This image was snapped with my iPhone XR.
This station is usually very crowded, and because of that I cannot use a dedicated camera. People usually freakout or get really paranoid about a big lens or even a lens like Zeiss Loxia 25mm f2.4 Distagon, which is probably by far the most often used lens of mine. I love manual focus lenses and I think it is a big part of why I have been shooting Sony for this long......over a decade. They have the most solid selection of MF primes from both Voigtlander and Zeiss, no other mirrorless systems get these from Cosina. I guess they will get Laowa but never gonna get anything more fancy than that for Manual Focus work. Canon and Nikon do not seem to realize how important to have a solid line of MF primes if they want to sell a mirrorless system to FM crowd and even to some DPR gearheads. That is the very reason why their mirrorless system are doing very very poorly especially in East Asia. In Japan now Sony owns about 67 percent of FF market and it's been steadily increasing since about last October as people got really disappointed about CN mirrorless offerings.
I may replace this phone and my iPhone 7 and 8 with the Google Pixel 4. I am always an android fan , but in Japan there is no other phone than iPhone that has proper English or Thai keyboard which I need. So I could not buy Galaxy, Google Pixel phone,etc.....but this time , I am thinking about getting the Google Pixel 4 as a camera and use my iPhone as a phone for my work. I also have some Xiaomi phones , but I just use these as a camera, not as a phone.
This day I was not alone with my friends, so I just carried one of my many phones and Sony A7R2(which is a much smaller camera than the R4) in my tiny normal bag. I really hate a dedicated camera bag.
Now one thing I am hundred percent sure about is I will not buy any more One sensor compact camera.
I think they should try something similar to the Light L 16 with much bigger sensor maybe a several bit bigger than One or even m43 sensors with 4 different FLs lenses module, with Google Pixel 4 type of processing style. Now they can do that since Arm Holdings is owned by SoftBank.INC.
But I think Sony, Nikon, Canon,etc. are too scared to do it as it will definitely eat some of their MILC market.
Why the ILC industry has to die--the FF boom is a temporal short lasting bubble that never appeal to the main stream camera buyers (updated 6):
I think many people realize that it is being squeezed from both directions ; the top end of the consumer ILC market is being squeezed by the new born used camera market and high-end video and new born cheap MF systems, the bottom end ILC market is squeezed by cellphones and One compacts.
Many people in forums and so-called reviewers seem to think smartphones are the actual killers of the ILC market. And use it as an excuse to justify the current poor state of the ILC market. But as a person who's actually worked and researched this industry for many years , I think I know phones are not the biggest threat to the ILC market. Actually, the old used camera market is rapidly growing and the number of people using cameras and posting their images at one of many social medias seems to be also growing. This means there are now just as many photographers as a decade ago, or even more. But they are not buying brand new cameras. And if the phones are the real killers of the camera market, then the One should be the biggest victim of that. But the reality is the One market is growing, rapidly.
The Sony RX100MK7, the MK6 , the MK5 , the MK4 and even the MK3 selling very well. The Canon G5MK2 also selling quite well. The Fuji X100F seems to be selling quite well as well. The Ricoh GR3 seems to be the best selling compact camera in many markets now. So it's safe to say phones are not the real killers of the camera market.
Smartphone cameras are incredible , now they really do many things well, the iPhone 11 Pro can even shoot super wide , I think it is a huge feat for any tiny sensored camera system.
Though, I do not think it is the real reason for the high-end ILC market is plummeting down into the fall like a huge rock. I mean no serious photographers who have always bought and shot FF or APS-C really get satisfied with the IQ of iPhone 11 Pro or any other similar phones. After all it is just a nosy 12mp camera.
The lens is terrible , the resolution is just too low, the IQ is only decent when you view it on the excellent iPhone Retina display. On a 4k monitor it is terrible, in a decent sized print it is useless. So I think the actual killer of the ILC market is or has always been the rapidly growing 2nd hand camera market world wide.
Out side of the camera fanatic forums most of camera buyers are very cost-conscious, and not many people buy a A7R4 over the R3 like we do.
To most of people (real photogs not gearheads like us) they are exactly the same cameras.
In the Nikon world , the D850 was a huge stepup from the D810, but the D810 and the D800E were almost identical and many D800E owners still holding onto it and carefully studying the mirrorless market.
In the Canon world it is the same , most of D-SLR users still shooting one of the older Canons , and honestly evaluating all the major mirrorless systems.
Some went RF mount, but it is still a pretty immature/incomplete system to appeal to the most serious Canon shooters. So I am sure Canon will gain a lot of sells in the next 2 years or so as they have a great set of RF lenses already and they are about to release 83mp FF very soon, but I am not sure about Nikon.
In any case the real issue for these three or four major camera makers is they cannot sell their NEW CAMERAS to the normal or real photographers market, only the hardcore gearheads like us buy one of these now. They need to sell new cameras to make their money , no amount of sells in used camera market makes any money for the camera companies. So if you want to keep the industry alive for many years to come, then you must buy a new camera not a used one, I am guilty of that too , but at least I have bought many of my A7RX cameras brand new.
Many people especially those young people who are interested in serious cameras(there are still many in many nations) buy used cameras. No wonder, as they are not very rich as they are still young students, even those rich ones do not buy new cameras any more since there are many lightly used almost brand new just-one generation old cameras that usually have the same sensor as used in the latest and greatest bodies.
The A7R2 has the same sensor as the A7R3. The D850 has the same sensor as in the Z7. The EM1MK2 has the same sensor as in the EM1X.......and so on. The A7R4 sensor is a new sensor but it is arguably not a big upgrade to the old 42mp one.
So if you do not need the extra features in the latest models , then why even consider spending almost 1000 USD extra on that unneeded features or qualities ? Even I myself now rarely buy a new camera although I like to get the latest best sensor available every time I buy a new camera. I have both A7R2 cameras and a couple of A7R3 cameras and I know both share the same old 42mp sensor and I do not need the extra features of the R3 over the R2 for my personal shootings , so if it was all for my personal shooting, I would not even buy the R3.
I bought my R3 cameras because I had to do a few university video projects that I could not do with my R2 or A6400. Now replaced these with the R4 but I still keep my R2 as my travel cameras as it can take a lot of abuse......and it is cheap to replace. So I am more comfortable traveling with my A7R2 than with my R4.
So if some young people with a tight budget ask me which one they should get, I would definitely recommend them a A7R2 unless they are into action shooting or manual focus, or serious video work. And I definitely tell them to get a lightly used one rather than a new one to save a bit over one thousand dollars for a good lens or two. I mean almost all cameras have the same low resolution LCD, the same 1980's camera UI, the same or identical ergonomics. None of these FF cameras have iPhone quality display that young people really want. I personally think we need a real 21st century camera UI with a smartphone-like 5 to 6 inch screen. We do not need any more physical buttons and dials. Look at the Leica SL2 , it does not have that crappy dials and buttons....very clean and very sophisticated-looking without that ancient dials. I love that Leica look, if I had that kind of money now I will get their SL2.
I think the real industry killer is actually the camera industry itself, since they are too slow to innovate , never actually push the envelope further. So even if you pass a few generations , it is not a big deal , they are all similar in real life use in practice.
The sensor tech has been basically the same or at least identical for about a decade now.
The processing speed is the same or similar for many years. They all have used very proprietary slow Texas Instruments or Fujitsu chips for many many years.
Still no in-camera software image enhancement or cellphone-like image processing. Still no cameras that can directly upload at least Jpeg files to facebook or Instagram.
Like Hogan said many times , the camera makers are forgetting the primary user problems while pursuing problems we do not really have yet. A FF 100mp chip is not solving the primary problem. Simple way to sharing images would be. They ignore sharing and better more sophisticated 21st century camera UI part although the way we use our images has changed and how we shoot our cameras has been slowly changing. The way we use our images has changed, so they must figure out to make cameras share our images more easily. The forum fanatics do not pay attention to this kind of really important usability related qualities but this kind of things may actually solve the primary problem for the camera makers. A 100 mp FF chip will not.
For those forum camera fanatics, the minor base ISO DR difference or the minor improvement in EVF tech, a bit faster frame per second makes a huge difference, but not many people in real life even detect that kind of minor changes in their cameras, let alone even care enough to pay about 1k premium for it over the last gen cameras.
They do not really care or understand the IQ difference between the couple of generations older cameras vs the latest and greatest FFs, as anything after the D800 is practically the same or at least identical in real life IQ(for most normal people). The difference between the D810 vs the A7R3 or the Z7 is really small and it is really almost an academic level of minor IQ difference. The same story goes for the A7R4 vs the S1R or Z7 or the A7R3(or even the R2). All of these are iterative updates , not innovative game changers.
So unless one is heavily into manual focus or video or super fast new AF system, etc, they do not upgrade their cameras any more. Think about it this way, the size of our house or wall size is not growing rapidly, there are only a few over A3 sized printers available ,most of us are still viewing our images online on a 4k monitor or a 4k TV, and all the current FF, APS-C cameras are good enough for that......there is no practical IQ difference between Sony A7R(original) and Nikon Z7 or Sony A7R3, or even A7R4 at ISO 100 in an A3 or A2 print , or on a 27 inch or even 40 inch 4k monitor. In fact, if you limit it to ISO 100 the original A7R still has the best DR.
So why do they need to keep upgrading? Just get a used one cheap as our current camera breaks.
This is why new FF cameras are not selling as well as many forum folks tend to believe or expect, but all the manufactures except Fuji and Olympus try to force them(normal photogs) to move up to FF system...they do not care what those real photogs' priorities are or what they(real photogs) actually shoot on what kind of budget, and some of them do not even want a FF even if some of FF systems are cheaper than top end APS-C or m43.
Maybe the poor sells of the Canon EOS RP actually can be indicating it to the manufactures and they may wake up someday, at least I hope it is the case.
If they do not see and properly understand what the poor sells of the EOS RP suggests, they will keep failing to see it.
They stupid Japanese camera makers never listen to any one but their hired silly sports(AF fanatics), landscape(DR fanatics) or wild life pros(reach and AF fanatics) who do not really do any good work but just shoot some boring sample images for their camera catalogs and web pages, so they do not figure out why many logical/ savvy ILC users are skipping a few generations now, or why they are buying used cameras for many years.
If they really do want normal photogs say shooting on a D800 or a A7R2 to upgrade often and always choose a new camera over an used one, then they must innovate and improve many areas of their rather boring iterative camera products.
They need new type of sensors , much more powerful CPUs ones like used in the latest phones, they also need Google Pixel phone-like image averaging processing tech, they also need more frame rate options in video, I want 480p at full HD more than any sort of 4k , but none of the current ILC systems give us that option. They also need to invent true 21st century camera UI...
For super fast read-out and in-camera imaging processing, the 4/3 and the APS-C are actually better than FF as these can do faster with reading out speed. FF will always be better for pure stills apps that requires high resolution and wide tonal range, but out side of that pure still focused niche apps such as Landscape, poster size portrait, high resolution required architecture works, etc., we do not need or even do not want a FF.
And sadly enough most of photo forums are dominated by those boring landscapers , if you take a look at DPR Nikon forums , NR, SAR, or FM Sony forum, you will see what I mean.
If you disagree even mildly , you will become a next target to forum bullying(especially at FM).
So listening to those very narrow-minded landscape or portrait obsessed forum guys the most stupid thing the camera makers can do to destroy their camera business.
Like Hogan said it for many years , I think more than a decade already, they need to make their APS-C system better supported with a set of really needed compact but sharp fast primes.
For many travel photographers the lack of many lenses issue is the real reason why they have no choice but upgrade their kit to fullframe although not really willingly. For day time travel photography or documentary APS-C may be the sweet spot , but there are no lenses, so they reluctantly go FF....
None of major camera makers do APS-C seriously, they intentionally cripple their APS-C products, Sony has never given a seriously good EVF like the one in the R3/ the R4 for any of their latest APS-C cameras including the A6600. Nikon does not even have any new APS-C system.
Canon never even allows their APS-C mirrorless system to have any sort of L lenses.
All the three major camera makers completely ignore any serious request for their respective APS-C system. There are no serious APS-C dedicated lenses in any of the three major camera makers APS-C systems, so all the three major APS-C systems require FF glass to be at least practically functional and thus there is no more significant size advantage of APS-C system over FF.
So many of photographers (not gearheads) who do not even prefer or want a FF forced to buy into a FF system just to get a decent set of great lenses such as super fast primes , super wide lens, super tele, TS lenses, etc. And usually FF optimized lenses are not sharp enough for APS-C as usually APS-C sensors have a bit higher pixel density.
I think if the manufactures treated all formats equally , then technologically the most interesting developments will come with m4/3 or APS-C format especially if they actually listen to most of real users' opinions /requests ,etc.
Crop sensor system has a couple advantages over 35mm so-called FF -- one being the size of the equipment, the other being the speed of the system with inherently faster sensor readout speed.
As the average print size of most of photographers do not go up and almost all the formats are good enough for that already, and certainly good enough for any on-screen display (and even billboards) then the whole size/weight thing becomes more important. But one critical issue here is what happens with processing tech. Olympus is hinting that the tech in it's much ballyhooed uber-m4/3 will be as good as FF, and I think the possible reason for that is that they've taken a close look at all the phone-based photo processing, and they're about to introduce that to their new line of m4/3 bodies that will be announced in this coming winter or next spring. If that is the case, then the whole m4/3 ecology becomes really interesting. What I don't understand is that the new uber-camera is virtually the size of smaller DSLRs, which gives up much of m4/3s advantages. Maybe once the tech stabilizes, they'll be able to shrink the bodies again...that this may be an expensive test-bed, though.
But the point is the smaller sensors have inherently faster readout speed and thus Olympus , Panasonic, Fuji and Sony could deploy the phone -like sophisticated in-camera image processing tech if they want to do it rightly , they actually need to do it even if it requires paying some big license fee to Google or Apple. It will make the IQ difference between the crop vs FF really negligible, or they might be able to even reverse it for their favor.
Always going physically big is not the right way to fight against the phones or the generation old used camera market. They need to be innovative, FF is a bubble any way.
They will never be a mainstream system.
The current level of the best cell phone quality may be really all that any ordinary folk needs for scrapbooks (paper or electronic) and messaging and so on except for a few very difficult types of images like lowlight without flash, high resolution required things and super fast moving things.
The problem with even the latest best phones is that they don't have the flexibility of serious cameras, and probably never will have(look at the poor lens quality of the 13mm equivalent lens in the latest iPhone). Trying to make an iPhone into a serious camera would push costs, and about 95.1% of the customers could care less about it any way; what they've got now is good enough for most average people, and will certainly displace most point and shoots. We cannot avoid that. But that is not a bad thing, cause many young people especially in Asia who have never had any serious camera experience now want to try it because they are growing out of their phone camera capability and just realize that they want a camera that they can have much control over it. Many of them want more manual cameras. It is a new interesting trend.
And those young photo or more like hybrid media enthusiasts actually prefer the crop APS-C bodies if there are many quality lenses specifically designed for that specific sensor size. But there are no high quality lenses for that format, so many of them just simply compromise a bit of size , a bit of cost , a bit of freedom to choose either a FF system or One compact.. The 3 major camera companies always ignore the market , just because they want to push them move to FF because FF is more profitable , or easier for them to charge more money even if it is not much more expensive than APS-C to produce in reality.
In any case, as print or monitor quality is not getting any better any time very soon, most of people actually do not need FF especially with endlessly growing physical size of that system. Look at the size of a few great primes that the rendering fundamentalists at FM forum love ? The Sigma 35mm f1.2 Art is their new found love, but how big is it? It is a huge lens almost as big as a decent telephoto zoom of a decade ago. The Panasonic 50mm f1.4 Pro is an excellent prime, but is it any practical for anything require airline? It too is a huge lens almost 2 times as heavy as my FE16-35mm f2.8GM zoom and it is just a 50mm prime....oh well. Outside of fanatic rendering cult forums, no many real photogs want that kind of monster primes. Most of us travel with an air and their carry-on weight regulation is becoming tighter and tighter, so unless you can easily afford a first class flight, it is hard to fly with a set of Sigma 35mm f1.2 Art kind of lenses.
But that is the rendering cult members' request , so the camera makers and lens makers listen to it...without realizing those rendering cult members or forum fanatics are a small very minority photographer group who are obsessed with rendering and bokeh.
So-called FF boom is a bubble, will soon be evaporated. If the industry especially Canon, Sony and Nikon cannot realize that , they may well be evaporated with the FF bubble too.
They should also realize that there are many photographers still want a good One inch or m43 sensored pocket camera with lots of controls and great iPhone-type of in-camera imaging processing. Looking at the positive sells numbers of the One segment , it might be the key to save the industry.
Not many people want lens-interchangeability......not many people do not want to carry any extra lens. So make invincibly good One or 43 compacts for them ,with more sophisticated processing like the one in the Google Pixel Phones.
That type of cameras may actually save the industry.
But sadly the major ILC makers do not want to give us that option since they know quite a few of us stop buying any sort of ILCs if they give it to us.
So it is not the smartphone that is killing the ILC industry, it is the industry itself that is killing the industry. They need to innovate it with really useful new features, and realize what is actually missing in any serious camera that almost all decent phones and cameras like Go Pro Hero 7 has. It is the fluid image sharing option with sophisticated 21st century UI.
Blaming every loss for smartphone is easy , but in reality those who think smartphone IQ is more than sufficient already moved to it a few years ago, so phones haven't been eating much of the ILC market since about 2014 or 2015.
The close minded Japanese companies never learn anything from their past mistakes in the audio industry or any other electronics industry that they have killed themselves.
Like Hogan says they must figure out to make their cameras share our images one easy way and I think they need to make their cameras with some internal editing capability like the Zeiss ZX1, with a bit bigger high quality high resolution monitor like the Retina monitor on the iPhone 11 or XL monitor on the Google Pixel 3. No camera monitors are visible in a harsh sunny day. My A7R4 and A7R3 have a very dated poor quality monitor and it is completely useless for framing a snow covered mountain in a harsh sunny after noon.
Remember most of us are used to framing anything with the excellent Retina quality display on our phones.
UPDATE: I think the fundamentalists and their posts making those online camera forums really bad and boring to many of us and that make people leave there.
So there are no many good people left there any more , and as such listening the forum guys really make camera companies' long term view and product strategy worse and worse.
Many people think Fred Miranda forum and Luminous Landscape more civil than DPR, but I strongly disagree, FM forum is just more censored than DPR. In other words, DPR is more liberal and more open minded with less serious forum bullying.
If any one disagree with FM mirrorless fanatics , he she will be bullied, these fundamentalists cannot even take a bit of criticism or accept any different view than their own.
That is why those forums are losing popularity , less and less interesting, there used be many great posters like Jim Kasson, Eamon Hickey, Bobn2 , Bill Claff, Thom Hogan , etc......but all those guys left Fred Miranda fundamentalists forums and silly old landscape men dominated LL forums.
I do not even see Roger Cicala or any real expert there any more, I guess they just got too tired of too much censorship at those so called more civil forums.
I think DPR's approach is much more straight and honest, they are gearheads but openly so. And they do not do much forum bully although some excessive trolling there too.
A month ago, one long lasting thread called ,'Latest CIPA Data Thank God for Mirrorless', started by one of Sony fundamentalists and many of us disagreed with him on his views on Mirrorless saving the industry.
There was a guy called himself Bigtrouble, who was obvious supporter proponent of Nikon DSLRs,and the OP started insulting him with many names , such as usual 'Nikon Troll' , 'D-SLR fundamentalist', etc.....and the Bigtrouble guy eventually banned for trolling(he was not and it was the Nikon forum so he could post anything about Nikon I supposed).
To me this really revealed the true face of FM forum, they are extreme micro control freaks and they never allow any one to logically DISAGREE. This one and the Sony 35mm f1.8 debate there showed me how obstinate and obdurate those guys really are. Never accept their mistakes and force others to share their very narrowminded extremely Sony mirrorless biased view on any thing.....even in the Nikon forum......or Canon one.
Personally I disagreed with almost all of these guys in that particular thread and I think mirrorless and DLSRs are both extremely doomed, but I did not even bother to post that as a few other more levelheaded people there doing that for me.
There was one really nice open-minded Chinese guy there and I think he was the most neutral one in the particular thread in Nikon forum of FM. He was a Nikon user from Singapore, and he was a proponent of both mirrorless and D-SLR. To me he sounded most neutral although I am a 100 percent mirrorless user. What is the problem for any one there to have his or her own opinion? It is healthy to have their own views on anything.
But most of posters there just took his opinion personally and attacked him and even insulted him in extremely nasty rational or political ways. I found it really disgusting.
He likes DSLRs a bit more than Mirrorless , what is wrong with that? It is his choice and he find it works better for his particular works. And IMHO, DSLRs and mirrorless are too similar to even consider different tools. All future D-SLRs can do whatever the current best mirrorless can do now and more, and due to the less heat generating LV system in the D-SLRs they are always less noisy than the mirrorless of the same generation with the same or identical sensor tech.
It is just an intrinsic advantage of DSLR without permanent LV.
And it is a very coherent fact. So just be it.
Even me obvious D-SLR hater admit that and I think many of other DSLR haters can see it. So what is the problem for him to point it out in a very neutral and very logical even scientific way?
I think if they cannot tolerate Singaporean English or Singaporean or Asian way of view on any camera or photographic gear, then they should just close the site to foreign visitors? Why not make it only available to extremely narrow minded US based Sony fanboys that love FM and worship his view on anything.
I think DPR does not have this micro controlling of politically correct opinions issue, or excessive censorship or moderation issue there.
So Bobn , Jim K, Bill C, Roger C, etc. still post there but not at FM or LL.
I love something about FM forums but hate the extreme censorship there, and I cannot help but that really negatively affecting on image of Photographic or gearhead community.
So I really think the camera companies should stop listening to those forum mirrorless fundamentalists.
UPDATE2: I think Nikon has once again proved that they never understand proper modern marketing in old conservative tech market like the ILC market with the launch of the new Z58mm f0.98 lens.
It seems an incredible lens but how many of those who have the Nikon Z system will get really interesting or find it practical in real life use?
I think the number will be really small. It is not an affordable lens for most of people unless they can trust Nikon and believe the Nikon Z system will survive decades to come.
But all of us ex-Nikon users know how they treated their Nikon One and Key Mission systems and we do not trust them much these days. Personally, I trust Sony and Canon much more than Nikon as a camera brand, I am not very comfortable spending more than 2k on any lens for any Nikon system, even for Sony I will not do that any more as I know lenses won't last long these days , these lenses especially the expensive ones are very fragile.
I think Nikon should have released sometime similar to Sony's FE24mm f1.4GM , FE135mm f1.8GM or Canon's RF 85mmf1.2 L.
This sudden great but super niche odd lens release really showed us how clueless Nikon really is.
They needed something much more practical to many of us and at the same time also screams high quality just like Sony's great FE24mm f1.4GM or Canon's RF85mm f1.2L.
Or the Voigtlander 50mm f2 APO FE......which I believe to be the best 50mm prime ever made in terms of resolution and overall rendering. Even if the Nikon's new Noct was priced cheaper than the Voigtlander 50mm f2 APO, I would prefer the much more practical and compact Voigtlander......
And for me that line of lenses the reason why I have been supporting Sony with my own money. So we should give some credits for Sony opening up the mount system to great thirdparties like Cosina, Zeiss, Sigma , Tamron , Samyang , Laowa and Tokina.
Nikon , on the other hand, has been obsessed with shutting out the major thirdparty lens makers like Sigma, Zeiss, Tamron and Cosina.......so the system will not get many affordable but optically excellent Zeiss Loxia line or Cosina Voigtalnder APO line. Nikon's marketing strategy seems to be always anachronistic , they seem to marketing the Z for the people who spent their hey days in the early 90's like my father.
IMHO, the wrong lens lineup or releasing order and XqD card are the two big mistakes of the Nikon Z system and why it is trailing behind both Canon and Sony by a few miles or kilos at least.
So I think the Z mount is seriously doomed now.
UPDATE3: the typical forum argument for choosing primes for smaller size or weight saving reason is really misleading and dishonest.
a typical modern prime that is actually much better than a good zoom like one of the GM zooms is actually not small or light at all, and even sometimes non-existent.
the FE16-35mm f2.8GM vs the rival primes for example, there is no prime lens that is actually sharper and optically clearly better than the GM zoom in its range.
some say the Vaoigtlander 21mm f1.4 is sharper and I think it is in the extreme corners, but in 80 percent of the frame they are actually quite similar in resolution and in some areas the GM zoom beats the Voigtlander 21mm f1.4 (the sharpest E mount wide prime).
and to cover the range of the FE16-35mm f2.8GM or the similar Tamron 17-28mm f2.8 with a set of great primes, we will have to carry 4 or 3 different primes in the range.
a set of primes like the Batis 18mm f2.8, the Voigtlander 21 f1.4 , the Sony FE24mm f1.4GM plus the Batis 40mm f2CF weighs a lot more than a just one great zoom like FE16-35mmf2.8GM , compared to the Tamron the weight and size difference is even more glaring.
So primes are not lighter or smaller, and many times even not optically better than a great GM zoom.
That said, when possible, I prefer to shoot with FE24mm f1.4GM or Loxia 25mm f2.4 plus something like the new Voigtlander 50mm f2 APO, which I think is the best bargain lens deal of this decade for us E mount users.
UPDATE4: Now I think the Batis 40mm f2CF lens is a real tough sell lens. There are many other options in this focal range now, and most of these are either faster or cheaper or sharper than that lens.
I think I will sell it when Tmaron announces their excellent 35mm f1.4 SP in Sony FE mount. If Tamron never makes it for Sony , then I will just keep the Sony FE35mm f1.8 and replace my Batis 40mm CF with the new Voigtlander 50mm f2APO.
IMHO, it is sad to have to say this but Zeiss Batis line is becoming completely irrelevant in the new Sony FE world. I think Batis brand is finally coming to its end.
Loxia line is still the only one kind of lens line and many people who are after the best stopped down performance with great sunstar will still buy them, but there is no more real logical reason to get any of these 5 Batis lenses.
The FE35mm f1.8 is cheaper and sharper than the Batis 40mm f2CF. The FE85mm f1.8E is cheaper and much smaller than the Batis 85mm f1.8 and they are about identical in resolution.
The Sony FE135mm f1.8GM is a better lens than the Batis 135mm f2.8 APO although I personally prefer the Batis here as a whole package(smaller , better color for my needs, and a bit better flare resistance).....and the cheap Sigma art is even better than the Batis in any rational or objective sense.
The Batis 18mm f2.8 is just as good as the Tamron 17-28mm f2.8 at 18mm f2.8 or the FE16-35mm f2.8 at 18mm f2.8.
The Batis 25mm f2 is not as good as the Loxia 25mm f2.4 in resolution and flare resistance, much worse than the GM in overall performance.
So none of these Batis lenses are interesting to many any more.....and I doubt there will be any new Batis lens as considering the fact most of these lenses are commercial disasters(did not sell well even after the current huge price reduction on these).
UPDATE4:A week ago I was really surprised to find that even the famous Nikon guru Thom Hogan is basically saying the same thing as I have been suggesting to the camera companies for many many years that they should listen to the young not to the old forum gear snobs at camera forums.
Listening to the old farts is the most effective way to kill any successful business. Many major cellphone , automotive and audio companies have proved it. The Fred Miranda and DPR crowds never solve any problem for the camera companies as they do not know what the real issues are as Thom rightly pointed out. The problems are :
1 no easy way of image sharing with smartphones.
2 needing long lasting complicated Photoshop editing( some of us like it , but most of others hate it).
3 the UI of the modern cameras are still very much like that of the 80's film camera devices.
4 we can not view our just captured images in the field due to the poor low quality tiny 3 inch camera monitor.
But the DPR and FM crowds only care about 20 frame per second and a bit more DR, but these are not the reasons why most of new cameras sell very poorly.
Neither FF with a tiny bit more DR with 16bits ADC , nor 20 frame per second shooting capability will save the industry.
Only a small minority group needs 20 frame per second or any better AF than the A7R4 or A9 already has.
The problem of those gear snobs at FM forum is that they never realize they are a super minority group and not many people share their silly impractical feature set needs in the real world. Also, most of average camera buyers do not have their kind of crazy camera budget.
Think about this this way Nokia was the most listening company and also the Blackberries listened closely to their long term user base, but what happened to them?
They just died. So I think Thom is right on this one, like he says listening to the wrong sort of crowds will kill the camera makers.
UPDATE 5: Since many people complained about my previous writing here on Nikon lens issue, I think I would have to dig it a bit deeper one more time here.
Many Nikon people never realize why Sony won this ILC game over the two conservative previous dominant duo CN, and many forum guys still think CN will be back.
But if they knew a bit about how and why Sony has won the series of important fights against CN over the last 5 or so years, I am sure they would never think Nikon will eventually come back, they won't.
Nikon is the biggest loser in this industry now, and it is very clear. If Nikon's health is really good , then why those Nikon related forums and members of Nikon fanboy sites are so worried or agitated(or disturbed) whenever a thread like "Nikon is ignored by third party and why?" or something like that posted at Nikon rumors or DPR Nikon forum?
They are so overly defensive and out of touch with the reality.
They never admit Sony and Panasonic's lead in lens game , they still say Sony lenses are garbage quality, L mount is doomed,etc., when their beloved Nikon Z is actually the most doomed system.
They are basically completely shunned by all accessory and lens makers, they are even ignored by Adobe , Adobe is not fixing Nikon Z lens profiles even though many many Nikon shooters have requested that.
In F mount era , Adobe was very supportive of Nikon mount and fixed any bug or issue as soon as they could....because the F had a huge user base.
But now they simply ignore the Z, they focus on Sony, Fuji, Canon , Leica and Panasonic. And after that if they still had a bit of time for super minority Z mount system, they work on that.
So the time has changed, the industry has changed and the way the ILC game played seems to have changed dramatically.
Sony saw the changes before others and that was why Sony made the E mount open system, many of us know that they have learned it from their PlayStation business.
If you want to succeed in ILC business, you must make your mount as open as it gets to third party lens makers.
And the E is the most open(to lens and accessory makers, not to body makers) ILC camera system. Therefore, they have been enjoying the biggest collection of lenses without spending too much R and D money themselves.
Many Canon haters at DPR type of forums always put Canon in the same league as the obvious loser Nikon, but it is really a wrong notion.
They are not equal , Canon R is not really a closed system like many Nikon fans think it is, it is open to those actually take some money and time to reverse engineer it.
So Samyang and Sigma have already announced some new lenses for the R system.
And Sigma will soon announce their latest lenses they have just announced for the L and E in RF mount too.
It is already written in their Japanese site.
And as Sigma makes a EF to E and EF to R mount adapter, they already know the R mount protocols, so we are hundred percent sure Sigma Samyang (not sure about Tamron though) and Cosina will make many lenses for R soon.
But Sigma has never mentioned about the Z mount even in their Japanese main site , other than they just infer their apathy towards Nikon Z that they are not really interested in that system as it does not have any significant presence in the current ILC world and it is really risky to reverse engineer that system. Sigma thinks it is not worth it. They have been sued by Nikon many times, and although they won the court battle in the end , they had to pay a lot of money for a team of great expensive lawyers and court trials....and that left a really bitter taste in Sigma's mouth.
Cosina had the same experience with Nikon, and after that, they are also avoiding any legal case with Nikon.
So I am pretty sure we will never see any Sigma, Cosina and Tamron lenses for the Z system unless the Z becomes invincible dominant player in the FF market.
Canon , unlike Nikon, never sued the major third party lens makers other than some really obscure small lens makers, so they will get at least some from Sigma, Samyang, Cosina and others. So Canon's position in the current ILC world is very different from that of Nikon, and it has always been.
Many Nikon fans in denial never get it but it is the fact , Nikon needs to pay Sigma, Tamron, Cosina to get supported, as they need them more than they need Nikon.
