

I'm looking in to a system for fast moving situations, I don't mind investing in a sony system if it has real benefits, I don't see them for this sort of PR stuff but maybe it really is better suited to sports etc. What do you think?

Mat

 

[Guy Mancuso]

None taken. Maybe slightly the wrong image to show what I was up against as I shot maybe 10 percent of the images out of 2000 when one was sitting down. The other was in front of the room and honestly very few people actually stand behind a podium and talk, most walk, pace , jitter and move around like rabbits up there. Mostly nervous to be even up there so they move a lot. I'll show a image of that later this morning. But sure I could have maybe dropped down to ISO 1600 for that shot. But I did test in the very beginning ISO 1600 at about 1/125 and saw movement immediately from the subject and given the horrible lighting I was left with no options but to bump it up. If you read my comment above I allude to the fact its a ISO 1600 cam not a ISO 2500 unless I was willing in LR to knock more noise down but that comes at a price too as images start to smear and I like detail. Often in most cases it's one or the other in these lighting situations either you go clean and suffer detail or given the output which in this case I knew and my client knows since I told her do not go big with these as it won't hold up. For her use these will be fine but again your back to limitations and here I did say above its a ISO 1600 cam. I'm not one of those high ISO freaks out there. I often laugh at the ISO 6400 and above comments out there.

Now I will say movement with a monopod and being as locked down the problem is not coming from me at all so that part is eliminated right off the bat as a monopod is the best tool for this and sure a couple shots handheld you can match it but sitting there all day fatigue sets in on you not a monopod. No one can handhold a camera for 8 hours and 2000 images and not feel fatigue . Monopods take that issue away, like I said the most underrated tool in photography.

Again these are noisy and I did say that and not the biggest fan of it but it's also rare I get into these high ISO problems but this room was set to look nice and not be a effective meeting room design at all. Bad planning IMHO .

Now the big thing about this cam is the focus tracking which here I did little of but let's talk about the video and sports. In that video the soccer players are lets say 50 yards away and the DOF difference between the chest and the eyes is about nill. It's maybe a 2 or 3 inch difference of focus plane so given the distance it's pretty meaningless. Now would be nice to track the face don't disagree but problem is its a very small area compared to the chest so no matter whatever system you have the the AF can jump off far easier on the face than someone's chest with also a far better phase or contrast detection on a big chest area with numbers or graphics on the shirt or even different colors. A shirt is far easier to stay on tracking than a small face. I think the real point in the video and even what I was commenting on is the AF are is so large in the frame that we have not seen a cam pretty much go across 80 percent of the frame. Now that part is a big deal as I have not seen any other cam have that type of spread. That's really the highlight of this cam is the AF focus tracking and yes I agree after that's its like almost any other cam. Functionally its a nice layout fairly small , lightweight and cheap. Other than that it's not a high ISO cam like a D4 or Sonys new A7s. So I did not buy it it for that , I bought it for the tracking ability , vertical grip to do certain jobs with it. Plus a 200mm is a 300mm. So I did not have to spend 6 grand on a 300 2.8 lens. I'm cheap these days . Lol

 

[Guy Mancuso]

Mat one other thing in play here is focal length of lenses and the magnification factor and shutter speed. I shot the 135 a lot here as well which is a effective 200mm . Now knowing the old rule of thumb with shutter speed you should match or exceed your focal length with shutter speed. Here is a case I should be shooting 1/200 or faster and more likely a lot faster like 1/400 but given you have steady shot and this case on a monopod you can cheat some but not a heck of a lot. Now my 85 did a better job than the 135 given the same 1/160 shutter speed and from testing these two lenses they are equal from 2.2 down. This is why I test my gear is to know this stuff for the field but I would have been far better off shooting the 135 at like 1/200 or faster but I just did not have the light output for it and refused to go even higher on the ISO so I switched to the 85 and got closer.