When I was leaving out of Hokkaido, I collected 3 dead Sony GMaster lenses , 2 dead Nikon Z cameras and 3 dead Z lenses.
I realized that Nikons are just as fragile weak as Sonys, or even worse. And their service is the worst in the business at least in Japan. They did not even provide a free truck to pick up my broken gear and send these to Tokyo area to fix all for free all of that Sony just did for free without questioning anything. And to my surprise, Sony even sent them back to me in a matter of just a few days. Excellent service.
I am very impressed with Sony after sells service and support team this time.
The near future state of the MILC market 6--the reality of the Sony vs the Nikon vs the Canon FF mirrorless in the year 2019-2021 period(updated 2):
I have long been debating this and I finally come to decide I will completely ignore all so-called reviews on any camera but test everything with my own money and models and plants and like that at my own studio and in real life.
So I just ended up temporarily buying and keeping a EOS R and a Nikon Z7 in addition to my Sony kit(I have 6 A7RX currently) and I have done many extensive comparison tests in many different shooting scenarios. I believe it is the only one way to know these cameras in real world scenarios.
No amount of reading trashy biased reviews or watching YouTube videos really do anything for us any one. They are just programmed to brainwash people with a certain kind of politically corrected view of cameras that some review sites believe in like a religion.
Seriously , those reviews are not just useless but also really dangerous since these are designed to brainwash people with one brand is much better or innovative than the rest type of crazy notion that is not the case. There is no neutral review, none, even one.
All are extremely biased either deliberately designed to be so, or just plain biased without realizing they are biased. Either way they are all useless.
So I really hate all these objective review sites since they are nothing about objective, but they think they are, so they are more harming and more badly influencing than any biased reviewer like Ken Rockwell or Michael Reichemann. They are at least openly biased, so you just decide to ignore them or trust them even before you waste your time on reading them, but sites like DPR, Luminous Landscape and all major Western camera sites claim they are objective, that is the problem.
Just be honest, you are all super biased........
Anyway there are definite pluses to all the three systems and if you claim objective yourself you must realize that. No one brand system is really vastly better than the rest.....if you cannot see that, then you are biased. Just admit it......
Sure I am not any expert on the R or the Z just yet, since I've just had them in my camera bag for a week or so( with a couple of lenses for each), while I've been shooting my Sony A7R2 and R3 for a few years already....and I know the E mount system very well as I have been a Sony user since about 2007(my first Sony camera was the A350).
So it may not be a 100 percent fair to the R and the Z, but I at least try to be honest and objective on this issue.
Any way, here are some quick comparison points from someone who owns and actually uses the three FF mirrorless systems and has no fish to fry about either.........
1 EVF: Here I think the Nikon Z wins hands down, sure the A7R3 and R fanboys claim they are all about equal in this regard, but they are not.
The Z7 view finder is crystal clear, sharp , very very good without any foggy view.
This one was the very first EVF I felt it as smooth as the best OVF in my A900.
And it has much better resolution than the best OVF.
So it is like a child of the best OVF ever made and the best EVF ever produced in the Leica SL.
IMHO, there is no better finder than the Z7 finder in any era of camera history, period.
The EOS R finder is close but not as good as the Z7's.
The A7R3 finder is the worst of the three and it is quite glaring, however even it is good enough for me and I have great eyesight.
2 Ergonomics: Immediately the biggest difference is ergonomics. I always thought those posts about Sony ergonomics were exaggerated as after all you tend to get to know and become familiar with a particular camera. But the EOS R has way superior ergonomics. It just feels better in my hand than the Z7 or the A7R3.
I have been a long time A7 and Sony A and E mount user and I have never used the EOS R or the Nikon Z before this testing , but I immediately felt at home with the EOS R and Nikon Z7 to a lesser degree.
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 it feels a lot better in the hand. And the size of the grip is very well designed ,IMHO.
The Nikon also has a good grip and similarly shaped , but to me the Canon felt a bit better.
Also, I prefer the size of the R body , it is about the EOS80D size or a bit bigger and I think it is the perfect size for a FF mirrorless (for me).
For my right hand the Sony is just a bit too small, there is no room for my pinky and I always have to put the L plate or something similar to my A7R3.
So sometimes I wonder if Sony has designed the A7R series specifically for Asian girls.......old Asian men of my dad's generation...
EOS R also 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 with much higher res (2.1million dots versus 921K) and it is also brighter.
Nikon Z also has a bit better LCD than that of the Sony R3 , and I have to say their implementation of touch UI is the best of the three here.
2. Menu: As a long time Sony user I know Sony has been working on this very hard and kept improving it. Sony A7r3 menus are better than A7R2 and you can customize everything which is great. But Canon's menus are still quite much better or more logically designed.
Each tab is color coded (as is Sony's now) but the selector for the menu items is also colored so it helps you remember where things are. And you can just swipe through and easily navigate it like a smartphone, I think it is great and a big plus for the Canon system that no reviewers mention in so called objective reviews. The third generation A7 cameras now also have a touch screen but theirs does not work very well, it is laggy and very primitive, nothing like that of a smarphone.
Another important key difference between the Canon vs the Sony menus is there are less items in the menus of the Canon, which is nice. Menu selection is far superior in the Canon. You can select by either touch or click.
With that said I have no more problem with the Sony A7R3 menus since I have been very used to it and I know where what is or how to customize it very fast and effectively, or like that very well, so for me it is no longer a big issue, but still the Canon and the Nikon menus are far better than that of the Sony.
IMHO, the Nikon menu system is the best and easiest to navigate but then I have been shooting Nikon and Sony over a decade now and I am pretty new to Canon.
I really think the Nikon touch UI is far better than that of any other mirrorless system, the R is close but not as simple as the Nikon with respect to touch navigation.
Now I've had some time to try out the S1R, I am pretty sure the new Panasonic S1R is better than all the other three FF systems with respect to UI and touch navigation.
3 AF: Well this one is a very complicated one to assess fairly and logically, but I think the AF of the Canon R is a bit more reliable than my A7R3 especially in very low light.
For static things , I felt the Nikon Z7 is quite good too, but it misses many moving things like cats or rats. Its video AF seems fairly good, at least as good as the Panasonic GH5 in this regard. But I think the Canon R focuses much better in video mode.
The so called reviewers never mention this but EOS R does have eye detect AF too. I don't know why so many reviewers dismiss it, though.
Is it as good as Sony's? Probably not, I haven't used it enough to know. Reports seem to indicate its quite good but I imagine Sony is the winner here as eye detect is very awesome in the Sony.
However, the Canon is faster and more reliable in very lowlight venues especially for static things.
The Canon and the Sony track much better than the Nikon without special DP AF type of sensors or the matured Sony type of C-AF object tracking algorithm.
One big positive surprise on the Canon R AF system is that I was able to AF on a bright star on a dark winter night in North island of Japan!! Not possible with the A7R3 or the Z7. But AF on all the three is superb, IMHO. Canon ESO R focuses extremely fast even in extreme lowlight like minus 5 EV level, that might be a true game changer for some.
So in terms of AF, I think both the Canon and the Sony are a bit ahead of Nikon especially in C mode AF.
In summary:
For action type AF , maybe the Sony is the best, then the Canon close second, the Nikon is the worst here.
In lowlight AF, the Canon is the best , then maybe the Sony, the Nikon the worst again.
For static things, all the three are great but the Canon and the Sony seem to be a bit better.
For video, the Canon is the best, then Sony, the Nikon is clearly the worst here.
So while the Nikon seems to be the worst of the three here as many AF tests results of these three indicate, I do not think the difference is glaring or deal breaking serious.
They are all still pretty primitive in this regard.
4 Battery life: Sony is the best here. The A7R3 works longer than both the Canon and the Nikon despite the battery being physically smaller than the Canon and the Nikon.
Its not a huge gain though 2250mah versus 1860mah for the Canon, I am not sure the exact power of the Nikon battery, there is no written spec I can find for it yet.
But still, the Nikon seems to be the worst in terms of battery life.......
So this is a huge plus point for Sony. I think I just need a couple of batteries to get through an all day long shooting session with my A7R3. But for my Z7 , I think I need at least 5 or more to do the same amount of work.
5 High ISO performance: Firstly high ISO performance on first appearance would be towards the Canon surprisingly. I thought for sure the Sony would win out here. Its early days and I may find that not to be true later. But for me a big use is nightscapes and the Canon is quite a bit better than the Sony for this type of image. The noise is a filmlike grain that cleans up easily. The Sony and of course Nikon too can be wormy and the noise pattern is a bit ugly.
Also long exposure shadows - better in the Sony right? No. I find long exposures in the A7r2/3 are marred by a lot of blue/red color splotches/hot pixels that do not clean up easily in post processing. So far in limited testing there are none in the EOS R and the Nikon Z7.....and I am sure the Z6 would perform a bit better than the Z7 here.
Sharpness and res. I think this may depend to some degree on the scene and the lenses used. I was also surprised to see in a shot of a Japanese Maple garden in a big shrine in Shimonoseki the EOS R seemed to resolve the leaves better. Anyway, these 2 cameras are a bit closer together than you would think. I still expect the Nikon to be better than both the Canon and the Sony when I have more experience in using it. I plan on taking a side by side series of landscape shots in Fukuoka or Sapporo city area in this coming March.
But now I have no time doing it.
6 Long exposure noise and NR: OK getting down to the guts of why I mostly got an EOS R. I like to take nightscapes as one of my main uses of my cameras.....although I never post these types of images at my Flickr or any other site I use.
Here I think Canon is WAY better than the Sony and the Nikon Z7.
Sony star eater means:
i) Stars are generally less vibrant in images than they should be.
ii) A lot of stars that are pinpoint are turned green by the star eater as it reduces red and blue hard.
iii) Long exposures like 30 seconds ISO3200 have a lot of color speckle noise in the shadows that are hard to clean up and tend to weaken the images.
iv) Noise pattern in the Sony is wormy in shape and unpleasant. Its been like that since the A7r. I used to use a D800E Nikon and it has a more filmlike noise. EOS R also has that same sort of noise pattern which is easy to clean up. Although it also uses a Sony high resolution sensor, the Z7 is significantly better than my A7R3 in this regard......however still not free of RAW NR that destroys minor details of the dark sky.
v) Again early to say but A7R3 and more so A7R2 have amp glow that makes most of long exposure images taken with it extremely ugly. That is a magenta glow that affects the bottom right corner of the image in particular and a bit on the far right side. Canon does not suffer this. Again this is more for long exposure use you won't see it in a regular image and this kind of things is the things no reviewers do actually seriously test for us, so we must do it ourselves.
vi) Again limited use but so far boosting shadows in a nightscape on the EOS R was very impressive. So all the talk about Sony having better DR is hard to see in these types of photos. Perhaps regular photos its more visible(but still not as glaring as the DPR kind of review tend to believe and brainwash the naive public to share the idea with). I haven't noticed any difference there yet if anything highlights are better preserved in the EOS R but really I can't comment due to not enough time with the EOS R. But I am sure normal types of images like typical landscapes or architectures , the Nikon Z7 has the best sensor, but not as much better as the specs and reviews suggest it is than the R sensor.
So again you should take all so called OBJECTIV(but nothing objective about it) reviews with a grain of salt.
7 Basic image quality: I expect to see that the Nikon 45mp sensor would win over the Sony 42mp sensor and especially the Canon 30mp sensor for landscape , architecture and typical nightscape(but not long exposure or anything including starts) type of applications.
Usually 30mp is plenty but as well all of us know 42 is better, and the 45 is even better. It is really simple the more pixel densed a chip the better it is for detail works or reach limited apps.
The high res sensors are what drew me to Sony in the first place. But now, Nikon has even higher resolution cameras and Canon will lanuch a 72mp EOS R pretty soon as almost all of us here already know.
So for now , I say Nikon wins here , but they are actually quite close , it is a matter of your preference kind of a contest, nothing really dramatically different.
All image quality differences of these chips are really academic or scientific curiosity level , not really practical level of differences.
8 Color: Oh yes you can simply adjust in post right so long as you use RAW? Well try that and see how you go. If you are an expert in Capture One and Photoshop you probably could do well. But if not you won't be able to do it. I have had this happen with Fuji versus Sony - bottom line, I could not match Fuji color on the same shot on Sony.
I think Nikon Jepeg is the best in the three.....my first impressions are Canon color is a bit richer especially in the reds, skin tones are better straight out and Sony is more neutral and more accurate. But both are less accurate than the Nikon in many ways. Also, if you have no time processing RAW in C1 Pro, then Sony color science is very weak and their Jpeg is really trashy , I say completely useless. So I never shoot my A7RX in JPeg mode, I always use it in uncompressed RAW mode, the A7MK3 is a bit better in this regard but still worse than both the Canon R and especially the Nikon Z7.
The Nikon lenses even the new kit lens also seems to have richer colors than most of Sony lenses. Sony needs a Loxia or a Voigtlander to match the color richness of the Nikon Z24-70mmf4S zoom.
I found looking at the EOS R galleries the colors stood out as excellent and the Nikon even better almost exceptional. Sure ,this is subjective I know but for me I like them better than the Sony with respect to color science and over all WB.
I expect not every scene will be nicer but I do find the Nikon Z especially Z6 color balance compelling. But honestly I think all the three are better than Fuji and Olympus in color balance. I know many love Fuji SOOC color but I hate it very much........sure it is very subjective and my personal issue, but I find it obnoxious.
9 Turn on speed and general operation speed of the cameras: The EOS R is ready to take a photo by the time you have the EVF to your eye. The Nikon Z7 seems even faster in this regard. In comparison , Sony takes a while like 7 seconds or so to actually get ready. Even though the bootup time has improved on the R3 compared to the R2, it is still way slower than the R and the Z.
Waking up from a long sleep is also the same , the Sony is slowest , the Nikon seems the fastest , the EOS R is almost as fast as the Nikon but still a bit slower (I think) but much faster than the Sony.
10 Lenses: Sony has a fabulous array of lenses now and Canon Nikon do not have a comparable Loxia or Voigtlander range. Their highend D-SLR lenses may be good but they are generally older and later Sony GM lenses are arguably better. Tamron 28-75 only comes in E mount there is no Canon Nikon mount version just yet(but I am sure Tamron will announce it at CP Plus show in Yokohama this year).
So in the very short term, Sony wins, but in the longer run , I am pretty sure both Nikon and Canon especially the Nikon system will easily surpass the Sony system in lens selections.
Even now for those value minded but not want to compromise too much of optical quality kind of people , Nikon system already has arguably a bit better lens lineup than the Sony or the Canon.
Their 50mm f1.8S is already a legendary prime, much better optically than the over priced odd FL Sony FE55mm f1.8ZA or the Loxia 50mm f2. The Nikon 50mm S is cheap at 600 US but optically it rivals the FE50mm f1.4 ZA, which costs 2 times more than the Nikon.
The Canon RF50mm f1.2 L is the best 50 for 35mm sensor, but it is a huge lens and not very affordable either.
The new Nikon Z14-30mm f4 S is the most practical wide angle zoom ever made for any system, I think it is really reasonable to buy the Nikon Z7 or the Z6 just for this lens.
It is a real good lens.
Their new 35mm f1.8S is also a superb lens although it is not as outstandingly good as the 50S.
So not in quantity but in quality in an affordable range, Nikon seems to have already surpassed the Sony E.
And with 8 lenses coming for the Z and 7 new lenses coming for the R in this year the gap in quantity will become much smaller between the 3 systems.
And I am pretty sure both the R and the Z will get the Loxia and the Voigtlander FE line lenses pretty soon as well.
So Sony's lead in lens slection is not very huge, and it will be becoming really insignificant in the next couple of years or so unless you really need the full set of Batis lenses like me.
11 IBIS : For me it is not a very important feature but I know many consider it important, so I write about it here. The IS of Nikon is superb, much better than the Sony A7R3, and the Canon does not even have it. So clear winner here is the Nikon.
But personally, I think any type of IS is just a compromise, it seriously deteriorates the lens quality especially in the very edges and corners. But many people do not realize that and many people misidentify it as a lens flaw. So so many 'I got a bad copy' paranoid people in every lens forum. Sure some are real lens issues but most are not. And most of people cannot even test lenses. They have no patience or tech to do it rightly. And many of these people testing lenses with the IBIS on........
For me the IBIS is a minus thing, it really deteriorates the potential IQ of any lens and sensor combo. So I try to use a tripod as often as I can. But I know many people value it very much, and if it is very important to you, then the Nikon is the best here.
The Z7 and the Z6 have a very powerful In Body IS. The Sony R3 has it too but it is not as powerful or effective as the Nikon one.
For video though, I find the Canon's lens based IS works better....but again if possible use a tripod or stabilizer. But I think for handheld prime shooters , the new Nikon IS might be a good reason to get their cameras. I do not know if they develop it in-house or not, but it is definitely one of the best In body IS to date in any camera system for sure.
12 unpleasant artifacts (from in camera or software lens correction): both the Canon and the Nikon have no magenta circles from shading lens correction in Sony in some images.
It is a huge problem of the Sony system that no so-called pro reviewers never even bother to discuss about(I think they haven't explored the system deep enough to even know it).
I have known this issue for a long time, say 3 years or so since my A7R time, but for most of Sony shooters it is a pretty new issue discovered recently.
In my test the A7R2 plus the FE24-70mm f4ZA and FE16-35mm f4ZA was the worst combo for this , but actually almost all the Sony f4 wide zooms and even some f2.8 GM zooms on a A7RX body produce this very unpleasant artifact.
And I believe this is a Sony specific issue.
13 Button layout and customizeability of it - both are good, but the Nikon and the Canon are a bit better with a bit bigger buttons and more room for our fingers. Menu is better organized on the Nikon and the Canon and it is easier to navigate it like smartphones.
Sony's touch screen is very primitive and never works well like that of the Nikon or the Canon.
I have been a Sony shooter for more than a decade already but I still get really frustrated with their cameras from time to time , sometimes it really makes me annoyed or even angry, it is slow and very clunky.
14 Card choice: supposed to be another big Sony advantage over the CN according to those spec obsessed so-called reviewers. But it is not that big , sure Sony is better here, but not that serious. I always back up onto my portable SSD and my laptops every time I shoot something important to me.. so for me it is not a big issue. Plus I have never experienced any SD card fail in a shooting session.
So it may not be a big issue for those people always travel with a PC or a tablet, but for many people who never back up on site or simply do not have any portable SSD or HD, it may be a big serious issue.
For me the real issue here is Nikon's stupid choice of the XQD card, single slot is fine but why not SD?
SD is a far more popular card format and I trust it much more than the new obscure format like the XQD. Who knows 2 years from now we will still be able to buy the XQD card any where.
Even now it is hard to get at any physical store and it is a big issue for me. Sometimes I just need to buy a card or two on site and I can get a good SD any where even from a local 7-11 or Family Mart. And a 32gb one costs me only about 1200 yen. The cheapest XqD card I've found online costs me about 6400 yen. So it is a big issue for me and those people who need a lot of cards for a flight or two.
But I will say both Nikon Z and EOS R have a superior jpeg uploader to your smartphone that acts like a 2nd card slot. Not RAW though but it something and it works way better than Sony's hard to use clunky photo to smartphone feature which is crude. The Canon stays connected and will auto upload jpegs from even a long distance away from the phone so long as the phone does not power off.
So I much prefer the Canon software to that clunky primitive Sony crapware.
Nikon's one is also very crude but a bit better than it used to be, and I think it is getting better and better at each iteration.
15 Video: here Nikon wins hands down ,IMHO. It was a big surprise to me but it is the case.
Canon 1.78X crop in 4K is a shame, and I am sure they are doing it deliberately to save the Cinema EOS line. Sony used to be the leader here in fullframe video but the Canon is better than you would think and is not a lousy video camera by any means.
But still, the Nikon Z6 wins here handsdown since Nikon has nothing to protect in this area, they put all of their 100 percent effort into the Z.
It even allows 10bit out and the quality of the video is quite good, the sound is also good even in internal recording mode. Plus, their color science in video is much better than the cyan biased Sony.
But I am sure if you are a 100 percent video guy, then you should wait to try the Panasonic S1(not the R). It would be the best FF video camera under this 5000 USD league.
Still , I think the Nikon is quite good in this regard and I think they will be a big rival to the Panasonic in this area since they have nothing to protect in pro cinema camera market.
16. Time lapse function : The Nikon Z7 is the only one here to have a proper real intervalometer , so it is the winner here. The Sony A7R3 does not have that , the old R2 had an optional software to control it although it was a very clunky crap-like program, the R3 does not have that option. The canon R has something similar to time lapse feature in 4k video mode, but it is not as good as the real time lapse of the Nikon.
But still, the Canon's fake time lapse feature is better than none in the Sony A7R3.
17 Fit and finish, durability: Canon and Nikon fit and finish is superb. Sony paint can wear on edges due to sharp edges and weak paint. It may be better in A7R3 but A7R2 paint wears on sharp edges is an issue. EOS R has a durable finish and curved edges everywhere, the Nikon Z7 seems to be even better in this very regard.
Also, the Nikon body feels much more solid in my right hand, Sony makes a funny sound when I hold it really tight......I am sure Sony is saving a huge amount of money here, since no spec-obsessed useless internet reviewers talk about this sort of things.
Mounting the A7R3 on a tripod a few times makes it really dirty and worn-out look.
Now I would like to write about a few things that both Nikon and Canon have but Sony does not(since no so-called objective reviewers talk about these kind of things):
1 Top LCD - OK its a feature but I imagine a lot won't care. I like it though and it also has a light so handy in reall lowlight.
I personally like this one.
2 Shutter closing when changing lenses: Well that is a big advantage of the Canon over the Nikon and Sony. I can't even remember how many of my architecture images were ruined by the dusts on the sensor issue........the Sony A7R2 and especially the R3 are a dust magnet,it invites a lot of dust and it is very hard to clean due to the very unstable floating sensor.
So I think it is a huge advantage of Canon over the Sony and the Nikon that no reviewers want to talk about.
At this point I really have to wonder if those so-called reviewers really used these 3 cameras in real life?
I think they tested these in a light walking or so and called it a day. So these reviews are all about spec and useless.
3 a set of TS lenses: Sony has none, Canon and Nikon both have a few, I have the Canon EF24mm f3.5 TS MK2 and 17mm f4 , I may get the Nikon 19mm f4 too.
Sure these can be adapted on the Sony but the tiny body of the Sony really restricts the usability of these lenses. This reason alone justifies me to get a EOS R(not now maybe but the next version of it).
4 actually functioning touch screen: Sony now has a touch screen too but it is really crude, slow and very limited primitive one. You can use it just for the AF point selection , that is all.
On Canon or Nikon you can just swipe it and navigate the menu just like you use your phones.
So I think this will hurt Sony since many young boys do not like the crude Sony way of UI, they want cameras to act like phones.
5 proper weather sealing: the A7R3 lacks it and all of their top range lenses lack it, so Sony is actually useless for a risky environment shooting.
Yeah my current A7R2 and A7R3 could take a bit of water but I must baby it all the time to make sure it will survive.
I am getting tired of it, Sony cameras like spoiled weak kids. You must baby it all the time or it goes wrong.
6 a much better optimized FF mount. This is a huge thing because now Sony may have the edge in lens selections , but in a just a matter of a couple of years or so, they will definitely become the worst cause the tiny restricted mount design of the E mount does not allow them to make a cheap but super sharp mid range prime such as the Z35mm f1.8S , the Z50mm f1.8S , the RF35mm f1.8 macro, the Z85mm f1.8S ,which will be out in the second Q of this year.
Many Sony lovers trivialize the bigger mount advantage because they think the main benefit of it is it just allows CN to design a line of lenses like the new Nikon 58mm f0.95S.....but the real benefit of having a bit bigger mount than the E is the engineers do not have to use too much of expensive glasses or super complicated designs to overcome the tiny mount light ray issues, thus the mid range primes become smaller and cheaper.
You can clearly see it in the new Nikon Z35 and Z50 S.
Sony engineers always have to use more complicated techs and more exotic glass to overcome the tiny mount limitations inherent to the E mount......thus their lenses are much more expensive and no advantage in size or even bigger than most of SLR lenses.
Sony should have used a bit bigger mount when they decided to go FF in 2013 as they had no legacy FF glass at the time, so they could go bigger with the FE, but they did not.
This clearly tells us they are not a optical company but a company playing this for just a short time temporal profit.
Lenses are cheaper overall (not all of course) in Canon or Nikon world. Exotic lenses like 50 1.2, 14-30mm f4 and 28-70 F2 have no competitor. The Canon RF 50 1.2 L in particular is causing some excitement as a new type of lens. It is the best corrected AF capable 50mm lens to date and I really like to get that lens some day very soon.
Yeah sure Sony fanboys trash it as it is oversized or just a tiny bit better than the cheap Sony FE50mm f1.4ZA, but the truth is it is sharper across the range at any aperture with a bit better coating........ So for me the RF50mm f1.2L is a great lens and I really want to get it soon.
The Nikon Z14-30mmf4S is another really practical lens , I think Nikon has been focusing on true practicality with the Z lens line now.
The 35mm f1.8 is an excellent lens , better than both Sigma Art and Sony F 35mm f1.4 ZA and much cheaper and lighter than these two Sony mount lenses.
The 50mm f1.8S is even better, it is actually a bit better sharper lens than the Sony's excellent FE50mm f1.4ZA.
When this lens was announced many fanboys derided about it as they should have priced it lower than the Sony's FE55mm f1.8 (most overrated lens in any mount system) , I was laughing , the Nikon is a couple of leagues above the Sony fake Zeiss 55mm and it is also a couple of hundred dollars cheaper than the FE55mm f1.8ZA.
And as such it is not overpriced but a true bargain lens.
The 14-30mm f4S seems to be a wonderful lens with a great versatile range, for me it may replace 5 lenses in my bag, so it is a bargain lens.
The Z24-70mmf4S is another bargain lens, it is optically a much better lens than the Sony's another super overrated FE24-105mmf4G, and the Nikon is much cheaper and much more compact. For me the Z14-30mm f4 , the 24-70mm f4S and Z35mm f1.8S make a great travel kit. Just add a new 85mm S coming in the third Q of this year makes the kit perfect for traveling.
Also, the Canon RF24-105mm f4L IS lens seems to be a great lens.
So in a matter of a year or two, the current Sony advantage in lens selections will evaporate out , or even Canon and Nikon will reverse it to their advantage.
After all , as LensRentals report tells us most of Sony lenses even GM line zooms are very fragile, they may make it optically great but they cannot make it as tough durable as the L and the S line CN lenses as well. They just do not have the experience in this field.
So they needed the fake Zeiss branding to attract naive brand name lovers when they started this game.
Finally, I think the biggest mistake of Canon and especially Nikon at this round is the lack of dual card slot option.
Not because it is really important to most, but internet politically corrected Sony fanboys use it their weapon to trash the rivals.
They've talked about it endlessly on forums although they may have had no need for that specific feature.....Canon and Nikon shouldn't have given them any chance to trash their newborn camera systems......because initial reputation is and will be very important.
If they had that in the R and the at least Z7, then no one could have really trashed it like they did in the very annoying gear obsessed DPR, LL, FM kind of forums.
In summary although the Canon and the Nikon FF mirrorless bodies are their very first attempts in this area, both the Canon R and the Nikon Z are more polished than the already third (actually 7th since the NEX7) generation Sony A7R3. Each of the Canon and the Nikon new systems is showing its long history here.
They know exactly how their cameras are used in the field or events or at works, how the ergonomics of these bodies should be , etc. Maybe Sony loving fanboys and so-called reviewers do not actually care about ergonomics or quality of the screen or weather sealing since they actually never use their cameras after shooting a few charts and ISO testing scenes......but those are very important things maybe even more important than a tiny bit better DR or high ISO in a real shooting session.
Sony just ignores all minor but very important usability related things like Lossless RAW format, a bit better grip, a actually functioning touch screen, proper weather sealing, etc......
The Canon seems to be better actually way better camera for long exposure work despite of the terrible reputation of their sensors. There is no banding detected in Canon RAW, I also never find any sign of AMP glow noise in the R files.
The Nikon is also a bit better than the Sony for long exposure type of works since its RAW is pretty much real although Nikon cooks it a bit more than Canon(but much less than Sony with the infamous stareater thown in).
The Nikon does shoot better video with more effective stabilizer. Both the Canon and the Nikon produce better Jpeg, just much better than Sony's in this regard. Sure then the Sony fanboys say they shoot all RAW, well they can do that and I mostly do that too. But in real world a lot of people prefer Jpeg and a lot of pros like events , PJ types ones, news sports,etc. need great our of the camera Jpeg.
Basically, I have found CN better in most of usability related areas such as SOOC color, LCD quality, EVF resolution and actual visibility(Sony's is a bit worse really in comparison), menus, touch screen quality, build and ergonomics , and fit and finish.
Those are all areas Sony has never cared enough to try to improve on since about 2015.
They had about 5 years of time fixing all issues, but they did not do it while telling DPR" they are listening" every chance they got, we are all ears".
Many Sony fanboys and reviewers who use cameras just for a few days and call it a day tell you Sony has been dominating this segment of ILC market, well they should have since there were no other players before the last September.
But now it is not that simple. Despite of their 5 years of ahead start in this business, their products are still very crude and clunky in many ways, actually more so than the very first attempt of Nikon or Canon.
Yeah superficial spec wise, Sony seems to be leading the industry. They know what reviewer worship and rave about very well and make any camera as the reviewers' love.
Their cameras seem to be fast on paper, but in real life they are quite slow in many important operational areas such as start-up, wake up from a long sleep, formatting a card, etc.
But they seem never care about these kinds of things / qualities since no reviewers actually report these or even talk about these although these kinds of things are much more important than how many frames it can shoot per second in real life.......
Also there are service quality issues in Sony land, they have one of the worst support and service networks, and it is not getting any better.
Last time I update my A7R3 FW from version 2 to 2.1, the camera automatically reset all my custom settings. And I needed to re-customize all buttons and dials once more.
This happened to me at least a several times, my A7R2 did not do this, so their software and support seems to be getting worse, not better.
And even on the latest FW , there is no real RAW in any Sony camera including the A9 and the A7R3. It is really silly, ridiculous...that they repeat they are listening in every chance they get but they do not even want to give us real RAW without the infamous stareater problem. And how many more years will we have to wait to get a decent 35mm prime like the new Nikon?
And they still tell us they are all ears?
So even comparing the cheapest Canon Nikon first FF MILC attempts vs the latest third gen highend Sony , it's not clear cut Sony advantage as most of reviewers might want you to believe. I think it is very close , in some areas Sony is still a tiny bit better, in some other areas Nikon is clearly better, in some other areas Canon is better, etc.
But I'm personally convinced these 3 FF systems may not be the best for me, now I have too many E mount lenses and cameras, so I have no choice but keep using these a few more years, but sometime in the next 2 years or so, I will decide which system I will get or keep the new L mount or the Sony.
I need a high resolution durable weather sealed camera system with proper service network, and I value these kinds of basics more than gimmicky features that most of reviews seem to think most important things in a good camera system these days such as Eye detect AF, 10 frame per second shooting speed, etc..
And most importantly I cannot like Nikon, Sony and Canon as a company, I dislike them all , I hate their way of FW update , I hate their service team, I really dislike their terrible attitude towards third party lenses, etc.......
Also, I do not feel their support and service team is trust worthy enough. I mean Canon , Nikon and Sony all have terrible customer service and support. Maybe to your surprise, of those 3 really major FF players, I really think Sony is the best in this regard, they have the best service network and their customer support is actually quite decent. They fixed all my GMaster lenses died in the north Island free.
Nikon did not do it and they just told me it was all my fault and I would have to pay about 1300 USD for sensor replacement for my Z6.
It is really horrible, Nikon has changed a lot since the D600 issue. Their support and service before the D600 was undoubtedly the best , but now their customer support and service team is the worst in this business.
They refuse to repair even a couple of generation old bodies or lenses, at least in Japan and that is why many people here rejecting Nikon now.
Sony is better in this very regard.
However, they also have lots of issues in customer relation and I think they must improve this area to be the best in this business.
What I really hate about Sony is their way of FW update.....
I mean why do I have to physically connect my almost 3k camera to one of my 5 PC's to get it updated? Why not just allow me to choose save it to a SD card and then update it?
Well I am sure there are people love the Sony cameras and the way they run FW updates but I cannot really trust Sony.
Remember the Rootkit issue?
And remember we used to have a couple of very Sony specific advantages and that seem to have kept me stay with Sony this long.
These are :
1 cheap Capture One Pro access, now it is gone.
2 many great modern MF primes from Voigtlander and Zeiss. I am sure these will be adapted to the other 3 FF mirrorless systems very soon.
So now Sony only advantage over the CNPL is the Batis line primes from Zeiss.
Another big problem in this industry is the reviewers always knock the camera companies down for lack of real innovations or similar, but when they really try something really new like the EOS R U.I., then they would criticize it an experiment in U.I. or like that. I think their very arrogant unfair criticisms actually discouraging camera companies to really try something new.
Finally, I think choosing the right camera system is very personal and very subjective thing, no people use the cameras in the exactly same ways and as such you should never listen to the so-called reviewers and any forum experts who are just interested in knocking one company they dislike down for no reason, in fact, what those so called PRO reviewers like Tony Northrup, Kevin Rabar and DPR guys doing is the same , they just try to push their politically corrected view as the only one real rational logical opinion or view or even fact.
And most of so called reviewers or forum pundits are too timid to voice out anything much different than any other reviewer says about one camera, so as one criticizes the Nikon Z for lack of a dual card slot , then the next just repeats it even if they do not need it or use it or even understand the reason to actually want it. Personally, I've decided to just test everything myself , I do not trust any one in an obscure camera forum or so-called pro reviewer or a pro..
They may be a great photog, but so what? Do they know exactly what I need or you need ?
Hell no, so just better ignore all those so called experts, they are more harming than helping you or me or any one.
Sure they do not deliberately confuse or harm you, but they are doing it anyway.
These YouTube and written reviews are all useless and of trashy quality.
I think the extremely negative reviews and voices on the EOS R compared to the A7MK3 and the Z6 have actually shown many people how biased these so-called reviewers really are or have been, and how useless their reviews really are. The R is really not that bad and these so-called reviewers actually did not even know many features of it and criticizing it lacking these that it actually has. They did the same thing for the Z7 vs the A7R3 and concluded the R3 better, but I strongly disagree on that , they are just different , not one is better than the other.....
This very fact alone tells us that every camera choice is just a matter of one's personal taste , so just be it and why can't you just say 'we just disliked it' rather than one is much worse than the other ?
It is just your or my or his or her or their personal taste preference , nothing more or less.
UPDATE: at the time I wrote this originally I had no A7MK3 in my bag, so I compared the A7R3 vs the Z7 vs the EOS R. But I think I should have compared the A7MK3 vs the Z6 vs the EOS R.
It really should be A7M3 vs Z6 vs EOS R so the resolution advantage may switch to Canon there. DR in practical real life use case, I would not be so sure( although technically at base ISO the Nikon is the best ). In real use the Canon seems very good and at higher ISO Canon is actually better than the Nikon and Sony in many ways without annoying detail destroying kind of RAW NR.. Against A7M3 the EVF would be way in favour of the EOS R and the Z6.
A7MK3 still has stareater and green stars(every yellow like starts become green) issues, no intervalometer, no ability to shoot beyond 30 secs without an external intervalometer, RAW is not RAW,issue with lens shading corrections causing large magenta circles in some images.
So for real life use , I much prefer the Canon and the Nikon over the A7MK3 for night sky and snowscapes, while I prefer Sony for people and cityscape type of images.
Sure everybody is different but I just think the Sony A7MK3 is really overrated....it is just a minor update of the already established series, nothing dramatically new.
And the A7R3 in real life is just a bit faster version of the A7R2.....
Then why no one talks about the reality? Well these reviewers are basically cunning camera sellsmen nothing more, and they tend to copy what the first one says about any particular camera or lens, no original thought, no unique idea , nothing very new or real about those so called reviews.
UPDATE2: because of the horrible horrible service and support team of Nikon , I decided to sell all my Nikon gear.
I am done with Nikon, their service and support seems to be the very worst in the business now. I thought Sony or Olympus was the worst in this regard, but now Nikon seems to be far worse than Sony.
I collected 3 broken Sony GMaster lenses and 2 broken Nikon Z cameras and 3 Nikon Z lenses when I was leaving Hokkaido last week. Sony Sapporo provided me a truck to pick all of broken lenses and sent them to Tokyo and repaired them there for free..and then they sent these lenses back to my house in Fukuoka. I dislike Sony but I have to say they did great this time. Nikon, on the other hand, treated me as a complainer and told me I broke these cameras and lenses and they would not fix these until I send them the exact amount of money they need to charge for the service.
I did not break anything, but they died suddenly.
I actually used my Sony gear more and none of my Sony cameras died but my Nikon Z7 and Z6(and these were just a few weeks old camera at the time). So I think Nikon should repair all my broken Nikon lenses and cameras under the warranty case as my cameras are just 4 weeks old.
But I am a 'glass-half-full' kind of person, so I take this experience this way, Nikon has just helped me decide keep my Sony and sell my Nikon gear.....
So for me it will be a race between Sony vs Canon vs PanaLeica team rather than Sony vs Canon vs Nikon.
