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Iain



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I am impressed with the Sony A9 but the menu system!!!

Eric



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Iain wrote:
I am impressed with the Sony A9 but the menu system!!! Yup you HAVE to make your own MY menu of key parameters for easy rapid recall.

The good (but expensive) news is… they changed it on the A1. It’s much much better.

I would keep an eye out for upgrades to the A9 body. I am certain they will transfer the A1 menu system to the next A9 generation.

Iain



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I read that Eric. I'm sorting out what I need to change in the menu and that should be that, maybeo.O :lol:

Graham Whistler



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Ian you should be very happy with that I have a family member with one and he is a serious photographer and advised me to go Sony and A1. All good news but agree about menus. I now have 5 Sony lenses and all have very good autofocus and are pin sharp. The Judge at our local camera club the other night said my pictures are too sharp!!!! This was the photo, A1 with 200-600mm lens plus x1.4, he also said he did not like the out-of-focus background.

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Eric



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The only annoyance I have encountered with Sony is the 100-400 lens. Really sharp fast focus lens but why oh why does it have a creeping zoom?

Seriously, in this day and age to have a prestige lens ‘zooming itself’ when you hang the combo downward. That was a problem with amateur zooms back in the 80s, to find it on this lens was a frustration. A self moving zoom is a pain.  Doesn’t happen on the 200-600….so why the 100-400?

Eric



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Graham Whistler wrote:
Ian you should be very happy with that I have a family member with one and he is a serious photographer and advised me to go Sony and A1. All good news but agree about menus. I now have 5 Sony lenses and all have very good autofocus and are pin sharp. The Judge at our local camera club the other night said my pictures are too sharp!!!! This was the photo, A1 with 200-600mm lens plus x1.4, he also said he did not like the out-of-focus background.

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I confess Graham, I am not a fan of the complete fuzzed out backgrounds either.:hardhat:

I mentioned this a while back on the shots that Jeff did of the shorteared owl ‘suspended’ in a featureless gel like background. It seems like a modern trend as lots of people do it.   Personally I like more habitat detail albeit a tad out of focus, in the background.

Iain



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Graham Whistler wrote:
Ian you should be very happy with that I have a family member with one and he is a serious photographer and advised me to go Sony and A1. All good news but agree about menus. I now have 5 Sony lenses and all have very good autofocus and are pin sharp. The Judge at our local camera club the other night said my pictures are too sharp!!!! This was the photo, A1 with 200-600mm lens plus x1.4, he also said he did not like the out-of-focus background.

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It will be a bit by bit change for me. Its good to see that the TC works so well with the 200-600. I like the OOF back ground.

Eric



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Iain wrote:
It will be a bit by bit change for me. Its good to see that the TC works so well with the 200-600. I like the OOF back ground. I am not saying the background shouldn’t be out of focus. I just like to see more detail rather than a ‘colour wash’ effect.

To me this effect is unnatural…..not the sort of bokeh you would get from a wide open lens.



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This is a much more natural look, with a semblance of discernibility in the background….




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To me it is the difference between photography and painting. 

We capture the image in front of us….a painter has poetic licence to ‘make bits up’.

Digital software enables us to grey the delineation between what we actually see with our eyes and what we decide to see through effects.

Just a personal feeling.

chrisbet



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Yes - very personal, I find the first has to little detail in the background and the second too much!

Eric



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chrisbet wrote:
Yes - very personal, I find the first has to little detail in the background and the second too much! Agreed. There wasn’t enough separation between subject and background in the image I used, and the background was very busy. I also went ott with the blur mask.

But without some degree of definition in the background the bird loses its connection with the habitat and as my friend Mike asserts ‘it becomes a postage stamp’. I suppose I agree with him.

Iain



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It is personal choice. I go for the oof background because they sell as mags etc can put wording over it.

Iain



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It is amazing me how you can buy a Sony mirrorless camera put a lens on it and get sharp pictures without any AF adjustment. Just bought a 24-70 Sony lens put it on the A9, sharp pictures.

Eric



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Iain wrote:
It is amazing me how you can buy a Sony mirrorless camera put a lens on it and get sharp pictures without any AF adjustment. Just bought a 24-70 Sony lens put it on the A9, sharp pictures. In fairness I never had AF issues with Nikon lenses, apart from the early days of digital when they seemed to have a lot of QC issues.
Conversely, every Sigma lens Ive tried needed AF adjusting.

I suspect the Leica historical connection with Sony has set the quality benchmark.

Iain



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I was never as lucky as you Eric, most of the Nikon lenses I had needed AF adjusted they were either front or back focusing.
Maybe it was because I was shooting small birds with long lenses and narrow dof.

Eric



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Iain wrote:
I was never as lucky as you Eric, most of the Nikon lenses I had needed AF adjusted they were either front or back focusing.
Maybe it was because I was shooting small birds with long lenses and narrow dof.
Actually Iain, that’s a good point which makes me correct my assertion.
The only long Nikon lens I owned was the 500pf when I started bird photography, and that was fine.
The 100-400 lens I tried prior to that was poor and I sent it back. Before that I wasn’t photographing anything longer than 200mm….so probably wasn’t as critical.

jk



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I think some of the Nikon focus problems was the transition from MF to AF.
With MF you could always use the human error excuse, with AF the expectation is that the image should be sharp.  With improving AF methods this gets better and better but it is still possible to kid the AF on occasions e.g. shooting through double/triple glazing.
I guess that it is expectation setting.
I would contend that if you could do a side by side comparison of the latest and greatest from Canon, Nikon, Sony that you would find that there was nothing in it except a huge hole in your wallet.

I can remember the handwringing and frustration many went through in the period from D1 (September 1997) through to introduction of D3 (October 2007), regarding FX in Canon compared with DX only in Nikons until the D3.  I recently revisited some of my Nikon D2X images.  Super sharp but only 12MP and with much worse noise than current cameras.   Same with the D600 (24MP), D800 (30MP).
I have to say that whilst I can appreciate bird photos I dont shoot that many bird images as I prefer people and landscapes.

I see the same now with AF.  It is really an expectation management issue with the media setting false expectations that every camera will be equally capable at the same time rather than development lifecycles eventually synchronising as certain technology becomes ubiquitous.

I think that Sony certain led the field in AF as Fuji did with mirrorless.   Everyone 10 years ago said mirrorless was not as good as DSLR.  Are there any leading edge DSLRs these days?  No.  Mirrorless was the future in 2012 and that is the what we have now. 10 years of technology improvement has changed our view.

Next big technology is the 'global shutter' that will kill off the mechanical shutter.
It is not quite there now but before 2030 I expect it to be in every camera.

Eric



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jk wrote:
I think some of the Nikon focus problems was the transition from MF to AF.
With MF you could always use the human error excuse, with AF the expectation is that the image should be sharp.  With improving AF methods this gets better and better but it is still possible to kid the AF on occasions e.g. shooting through double/triple glazing.
I guess that it is expectation setting.
I would contend that if you could do a side by side comparison of the latest and greatest from Canon, Nikon, Sony that you would find that there was nothing in it except a huge hole in your wallet.

I can remember the handwringing and frustration many went through in the period from D1 (September 1997) through to introduction of D3 (October 2007), regarding FX in Canon compared with DX only in Nikons until the D3.  I recently revisited some of my Nikon D2X images.  Super sharp but only 12MP and with much worse noise than current cameras.   Same with the D600 (24MP), D800 (30MP).
I have to say that whilst I can appreciate bird photos I dont shoot that many bird images as I prefer people and landscapes.

I see the same now with AF.  It is really an expectation management issue with the media setting false expectations that every camera will be equally capable at the same time rather than development lifecycles eventually synchronising as certain technology becomes ubiquitous.

I think that Sony certain led the field in AF as Fuji did with mirrorless.   Everyone 10 years ago said mirrorless was not as good as DSLR.  Are there any leading edge DSLRs these days?  No.  Mirrorless was the future in 2012 and that is the what we have now. 10 years of technology improvement has changed our view.

Next big technology is the 'global shutter' that will kill off the mechanical shutter.
It is not quite there now but before 2030 I expect it to be in every camera.
By 2030?
A lot can and will happen in 8 digital years. Some of us will be pleased just to read about it. :lol:

Iain



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Eric wrote:
By 2030?
A lot can and will happen in 8 digital years. Some of us will be pleased just to read about it. :lol:
:lol: The way things are going with Russia we might be lucky to see 2023 never mind 2030.

chrisbet



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Maybe now we will rue the demise of TSR2!

Iain



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I have added to my Sony bag with a A7R mkiii to give me a high resolution body. I afraid I'm one of quite a few that have left the Nikon camp because of Nikon's mirrorless poor AF for wildlife.

Graham Whistler



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Ian I am also 100% happy with my Sony A1

jk



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The Z9 performance is excellent but the price is high!
I dont know what the performance of the Z7ii is like for BIF but it wont be on par with Sony A1.
Nikon really need the Z8 (Z9 but without the big battery, bit like D700 was to D3).

The new Fuji XH2S is now up there with the Sony A1 and Nikon Z9 and being APS-C it has better reach for telephotos.  In addition Fuji has release a 150-600 which has fast focusing as well, so it is equivalent to a 225-900mm on Z9.


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