Future of A mount

Specifically for the discussion of the A-mount DSLR range
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bfitzgerald
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Re: Future of A mount

Unread post by bfitzgerald »

Looks like the A99ii is still in high demand, perhaps unwise to stop production ;-D
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bfitzgerald
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Re: Future of A mount

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Quick update but from what I am seeing demand for A Mount bodies is
"High", compared to a year or two ago

Prices are "up" on bodies even the A77 in Europe is fetching €400 in some cases (10 year old camera), A77ii's are around €650+, and A99's are hard to come by. What there is is priced pretty high. Even the A900 is nowhere near as cheap as it should be (say v a Canon 5dii). Some of the older stuff is cheap enough (aka A200 and subsequent others A5xx series A700 is cheap enough usually). There are few A68's around used, and not even that many 57's or A58's. I wondered if it's down to new gear production issues or that electronics factory fire - not sure that explains it all though.

A UK dealer listed 5 A99ii's manufacturer refurbs (ie as new condition A1) for £2000. Full warranty. All sold out very quickly.
I have to call Sony out on this one and say, probably wasn't the smartest move to stop all production, but it's their loss as any of these used transactions = 0 revenue for the camera makers. Joys of the used market nothing in it for any manufacturer (only way to go IMO)

I could easily sell my A77's for profit and cash in, but as I have a full system I'm holding on to what I have.
Contrast a few years ago and people were whole scale offloading gear, and many were shifting systems (ie selling off lenses)

I don't think lens prices are up though least not that much, not from what I can see (perhaps some of the rare stuff). There are as ever a few "nut jobs" trying to sell 28-85mm Minolta for €150 (sigh never going to work!) or gouging on prices hoping to cash in. I got some real deals over the years so I have no complaints at all.

Even film 7's seem scarce and what's there is price way more than I paid for mine. I suspect people are holding onto their gear much more than they were in the past.
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Re: Future of A mount

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I picked up a Minolta 24-85 in mint with hood for £85, It looked it had been hardly used. Its difficult to assess the Sony market and what sells and what doesn't. There may be a small resurgence in Sony FF, but I suspect crop owners would be switching to the E System or just jumping ship, I suspect many old Minoltas film and digital are stored away and forgotten about. It was only about a year ago when we were all moaning about the lens price hike's on most brands.
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bfitzgerald
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Re: Future of A mount

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Hard to say but it seems the mass dumping has either taken place or just isn't happening. I see a lot less stuff on A Mount up for sale
That might be eBay's price changes for sellers or just a slump in stuff up for sale. There is no shortage of gear out there, it's not really as much as it was a few years back.
I can't see a place for A mount crop shooters to go, particularly sports/wildlife/action. The A6xxx series is completely different in body shape than the A mount ones. Unless people want video and adapting lenses, they are not very appealing bodies. My use of the A6300 has told me it's a nice tripod mounted camera, or video - and that's it really - unless you have some very compact lenses, the 2 pancakes Sony sell are not known for optical quality.

Sony are evidently coming out with another E mount crop body, using "sigh" the same body design again. They just can't seem to work out smaller isn't always better! Unless people splash the cash and get an A7RIV which might work for FF and crop due to the big mp count. It also works with the LAEA5. I personally have 0 interest in a 61mp camera. I'll probably sell on the A6300 if I don't have a need for video later on or testing stuff - I would certainly not swap out A Mount APS-C for E Mount, that's just me though.

Lens prices new are crazy, even third party way too high. It's one reason I think most people I know are not shifting at all to mirrorless (various mounts Canon mostly)
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Re: Future of A mount

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Some good points, but I suspect many A mount crop users have jumped brands, The kit lenses and some other E mount lenses are under performers and not worth the money, to get the best out of the E camera you need good glass and that is not cheap and an awful balance with any thing bigger, than a Pancake.

Don't like the E mount compacts, I had a A6000, horrible thing, OK, it took good pictures if you put good glass up front but It was not nice to handle. I prefer a M.4/3 to it. mainly Panasonic G series, some very good ergonomics on the G series.
The A7 series of cameras is crazy, a new model nearly every year Mk 1, 2, 3, 4 and so forth, I will, hang on to my A58 and 2 Minolta lenses just for a bit of nostalgic photography. Pentax were the highest hike on new lenses
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bfitzgerald
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Re: Future of A mount

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I'd imagine 4-5 years ago most did jump to other systems, it was fairly obvious for the last 6-7 years (and very obvious 4-5 years ago) that Sony had 0 interest in A mount. They had almost no marketing for the A77ii and very little for the A99ii. A few MkII SSM models and no new lenses for ages.
I saw the obvious system gaps back ages ago, and no intentions of filling them (aka 70-200mm F4, no 28mm prime, no 24-105mm, or 85mm F1.8, no crop UWA zoom just the original Tamron one). I do think some of the die hards have stocked up on gear and are holding onto it (you can count me in that category too!)

E mount got a ton of attention lenses and bodies. So nobody needed to be Mr Spock to figure it out - A mount was just a side show and they dribbled a few bodies out to I assume keep some people happy. I'm just glad I called time on new purchases when I got the A77 - I saw the slow train crash coming. There was no way I was buying new gear once they jacked the A77ii price up

It seems DPR and Petapixel have caught onto this with their dramatic news headlines, strangely about 7-8 months since we all knew that you couldn't buy anything new anyway (apart from a few bodies here and there they were out of stock and mostly discontinued). Will be interesting to see if Sony make a statement (as per DPR article they say they contacted them lol). I think the LAEA5 was the statement being honest. it's just a huge shame they crippled the adapter so it only works on a handful of (expensive) bodies. Just like the A99ii came out, and I'm sure it's a great camera - really I had 0 interest in it, 24mp is more than enough for me and I wasn't convinced it was a sign of future investment in A mount. I think some did see it as that, so perhaps in hindsight Sony could and should have been more upfront about things.

Future wise I'm sticking with what I have, I've played with the A6300 for a bit and it sticks around at the moment as a video camera mostly or test camera. What's on offer APS-C isn't convincing IMO to warranty a move to E mount natively. So I'll use what I have and hopefully over time some of those gems lenses drop more in price, and the A77/77ii/99's that turn up will be more than enough for my needs even many years down the road.

I will say the LAEA5 was handled very badly, what could have been a great adapter is just a sales gimmick to try to sell a few heavily overpriced IMO bodies. It is not what A mount users needed, and it's also disappointing Sony keep rehashing the same body designs crop and FF over and over again. There is no real innovation in design and ergos with E mount

All the SLR mounts are gone, it's just a matter of time. Canon are doing nothing on EF, Nikon might dribble a couple of bodies out. Pentax gave us a seriously overpriced DSLR that about 10 people will buy! The future is used gear, MILC systems are far far too expensive to invest in for most people

As I said before if they nail the tele thing for phones (I mean really get it done right) longer range and realistic blur, af tracking etc, possibly high res stacking for landscape stuff. I'm gone it's all going on eBay, bar maybe a few legacy lenses for film fun. I suppose the flash limitation could be a problem, maybe workarounds for that. Investing in something like that is a one hit wonder, v building a system from scratch is ultra expensive. If Canon came out with an IS body RP update reasonable price good sensor/AF etc, I'd pick up some nice EF lenses and adapt them. I wouldn't even think twice about E mount if that happened, I'd also be gone (tons of EF lenses about and tons of third party stuff)
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ValeryD
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Re: Future of A mount

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The end of the A format for Sony is fundamentally good news, at least for me personally. Very soon I will stop working, or rather I will shoot but a couple of orders of magnitude less. For this, the old a300 and a full-sized a99-2 are quite enough. I do not agree with the opinion that a99-2 is too many pixels and an expensive camera, no, it cost the money. The second among the A format for me is a77-2. Not even a99. But this is purely my opinion, a person who is primarily interested in reportage filming.
Well, as my future project, this is a cell phone with several lenses including a telephoto and a wide angle. Today, this is an excellent replacement for small cameras from Sony and other manufacturers, especially since all these photo giants have raised prices to exorbitant heights.
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Re: Future of A mount

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Personally, I'm saving up to jump brands. Sometime in the next two years I will be in the States and by that time I hope to have the cash laying around to buy a body and 2 or 3 lenses. The only thing I can guarantee is that it won't be Sony. I won't be selling my small bag of Sony stuff. It will hang around the house as a nostalgic reminder of how I got into digital. But it will also be a reminder of the transition to someone else. I still have the old a100 and have great memories of using it. That being said, soon Sony will only be that for me, memories. I repaired my a77ii once. Then it went bezerk again and so I bought an a77ii body used. But the new-to-me body doesn't like autofocusing with the Tokina 11-16mm and now the card slot gets finicky in the middle of a shoot. All of this is more than sufficient and I find myself wishing that I hadn't bought the secondhand camera body, but rather had saved the precious greenbacks for a different system altogether. As they say, hindsight is 20/20.
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bfitzgerald
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Re: Future of A mount

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To me the A99ii was not something I desired. I've no problems with more pixels but I do have a problem with no S or M raw. A silly omission
Likewise I have 0 interest in the A7rIV which is way too high pixel count again with no smaller raw options. Good adapter support is the only appeal
A99ii got no support one bug fix and that was it, couldn't see the point of investing in that when the writing was on the wall - perhaps for others it is different. SSM fuse problems? I read about those worrying! But all the Sony's have issues. A99 has good output, good DR and enough for me, not ideal for action but workable, not the best low light but again good enough. I can buy a lot of A99's for the price of one A99ii is it worth it?

Switching systems to what though? Nikon Z doesn't seem to interesting I tried on body Z6 didn't blow me away, lenses are expensive even the bog standard 50mm, no support for AF-D screw drive lenses for AF, limited 3rd party support on the adapter (some newer Tamrons)
Fuji X tried that dislike the Xtrans, poor rendering on lenses. FF E mount via the dated LAEA4 is not overly exciting but workable, only of interest with blow out prices I'm afraid (ie keep the lenses going)

Micro 4/3 questionable future, and I'm not sure where L mount is going either. Leaves only one place Canon R mount
Tokina 11-16mm requires AF adjustment on all the bodies I have, once done it's fine, only the A57 was spot on for AF even the adapter needs AF fine tune.
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Re: Future of A mount

Unread post by bakubo »

Sony removes remaining DSLRs from its website suggesting the A-mount is all but dead

https://www.dpreview.com/news/672842137 ... l-but-dead
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bfitzgerald
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Re: Future of A mount

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Let's not forget the classic Sony interview lol
https://www.dpreview.com/interviews/946 ... xperiences
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ValeryD
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Re: Future of A mount

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:lol:
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Re: Future of A mount

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From the interview: "In the long term, do you want those A mount customers to come over to E mount? - That depends on them."

I don't think they care what I do. Which I guess is a good thing since I want out.
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bfitzgerald
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Re: Future of A mount

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the_hefay wrote: Wed May 05, 2021 4:58 am From the interview: "In the long term, do you want those A mount customers to come over to E mount? - That depends on them."

I don't think they care what I do. Which I guess is a good thing since I want out.
Question is where you go then? I pondered it many times, yet was unable to find something that I liked
Of course I'm not you..but it's fairly big $$$ with a native MILC system, perhaps a bit less third party lenses.
Even Fuji X prices are quite high, you just can't replace some A Mount lenses (100-200mm F4.5 is a gem and a fraction of Fuji's equivalent lens cost wise)

I can't see a viable option unless it's EF including third party lenses to RF. That's assuming Canon come out with a more affordable body. R5 is very expensive, R6 isn't cheap either

The only other option is stick with what you have, or last gasp use the adapters for E mount (at least it works sort of, flashes too also work etc)
If I were buying now I really can't see a system that is ideal for me.

Some of the comments on DPR are interesting:
Seems the ergonomics issue is clearly there (many remarks on E Mount not being very good)
EF/F users seem under the illusion their mounts are good for much longer - I suspect they are wrong (Canon discontinued a lot of EF lenses already)
SLT's are not really DSLR's (small point but vaild!)
Most people miss the point of A mount - it was bang per buck adding IBIS to every lens - nobody else did that bar Pentax (much smaller base of lenses)

I did watch a Matt Granger video a while back (not usually a fan but it was interesting). He said he didn't switch to E mount because "Sony users are toxic". I would tend to agree some of the E mount users are toxic as hell. I was always puzzled with the looking down/A mount hate from many E mount users. Perhaps they would like the more comfortable handling, AF assist beam that actually works and doesn't annoy people, AF limiter and on axis LCD :mrgreen:

If I were buying new now had nothing I wouldn't buy Sony E - just purely on the design/style of the bodies
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Re: Future of A mount

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Barry!
There is such an expression: "... do not pour salt on my wounds, do not cry out ... my soul still hurts." :)
This is exactly what Sony is doing.
Well, seriously, Sony has set the direction and other companies have taken it, especially when it comes to hardware prices. The cost of making camera bodies has plummeted, and prices for optics have skyrocketed.
For Sony, this is a common practice: release something good, stop producing and start producing other products. From the very birth of this company. Examples include cassette tapes, cassettes, Sony trinitron TVs, mini CDs, DVDs, and the list goes on and on. :)
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