This one is my favorite drink in Hokkaido, but I cannot get it outside of Hokkaido. It is like cola but a bit spicy.
The weather here changes incessantly every few minutes , it is very unpredictable here.
I think after this very shot it started snowing really hard again and one of my A7R3 cameras went crazy , never responded to any button and I had to replace the battery to shut it off.
As my Sony FE16-35mm f2.8GM and A7R3 died at Shiomi beach of Wakkanai just a couple of hours before this shooting, here I just had to use my 85mm prime on my back up camera A7R2.
All my other lenses died at this point and on.
And I had to send all my broken gear to Sony Sapporo, they were OK but not as good as Sony Fukuoka or Naha.
Still they seem to provide much better service than Nikon or Canon outside of Tokyo or Osaka metro areas.
The near future state of ILC world 13- why the camera industry is slowly dying(updated 2):
The last two weeks I was in Okinawa for an academic conference. It was a small but very interesting kind of profound conference with many extremely knowledgeable professors from all over the world.
I met a few Russian , Italian, German and Chinese professors there. But the sad thing was most of these people wanted to try my camera and I wanted them to try it too but they really felt disappointed with the SOOC color , it was almost worse than their iPhone images they said. I told them they should shoot RAW and photoshop or Cpature One to make it really shine.......they all shrugged their shoulders and said ,'oh well then we do not have the time to make it really work for us'.
I think this is the real problem of these FF cameras, none of these are great just SOOC, we need to work a lot to make it better than typical phone images on phone or tablet size display. And most of people even those professors view their images on a tiny Tablet. No one outside of crazy fanatic DPR, LL, FM, etc. forum print large these days.
I myself now rarely print, just view on a 4k monitor.
Any way, I have brought 5 lenses and 3 bodies there:
1 FE16-35mm f4ZA on my A7R2
2 Batis 40mm f2CF on my A7R3
3 Loxia 25mm f2.4 onmy A7R3
4 FE24-105mm f4G (I only used this lens when I had no way to shoot with 2 bodies).
5 Batis 135mm f2.8 APO.
I usually use 2 camera 3 or 4 lens set up, so it was quite restricting to shoot with just one or two lenses especially a very tiny crammed city like Naha, Okinwa.
This time I had no choice but most of times I just used one or two bodies with 2 lenses and left one body and three lenses at my hotel room. We were there for 8 nights 9 days and changed hotels 2 times (we wanted to try three different hotels there).
After organizing my images from Okinawa (all 8 days it was raining there), I realized that I never used my Loxia 25mm f2.4 and Batis 135mm f2.8 APO there (no chance to use these as swapping lenses there was very risky due to the unstable horrible weather). I used my Batis 40mm f2 CF just a few times as it was impossible to change lenses over and over there. It is too risky and probably induces some lens condensation as it is extremely humid there in this season and our hotel room and conference rooms were very dry and cool(almost cold).
It was crowded and raining every night and it sometimes got very intense like almost torrential. And the weather there changes really incessantly.....every few minutes...really unstable.
To my surprise, I did not even use my FE24-105mm f4G OSS lens , which I thought I would use most often there.
I mostly used my FE16-35mm f4ZA(I wanted to carry my GM but my bag was too small and I needed 4 lenses at least, so there was not a big enough room left for my GM zooms in my tiny work bag(now regret that decision:I should have just brought my GM zoom and Batis 40mm f2 CF--nothing else was needed).
At beaches near our second hotel, I mostly used Batis 40mm f2CF for close up of some shellfish and flowers.
I also used my FE16-35mmf4ZA for beach landscape.
All my second day there , I had to use my FE24-105mmf4G most of times just to avoid lens swapping and intense rain....the rain was getting really strong as I stepped out of my hotel room there( around 8 AM of June 20th), and the city was alarming us for a big thunder storm (which never hit there), so I just shoot most of things with the zoom and RX100MK3 throughout my second day there. A few times I used my FE16-35mm f4ZA and Batis 40mm f2CF at night as the rain became a bit weaker....but after that my camera and my FE16-35mm f4ZA developed lens condensation (in the EVF and in the lens).
My third day there was cloudy most of days and at evening and early morning rained really hard.....
My fourth day there we went up to a beach southern tip of the Okinawa island called Itoman, so I thought I would need the Batis 135mm f2.8 APO and put it in my bag, but I could have no chance of using it due to a long lasted thunder storm there.
In Naha(the capital city of Okinawa) we did not experience nay thunder storm, just a few strong rain storms there, but in Itoman and Onna village, we had a huge thunder storm........I was frightened. I was really really scared of it and mostly spent my time there in our van.
I was debating against so called convenient zooms for a long time, maybe over a year......and really ready to sell them after this trip.....
But now I feel expensive primes are wasting for travel and academic event photography, as we have no chance to use these BETTER corrected and less flawed primes.
The weather is just too unpredictable and too risky to use expensive lenses on a camera like A7R3....which easily develops EVF fog or EVF condensation.
I have bought my FE16-35mm f4ZA 4 times and sold 3 times. I think my 4th copy of this lens is actually quite good , the current one the 4th copy seems to be a bit sharper my third copy of the same lens from 2017.
The FE16-35mm f4ZA is just an OK kind of lens in my humble opinion after tested a several copies of it, but it is immensely popular here and its resell value is still very good.
I could sell it without much loss every time I sold it. I have bought it 4 times and sold it 3 times, but I have lost almost nothing on it. I think it is quite good.
I know the GM is a bit better optically as I have had a few copies of both in many times. But the GM is only better in the long range of their overlapping range. In fact, they are very close in 16-25mm range. That surprises me considering the huge size and price difference between the two Sony 16-35mm zooms. And both of these FE16-35mm zooms are very prone to flares and heavily distorted at 16mm and 35mm.
The f4 is super tiny for a this type of zoom and it allows me to put a couple of extra lenses into my tiny work bag.
I honestly never realized this lens is this much smaller than the GM.....although I have had both since 2017.
In any case most of reviews on these zooms are useless as they only test one copy of each and call it a day.
Seriously, the FE16-35mm GM, the FE24-105mm f4G and FE24-70mm f2.8GM are the kind of lenses you must test them yourself to know if it works great for you......nothing else than your OWN experience tells anything meaningful about them.
Reviews are useless except the LensRentals ones, and most of reviewers are extremely biased and opinionated and always favor their kinds of lenses for their kinds of needs(they do not know what our needs are any way). We really don't need their lens indoctrination or lecture. They are not that experts any way.
So just be it and better ignore so-called experts who do only care about extreme corner resolution or meaninglessly small optical quality differences at lab level but dismiss anything about real life practicality or usability of lenses that they say they test.
I do not mind subjective tests, but what really makes me really annoyed is that they call themselves OBJECTIVE or honest reviewers but they are so subjective and opinionated in a very wrong way. And what they mean by objective is to use Imatest or DxO but they do not correctly measure lens sharpness or resolution as these computer programs are all optimized for ten feet or 3m focus distance. So their so called objective tests cannot test any lens for its infinity or macro performance. So it is literally useless unless you only shoot portrait at around 10 feet focus distance.
After my last academic trip, I realized that we garheads are all viewed crazy or deranged by normal people, and I am sure we are very uncool or some sort of nerdy freaks.
Normal people cannot understand our photography focused language terms.
And the camera makers are definitely not understanding why their cameras do not sell well. They camera makers should study why even those people like the professors I met at the conference who actually want a much better camera than their iPhone or Google phone cannot or do not want to fork out 2k or 3 k on any of the current cameras...
I think there are a few reasons for that:
1 these people are busy , no time for post work or reading many lens reviews.
2 usability of those interchangeable lens camera system(especially Sony) is horrible. it was really bad amazingly frustrating that sometimes we felt as though we should throw this over 3k Sony toy onto the concrete wall of Shuri castle to destroy it. It is that irritating annoying and frustrating to use the laggy Sony touch screen.
3 SOOC color of these FF cameras just much worse than iPhone or Google Pixel Phone(unless you have time to process it carefully).
4 they fullframe cameras are really overpriced for their poor processing power and terrible quality of the touch screen in comparison to that of my phones and even smaller cameras. I think considering the CPU power and slow processing speed of the cameras they should not charge 3k for A7R3 or Z7. They can only command 2k or a bit less for the overall quality. I think this is the biggest reason people hate these camera companies.......
Hey be realistic, if a typical FF body really costs as much as 2.5 k or near that to produce and must sell it for 3k, then, considering the current rapidly shrinking market size and unit sells, why does Sony or Canon even Pana want to be in the business?
I think the profit per unit is much higher than we think it is.
This is why they can still earn quite good profit despite of the fact the market seems to be rapidly contracting in terms of unit sells.
I am sure the cost of producing those technologically primitive FF cameras is actually very low now(cause they all use cheap processors , small memory , dated software tech,etc) , we would be able to get it for 2k or much less if there was the 2013 level of high demand for FF and they could sell as many of these as they could do in 2013.
But they all choose to go the same wrong direction just give up the mass market for a very short time temporal easy profit benefit, and focus on the easy to rip-off naive niche gearhead market(they'd pay whatever price the camera makers ask). I think they will have to pay a lot for this as this marketing strategy will not work in the long run.
There are not big enough number of gearheads to sustain this industry. They are all aging, and Sony, Canon and Nikon (I think Panasonic and Leica are fine as they are focused on more niche market)really need a new market(which is already existing if they seek for it)rather than trying to sell it to the same small number of old people who are permanently discussing about small minor spec sheet differences between or among the 4 FF systems at DPR or LL..
But they ignore people like our art students who desperately want a better more practical camera than their iPhone X or RX100M4, or m43.
They all ignore practical part of gear but all focus on superficially appealing spec sheets.
It is a shame.
UPDATE: Now the long awaited Tamron 17-28mm f2.8 FE was announced and it seems to be another big hit from Tamron.
It is already long back-ordered here in Japan.
It is a very compact lens and Tamron says one of the sharpest lens in this category without the extra bulk and weight of the FE16-35mm f2.8GM, which was actually designed and produced by Konica Minolta for Sony.
The Tamron 17-28mm f2.8 is cheap , super tiny and very very light, so I think it will be a huge hit and now there is no real reason to buy the FE16-35mm f4ZA.........I am sure the FE16-35mm f4ZA will be really depreciated a lot.
I think I pre-order the new Tamron and test it against my Sony FE16-35mm f4ZA and f2.8GM....and if the Tamron is as sharp as the GM with a bit better or the same or identical flare resistance, I would sell both FE16-35mm zooms and get my something really wide for my needs(maybe the Vaoigtlander 10mm f5.6 or Laowa 10-18mm zoom). For me 16mm is not wide enough , I always want to go much wider than 16mm when I am walking around a crammed city.
UPDATE 2: After this Okinawa conference trip, I really strongly decided not getting any more new FE lenses for my A7R3 and A7R2 for a while( maybe a year or two). The Tamron 17-28mm f2.8 will be my last FE lens purchase for a while(maybe over a year or two).
I may need to seriously consider moving to the Nikon Z or maybe Panasonic S1R (maybe Canon for their new RF15-35mm f2.8 L) as they seem to have more practical wide angle lens selections for me. I tried all of these at least once or twice recently , but I think I need to rent them for a week or so and seriously retest them side by side in a very humid Okinawa wood or in a Thai jungle or some where like that, or I may not even need to go that far, just go to Aso volcano complex near me......maybe 60km away from my house, as we are in the middle of annoying rainy season here.
I am a wide angle freak and I do not think I like any of the current FE wide angle offerings except the FE16-35mm GM and Batis 18mm f2.8.... and even these two moderately wide lenses have some issues, maybe not optics related issues, but serious mechanical quality issues. Even before that, these are not even wide enough for me most of times.
I really like the idea of traveling with just a couple of tiny lenses ( the Z14-30mm f4S and Z50mm f1.8S), or even better just one wide zoom like the Canon RF15-35mm f2.8 L...
The FE16-35mm f2.8GM is a fine lens with respect to its optical quality, but its mechanical quality is really bad for a over 2k US lens. It sucks in a lot of dusts and a lot of moisture as zoomed and that seems to develop really annoying EVF fog in humid places like Okinawa woods or Thai jungles.
The poor sealing quality of that zoom really needs to be improved if Sony wants to sell it to those who shoot in really physically demanding places like crazy cold mountains or seaside beaches, or very humid places like Naha or even Banagkok.
The FE16-35mm f4ZA is also made very poorly, without any proper sealing and some serious water repellent coating that almost all its class of zooms have......
The FE12-24mm f4G is also very plasticky and cheaply made lens, I have collected 3 broken FE12-24mm f4G in the last winter conference and decided not to buy it ever again.
The Voigtlander 12mm and Laowa 12mm are also questionable quality lenses that I do not really love in any way. If you visit Sony lens forum in any big camera forum online, you may find many asking about Laowa 15 vs Voigtlander 15 vs Sony FE12-24mm f4G........and all of these lens proponents are very defensive or extremely emotional about these lenses and defend one they own every time that cheap Sony wideangle lens issue brought up.......why are they overly defensive about one of these? It is simple since all of these guys know all of these are actually not a great lens, but they want to justify their wasted money on one of these lousy wide angle lenses they are forced to buy.
The Voigtlander 15 and 12 are very dim slow lenses that need f8 or smaller aperture to be acceptably sharp in the edges...its color may be amazing as Fred says, but it is soft even his so-called exceptional copy is not really great. We just do not comment that since it is rude......after all it is his forum.......
But honestly I never seen really sharp Voigtlander 15mm f4.5 including my 5 copies that I tested myself and Fred's and Guy's samples I saw at Fred's forum. These are all just mediocre lenses in terms of resolution.
We cannot talk about it at his forum since it is rude and I do not want to be rude or insensitive.....but their copies is nothing really better than my 4th copy of that lens it was the best Voigt 15 I found.
Sunstars? yeah it produces great sunstars but many times it is actually more image-destroying destructive than attractive to many people who do not really love any sort of sunstars.
And seriously , having really defined sunstars is more important than having good resolution across the frame throughout 16-35mm or 15-35mm range? Cool sunstar effect maybe nice, but it is really not as important as resolution, better distortion control ,etc., and sunstar is something we can never test objectively.
So it is a bad lens in any rational sense, IMHO.
Some people get too emotional about their choice of lenses and trying really hard to rationalize or justify it , but in any rational logical sense both the Voigtlander 12 and 15 are bad lenses, period. The only two pros of that series lenses are:
1 the size, that's all.
2 incredible flare resistance of these VC primes.
I think if you can be fine with a bit bigger lens, the Laowa 15mm f2 or even the Sony FE16-35mm f2.8GM at 16mm is a much better choice than the super dark Voigtlander 15mm f4.5(need to be stopped down to at least f5.6 ).
Then what about the FE12-24mm f4G.....I say it is another crappy lens. It has no durable fluorine coating to protect the bulbous front element , it is impossible to use regular filter unless you use some sticky tape or bond to stick a thin 77mm filter to the lens hood, and that destroys its resell value. It has terrible flare resistance, terrible distortion, terrible low quality sealing, and do not forget terrible SOOC color with extremely strong green bias (which is really hard to fix in post), just like the FE24-105mm f4G but even worse than the more ambitious convenient zoom that costs a lot less than the FE12-24mm f4G.
The only one good thing about the FE12-24mmf4G I can think of now is its respectably high resolution in 12-21mm range, some exceptional copies of this zoom actually rival the Zeiss Batis 18mm f2.8 or the FE16-35mm f2.8GM at 18mm f5.6 in terms of sheer resolution,(but that incredible resolution for an ultra wide zoom comes with terrible color and flare performance).
So I am not going to buy it again, I have done that too many times and fed up with the bulbous lens design and associated flare issues.
What about the Laowa 12 and 15? Well the 12mm is just a lousy lens.....I think it does not deserve my time.....so I skip it here.
The 15mm f2 Zero D is actually a great lens if you get a decent copy, but you may have to play an endless lens lottery game to get one good acceptable copy.....I had a great copy of it but I sold it for the Voigtlander for so-called better color and sunstars after reading Fred and his friends comparisons of these two....
I immediately regretted it, and got the Laowa back but my new copy was just horrible, returned it and got another one. Again it was horrible......after 4 bad copies in a row, I just decided to move on.
So there are no decent wide lenses in the current Sony lineup except the 16-35mm GM, the Batis 18mm f2.8 and the new Tamron 17-28mm f2.8......if those are wide enough, or even the Loxia or Voigtlander 21mm f1.4 are wide enough for you, then you are lucky, but for me 21 or 18mm does not work........if I use that sort of SEMI-WIDE prime at our conference and travel documentary, I am going to have to ask my colleagues to stop every single block or so to change my lenses over and over......and I am sure they do not allow me to do it, they are not that kind.....even if I can force them do it for me, it is not really practical.....in a city there are lots of dusts, in a rural wood there is lots of moisture. In the north island here there is a lot of snow and very cold air kill camera electronics while changing lenses, sometimes. I think it is very risky as it invites some dangerous sea salty wind and air into the mount.
So the only one solution for this issue for me is getting a 14-30mm or a bit more durable 16-35mm or even better 12-24mm zoom than what I currently own (FE16-35mm f2.8GM and FE16-35mm f4ZA).
Honestly, I do not think Sony will give us anything like that, if the FE16-35mm f2.8 GM was an internal zoom lens with the same quality optics as it has now, then it may have worked just fine for me, but as it is it may not work.....as it is a very sensitive and fragile lens.
As Panasonic releases their version of a 16-35mm f2.8 zoom , I might try it......if it does not work, I may even try the Nikon 14-30mm f4S one more time........if that does not work for my needs either......then I must try the Canon RF15-35mm f2.8 L(hopefully by then the R system gets a high resolution body like the rumored 75mp body).
If nothing really works for me, then I will have to live with the Sony and baby it, or just keep the cheap Tamron f2.8 zoom combo with a few Batis and Loxia and ignore all Sony lens announcement hypes..........
It is really a shame all reviews just focus on almost undetectable IQ differences in a lab and spec sheet, while completely ignoring all important practical side of lens quality or usability.
