I shot this with Sony FE24-105mm f4G zoom.
Honestly, I hate this zoom and I do not want to use it much, but sometimes with other people I have no choice but forced to use it for most of my shots.
I cannot wait many of my colleagues or friends wait me stop and change lenses over and over every couple of blocks or so. So I really realize FM forum suggested MF and AF prime kits are only practical in an ideal world in where all your friends , colleagues and family members are photographers or deeply understanding of it.....or very cooperative for your photography or video works.
So I decided to start selling some of 'great but I cannot use often' kind of lenses in my bag.......and replace them with more PRACTICAL lenses such as this cheap f4 zoom.
Being a lens snob is great in a forum but in real life it makes people you love or feel important very frustrated or angry, I realize it during this New Years holiday week.
The near future state of FF ILC market 2 --Why camera review sites are now completely useless and better shun /ignore them(updated 4):
When a guy talked about his complex camera dilemma - the Canon R vs the Sony A7R3, many hyper sensitive Sony fanboys attack him personally and it of course became a name calling contest on the Sony forums. But the same question did not induce any really crazy name calling or personal attack on the Canon side of forums.
It is really strange Sony guys seem really hyper-sensitive and needlessly insecure and need others approvals of their choice of gear to be less insecure or actually happy. Anyone says anything positive about non Sony, they seem to freak out or come out extremely rude and ridiculously condescending, as though they all were suffering from a severe mental problem or two or even more.
They hate any one having a different view on their chosen gear or anything else, and keep telling others how superior their Sony kit is than all the other choices by repeating some what super Sony biased DPR reviews against the rest. And they tend to listen to whatever DPR reveiw says , but ignore many of real user voices of other brand systems.......
It is really becoming like a Sony camera cult.....It is really odd.
A few nights ago a guy talked about his dilemma between the EOS R vs the A7R3 in a Sony forum and many replied to him in an extremely condescending and snarky mannar like below, what shocked me and many others was most of their opinions on this Sony vs Canon issue is solely based on what DPR moronic reviewers' opinions on these.
"Apart from the extremely lousy review from DPR and others, an inferior sensor with inferior dynamic range and inferior resolution, markedly inferior autofocus, inferior tracking ability, no IBIS, no second slot, no eye-focus, and a very limited non-adapter lens selection, there is no reason not to get the Canon, unless you are a hopeless fanboy, lol!"
It is really sad to see this kind of people in many Sony gear forums, extremely childish and very condescending , extremely nasty person, almost as though he should have been in a mental hospital rather than in a camera forum chatting about cameras.
I wonder why many of Sony E mount fanboys are like this guy , so insecure and so condescending.....they never understand everybody has a different set of needs,and for some people especially those who are working with their camera gears in an extremely harsh environment , Sony is not a reliable choice sometimes due to the poor service quality of them and the poorest weather sealing in the business.
Plus, they all chant poor Canon sensors when Canon vs Sony issue brought up in any forum, but in real life they are more identical than different with a different set of pluses and minuses.
Only extreme fanboys do not see that.
An extreme Sony fanboys usually comment like below :
"Canon is going to have a hard time catching up with Sony because Sony makes 100s of millions of smartphone sensors. And then essentially just scales them up to camera size. Samsung also makes smartphone sensors so that is why they came up with the competitive nx1 sensor. But as far as I know Sony now controls over 50% of the smartphone sensor market too, so they are pretty close to a monopolist.
So until the technology matures, and honestly it is maturing, the 36mp D800E sensor is pretty much on par with current offerings as far as IQ is concerned, then I don’t think other providers have a chance."
Very stupid view , he is very wrong sensor production never works like this, and the truth is Canon makes just as many or more sensors for car industries, as Toyota, Honda and many others are Canon sensor users. And as Canon owns about 50 percent of the ILC market , they make more bigger sensors than Sony and as such they've just justified spending billions of dollars for their new sensor plants in Oita pref of Japan.
Those morons at DPR and other sites always claim because of their successful smartphone sensor business, their camera sensors are also great , BS. The bigger sensors are very different than their smaller tiny cellphone sensors and making many cheap tiny smartphone sensors do not make much money, the APSC and the FF sensors are much more expensive and so Sony has to sell 100 or more of the tiny sensors to Apple , Google , etc, to match the profit from one FF sensor sold to Nikon. So Nikon is still the biggest customer of the Sony Semi and therefore they cannot just screw Nikon, let alone kill Nikon by deliberately providing shitty sensors to them(as many of Sony fanboys believe Sony eventually do ) although they probably want to do it. For Sony Corp, Sony Semi is a much more important part of Sony group company than Sony Imaging or DIP, and as such their business with Nikon is quite much more important than with the Alpha division.
So actually, what they are doing to Nikon is persuading Nikon to stay with them(not planning to stop sensor supply to Nikon) , but the chances are Nikon will ditch Sony sensors very soon since they have already announced their2019 short term business plans in which they have clearly said they would use TPSCo sensors and their next Z models will have that.
So Sony's current situation in FF mirrorless market is not as strong as many think it is, they are already losing a lot of sales to Z and R and many Sony fanboy tend to intentionally or I don't know but dismiss is the D-SLRs are still outselling the mirrorless by 2 to 1......
Also, their so called superior lens lineup is not that superior to anything else.
Yeah there are more lenses , but the quality is not great, only those Loxia and some expensive GM are great. But main stream camera buyers in real life(not forum gear heads) do not even consider the GM or manual focus only Voigtlander or Loxia.
Without that Loxia and Voigtlander , Sony system is nothing really special, and does not even appeal to many of those extreme gearheads.
Yeah maybe great on paper, but in real life, it is just another boring me too camera system with a very restricted small mount.
The very paranoid insecure Sony diehards at many mirrorless forums have to chant in every area , on every level , Sony is the best and on paper it seems really right - especially if you believe DPR or that kind of junk review sites.
But in real life , it is not that simple, as I know many of people especially those living outside of Japan, US, or China do need a reliable camera service network.
I know many people own both the R and the A7R3 or MK3 and I tried their R many times to compare it against my Sonys because each of them had a somewhat different opinion on the Canon R than those very negative Sony biased online reviews. Also those people owning both Canon and Sony seem to actually prefer, or at least enjoy shooting wiht the Canon R more than their slow laggy A7R3....
Also , apart from their positive opinions on the Canon , there are a number of quite valid reasons why someone looking for a mirrorless FF camera might choose to purchase the EOS-R and not the much superior Sony (according to Sony fanboys).
I can give one from my personal experience. I’ve had to use the customer service from both Canon and Sony at least twice each in the past. Without question, Canon’s customer service is light years ahead of Sony’s. Sony’s was so bad that I avoided Sony products for years after that whenever possible. It was such that when I was looking for a backpacking camera in 2013, I was very hesitant to buy the Nex-6 because of my experiences with Sony Customer Service. Had Canon had a close competitor available to the Nex-6 as a backpacking camera at the time, I’d have bought the Canon or maybe a Fuji , instead.
I use Sony cameras now since I have spent so much money into that poorly designed gimmicky camera system and there is not way I can accept losing almost 10 k US dollars or more selling all of these to move out of the system. So in my case, I do never love or like Sony , or even never turst Sony but I am kind of stuck in their system with too many lenses and depreciated bodies.
I am a long time Sony camera customer, not like those very loud Sony diehards at DPR or Luminous Lansscape who are originally other brand users and recently switched to Sony, so I have so many accessories like proprietary remotes , flashes, hot shoe adapters , etc, that I can never sell , so I have no choice but staying with Sony for a few more years or so..
But if I were starting this up from scratch now, I would choose Canon or Nikon, not Sony even though I like some of their GM glass, Loxia and Voigetlander lenses......
So many of us are really honestly praying their customer service will eventually improve and eventually get the level of the Canon service or that of Nikon or even Fuji....
But over the last 10-12 years or so, their camera service network has never improved , never got any better besides the expensive Sony pro service system in Japan.
But their pro service is very expensive , they ask almost 3 times more than Canon's excellent CPS for their mediocre service.
So if I were a fulltime event or wedding shooter I would never even touch Sony , I really dislike the local Sony service guys and I feel them discriminating my Zeiss and Voigtlander lenses when I bring my A7R3 or R2 for any type of service there.
They always ask me why I am using such an obscure brand lens ? Zeiss is an obscure brand?
Are they crazy? Why can they be so arrogant? To me Zeiss is a much more respectable brand than Sony , so please do not call Zeiss or Voigtlander as an obscure brand.
So why there has to be this silly mockery ?
If you want all of us to use Sony branded lenses all the time, why do you call it an open mount system?
I really get discriminated when I send a Sony camera in with a Zeiss or a Voigt lens , when I send it in with one of my GM lenses, they do a bit better service , though.
For me , if I did not spend this much of money into my Sony system, I think I would prefer the Nikon Z for a few reasons.
Also, I strongly believe that their mount advantage is huge , nut because that allows them to design a lens like the Z58mm f0.95 but the Z50mm f1.8S or the 24-70mm f4S.
The 24-70mm f4S is an amazing lens for the size and the price, it is extremely sharp wideopen for a such a compact mid range zoom.
The 50mm f1.8S is truly outstanding, as good or even better than the expensive Sony FE50mm f1.4ZA , albeit a stop of light loss.
The Sony FE55mm f1.8ZA is a CA monster compared to the new Nikon lens.
Sure spec wise, Sony cameras lenses are great, but there are always hidden usability penalties in any Sony camera and or lens..........even the A7R3 is slow to start up with a poor low quality EVF for example.
Their so called weather sealing is another joke! Useless in a real harsh environment.
How many times it freezes up in a cold mountain when the battery starts depleting.
But then why DPR etc never talk about it?
Well, there are a few reasons:
1 they are Sony fans.
2 they don't test cameras seriously in real life scenarios.
3 they do not test cameras more than a week or two, so they do not know any real weaknesses of the Sony toy.
4 they do not shoot it in a small mountain side village near Lake. Ontario or like that. They are based in Seattle, not even NYC or Chicago. Seattle is relatively a warm city.
5 I think they do not know Sony cameras very well, not as much as we real users using it for many years every day, for sure.
That is why their super biased Sony vs Canon vs Nikon opinions are,baseless, pointless and useless........... it is just a on paper spec sheet based opinion.....nothing more.
If they are even trying to be a bit fair to Canon , they would never call the R an entry level camera since it is not. It is obviously designed to replace the 5D series, everybody actually used it for a week or longer can see that.
Maybe it is not that attractive on paper, but in real life use it is very reliable , operates fast and normally even in an extremely cold mountain. The EVF seldom gets frosted, my Sony EVF always gets frosted in a winter mountain.
The ergonomics are almost perfect as opposed to what DPR clueless crew write in their poorly conducted EOS R review. Even with thick gloves on I can use that camera easily, I can never say the same for the Sony.
Sure many Sony fanboys say ergonomics is just a matter of one's personal taste , I thought so too, but it is not. I always thought those posts about terrible Sony ergonomics were exaggerated as after all you tend to get to know and become familiar with a particular camera. But the EOS R and the Nikon Z have taught me I was wrong they both have better ergonomics. No question about it.
Firstly the grip. Its at 90 degrees where it meets the body the Sony is at something like 105 degrees. The Canon's is deeper and more cushioned and cleverly curved at the top.
So the Canon feels much better in a normal human hand. I think the Sony is specifically designed for a super tiny scrawny Japanese woman with a tiny set of hands...........it makes my hands really hurts when I have to use it handheld over a hour.
In addition to that, the Canon has an excellent touch screen which is just like using a smartphone. It works really well. Sony's touch screen is crude and only really works on AF touch points. It does not drag well. The Canon LCD is quite a bit larger and much higher res (2.1million dots versus 921K).
Sony's LCD and EVF are very crappy, maybe the worst in the business.
If the DPR ,etc are really honest , they would have to mention about these kinds of things in their comparative reviews, but they do not. So now you know how useless and disgracefully insincere their so called reviews really are.
DPR criticizes the R for its price and calls it an overpriced entry level body compared to the Nikon Z and Sony A7MK3.
But as I tried to explain it above , it is not a very fair view on these cameras.
Despite the Sony-centric opinions of the DPR crew - and the opinions of the hordes of Sony fans who post on these forums which strongly express their disapproval of the R - as a real user of the camera(now I own the Sony A7R3 , the A7R2, the EOS R and the Nikon Z6(Z7 is too expensive especially as I also need a few XqD cards), I think it is a very fine camera(more refined than any Sony). It has several features and qualities better than the mid-level - or even higher-level - competition, but with several deficits from which the competition doesn't suffer. And to me it feels the best and most durable with proper quality weather sealing.
The proper weather sealing and great actually functioning LCD and EVF are expensive.
It really strange to me that Sony,as one of the largest TV and LCD panel suppliers in the world,cannot put a decent quality touch screen on any of their expensive Alphas.
Sony's touch screen is always the worst and their terribly designed AF joystick feels very fragile. But no so-called pro reviewers talk about it , obviously there is some political or business reason to avoid it. Maybe their biggest sponsor is Sony, or for some reasons,or with some agendas they want to make Sony win this game?
The conspiracy aside , still I must say DPR and many similar review sites have changed a lot for worse over the last decade or so, and now I am sure many of us honestly questioning their eligibility and their ability and talent to be able to design and actually do all the needed tests in a lab and in real life field. I personally think they are not eligible....
There are much more talented and knowledgeable people like Jim Kasson, Bill Claff and some other people I do not remember their names of out there testing many cameras lenses without silly bias against a particular manufacture.
And both Bill and Jim provide their excellent and really technical articles free(without silly ad and commercials like many silly YouTube channels and DPR kinda sites).
Finally, please do not take me wrong I am not saying the EOS R or the Z is better than the Sony A7R3.
And I will not switch to any of these now , but I may look to switch to the next Canon mirrorless body when they release over 40mp sensor model.
I tried and actually bought the R and owned it for a few days. And I liked it a lot despite of my initial very negative views on that camera due to the useless reviews from so-called experts misguided me.
It felt very fast , I found its touch screen AF is the best implementation of touch screen I have ever used-I think it is just as good and easy to use as my iPhone or Google Phone.
In addition , Canon is putting out some of the very best lenses in their class for years.
Honestly both their small and cheap lenses like the cheap 40mm f2.8 and their high end lenses like the excellent and comparatively small EF24-70mm f2.8 L MK2 USM for instance.
Their lenses are least expensive in comparison (compare their 24-70mm f2.8 L2 to the Sony GM version or the even more expensive Nikon AF-E). Their first RF offerings--particularly the 50mm f1.2 and the RF28-70mm f2- are gorgeous, while the new RF24-105mm f4 and RF35mm f1.8 IS are super affordably priced super practical lenses.
Remember the age old adage you buy into a system for its glass, and with such logic , I would bet on Canon and Nikon , and even Panasonic would soon surpass Sony.
Then some people tell us ," well we just use legacy lenses", sure it is fine,but actually for those legacy lenses , the Sony system is the worst of all the current FF mirrorless offerings because of the needlessly thick sensor stack glass.
So the better thought-out thin but strong sensor stack glass of Nikon and Canon with the sensor shutter dust protection system actually works much better with old glass.
Therefore, Sony will lose quite a few of their current users who use mostly or only legacy glass.
But I think I would have bought the Z7 if Nikon put a SD card slot on that body. I really hate the XQD card, and the idea of buying it and so I reject the camera but if it had an SD slot, I would have preferred it to both the Canon and the my own Sony cameras.
So now I decide not to buy any expensive Sony or Batis lens that loses too much of its resale value in a very short time.
UPDATE1: Many so-called professional reviewers think Sony has a huge advantage in lens lineup and system maturity in the FF mirrorless market right now, but I think their lead in this area is actually quite small. I am sure Voigtlander , Tamron, Sigma will be releasing all lenses that they have already produced for the E and Canon Nikon D-SLR mounts for the Nikon Z and Canon R mount quite soon, So they will get a lot more lenses over the next couple of years.
In addition to the new third party lens offerings in both the R and the Z systems, Nikon and Canon have already announced they will release more than 7 quality new mirrorless optimized lenses over this year 2019.
And all of these companies have better anti- flare coating techs than that of Sony GM,so even if, Sony may still have more lens choices than the new Z and R systems even a year from now, the quality of many of their lenses are questionable, especially their mid to low end offerings are plain lousy.
So in terms of quality, maybe in a matter of a year or so both Nikon and Canon will catch up with the Sony E mount system, even without the presence of the major third party lens makers like Voigtlander, Zeiss , Samyang, Sigma and Tamron.
As for the body maturity, even the third generation Sony FE is just as matured as the Canon and Nikon first attempts in the FF ILC market. In fact, many honest reviewers and real users of the A7MK3 and A7MK3 see even the A7R3 still very much like a beta testing stage camera than anything else. Sure the A7MK3 is a tiny bit more matured product than the R3, but still really awkward and kind of crude - not a really refined product at all.
Some even think it has no AF advantage over the R at all especially in lowlight. I personally think the A7MK3 AF in video is till useless and in that regard Canon and Panasonic are both quite much better(more reliable) than any Sony E mount body.
So if Sony's third generation camera is just as good as the very first R or the Z, then how long will they be able to keep the lead they currently have over the CN ?
Maybe not very long? Also, there will be the Panasonic S1 series( designed based around the GH tech) coming very soon, and as such it will be a very matured mirrorless tech even at the very start of the series.
So despite of Sony fanboy reviewers' overly positive view of the current Sony E mount system situation- Sony is invincible or the new mediocre Nikon and the Canon FF mirrorless systems have really made them relieved and now they feel the new CN systems are really having a tough uphill battle against the E mount system, Sony's actual lead in this market is very small already and its market share in this segment of ILC market has been steadily plummeting down to almost the level of their original A mount system.
And as Panasonic actually releases their first pro level FF cameras in this Feb, the E mount share will be plummeting down even further....so the chance of E mount gaining its market share will be much smaller than losing a lot of it to Pana , Nikon , Leica and Canon over the next couple of years.
I think Sony and its fanboy community really underestimate the L mount consortium , but many believe it will be marketed directly at the top class CN PJ bodies like the 1DX and the D5 , with more resolution and more modern video features.
So it will not be a cheap or very affordable system for most but it will be the best FF mirrorless system with most innovative and matured mirrorless or hybrid camera tech. available.
UPDATE2: Nikon has just announced the Z14-30mm f4 S lens price at this CES and it is really incredible.
I mean it is a super bargain lens, I can not really understand why so many people complaining about its price at the 1299 bargain price ?
Some say the 14-24mm f2.8 costs just a bit more than it, so it is overpriced..... But the reality is the new Z14-30mm f4S is a much better lens than the aged 14-24mm f2.8 , with a bit wider more convenient range.
In addition to that, it takes a normal 82mm filter.
So I am sure many Sony people will move to Nikon system just for this lens and the tiny but super sharp 35mm f1.8S.
I am personally considering it too, since my current most used lens or main event and architecture lens is the FE16-35mm f2.8GM and I know I prefer the 14-30mm range to that boring 16-35mm range. I am a wide angle person and for me the 14-30mm with a normal 82mm filter design is an ideal lens , it may replace many lenses in its range and it is much cheaper than the awkward FE12-24mm f4G Sony lens with the fragile bulbous front element design.
Now, I decided to sell one of my 3 A7R3 and FE16-35mm f2.8GM and get a Canon EF16-35mm f4L IS plus the Sigma MC11 adapter and never get any more additional lenses for a few more months.....I think it is really risky to spend more money for my Sony kit now.
If Sony fails , they will become just obnoxious paperweights.....and no one will buy any of these, as they are all short flange design mirrorless lenses, they cannot re-use on a new system.
UPDATE3: Sony's terrible service and support network is now really forcing me to reconsider everything.
I updated my A7R3 FW from the version 2.0 to the 2.1 last night and I got a serious problem.......the new FW reset my camera to the out of the factory state, so I had to re-customize everything and it took me a hour or a bit more last night.
So I am pretty pissed.
Also, another issue I had last night was that the camera did not recognize my normal USB-C cable that I normally use for my phones, so I had to look the Sony proprietary one in the original A7R3 box and used it for the update.
Another serious Sony specific issue is that they did not allow me to use SD card for updating firmware. Why don't they just allow me to choose either download it into a SD card or on my PC? All other companies do that.
And also those A7R3 sold here in Japan do not have English or Chinese menu choice, I sometimes let my friends use my camera and they are all foreigners working here and they do not understand Japanese. So why Sony do not let us use a few or more language options?
Only Sony does this sort of silly system restrictions.
Panasonic used to do the same, but now their cameras sold here have at least 4 languages ; Japanese, English, French, Chinese.
Canon also has 3 or 4, so does Nikon. Fuji and Olympus has 28 languages and you can choose one or two from these options.
Why does Sony have to be so close minded? And arrogant ?
Although they are telling all of us that they are all ears in every interview they get at DPR, IR, Ephotozine, etc, they just never actually listen to any one but DPR morons.
I am seriously disappointed with Sony and I am going to replace all my GM lenses with something else like the EF equivalents. I think it is the safest way to play this risky silly FF mirrorless game.....because I do not know which mount I will be using in the next year or a year after that.
This year, I have no choice and I have to use my 7 A7X cameras , but next year if Canon or Nikon or Panasonic brings out something better , I will definitely move over to their camp.
UPDATE4: I think the main reason many so-called reviewers cannot say anything drastically different than what most of reviewers before them say about on any camera is that Nikon and Sony fanboys really cannot take anything mildly critical on their systems, and they are scared to be labeled as biased or ignorant..
A hour after Steve Huff reviewed the Z6 and he spoke(probably) honestly about why he disliked the feel of the body and the ergonomics of that body compared to the EOS R and the A7M3, an army of Nikon fanboys came onto his site and his YouTube and many of them criticized him being the most biased reviewers.....some even insulted his personality and dogs and his concert photography works.
That's just too much, Huff may be biased towards Canon and Sony since he has been shooing these for a few months now ,but then he was a Nikon shooter as well in his D-SLR and Rangefinder days.
So I think he is quite fair to any one, just a bit more honest than the other reviewers and frank about it.
To those Nikon and Sony fanboys any one say anything positive about Canon, Panasonic, Fuji or Leica is extremely biased or dishonest, any way. And so most of reviewers just write more positive about Nikon or Sony than anything else, they are too worried about losing face or their reputation as reviewers.
You really rarely almost never find any honest reviewer online these days. But Steve seems to be one of these rare honest reviewers.
When Steve Huff review the Z6 and he spoke about he dislike the body feel and ergonomics compared to the EOS R, then army of Nikon fanboys attacked on him and many of them criticized him being the most biased reviewers.....some even insulted his personality and dogs and works.
That's just too much, Huff may be biased towards Canon and Sony since he has been shooing these but then he was a Nikon shooter as well in his D-SLR and Rangefinder days.
So I guess he is quite fair to any one, just a bit more honest than the other reviewers and frank about it.
To those Nikon and Sony fanboys any one say anything positive about Canon, Panasonic, Fuji or Leica is extremely biased or dishonest, any way. And so most of reviewers just write more positive about Nikon or Sony than anything else, they are too worried about losing face or their reputation as reviewers.
These days it is very difficult to criticize any Sony or Nikon since the army of their fanboys attack him or her if any reviewer says anything negative about any of Sony or Nikon cameras. Steve has just done that right, and I think he deserve some serious respect for that.
