SAR: A77 update coming, no A65 update

[Birma]

Having read Thom's article I didn't see it as a complaint especially against Sony. The basic message that I took was that lenses were important to a interchangeable lenses camera system. Sure, Canikon have a huge catalogue of lenses. Good marketing. I suspect that 99% of us use 3 or 4 lenses most of the time. I don't see any mount that can't provide the basics. When you add in Sigma, Tamron and Samyang, to name just three, what are you missing? (T/S may be .). I think Thom's missive missed the point of mirrorless bodies being able to use just about any lenses, if you are in the 1% that must have a 58mm 1.4, or whatever.

Any camera system owner can sit down and say, "my mount is not going the direction I want it to, look what x are doing over there". I've seen just as many Canikon user complaints about the future of their mounts as Sony, Pentax and the rest.

Who knows, perhaps great glass with inbuilt sensors is the way forward, like the RX10

[bfitzgerald]

Birma I think the message from Thom was "be careful where you put your money" and take note of the many lens mounts out there right now. Not all of them are going to last.

He did have a punt at Sony for their not sticking to one product, that's quite clear. Looks to most as if they are putting everything on the back burner and pinning their hopes on FF E mount.

About using adaptors for lenses, fair point but consider this. This is 2014 and people want autofocus, buying some cheap MF glass and an adaptor is fine, but it's not what everyone wants. Can you mount Canon lenses with an adaptor and have fast AF, proper aperture control and IS?

Being able to use any lens is fine, but there are limitations to that. And it breaks the golden sales rule. If I buy a Gillette razor and can fit Wilkinson sword blades how are Gillette going to keep their profit margins high? I'm all for choice and we'd all love an open mount, but if I want to take my A mount glass and use it on a non Sony camera I can (with limitations) there is no lock in strategy, that's great for us..but for Sony I think they'll sell a lot less E mount lenses because of that.

And maybe folks want to just use their lenses on their chosen mount without any catches or having to buy adaptors. Just fit them and use them! That's why I find E mount not very appealing, as well as they don't really offer the type of bodies I'm looking for.

[bakubo]

As for Thom Hogan he has been throwing some harder punches at Nikon, and I think mostly deserved with the D600 and other QC issues fiasco. They really pulled a fast one on their customers there.

Did you see this?

Chinese government orders Nikon to stop selling D600

http://www.dpreview.com/news/2014/03/18 ... lling-d600

[classiccameras]

I bet Cannon are loving this.

[bfitzgerald]

I can't disagree. I think Nikon handled the problem very very badly from the start and let it drag on for a long time.
It seems they only start to play ball (ie offer a repair aka new shutter) when we get news of a lawsuit.

A good company will admit a problem and get it sorted, because whatever it costs to fix..you could lose a lot more money with customers who will never buy your products again. I've first hand experience of Nikon's dodgy QC, and I've seen enough D600 sensor dirt..and the D800 had AF problems too: to honestly want to never try another Nikon again. Nikon lost me as a customer after my problems and their service didn't fix it either.

If you add up over the next decade what I might have spent on Nikon bodies, lenses and other bits that could be a significant sum indeed.
You can never run away from a problem, it usually comes back to haunt you

I'd be willing to bet Nikon's D600 issues cost them the chance to overtake Canon in DSLR's

[Greg Beetham]

I think the thing you have to take on board about most short register and mirrorless systems is that they are to a large extent ‘second systems’ and they can use lots of non OEM lenses but not as well as the dedicated system can, so by extension they are a niche system basically, how big the niche is depends on how many people there are with a collection of lenses they want to try out and also take advantage of the reduced size of the bodies as compared to a regular DSLR if it doesn’t impact performance for that particular purpose.

Mirrorless cameras are capable of being a standalone system of course, like the Olympus system for example but you do see quite a lot of migration back and forth between systems these days, also I think many people have a main system and a smaller travel system as well.
The performance with non-system lenses makes cameras with the E-mount in either APS-C or FF a niche or special purpose mount for set piece type photography, they don’t work well enough with other brand lenses to challenge a dedicated system where split second AF and exposure is paramount.

The exception of course is E-mount cameras working with A-mount lenses via the relevant adaptors, they do work with those ok and that is probably the biggest threat to the survival of the A-mount now.

I don’t think DSLR ‘first’ systems are under any great threat of being replaced altogether by mirrorless ‘second systems’ yet because of the compatibility issues, if any of them arrive being fully compatible with Canon or Nikon mount lenses there might be more of a problem for the major OEM mounts.
Greg

[classiccameras]

I agree with most of what you say, but it remains to be seen in which direction Sony end up going. Continue with A mount or slowly phase it out in favour of E mount or run them in parallel. I'm sure Sony have had a close eye on how Olympus managed to ditch 4/3 mount and move over to M/4/3, during this transition they really put their advertising for the new mount into top gear. However they did lose quite a few fans to other brands on the way and I think they are still struggling to gain the ground they lost, i'm sure Sony are fully aware of this. The new OM-D 10 with a more sane price is exactly what Olympus needed to keep the M/4/3 system alive.
Seeing that Sony are the biggest share holder in Olympus, I'm sure there is some joint research going on. They did announce this last year saying they were jointly developing new lenses and sensor tech but they were no more specific than that. Could this be more E mount?
I really can't be bothered with adaptors, I want a system that doesn't need them.
Having Minolta A mount legecy lenses is a big plus for Sony and I would doubt they would want to jeopardise that, it would be suicide for them if they did.
As for a main system and a smaller lighter system for holidays, I gave the holiday idea up ages ago and bought a high end compact that would go in the pocket.

[bakubo]

I really can't be bothered with adaptors, I want a system that doesn't need them.
Having Minolta A mount legecy lenses is a big plus for Sony and I would doubt they would want to jeopardise that, it would be suicide for them if they did.

Did you ever get that A100 which ticked every one of the things on your requirements and wants list and as a bonus is really, really cheap these days?

[classiccameras]

Hi bak, I ended up with a 200, in mint condition and very low actuations.
It gets a bit noisy above 400 ISO, but the CCD sensor at 100/200 ISO is superb. Yes, cost me £110 from a dealer. I keep my Minolta 24-85 on it all the time.

[bakubo]

Hi bak, I ended up with a 200, in mint condition and very low actuations.
It gets a bit noisy above 400 ISO, but the CCD sensor at 100/200 ISO is superb. Yes, cost me £110 from a dealer. I keep my Minolta 24-85 on it all the time.

Good going. I don't recall exactly what changed from A100 to A200. I seem to recall there were, as usual with Sony, a few desirable things got added/changed and a few desirable things got taken away.

[classiccameras]

Not much really, some of the KM body design has disappear and a slightly larger sensor, 10.2 mp although its still a CCD. a slightly better noise control with a high ISO low noise switch, but its still noisy above 400 ISO! Un like some later Sony cameras, the metering and auto WB work very well as does auto focus. The OVF looks smaller.
Noise and the control of noise has been an issue with Sony ever since the A100, user adjustments have either been ineffective or completely absent and they never tackled the main issues. In its defense, pictures are superb at 100/200 ISO in bright sunny weather with noise free images and good DR in Jpeg.

[bfitzgerald]

The A200 does have a bit more noise than the Km5d at high ISO (as I've owned both), though there isn't a massive difference (ISO 3200 is really pushing it on both cams)
A quick tip... fairly simple, the Km5d exposes well in high ISO (ie gives much more exposure)

The A200 underexposes which is fatal for the CCD cameras (you can get away with it much more on the newer CMOS sensors)
For high ISO add "at least a stop" if not a bit more to the A200 exposure with multi segment metering. I shot side by side with the KM5d and A200 and the A200 was consistently giving between a stop and a stop and a third "less exposure" (ie faster shutter speeds) in low light. That's pretty much fatal for high ISO shooting.

If you adjust your exposure by a stop or so with the A200 you should be able to get very acceptable ISO 1600 shots from the camera (in raw) There is significant colour noise on the A200 at high ISO levels, this is greatly reduced with better exposures.

[bakubo]

If you adjust your exposure by a stop or so with the A200 you should be able to get very acceptable ISO 1600 shots from the camera (in raw) There is significant colour noise on the A200 at high ISO levels, this is greatly reduced with better exposures.

What is the point of using ISO 1600 with +1 EC instead of using ISO 800?

[bfitzgerald]

Less adjustment after the shot for one. It's just the way Sony underexpose (and have done for some time, though the A58 I tried seemed to give more exposure) just about every Sony I've used underexposes in low light.
A57 does, though not as much I'd add +0.7 by default or use CW metering in low light
If you have to pull every shot in post, then that's ok for a few shots but if you're shooting an event or a shoot with lots of images it quickly gets tiresome pretty quickly
It's not the end of the world, I don't mind somewhat cautious metering, but I think it's easier to just use exposure comp.

[classiccameras]

Most cameras tend to under expose slightly which gives more saturated colours. This is no bad thing as you can recover far more detail and DR from an under exposed image than a blown out one.