Mirrorless Cameras (MILC) and Lenses

[Mercutio]

Remember that I'm shooting people, sometimes in motion, rather than wildlife (I suspect they will often move faster than humans do), which is a different set of needs. If I leave the R7 purely in human subject detection and eye AF, that by itself will get me enough keepers to say it's worthwhile. That is not what I do, but it is enough. The R6? Even better.

I actually did a bit of an experiment yesterday, shooting my Sony body with a borrowed Tamron 28-75/2.8 G2. I thought having a native lens might help it out a bit, but it doesn't seem like there's any difference between E mount and adapted EF, at least for autofocus. Doesn't seem like it though. My partner has a brand-new car, so we froze our butts off in an empty parking garage in downtown Gary.

 

[LunarMist]

Which S*ny is that? I've never been able to get really good AF from EF lenses adapted to E mount using either the MetBones or the Simga adapter both with a whole bunch of different FW. I suppose it may be better with certain lenses than others, but the Canon EF 24-70s or 24-105 were not very reliable with low contrast static subjects and of course the teles are hit and miss. That Tamron lens is adding another confounding variable. Canon EF lenses to RF bodies work fine with few limitations as you know. S*ny AF works best with S*ny branded lenses. The a9 was the first to have really good AF with ANY lenses and then the a1 after that. The a7r series did not have really good AF until the end of 2022, but it is still slower than the a9 II/a1. I'm not sure which cameras were upgraded at which time, but despite all the S*ny hype at least some of the S*nys were well behind the Canon R5/R6 up until fairly recently.

I don't understand about the new vehicle. Does it not have heated and cooled seats?

 

[Mercutio]

It does have heated and cooled seats. A Mini Cooper is surprisingly affordable and practical for someone who spends a lot of time driving into the north side of Chicago. She's quite taken with it, and at $25k fully loaded it was cheaper than the Civic she looked at.

I'm using an Altson adapter on an A6000, normally with either a Sigma 50/1.4 or 24-70/2.8. Not as fast to focus as it would on the R6, and it's very occasionally goofy in a way that's usually fixed by turning it off and back on, but entirely fit for purpose.

 

[LunarMist]

I misunsderstand why you were freezing your asses off.
The A6000 is so old that any AF differences probably don't matter.

 

[Mercutio]

I was entirely outside the nice, warm car. My partner was both driving her little car around and posing with/on the car. She's quite taken with it.
We've had a very strange winter. All of December was over 50F. January was mostly 20s and 30s. This month, the temperature spread has been from 0F - 60F. Saturday happened to be one of the colder day, but now we're back up to 50s. The strangest part is that I really, truly haven't had a day that I have had to go out in a coat and gloves all winter. That's absolutely not normal for the Chicago area.

 

[LunarMist]

Hahaha. You guys are crazy in the northern midwest with being out in cold weather. I would rather be South America, Africa, Australia, NZ, or maybe FL/TX/AZ/CA from December through February.
I typically would not be out shooting in that cold weather unless there are spheniscidae involved. Or good money.

 

[Mercutio]

Vissi d'arte, vissi d'amore...

 

[LunarMist]

I'm not sure what you mean, but we have all done goofy stuff for wives and girlfriends.

 

[Mercutio]

In act 2 of Tosca, Floria Tosca stabs Baron Scarpia to death after he makes it clear that he will only free her lover from prison in exchange for her virtue. She then breaks out one of the most iconic arias in all of opera, which in English is "I have lived for art, I have lived for love."

It was an occasional refrain on the sitcom Fraisier as well.

And it's 65F today at 6PM. This weather is not normal at all.

 

[Mercutio]

Dutch team builds an FPV drone faster than an F1 car for very special track footage.
Prepare for tons of Red Bull Product Placement.

 

[LunarMist]

In act 2 of Tosca, Floria Tosca stabs Baron Scarpia to death after he makes it clear that he will only free her lover from prison in exchange for her virtue. She then breaks out one of the most iconic arias in all of opera, which in English is "I have lived for art, I have lived for love."

It was an occasional refrain on the sitcom Fraisier as well.

I have no clue how that maps to your photo situation, but hope there is not such a high body count.

 

[ddrueding]

Dutch team builds an FPV drone faster than an F1 car for very special track footage.
Prepare for tons of Red Bull Product Placement.

I saw that, very cool. Since a big part of the advertising value was selling the services of their advanced engineering company (Red Bull Advanced Technologies), I was hoping for more of the engineering geekery.

 

[LunarMist]

It looks like a video camera on that thing, not a MILS.
I also thought that the Russians had faster drobes for military use. Maybe the handling is not as good.
The engineers are all hyped up on the energy drinks.

 

[Mercutio]

It looks like a video camera on that thing, not a MILS.

Pretty sure they still used a mirrorless camera for it.

I was hoping for more of the engineering geekery

They kind of glossed over the central fact of the problem, which is that the drone only had enough battery to keep that pace for three minutes, barely enough time to run that lap. They said they dropped the weight of the drone by 10%, which could be just as simple as using carbon fiber structure instead of aircraft aluminum. I suppose I'm excited at how this pushes the state of the art for consumer drone tech.

 

[LunarMist]

Pretty sure they still used a mirrorless camera for it.

My 1930s 16mm movie camera was also mirrorless, but MILS/MILC has a more specific meaning.

 

[LunarMist]

The R6 II is now on sale at $2000. I wonder if they are replacing it soon.

 

[Mercutio]

The R6 II is now on sale at $2000. I wonder if they are replacing it soon.

I still have a hard time with the distinction between the R6ii and the R8 as it is. Is a second card slot worth $500? Maybe there's an improved sensor on the way, but I feel like those tricks need to start at the R5 line.

 

[LunarMist]

The differences are significant. https://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canon-eos-r8-review#HC
Mainly

The R8 has no mechanical shutter mode
The R8 has no joystick to select the AF point
The R8 has only 6FPS compared to 12FPS for the R6 II
The R8 viewfinder has fewer pixels and lower magnification
The R8 uses the LP-E17 battery that has about half the capacity of the LP-E6NH

I assume that that weenie little battery in the R8 would be a problem for videos. For me, no joystick for AF selection is a dealbreaker.

 

[Mercutio]

I flip the screen out so I can use my left thumb for focus point selection. That makes more sense for me as a left handed person anyway. Every camera has too much shit on the right hand side anyway. The rest of that isn't a huge deal for me personally.

 

[LunarMist]

Topaz Photo AI 2.40 is out and rather better to use than previous versions. However, it still doesn't have enough granular controls.
Meanwhile Capture one is going down the drain partly because they went the Abode route.

Capture One Lays Off Staff Amid a 'Significant' Internal Restructure

It has been a rough year for Capture One.

petapixel.com

 

[Mercutio]

Capture One still has the option to buy perpetual licenses, unlike some giant evil imaging empires. They're $300 with discounts if you upgrade frequently.

I let Topaz expire. Whatever improvements there have been in the last year definitely haven't added up to $100 worth of added value to me. Maybe I'll use that money to pick up DxO filmpack or something.

 

[LunarMist]

It sucks, but perpetual is rapidly going away.
I will not continue with Topaz either, but still have the better part of a year. I was forced to log in in order to use 2.0.something, so there must be some timer on the perpetual also. A perpetual license is worthless if software needs to reactivate periodically and the company decides to pull the plug on it. At least DXO so far keeps working once activated.

 

[Mercutio]

It sounds like the R5ii is going to be as much of a meh upgrade for current R5 owners as the R6ii was for R6 owners. Maybe the new SoC will be amazing, but is it worth $3500 - whatever the resale value on an R5 is? Who needs a mechanical shutter, right?

I don't really like software phoning home past a license check either. Topaz seems to make me log in ever time I use it, which comes off as obnoxious and is a big part of why I do not want to give that company money any longer. I think that if C1 moved to a monthly subscription only, I probably would jump ship. Not paying monthly really is my favorite thing about it.

 

[LunarMist]

If there is no mechanical shutter and no safety shutter (like the Z9), the sensor will become hopelessly dirty in the field when lenses are changed, so I really would be wanting somethign for protection. There was a critical defect in S*ny bodies (mechanical shutter open) for a few years until they added an option for it to close on power off.

Obviously a fast sensor scan speed means that the framing rate can be high without the audible noise and battery limitations of the R5's 12FPS mechanical mode. That is huge. I expect the IQ and AF will also be improved to some degree. The price should be about $3800-4000. If you think that is too much money, you need better clients.

 

[Mercutio]

I make more money from editing video than anything else that's directly camera-related. My copy of Resolve Studio is paid for and I haven't really wanted anything else to go with it from the software side of things.

I'm using kind of a lot of my side hustle money for a trip to Puerto Rico or Jamaica in late April or early May.

 

[Mercutio]

Apparently, Nikon is buy Red. Maybe it'll finally start making sensors again.

 

[LunarMist]

I don't see that as a good thing at all.

 

[Mercutio]

It gives Nikon credibility in cine cameras that it otherwise did not have before and possibly the patents it needs to stop using Sony for all its sensors. Basically, it can be a full camera company again. TV and movie production might not like losing an option on their side of things, but Arri, Sony and Panavision are all still actively making professional video cameras.

 

[LunarMist]

I don't like videos, like you don't like WD or the Apple. The MILS are already dramatically corrupted by the video requirements.

 

[Mercutio]

I see. It's fair to say that more or less none of the stills-first crowd like Leica or Hasselblad have a lens ecosystem that lives up to your needs either.

 

[LunarMist]

More than the other small formats, Nikon has been about stills. I'm maybe a little paranoid that they get contaminated by videos from the REDs.

 

[LunarMist]

Meanwhile Canon are up to this, whatever it really means. https://global.canon/en/ir/conference/pdf/housin2024ima-e.pdf

 

[ddrueding]

I'm considering upgrading my overkill webcam.

Currently an A7II with a 28-70 kit lens, with HDMI out to an Elgato CamLink 4k. As we all know, MicroHDMI is horrible, and it is showing signs of failure inside the camera after years of use.

I'm considering an A7CII and FE 20-70mm F4 G. My understanding is that I'd be able to use the USB-C both for power and direct connection to the PC. Most of the time I'm the only subject and the focal length is around 60mm, when I have someone with me it lands around 35mm (yes, the camera is over a meter away). The goal of the long fast lens is to minimize the amount of cleaning I have to do in my office while reducing issues related to me not holding still.

Audio is an entirely separate chain (Sennheiser MKE 600, MOTU M4), and the lighting is equally overkill, so those aren't considerations.

I'm assuming this would be a considerable step up in all the things that are relevant to me (DR, AF, general IQ) while allowing this more efficient connection method (USB-C only, instead of dummy battery and MicroHDMI).

Anyone seeing issues with this idea? I haven't been folowing photo stuff for a long time.

 

[LunarMist]

If this is for TEAMS or Zoom, etc., is there some reason you don't just use a dropout background? I use a fixed camera on a tripod well behind my monitor, set to a little longer than "normal" focal length.
The camera you mentioned is OK for blogging if that is what you are doing.

I don't understand why you would need a new lens because the interface connector broken. I would be looking for a lens like the https://www.tamron-usa.com/product/lenses/a063.html][/B]Tamron 28-75/2.8 to provide less DOF and a more practical zoom range. That S*ny is a meh computational lens, i.e., distortion at 20mm is over 10% and over 6% with a moustache at 24mm, and so on.

 

[ddrueding]

Mostly Teams and Zoom, though I also shoot trainings and presentations at higher quality. I find the digital backgrounds to be obvious and distracting, and I spend too much time in and out of calls to make a pull-down green screen practical in my small office.

The replacement lens is because I plan to give the A7II to a friend, and it should have a lens with it.

I will check out the Tamron, thanks for the tip. As I said, I haven't been in the photo stuff for years, and was only ever in the Canon world.

 

[LunarMist]

There are numerous geriatric party lenses for S*ny E since it is an open system. Unfortunately the severely computational lenses are here to stay with MILS from all camera brands since the corrections are shown in the EVF. They could not have gotten away with that much BS in the (D)SLR eras. Even the $3K Canon 24-105/2.8 has severe distortion at 24mm, high lateral CA over most of the range and high color blur at the long end. It's ridiculous.

 

[Mercutio]

The original reason I bought a 35/1.8 lens was for videoconferencing/training sessions. I don't have a 100% dedicated space for doing it at home, and I wanted a relatively narrow field of view so I didn't have to clean too much of my office (which, as one might imagine, looks like a computer store threw up). I have little pieces of tape on my desk to indicate the width of that frame.

Do you really need to zoom on your webcam setup?

 

[ddrueding]

There are a bunch of challenges in my space that led me to the 50+mm focal length. It isn't so much my desk, as I keep that clean, but everything behind in the rest of the room. Directly behind my desk on the far wall I've done a thing with some nanoleaf lights and sound panels that looks acceptable and interesting, but everywhere around that 5'x5' square are exercise bikes, moving boxes, and shelves of gear. It also doesn't help that my main monitor is 42", I have a pair of absurdly large studio monitors, and I'm trying to squeeze in room for a secondary monitor on IKEA's smallest desk. It really helps that the camera is set well behind the monitors shooting just over the top of the screen. When I get the CAD drawn up I'll share it.
It certainly isn't a need, but it helps with the layout and I like the look of the shot. I tend to rock back and forwards, and the longer shot helps cover up the change in distance.

 

[Mercutio]

Get a 50/1.2 and the background will be so blurry no one will even know what's behind you.

 

[ddrueding]

At 1.2 I'll be rocking myself in and out of focus

2.8 is probably the most I can get away with.