[JohnBee]

Looks way over-sharpened here for some reason. Looks much better when I click on it and view it in Flickr. Still, it does not approach the work you do with the Z in terms of IQ.

You can tell this from an oversharpened, undersized and overcompressed image?

[osv]

Looks way over-sharpened here for some reason. Looks much better when I click on it and view it in Flickr. Still, it does not approach the work you do with the Z in terms of IQ.

i think that the original full-size upload on flickr is not re-compressed, but everything else they serve up is, and it's rather controversial: Flickr Decreased Quality and Increased Compression, and Users Aren't Happy

iq on the a7rii is stellar: "The Sony A7RII runs a neck and neck image quality race with the big Pentax, and so calling a winner is almost impossible." https://luminous-landscape.com/sony-a7rii-review-and-hands-on-report/

---------- Post added 12-05-15 at 09:27 AM ----------

Manual focussing with native FE lens is my biggest bug bear with the camera, as it is imprecise. But with Zeiss lenses like the Loxia and Batis and third party lenses you can sidestep this. At some point, it would be great to be able to programme into the camera what distance you want to focus to in the distance scale of your choice, metres or feet... The technology is there

manual focusing with evf cameras is more accurate than any af or ovf camera system, because of magnification and peaking, but it takes practice to get good at.

you can zoom in to any place in the frame, including those close areas that you want to base the hyperfocal distance on, and set perfect focus there... with a 28mm prime on the a7r, i can accurately and repeatedly focus on a ~2' tall set of address numbers, ~100 yards away... i base all my field curvature testing on that.

that focusing ability makes the hyperfocal technique obsolete, because it's not precise: When hyperfocal distance focusing is not good enough

back when all i knew was ovf, i used to read merklinger, and i dismissed his ideas, because of course you can't focus an ovf camera on tiny objects far away... i now understand why his technique is superior to hyperfocal theory, because i can prove it out in the field, without ever even having to take the actual photo.

[clackers]

It's as if our visiting Sony cheerleader Osv has never seen Live View before. How quaint. :-)

[Rondec]

i think that the original full-size upload on flickr is not re-compressed, but everything else they serve up is, and it's rather controversial: Flickr Decreased Quality and Increased Compression, and Users Aren't Happy

iq on the a7rii is stellar: "The Sony A7RII runs a neck and neck image quality race with the big Pentax, and so calling a winner is almost impossible." https://luminous-landscape.com/sony-a7rii-review-and-hands-on-report/

---------- Post added 12-05-15 at 09:27 AM ----------



manual focusing with evf cameras is more accurate than any af or ovf camera system, because of magnification and peaking, but it takes practice to get good at.

you can zoom in to any place in the frame, including those close areas that you want to base the hyperfocal distance on, and set perfect focus there... with a 28mm prime on the a7r, i can accurately and repeatedly focus on a ~2' tall set of address numbers, ~100 yards away... i base all my field curvature testing on that.

that focusing ability makes the hyperfocal technique obsolete, because it's not precise: When hyperfocal distance focusing is not good enough

back when all i knew was ovf, i used to read merklinger, and i dismissed his ideas, because of course you can't focus an ovf camera on tiny objects far away... i now understand why his technique is superior to hyperfocal theory, because i can prove it out in the field, without ever even having to take the actual photo.

You know, I hate to break it to you, but hyperfocal theory is just as applicable for landscapes as ever -- except maybe on Sony lenses where they have foregone a distance scale. Who cares if you can use live view to focus on this rock close to your camera if you choose an aperture of f4 and the rest of your photo is a blurry mess? The point of hyperfocal theory is to figure out how close you can focus while still having everything in decent focus. Nothing more or less.

[itshimitis]

I've read that second article before. The writer just forms (in my view) another theory that is similar. Getting an image to perfectly sharp across the whole frame is difficult if not impossible. So you have to adjust your expectations. It's about acceptable sharpness. He just has a different method for finding acceptable sharpness. There is only one area that is actually in focus. You have to use your composition skills to decide which bit is perfectly focussed and how much you want acceptably sharp or otherwise.

[LA_Photographer]

As an owner of both systems, I can say that I love the equally.... but use them for different things. The Z will always be my go to in the studio. I could give a laundry list of reasons (which we all know), but it also just looks impressive to a client (and the shutter makes such a pleasing sound). Having said that, my newly acquired A7rII is now my go to for pretty much everything else. All the issues that I had with my previous system (Canon) are gone. The files are great, the EFV is handy as all hell, the size is fantastic (try carrying a Z around for a five hour hike!). Yeah, the battery life lease something (well, a lot) to be desired, but they're tiny so it's not really an issue to carry spares. If someone was looking at either system, I'd probably recommend the Sony first (as I feel it's the most versatile), but recommend the Z for raw image quality.

[JohnBee]

I've recently taken hold of the new Sony A7r II and thought i'd have a go at a little side by side comparison with my Pentax 645Z. Also threw the Canon 5dIII in for fun.

Pretty interesting results. It's no double blind precision trial, but if you were wondering how the Sony compares in real world applications have a look - Sony A7r II vs Pentax 645Z vs Canon 5dmk III ? | Photographer Gareth Iwan Jones |

G

At the risk of sounding like a broken record I'd ask why anyone would bother doing image comparisons with NR processing? - which is in my view, nothing short of pointless.

[donesteban]

The major problem of the A7 series from my point of view ist manual focus.
The 645D/Z have a big opticel viewfinder. I can do manual focus very quickly, and I even don't need the focus indicator, unless for wide angle lenses.

The electronic view finder is not big enough and the pixels are still too big to do so without using the magnify functionalty. Off course, there is peaking, but if you turn the focus ring, peaking is there much before a focus indicator woud show light, and it stays on much longer. In other words: Peaking on means" Sharp if you resize the picture to maximim full HD". But it dosn't say this area will be sharp at 100% view. Off course, you can use the magnify function again. But this is just very slow compared to focusing on an optical view finder, especially if you don't wan't the middle of the frame to be the area containing the focus point, then you have to click around first to move the maginfied area.

I know these problems will be gone somewhen. I the electronic view finder has 4K resolution (that's 8 MP RGB or 24 MP the way they count pixels for electronic view finders), one will be able to focus exactly the same way like today with an optical view finder, just given the picture size of the electronic view finder is about the same size as the optical one. But till then, it is a far way to go. The new Epson electronic view finder in the Leica camera has 4 MP, not 24. Somewhere between 12 and 24 MP the way pixels are counted on electronic view finders, there wil be break even.

Until then, I use my cameras with electronic view finder in cmbination with auto focus lenses only. This wrks really well and I like the fact they are small and light, offering high picture quality

A workaround might be WiFi function and a 12" tablet with at least 2560 pixels resoluton and then use the tablet to focus. I Pad pro for example. But this means the WiFi function has to support live view. Not just downloading the pictures already taken.

[osv]

You know, I hate to break it to you, but hyperfocal theory is just as applicable for landscapes as ever -- except maybe on Sony lenses where they have foregone a distance scale.

it's hardly just sony; if you are lucky your modern zoom might have distance scales, but it probably won't have dof marks... hyperfocal theory is always based on guessing(never measuring), but modern zooms make it even worse.

compare that with zeiss batis lenses, which are made only for sony; they have an oled display that shows the measured distance that the lens is focused at, and the near/far dof limits.

Who cares if you can use live view to focus on this rock close to your camera if you choose an aperture of f4 and the rest of your photo is a blurry mess?

i think that you know better than to use f/4 for landscapes :-) and even if you didn't, using magnification in the evf would quickly show you exactly what is and is not in focus, and you could adjust accordingly; *accurately* move the focus point, change the aperture, etc.

if you must have a dof number to look at, calculate it with your phone app.

[JohnBee]

...Off course, there is peaking, but if you turn the focus ring, peaking is there much before a focus indicator woud show light, and it stays on much longer. In other words: Peaking on means" Sharp if you resize the picture to maximim full HD". But it dosn't say this area will be sharp at 100% view.

I don't understand this part.
Are you saying you can't use focus peaking and have sharp images?
I've been shooting almost exclusively with MF lenses on an A7R ii and all my images seem to be very sharp. And so I'm wondering if perhaps there's something else going on to cause this?

I agree on the lack luster MF magnifier however. A real shame Sony doesn't make a momentary hold magnification window to address this, otherwise, MF magnification is clunky and intuitive for all but the most controlled of settings.

[danielduarte]

What about inviting the D810 into the conversation? I owned the A7RII and loved the files but despised the ergonomic experience of the camera... The battery life was brutal, this was compounded by the reality that a lot of my work is long exposure.

I just returned my Z to BH (within the return policy). I was out shooting over a 3 day period and the camera started to freeze, numerous times to the point where the battery had to be removed and reinserted twice to get the camera to turn on. The top screen was frozen with the last exposure information and the on / off was unresponsive.

Then... The mirror started getting stuck and wouldn't return. The battery trick fixed that.

I likely received a lemon but can't risk something happening down the road. My budget dowsnt have room in for future repairs.

I had to realize that this may have been too much for me to chew. I enjoyed the camera but this initial experience (less than 30 days old) scared me away from the camera.

[2351HD]

I think one of our other members from Australia maybe Tom had a similar problem with their new Z and it was a dud. They swapped it and now all good.

Bad luck I guess, you should have asked for a replacement.

[rfkiii]

Daniel Duarte, I do not understand your reasoning. You either believe you got a lemon or not. If this were par for the course for a 645z, do you think this forum would be such a love fest for the machine?


The Nikon D810 uses the Sony sensor but that is where the pleasantries end. This machine still has some kind of issue with shutter shock even with the newly added electronic first curtain. Link below. And, VR seems to compound issues for hand held shooting rather than solve them. Instead of the common configuration of most manufacturers' main mode dial, Nikon has a clunky release mode dial which precludes combining several of the release modes.


Shutter shock comparison.


In my view (and as evidenced by the following comparison), Canon has the Gold Standard for stable Live View photography so it is presented as the baseline at 1/100. I've provided a progression of shutter speeds for the D810 until it catches up with the 5DsR. I had two more slots so I threw in the Sony A7r with 1/100 and the shutter speed necessary to match Canon. The authors of this shutter comparison apparently did not find it beneficial to include the 645z in the festivities.


Image comparison: Digital Photography Review

[danielduarte]

It was a simple question.

[donesteban]

I don't understand this part.
Are you saying you can't use focus peaking and have sharp images?
I've been shooting almost exclusively with MF lenses on an A7R ii and all my images seem to be very sharp. And so I'm wondering if perhaps there's something else going on to cause this?

I agree on the lack luster MF magnifier however. A real shame Sony doesn't make a momentary hold magnification window to address this, otherwise, MF magnification is clunky and intuitive for all but the most controlled of settings.

Well, if I use peaking without using the magnify function, so that I can see the whole frame, the peaking light is on far too long. It doesn't say that area is sharp when checked at 100%. It says is is sharp in a 4x6" print or something like that.
The focus indicator in a DSLR is much more precise, its light is only on if that area is really sharp.

Off course one can use the magnify function to get more precise peaking, but then you end up again klicking to set the magnification, klicking to move to the part of the frame you'd like to set sharp.

I'd like to have peaking like a foucs indicator: See the whole frame, and any area that shows thos epeaking is sharp at 100%.