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Fun With Sony Cameras

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Shashin

Well-known member
Re: Fun with the A7/7R

I fully agree. Such tests are challenging even when comparing the same camera/lens combination to itself. OTOH, despite the slight difference in focus points between the images, I would say it's undebatable that the A7R image shows significantly more detail and to me, it also shows more 'presence' and three-dimensionality.
The A7R image seem to have sharpening applied to it. There is also more contrast in the A7R image. That might be in-camera and to do with differences in exposure and optic. Those alone will give the appearance of it being "better" than the D800e. That can be be changed in Photoshop in seconds.

I don't think your conclusion is "undebatable."
 

Ron Pfister

Member
Re: Fun with the A7/7R

The A7R image seem to have sharpening applied to it. There is also more contrast in the A7R image. That might be in-camera and to do with differences in exposure and optic. Those alone will give the appearance of it being "better" than the D800e. That can be be changed in Photoshop in seconds.

I don't think your conclusion is "undebatable."
We were discussing the difference between A7 and A7R. The same lens was used on both cameras. I provided the D800E image for reference only. A valid comparison is impossible in this case, since a different lens was used for this image. The same sharpening settings were applied to all three images in LR, and WB was set using the color checker present in the test scene. Otherwise, all settings were at their LR defaults.

Edit: I attribute the increased contrast in the A7R image to the difference in sensor toppings between the A7 and A7R, but that's just a guess.
 

Cindy Flood

Super Moderator
Re: Fun with the A7/7R

Looks like it in the clouds...so go to PS and use the color sampler...read on lt and rt in the sky/clouds and in the trees....should show a shift in R values if this is so.

Bob
Bob,
I had already done that. I'm not seeing the shift on my NEC. I will re-calibrate it tomorrow and see if I can see it. The values on the left were 181, 189, 206. On the right 170, 180, 199. About an inch lower on the left 165, 179, 206 and on the right 145, 163, 196. I am thinking that if this is significant, it is indicating that my sensor is not sitting straight. I had a different lens and adapter on the camera today.
 

Taylor Sherman

New member
Re: Fun with the A7/7R

Again, it is measurable, but whether it is of practical significance is debatable.
I really doubt that this is shift caused by the lens or adapter.

Cindy, if you have doubts, just take two pictures back to back, one with the camera upside-down.

The sky is not perfectly even in terms of color, people. If there was no measurable difference in color between over here and over there when the sun was at an oblique angle, that's when I'd get worried!
 

Ron Pfister

Member
Re: Fun with the A7/7R

I really doubt that this is shift caused by the lens or adapter.

Cindy, if you have doubts, just take two pictures back to back, one with the camera upside-down.

The sky is not perfectly even in terms of color, people. If there was no measurable difference in color between over here and over there when the sun was at an oblique angle, that's when I'd get worried!
Which is why I suggested earlier to shoot a white target :)
 

Cindy Flood

Super Moderator
Re: Fun with the A7/7R

Taylor, I would not have noticed it until it was brought to my attention yesterday. That is very sensible advice that you have given me. Before I put this to rest, I am going to shoot a white background as Ron previously suggested, and I will turn the camera over as you suggest. Then I can go back to enjoying this camera.
:)


I really doubt that this is shift caused by the lens or adapter.

Cindy, if you have doubts, just take two pictures back to back, one with the camera upside-down.

The sky is not perfectly even in terms of color, people. If there was no measurable difference in color between over here and over there when the sun was at an oblique angle, that's when I'd get worried!
 

ashwinrao1

Active member
Re: Fun with the A7/7R

Hi everyone,
I have been busy this week-end shooting the A7R and a HOST of M lenses...I am satisfied that everything 28 mm (summcricron) and above would suit my purposes, and in particular, the longer lenses work great, with precision focus.... I am definitely getting one, at this point, not that there was really any doubt...

I plan to post my comments and thoughts along the way, but I am impressed....it's not, by any means, a faultless camera, but the sensor shines in many regards!































 

Slingers

Active member
Re: Fun with the A7/7R

Taylor, I would not have noticed it until it was brought to my attention yesterday. That is very sensible advice that you have given me. Before I put this to rest, I am going to shoot a white background as Ron previously suggested, and I will turn the camera over as you suggest. Then I can go back to enjoying this camera.
:)
Cindy, I haven't seen the color shift on any of your pics either. If it is there it must be very very slight. In that last shot I doubt that lens would have any color shift with the lens used. On my NEX I never saw the magenta issues until I started pointing my RF lenses at blue skies. I wouldn't worry about it if I was you.
 
M

mjr

Guest
Re: Fun with the A7/7R

My opinion on A7 vs A7R in general :
Get the A7.
It is
cheaper
has faster flash sync
more fps
build feels the same as the A7R
same weight as A7R
picture quality is the same (even though the A7R has more pixels)
usability is better with RF lenses. (much less hassle with magenta cast)
smearing seems to be the same with both A7s
AF is a tiny bit faster
smaller file sizes

I will keep my A7 and my friend with the A7R is about to send it back and getting a A7 too.
fotoingo, far be it from me to bring common sense to the proceedings but, are you really judging the best camera to buy based on how it handles lenses it wasn't designed to use, from different manufacturers, some of which are old and not even designed for this type of camera? These expensive lenses that happen to fit this body because third party companies have decided to build cheap (in comparison to the lenses and body) adapters so that they will physically fit? The camera doesn't know what they are or in some cases what aperture they are set at? This is the basis for any decision on what is worth buying? I don't understand!

This camera to me is flawed with anything other than the Sony lenses it was designed to be used with, it may produce reasonable results by luck but there's none of the huge amount of processing that goes on internally with the M240 for example or the D800 or many other cameras that are designed for a specific range of lenses.

For me, this camera will only work if the results from the camera when lenses designed for it are mounted are superb, how it happens to work with some random adapter can not be surprising when the results are less than optimum.

There are a few great images on this thread, it would be excellent to see what this camera can really do rather than lots of posts on what it can't do, just my own opinion.

Mat
 

Taylor Sherman

New member
Re: Fun with the A7/7R

I do think it's pretty funny that, after that first paragraph, you say that the camera is "flawed" with anything other than the Sony lenses.
 

iiiNelson

Well-known member
Re: Fun with the A7/7R

fotoingo, far be it from me to bring common sense to the proceedings but, are you really judging the best camera to buy based on how it handles lenses it wasn't designed to use, from different manufacturers, some of which are old and not even designed for this type of camera? These expensive lenses that happen to fit this body because third party companies have decided to build cheap (in comparison to the lenses and body) adapters so that they will physically fit? The camera doesn't know what they are or in some cases what aperture they are set at? This is the basis for any decision on what is worth buying? I don't understand!

This camera to me is flawed with anything other than the Sony lenses it was designed to be used with, it may produce reasonable results by luck but there's none of the huge amount of processing that goes on internally with the M240 for example or the D800 or many other cameras that are designed for a specific range of lenses.

For me, this camera will only work if the results from the camera when lenses designed for it are mounted are superb, how it happens to work with some random adapter can not be surprising when the results are less than optimum.

There are a few great images on this thread, it would be excellent to see what this camera can really do rather than lots of posts on what it can't do, just my own opinion.

Mat
How would one subscribe to that logic for M or D800 users or any other camera system that people adapt lenses to that not originally designed for the camera. If the image is the sum of the parts plus the photographer I don't see how it's "flawed" provided the artistic image of the photographer was captured in the way intended.
 
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Ron Pfister

Member
Re: Fun with the A7/7R

I do think Mat makes a very good point: the best results will likely be achieved with native FE-lenses, since the optical properties of the sensor toppings have certainly been taken into account during the design of these lenses. This is surely not the case with older SLR-glass such as Leica-R.

Edit: when I say 'best' I am speaking of technical IQ. OTOH, I firmly believe that there is great aesthetic value in using older glass that would be considered flawed by that logic, as some of the excellent images in this thread have clearly shown. The lens is the photographer's paintbrush, after all… :)
 

fotografz

Well-known member
Re: Fun with the A7/7R

Bob,
I had already done that. I'm not seeing the shift on my NEC. I will re-calibrate it tomorrow and see if I can see it. The values on the left were 181, 189, 206. On the right 170, 180, 199. About an inch lower on the left 165, 179, 206 and on the right 145, 163, 196. I am thinking that if this is significant, it is indicating that my sensor is not sitting straight. I had a different lens and adapter on the camera today.
Cindy, IMO it is impossible to evaluate such a scene for absolutes. Especially subtile ones which may or may not be natural phenomena. The scene in question appears brighter on the left ... which is natural lighting ... this often produces a bit more magenta because of slightly more IR intensity.

When doing such evaluations, I shoot a plain white surface which has to be perfectly even in light intensity across the whole surface ... which isn't easy to do without a light meter.

Then I use the CMYK color analyzing eye-dropper to measure each separate color ... including a separate one for magenta ... Photoshop top menu: Window > Info

When I ran the curser over the cloud strip the magenta variance was minuscule with edges slightly more intense and easily attributable to slight lens vignetting (yes, even at 70mm the 24-70 ever so slightly vignettes).

If it were me I wouldn't give it a second thought. However, if it did, I'd do a controlled test,

- Marc

BTW, again, very natural looking color rendition ... which somewhat reminds me of the D800 shots done with Leica R lenses. This bodes well for using the ZAs on this camera :thumbup:
 

Ben Rubinstein

Active member
Re: Fun with the A7/7R

Looking at those IR pictures above it does seem to show what would be obvious to me, that while more pixels may not necessarily add significantly more detail, they do allow better tonal transitions.
 

tashley

Subscriber Member
Re: Fun with the A7/7R

Since we're all having our 2 Cents, here are mine:

Cindy's file does indeed seem to have a tiny, tiny, tiny magenta issue. It is absolutely within 'normal' variance for almost any system.

By 'system' I mean 'soup to nuts' - from lens to sensor thru RAW pp to display thru to eye and brain.

As other people have noted, normal vignetting can create small colour shifts, as can the natural variance of colour in a sky, and the uneven distribution of IR and UV across a sky, especially when taken into account with the amount of filtering on lens (screw-on and coating) and on sensor.

Then there is the fact that even very good monitors can have uneven display colour and brightness. I, like Jono, have rather slacked off the frequency of calibrating my monitors because even when freshly calibrated, my 30" Cinema Display, when viewed next to my Eizo 30", gives the game away: the Apple display is blue and the Eizo is red, relative to each other. Viewed alone, each looks very good.

Next is the issue of the normal variance of human colour vision. Naturally the medical profession has decided to categorise and pathologise this, preferring to see it in terms of Norms and Abnorms rather than variance, though countless studies have shown that 'colour blind' people can determine patterns that 'normal' people cannot, and can often distinguish colour variations that 'normal' people cannot. Variations in abilities are what sustain populations, let's leave it at that.

Next, the fact that we perceive colours culturally and with gender bias. We are all familiar with the complaint that asian manufacturers favour certain skin tone renditions that look odd to western eyes. We are also aware that females, (and experienced male photographers!) are more likely to be able to use accurate language to distinguish between magenta and pink, or purple, mauve and violet. Using accurate language places a requirement on the speaker to perceive more diligently: my colour vision has become a lot more accurate since I started trying to see accurately, rather than seeing like a British boy raised in the 60's when knowing the names of anything other than red green and blue would cause a large pink question mark to appear over your head...

In every step of the imaging chain, in every situation, there is room for variance from what is 'true', 'accurate' and 'normal'. Your file is very comfortably within the sum of those variances IMHO. And when something is clearly wrong it is clearly wrong - such as the colour casts in this white frame from an 18mm Super Elmar M on an A7R - it will be obvious:


Additionally you will not, ever, accurately bottom out (let alone be able to eradicate accurately in post) a colour cast with a shot of a blank grey sky or a white wall. The light falling on a wall will be almost impossible to get perfectly illuminated and, unless lit by very accurately temperature controlled flash, will be subject to the same variances as a sky. To do this properly (and even then not 100% reliably or accurately) you need a Lens Cast Calibration sheet as used by MF shooters. They cost a few dollars and save a lot of time and yet very few people bother to source them. If you use one, you will see that, for example, a file from a Sony RX-1 with in camera colour shading corrections turned on still has some colour shading. And that is a camera with an extremely closely tuned ecosystem of sensor, lens and bespoke processing.

Most work does not require perfect colour accuracy. Photographers who work in fields where it does, do not use zooms with adaptors on what are fundamentally consumer cameras.

Inaccurate colour renditions can be part of a photographer's style.

There are highly successful artists, in both photographic and other media, with highly personal colour vision - and yet their work can be enjoyed, like the work of a deaf Beethoven, by a wider audience.

Rant over. The file is fine.
 
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M

mjr

Guest
Re: Fun with the A7/7R

How would one subscribe to that logic for M or D800 users that use R lenses not originally designed for the camera. If the image is the sum of the parts plus the photographer I don't see how it's "flawed" provided the artistic image of the photographer was captured in the way intended.
Hiredarm, I don't subscribe any logic to leica R lenses working well on the D800, the R lenses happen to work well in some cases, if they didn't it wouldn't be down to the D800 being a bad camera or a good one. If the D800 worked badly with Nikon lenses then it would be a bad camera.

We aren't talking about the artistic side, it very rarely comes in to any discussion on equipment, I for one don't think my images are good or bad based on the camera I use, they are good or bad based on me.

What I'm saying is that deciding which is better, the 7 or the 7r based on how it works with non native lenses is absurd.

Mat
 

Ron Pfister

Member
Re: Fun with the A7/7R

What I'm saying is that deciding which is better, the 7 or the 7r based on how it works with non native lenses is absurd.
It all depends on what your aims are. Being able to use the A7R as a compact FFDB for just about all the glass I already own is definitely what interests me most about this camera. It costs a lot less than the lenses I'm going to use it with, and based on what I've seen so far, I'm expecting it to work well for the kind of photography that I do. Hence, I don't think it's that absurd of a decision… ;)
 
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