TWiP 417 – The Sony Onslaught Continues
The Sony onslaught continues. Without question Sony has been one of the standout movers and shakers in the ongoing digital SLR saga. And the company continues to push the envelope in terms of creating standard setting sensors. Last week Sony introduced their new flagship full frame mirrorless cameras — the A7 II and the A7R II.
The new A7R II features the world’s first 42.4 megapixel back illuminated full frame CMOS sensor, with light sensitivity expandable up to ISO 102,400. And the company claims auto focus speeds are up to 40% faster than in the original A7R (sorry early adopters) thanks to 399 focal plane phase detection AF points.
Wow… that’s a lot of progress, in such a short time.
Joining me to discuss Sony’s latest announcements and other photography news of the week, are Martin Bailey from Martin Bailey Photography & the host of TWiP Weddings - Bruce Clarke.
Links Mentioned in This Episode
- Sony announces the a7R II
- Sony announces the RX10-II & RX100-IV
- Your favourite carry-on may soon be too big to fly
Picks of the Week
- Martin: Pick up an old film camera, like the Yashica-D TLR, and check out my videos at http://mbp.ac/475, http://mbp.ac/476 and http://mbp.ac/477 to see how to develop the film.
- Bruce: Business Action Planner
TWiP 417 is brought to you by:
Panasonic Lumix Cameras
This episode of TWiP is brought to you by Panasonic Lumix Cameras. Visit the Panasonic Lumix Lounge to learn more about these fantastic cameras and see what the Lumix Luminary team is creating!
Squarespace
Start your free trial site today with no credit card required at Squarespace.com, and use promo code “TWIP” to get 10% off of a Squarespace account.
Freshbooks.com
Freshbooks is the simple cloud accounting solution that’s helping thousands of new entrepreneurs and small business owners save time billing, and get paid faster. Sign up for free today at FreshBooks.com and join over 5 million users running their business with ease.
Lynda.com
Learn what you want, when you want, with access to thousands of highquality and easy-to-follow video tutorials, including many about photography. Do something good for yourself in 2015 and sign up for a FREE 10day trial by visiting lynda.com/twip.
Connect with Our Hosts & Guests
Martin Bailey: Website, Twitter, Google+
Bruce Clarke: Website, Twitter, Google+, Instagram
Frederick Van Johnson: Website, Twitter, Google+, Instagram
Credits
Pre-production by: Bruce Clarke
Post production by: Suzanne Llewellyn & Vince Bauer
Bandwidth provided by: Cachefly
Intro Music by: Scott Cannizzaro
Great show guys. FVJ, when Doug reviewed the smaller RX100 series, I think the second & third editions he really liked them , in fact I think he said he bought the 3rd edition. These cameras are hugely popular & with the 1″ sensor take great photos, some say they look better then the 4/3rds cameras. The RX10 & now the RX 10II have that big beefy Zeiss lens, it goes out to 200mm & takes great photos & videos but with the 4k upgrades especially the RX10II it’s going to be a video monster because it has all the ports, new codec, it’s just a great all a rounder. O, just wanna say Gordan & Doug are great & all on AAtG, but it’s not the same without u buddy.
It’s not the same without Frederick. But it’s still a good show.
You have it right on Sony and their lens ecosystem. We have to go Zeiss and I’m honestly not impressed with Zeiss when I compare their lenses to my Nikon and Fuji lenses, and they’re huge. Originally I was going to the Sony camp because their cameras seemed to have more features for the money (and they do), but the lenses is what pushed me to Fuji.
I have the sony A6000 and you can assign back button focus.
Thanks Mark. Good to know. It’s essential for me to separate focus from shutter.
That was one of the first things I did with the camera, Its the only way I can focus. Almost every button on the camera can be assigned to a different function.
Frederick – I often think to myself as I listen to an episode, TWiP could really use an engineer on the panel from time to time! One of the big benefits spoken for mirrorless cameras is size. Yet, when talking about a full-frame camera like the A7 series, we have to remember that the glass is about the same size as for full-frame DSLR. It’s just physics. I looked up the specs on Sony’s (one and only) 70-200 lens, an f/4, and compared it to the equivalent Canon 70-200 f/4 IS. The Sony lens is bigger and heavier. You absolutely do save quite a bit of weight on the camera (compared to, say, the 5D MkIII). But, one could argue that the DSLR with that lens attached is a better balanced kit.
Now, the Sony has some impressive stats, and we know they have great sensors. Make a decision based on those and on ergonomics. But mirrorless is not all about size. Your Lumix is another matter. The micro-4/3 sensor allows everything to shrink a lot. I recently bought an Olympus OM-D E-M10 strictly to have a small and light camera to carry on personal trips. But, it has compromises like effective D-O-F, lower resolution, and reduced low-light performance. (And, have you ever tried to shoot with an EVF while wearing polarized sunglasses? Ugh.) But it is very light and easy to carry.
The other “should have an engineer” discussion was about GPS on-board. The reason the 5D series still doesn’t have GPS or WiFi seems to be the desire to maintain an all-metal body. You just can’t bury an antenna inside a titanium shell. I suspect Canon thinks their customers for that line want the durability more than GPS or WiFi. Perhaps there is a clever solution, but I believe that’s the current reasoning. There are always compromises in any (affordable) design. The designers have to hope the marketeers know their business.
That is all. Carry on. 🙂
Tony Drumm
Great show! Thanks for that. And thanks for tellin’ Canon and Nikon what their problem is 😉
Anyway,
I would like to weigh in on the whole compact is dead thing.
Americans/US-based podcasts tend to forget that Sony, Panasonic, Canon
etc. are asian/japanese companies. But, more importantly, they are
international companies. US market may tend to go for “bigger is
better”. At least, that is my opinion. If someone wants to get a “good”
camera, they go all in and buy the huge 5D MkIII…
the EMEA market
is different. In Europe and especially in Asia, the compact/bridge
market is big. People there just don’t want to carry around all that
fullframe DSLR stuff. They want a small camera, with interchangeable
lenses, or they want a very small compact camera with optical zoom.
Thats something that all those “I have my iPhone…” tend to forget. You
have no real zoom on those Cell phones. And won’t until lens-tech makes
a big leap.
So, anyway, I must disagree on the compact discussion. there is a market. Its just not the US.
I love the show, but I find that TWIP is just beating the mirrorless drum a little too often. For all the talk about how everyone Frederick and other hosts know that are ditching their DSLRs for mirrorless, sales of mirrorless are flat (and in fact slightly down so far this year). The only thing that makes it look better than it is, is that DSLR sales are declining faster. Not exactly a ringing endorsement. Still, currently sales of DSLRs substantially outsell mirrorless – with about 3.5M cameras in the first five months of this year to about 1.1M mirrorless cameras. And mirrorless sales are projected to be down for 2015 (just not as much as DSLR sales will be down). Don’t get me wrong, all of the innovation is clearly coming from the Sony/Olympus/Panasonic camp, not from the Nikon/Canon camp. And, yes, i agree that if they don’t change course soon, we could be talking about Nikon or Canon being a case study for MBA candidates because they can’t get out of their own way and fail. But “everyone’s going mirrorless?” Please, it just isn’t happening, not when new DSLR sales are outselling mirrorless sales by 3 to 1. And when we talk full frame, the weight savings isn’t significant as Tony points out below.