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MFDB with CMOS? Live view for portraits?

joelorbita

New member
Hi,
Just wondering if the live view on the Sony based CMOS sensors are good enough for taking portraits with and achieving critical focus when shooting wide open?

I use live view all the time on my Sony A7R and especially the "zoom in" feature for very shallow depth of field and critical focus..

Is this possible with these CMOS backs?

O.K, thanks so much, much appreciated!
 
If you are talking about manual focusing, then yes you could zoom in in live view. For the IQ250 you could double tap anywhere in the frame and it would instantly zoom in into that region, whereas for A7R you would have to zoom in and use arrow keys to move around (unless you pre-selected focus area). However there is no implementation of focus peaking in live view - you only get focus mask in image playbacks.
 

joelorbita

New member
Hi Voidshatter,
Thanks so much for the response back, much appreciated!

Have you ever seen any examples of lenses designed for 35mm being used on the Alpa FPS?

Am thinking of the Canon 85mm 1.2 as well as the newer Zeiss Otus 85mm 1.4.

I remember seeing these somewhere a while back but cannot quite find it.. They supposedly had image circles that covered a digital back..

Thanks again!
 
Although the Canon 85mm f1.2 L II covers the whole IQ250, I would advise against shooting portrait via the FPS with the IQ250. For still life you can manage it on a tripod, but for people it's too much harassment - you'll need to:

a) activate Live View on the FPS;
b) press context menu and press Live View on the IQ250;
c) focus;
d) press the upper left button on the IQ250 to exit Live View;
e) exit Live View on the FPS;
f) release the shutter on the FPS.

Your model could have moved during such a complicated process if you are shooting hand-held, and especially if you are shooting wide-open at f/1.2 it's almost impossible to get critical focus.

With the A7R you could just compose, magnify, focus, release shutter, which is a lot easier.
 

joelorbita

New member
Hi voidshatter,
Thanks for the response back, greatly appreciated!

Yep, you are right, seems like a bit too much of a process.. :(

Still, I wonder what the results would be like? Might be pretty cool for a "normalish" FOV and extremely shallow DOF.

Thanks again.
 
Below is a picture taken with the IQ260 and the 85mm f1.2 L II via FPS (so that you know it easily covers the whole IQ250):



If you are patient yes you could do focus bracketing and play a hit and miss game.
 
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