[Rondec]

oh? i count nine f/2.8 a-mount af zooms that don't need a mirror to af on the a7rii?? SLR Lenses, DSLR Lenses | B&H Photo Video and a couple that still use screw-drive.

and sixteen eos f/2.8 af zooms that may or may not need a mirror, but there is duplication between those lists, and older lenses may work better on canon cameras.

no eye tracking(?) but i'm sure that we can agree that af using a mirror is not an ideal solution, because of things like micro-af adjustments and cost... it's destined for obsolescence.



try shooting 4k video on a canon or a nikon... compare manual focusing capability between ff sony and canikon, no contest there... but canikon still has the lead with many spray 'n pray applications, and that counts for a lot.

wrt canon, there are significant dr/etc. advantages with ff sony; the only thing that competes with the a7rii p.q.-wise is the d810.

a7rii is the tip of the iceberg, fe-mount has only been out for a couple of years, and i think that sony isn't about to rest on it's laurels.

it's a brutal environment for the first pentax ff offering.

I'm not a big fan of video -- haven't found much use for it on my SLR. Nice to have I guess, but if that is the main selling point, then I guess the next big feature will be 8K video. Someone who use to post here who seemed to like Sony indicated that you didn't even need to shoot stills any more, just snag images from your 4K video stream. Seems kind of handy, that, although it doesn't really seem like photography to me.

Anyway, if video is your thing, seems like Pentax world isn't the best place. Half the folks here are lobbying for it to be left off the next camera in the hopes that it will shave a couple of nickels off of the asking price. I'm not one of those, but it is an awful lot of work to get a short segment of video that isn't torture for anyone other than close family to watch with you.

I'm still not sure how I feel about PD AF on the sensor long term. Seems like a waste of the sensor, but maybe that really is the future of photography. Either way, in the end, I bet you can't tell a difference in image output in 97.6 percent of still images between a Nikon D810 and a Sony A7r II, assuming similar lenses.

[jyndi]

The advantages of MILCs over DSLRs are too insignificant to persuade current users of only fixed lens cameras to purchase an MILC when they can't be persuaded to purchase a DSLR.

Maybe, maybe not. I have an Olympus m43 MILC; an e-PM2. It was cheaper than any DSLR at the time, is small enough to slip in my handbag (which my Nikon D7000 is not and will never be) and takes much better pictures than any of the P&S cameras I've had in recent years, much less my phone (which was chosen on the basis of taking decent photos). It's the size and weight thing that is the biggest MILC advantage and yes, that could easily persuade people who are not interested in something as large as a DSLR to consider it. At least, it would if people see MILC in person - I am regularly irritated at seeing piles of Canikons on display but little of the alternatives, mirrorless or Pentax or anything else. Sony doesn't have a significant size advantage over DSLR, but the m43 certainly can.

[Kharan]

Interesting, thoughtful post, Rondec. About the only thing I wish the A7RII had was ruggedness and sealing comparable to the K-3. It may be close to that now but I am uncomfortable , perhaps unfairly, about it in extreme conditions. Other than that I doubt there will be any upgrade in the near future which would make a huge improvement in the pictures it produces. Sony may intend to rely for continued and increasing revenue on lens sales since that is an area which it seems to be developing rather quickly with, according to some accounts, 6 new lenses due in the coming year.

It's 8 lenses, actually I'm not sure that they're going to deliver all that, honestly, but there's certainly a couple of winners here: Tamron, Sigma, Cosina and Konica-Minolta (namely, the club of lens designers for Sony E and other manufacturers). These days, only Canon seems to source all their optical designs on their own, while Nikon, Olympus, and Ricoh outsource a fair number of designs. Sony and Panasonic seem to operate 100% on external designers, but I could well be wrong. Fuji I simply have no idea, but also suspect that "borrows" help from optical design companies.

Sony's weather sealing is little more than marketing speak. There's absolutely no seals in there, and it's been embarrassing enough for them that they've taken the expression 'weather sealed' out from ad materials. They've settled for some obscure and vague language instead, to describe the weather resistance of their gear. And I agree, it's definitely one of the glaring faults of E mount.

[IchabodCrane]

oh? i count nine f/2.8 a-mount af zooms that don't need a mirror to af on the a7rii?? SLR Lenses, DSLR Lenses | B&H Photo Video and a couple that still use screw-drive.

and sixteen eos f/2.8 af zooms that may or may not need a mirror, but there is duplication between those lists, and older lenses may work better on canon cameras.

no eye tracking(?) but i'm sure that we can agree that af using a mirror is not an ideal solution, because of things like micro-af adjustments and cost... it's destined for obsolescence.



try shooting 4k video on a canon or a nikon... compare manual focusing capability between ff sony and canikon, no contest there... but canikon still has the lead with many spray 'n pray applications, and that counts for a lot.

wrt canon, there are significant dr/etc. advantages with ff sony; the only thing that competes with the a7rii p.q.-wise is the d810.

a7rii is the tip of the iceberg, fe-mount has only been out for a couple of years, and i think that sony isn't about to rest on it's laurels.

it's a brutal environment for the first pentax ff offering.

But not one of those is an FE mount lens.

[osv]

But not one of those is an FE mount lens.

i don't own any fe-mount lenses... yes there are tradeoffs if you want a-mount af; with the a7r i have to use the laea4 a-mount adapter... loss of flash assist lamp(?), focus points limited to a wide center area of the picture, etc.

you don't need the laea4 with the a7rii, so all those things go away, but there isn't any screw-drive focus motor support.

here is a list of canon eos lenses that people have tested the af on, using the a7rii: A7RII and Canon lenses AF compatibility - FM Forums it's a mixed bag, the older glass looks the most problematic.

i think that if you have ff af k-mount glass, and you don't care about mf, you wait to see what the pentax ff offers, imho it's gonna be a winner.

if you want real mf, you don't sell what you have, just add a mirrorless body.

[mecrox]

Always interesting to look at.

I found it most interesting that the "migration" of DSLR to mirrorless seems pretty strong in Europe now while that party seems to be over already in Japan, with mirrorless loosing stronger than DSLR.

I assume that in the end, we see a battle of Canon vs. Nikon vs. Sony more than DSLR vs. mirrorless. With Ricoh, Olympus, Panasonic, Fuji, Samsung and Leica being spectators rather than participants in that battle.

Judging by the stupendous number of visitors from the Far East in Europe this year, that battle has already been fought and won by Canon whose cameras outnumber Nikon by a simply huge margin. I see 20-30 Canon for every Nikon. All the signs of impending market saturation are there too. Lots of big FF Canon gear in the hands of people who look as if they'd be far happier with a P&S and who use these beasts as if they were one. Chances are they'll soon get bored. I've seen hardly any Sony cams in their hands, just the odd one or two. Here in Italy I've so far seen only one Sony A7 camera, half a dozen Pentax in the hands of Japanese visitors, just the one Leica and a few Olympus and Fuji. Canon dominate among the tourist hordes. Obviously only a straw poll from strolling around ...

The main issue for MILCs is that they are far too complex for casual photographers. If you want to trade down from wild FF ostentation, you don't hit simple until you get to an iPhone.

[Zygonyx]

@ biz-engineer : the show was actually a parade : not sure pixelshift would be practicable ...

[timcatn]

Judging by the stupendous number of visitors from the Far East in Europe this year, that battle has already been fought and won by Canon whose cameras outnumber Nikon by a simply huge margin. I see 20-30 Canon for every Nikon. All the signs of impending market saturation are there too. Lots of big FF Canon gear in the hands of people who look as if they'd be far happier with a P&S and who use these beasts as if they were one. Chances are they'll soon get bored. I've seen hardly any Sony cams in their hands, just the odd one or two. Here in Italy I've so far seen only one Sony A7 camera, half a dozen Pentax in the hands of Japanese visitors, just the one Leica and a few Olympus and Fuji. Canon dominate among the tourist hordes. Obviously only a straw poll from strolling around ...

The main issue for MILCs is that they are far too complex for casual photographers. If you want to trade down from wild FF ostentation, you don't hit simple until you get to an iPhone.

I have seen quite a lot of samsung cameras beeing used by tourists.

[Nicolas06]

the a7rii has only been out for a few weeks, the technology it utilizes is far beyond any dslr that's ever been on the market, and it's a major upgrade over the a7r in a number of ways.

Now imagine you have this A7r-II:

- it take great photos with all the stuff you'll could need (like any decent cameras)
- it add some features other cameras already had like SR.
- it support 4K video. (but some Smartphones already do it for 10% of the price like the One Plus One).
- it weight the same as a DSLR (K30/K50/K-S2)

Now what the future?

For photos the camera has it all except a few gimmicks like astro tracer, pixelshift and alike. Not sure people would buy next generation for that.

8K video? That's many year away and honestly, that will not be a game change at all because even 2K video is enough in many occasions. Distributions vectors are almost all 2K or less now. Often this is 720p or even sometime SD. 4K is cinema resolution and I never heard anybody complaining that cinema movie quality was not great enough. Anyway if you are serious about it you might buy a RED camera or equivalent.

The issue is it depends of your exact needs. Depending of your exact requirements, taking good picture and videos was solved few years ago already. This is nowhere a game change like film vs digital or MF vs AF.

Now Sony FE really lack the native lenses and could maybe hope to sell new lenses when they comes... But only from people that don't do like you and use MF anyway. I would agree their growth is to have a real native FE echosystem they are lacking now and that would motivate people to invest into it. On the other hand theses peoples that are not satisfyied with current Sony offering are buying from other brands and might think the model they just got as good enough for quite some time... And might be unwilling to switch because they invested a lot in the echosystem. And that's assuming they can't be happy with latest greatest of the other brand.

[pathdoc]

Lots of big FF Canon gear in the hands of people who look as if they'd be far happier with a P&S and who use these beasts as if they were one.

Canon dominate among the tourist hordes.

I can picture the camera revolution being led by a disgruntled Canon 6D, disgusted that it is doomed to spend its life wearing the biggest, most expensive lenses yet never being taken out of program-auto mode when it could be so much more: "Cameras of the world, unite! You have nothing to lose but your straps!"

[Nicolas06]

I can picture the camera revolution being led by a disgruntled Canon 6D, disgusted that it is doomed to spend its life wearing the biggest, most expensive lenses yet never being taken out of program-auto mode when it could be so much more: "Cameras of the world, unite! You have nothing to lose but your straps!"

You care but certainly not Canon that sold so many or the users that are happy with their very capable camera. Today a camera in auto mode get the focus right much more often than many pro back in time when AF was only a dream.

The goal anyway is not to make camera more complex to use, but easier.

We could ask if sport cars should be only for people that drive on circuits, 4x4 for peasants and the army that have actual use for driving off roads and 4K TV screen for people bellow 25 years old with perfect eyes sight that have actually a chance to see any difference.

While the first computer, a thing much more basic than the most basic calculator today was used to design a nuclear bomb and everything is designed with computer theses days from cars, planes, trading models, cures and drugs or logistics, most people use their computer to chat on facebook, downloading music (often illegally) and watching porn (illegally too).

Should we ask for an engineering diploma before allowing people to buy a computer?
Should we ask people if they had been to photography school to allow them to buy any camera more complex than a Smartphone?
Should we prevent people to buy 4x4 is they don't live in the back country?

[pathdoc]

You care but certainly not Canon that sold so many or the users that are happy with their very capable camera.

You have no sense of humour.

[gorme]

I just arrived in Ireland a few days ago, the local camera stores have almost every brand available but no Pentax at all... I don't really understand because here it's rainy and humid enough to sell Pentax just for their water-resistant capabilities...

[pathdoc]

Perhaps they figure the more non-WR cameras that short out, the more they can sell?

[gorme]

Perhaps they figure the more non-WR cameras that short out, the more they can sell?

Yeah ! It must be this !