Erik ... Agent Provocateur! :ROTFL:Hi,
I still have the SLT 99 and the ZA 24-70/2.8.
Nothing positive to say about either, compared to to the A7rII and the Canon lenses. Controls on the A7rII are much precise, the Canon lenses are well made and sharp. I actually got myself a Canon 24-105 instead of the 24-70/2.8 ZA.
For me, the great benefit with the A7rII is the short flange distance, allowing a lot of interesting lens choices.
The Canon lenses are nothing fancy, but well made. The best lens I have is the 16-35/4L, it clearly outperforms my Distagons on the P45+. I had all the Hasselblad Distagons except the 40/4 IF, so I have some experience with that.
It is nice that Sony makes a new SLT99 with 42MP, but I feel that the SLT line is not where the future is.
I also feel that Sony should start to make some very good lenses, like Fuji does. That said, there are some positive signs, like the G Master lenses being quite OK.
I would rather have a consistently high perfomance set of lenses than ZA, G, GM and plain Sony lenses of different and mostly questionable quality.
I have shot the A99 a couple of times since I switched to the A7rII and I just feel what a clumsy and boring quality camera it is. It may of course be that the A99 has seen a lot of usage and may have some wear.
On the other hand, I did like the A77 with the 16-80/3.5-4.5 lens. S nice street shooters camera.
The only Sony A-mount I will keep is the A900.
Just to say, I don't think the A7rII is the greatest camera on earth, but it does the job and it ticks almost all of my check boxes. Must say, I never really disliked any Sony model.
I don't think it is meaningful to talk a lot about pro cameras. Lots of professionals use Canon's 5D in different versions. It is not a 'pro' camera, but it does the job and who cares about the rest?
Best regards
Erik
You speak a lot about cameras and lenses, but not much about actually using them. I only say this because application is usually the basis of opinion with most gear.
You used an A99 & ZA24-70/2.8 "a couple of times" and formed an opinion with "nothing good to say about either". I used both "a couple thousand times", and my opinion differs considerably.
My choice to move to the Sony A900 for a work-horse, do most anything, system was to get to the Zeiss ZA lenses on a FF camera, and the fact it offered IBIS with every one of those lenses. Prior to that I had used Canon and Nikon. In past, I had also used the Contax ND with its' set of Zeiss optics which is what made me interested in Sony after they acquired Konica/Minolta. The FF A900 used the same sensor as my then current Nikon D3X ... but I found the A900 to be better aesthetically tuned for the wedding work I was doing ... it subsequently cut my post work time in half! I sold the Nikons.
The A99 is not clumsy for me ... I guess "clumsy is, as clumsy does". I found it disappeared in hand and did its job without demanding much. The articulated LCD is amazing ... it helped me out of a many tight spots.
As to the ZA lenses, I found they delivered a particular signature that better suited my aesthetic preferences than did the Nikon or Canon lenses. I have no quarrel with Canon/Nikon optics ... they have their own signature. Because of my applications, I place consistent aesthetic look and feel I prefer ahead of pixel-peeping anal-izaton of imagery. It's that consistent look and feel that endeared the ZAs to me. Nice to see them being updated.
Over 30 years of shooting commercial and advertising work, weddings, portraits, events, corporate photography, street and fine art photography, I've had the good fortune to use just about everything made ... most of them a "couple thousand times". I just did a bit of downsizing to move to a loft, and tossed over 3000 CDs and DVDs and 6 Hard Drives of wedding images!
In addition, I process images from my second shooter's wedding work with them using a variety of cameras like every 5D made to date, Nikons in all flavors, and so on. I see what these systems and their workhorse 24-70 or 24-105s do. Thousands of images a month year after year. That is what my opinion is formed by.
I really do not have anything bad to say about anything I chose over the years to do the work ... for love or money. Each had their special attributes and short comings (which you work around in oder to enjoy those attributes).
I know Canon Digital very well ... starting when I swapped out from a Canon film camera to a crop frame 3.3 meg, D30 in 2001 (seems like a lifetime, but only 15 years ago!). One of the pics below was shot with that camera.
Since then I've used most every other Canon/L lenses (which, BTW, were also updated as time moved on just like the ZAs); Nikon, Sony & A, E; Contax 35 & 645; Leica M, R, S; Hasselblad V, H, X; Fuji, Kodak, Mamiya in all iterations; Pentax; Olympus; and view cameras like the Rollie Xact-II/Rodenstock/Schnider.
- Marc
A few work-a-day examples over the years ... the B&W Triptych is titled "Bouquet Beat-Down", shot with a Nikon D3 that was blazing quick in low light. The other B&W is the 3.3 meg Canon D30 and 85/1.2L. "Lady Of Spain" was shot with the older ZA85/1.4