Sony Sony Breaks New Ground with A7 / A7R Announcement

ray my personal opinion is that some conflate their gear with their ego. anything that threatens the perceived 'top dog' staus of what they own somehow threatens their sense of self, of being a 'top dog' themselves. i personally cannot find another conclusion by which such animus can be drawn from inanimate objects that at their base are simply tools. its like ranting over the introduction of a new powersaw; just doesnt make sense unless something deeper is at play.

personally, i remain thrilled at the advance these cams mean for the industry, though quite honestly i am not nearly as excited about the a7r results ive seen as i thought i would be.
 
ray my personal opinion is that some conflate their gear with their ego. anything that threatens the perceived 'top dog' staus of what they own somehow threatens their sense of self, of being a 'top dog' themselves. i personally cannot find another conclusion by which such animus can be drawn from inanimate objects that at their base are simply tools. its like ranting over the introduction of a new powersaw; just doesnt make sense unless something deeper is at play.
Well, yeah, it happens everywhere and for many products and has probably been happening since the first two cave dwellers developed slightly different versions of the wheel.

I recognize it. But I still don't GET it...

I guess if you DEVELOPED the camera and your living is dependent on how it's received, I could sort of almost relate. But if you just USE IT and you have all the choice in the world about what to use, THAT I don't get...

Frankly it's been a while since I've seen any mid-to high end camera that I didn't think was pretty much jaw-droppingly awesome. I didn't buy most of them, but I'm happy to see how many great choices there are for all of our differing wants/needs...

-Ray
 
James the MC Rokkor lenses are all m42 screwmount.....one of the most common mounts of all time. There are a ton of adapters that will put any m42 screwmount lens and nearly any body you can imagine.... including m43, M mount or EOS mount.

The letters EX and BGN are KEH website abbreviations for condition. EX is as one would imagine excellent and BGN is a bragain (cosmetically no great but functions well....for people who shoot their lenses and don't care about appearances...... they also grade fairly conservatively)

They've got good detailed descriptions of what those terms mean - just click on the actual rating itself. But in short, BGN is Bargain, meaning it looks a little rough but works well. I've bought one BGN lens and one EX, and both were better than what they described. I've heard that from others as well... they rate them conservatively.

....ie What Luke Said.

Thanks very much for the explanation. I really wouldn't mind a 'bargain' lens, the way a lens cosmetically looks absolutely doesn't matter to me as long as the glass itself is in excellent condition.

I've seen the M42 mount mentioned here and there, particularly on the Camera Quest website but I've never been able to work out what it is. I thought it had something to do with a type of Leica M mount.

The issues about lenses that I am intimidated by are how some lenses don't resolve well or are not appropriate for certain types of cameras.

For example I remember reading that Canon FD lenses aren't suitable for modern digital cameras. I really don't know which ones also fall into this category.

The other thing that confused me was learning that you just can't mount some lenses on some cameras, for example Leica M lenses and Canon EOS EF lenses are never interchangeable on either camera bodies.

Another thing yet again is that some lenses require an active mount in order to gain access to aperture control.

So this is why I've been quite intimidated by buying and trying different lenses.
 
Here is lens mount info
Lens mount - Wikipedia

and flange focal distance info
Flange focal distance - Wikipedia

So FD lenses cannot be adopted to dslrs like Canon/Nikon that have longer focal distances but they can be adaptable any mirrorless mounts. As you said electronic mount lenses like EF needs a electronic pass thru adapter though there are mech ones w/ aperture ctrl on them. So main issue is matching longer one to shorter one and finding an adapter which is widely available in EF mount and mirrorless cameras... Shorter flange distance give more available system to adapt as long as lenses covers the sensor area, eg m43 doesn't cover nex/A7(R)...

It took me a while but I found the old photodo ratings which should be helpful to pick sharp older lenses (most probably tested on film):
Wayback Machine
http://www.cs.wustl.edu/~loui/photodobest.html

You can also search for specific lens, eg M42 Carl Zeiss Jena lenses or c/y Zeiss lenses have plenty of online reviews...
 
As you said electronic mount lenses like EF needs a electronic pass thru adapter though there are mech ones w/ aperture ctrl on them.

I know about those adapters with manual aperture control but I was reading in another forum that the placement of the aperture is not in an ideal location in the light path. I'm not sure how that affects IQ so that's why I've stayed away from those types of adapters.

Re the Canon FD lenses, Philip Bloom recommended to avoid them too:

"Avoid the Canon FD lenses. You need an adaptor with glass in it to make it work with the EOS cameras and they simply do not work well. Soft am afraid! A real shame as there are lots of affordable FD lenses out there…"

Quoted from here: http://philipbloom.net/2010/08/20/which-lenses-to-buy/
 
Re the Canon FD lenses, Philip Bloom recommended to avoid them too:

"Avoid the Canon FD lenses. You need an adaptor with glass in it to make it work with the EOS cameras and they simply do not work well. Soft am afraid! A real shame as there are lots of affordable FD lenses out there…"

Quoted from here: http://philipbloom.net/2010/08/20/which-lenses-to-buy/

That comment was made specifically in relation to mounting FD lenses on an EOS DSLR. There are no such issues with any mirrorless camera.
 
So........ I just bought a Leica M "LM" lens mount to Sony E mount adapter on eBay for AUD$10.18. Just in case I decide to jump on the Sony A7. I've learnt one of the major retailers here is doing a great deal, unadvertised.

After I bought the adapter, the eBay seller subsequently updated the price of the item on the eBay page to AUD$110.19.

I'm not sure what is going on there... I wonder if the original listed price was a typo, missing an extra "1".
 
When he says it's soft, is it applicable to video on the EOS only? That's the other part I'm not too sure of. I feel like it's a minefield trying to figure out the right thing that will work with my existing equipment.

An FD lens on an EOS body will require an optical element in the adapter to redirect the image circle of the lens since it will sit further from the sensor/film plane than it was designed to.
 
15 mps on the 7r crop mode. That's almost as many as most APS-C and m4/3 cameras in the market. Not too shabby.

Not sure about using m4/3 lenses on the A7r though. The lenses would cover even less than the cropped sensor. Not sure about flange distances either. Or aperture control. It would be kinda cool though if that was possible. A7r could be a jack of all trades!
 
I think that sometimes the idea of wanting to adapt all kinds of lenses to cameras goes too far. For instance, adapting older lenses designed for film makes sense when the only alternative is using them on a film camera. Putting a Micro 4/3 lens on anything other than a Micro 4/3 camera however does not, since one of the things that makes Micro 4/3 so good is the "system" as much as it is the individual components.
 
ah ok I see. So it's not the glass itself not being able to resolve the appropriate resolution, it's more of a mechanical/engineering issue due to the design of the camera and mount.

I don't think that there is any particular issue with Canon FD lenses in relation to resolution. I suspect that they stack up to any similar lenses of that era.

This is the 50mm f1.4 in the new FD mount, and bearing in mind that the E-M5 has a smaller pixel pitch than either of the Sonys which should make it more demanding on the sharpness of the lens.

10115293085_a5113cb91a_b.jpg

OEM5-PA060558-PR Olympus OM-D E-M5 Brisbane Australia by Nic (Luckypenguin), on Flickr



OEM5-PA060558-CROP_zps8182a037.jpg
Join to see EXIF info for this image (if available)




I would however still expect that the wide-angle FDs will suffer the same issues with edge performance on the A7 and A7R as has been found with other lenses that have been adapted to those cameras.
 
I think that sometimes the idea of wanting to adapt all kinds of lenses to cameras goes too far. For instance, adapting older lenses designed for film makes sense when the only alternative is using them on a film camera. Putting a Micro 4/3 lens on anything other than a Micro 4/3 camera however does not, since one of the things that makes Micro 4/3 so good is the "system" as much as it is the individual components.

Agreed. But if someone who has lots of m4/3 lenses feels like they will go to waste, so to speak, being able to use those lenses on the A7 in crop mode is still a nice option to have. The small size of the m4/3 primes is simply unmatched in terms of portability.
 
Back
Top