Sony's big gun....anyone been tempted?

[Range Loser]

I have often toyed with the options of buying a beautiful old german precision camera, or a large format tripod mounted camera, both would give a different quality to digital, but I can carry a D700 with 17-35 and 70-200 in a Billingham Hadley all afternoon with little discomfort, and it's very quick to use and produces quality equal to medium format film. What's not to like, as they say?

 

[jke]

I've actually messed around with a Sony 850 while Sony was doing some sort of promotion at their shop in NYC. While the body seems really wacky with all the buttons, with the grip attached, the buttons and wheels are basically in the same position no matter the orientation. The grip duplicates the buttons on the body in portrait orientation. Redundant, yes, but also strangely convenient.

The pro lenses seemed very nice. But their AF seemed noticeably slower. At least, I would point the camera and expect AF to lock in, but there was a heartbeat's tick before it did. And I could find things to make it hunt. As mentioned above, the pro lenses are expensive compared to Canon but perhaps about the same or a bit less than the pro lenses from Olympus. However, they have a lot of affordable level lenses, including the all the Minolta AF lenses of yore.

One caveat: My father has a Sony Alpha body - one of the low to mid range bodies. A couple of the Sony-brand lenses (an 18-200 and a 70-300) wouldn't connect properly with his camera body. The camera didn't recognize that a lens was mounted, or if it did, nearly immediately lost contact. Ironically, every Minolta lens has worked perfectly.

But Canon is now selling the Canon 5D mkII for $2499. 3200ISO looks like 400ISO on other cameras. Yeah, there is noise in the shadows, but the rest of the image is clean. And with a 17-40mm f4.0L lens, I am barely above $3000 in initial cost. Seemed a no brainer to me, but then I just might not have a brain. 😱

 

[benlees]

I sometimes get tempted as I have no investment in other systems- except a relatively small one in Pentax- and the price is not too bad. I don't care how big it is or how plastic it is- my main camera is a Mamiya 7. The main thing about the a850 is that it shows prices are dropping and quality is going up quite quickly in the digital realm.

But... I like the Mamiya and the K200D still impresses. No need to spend any money.

 

[Ezzie]

Specs and performance may be whatever really (at that price they are all good, Sony, Canon, Nikon and the rest). If you don't like the handling then the camera will not get used. I have a Nikon D2X, rather than similar spec Canon, Pentax, Sony or other because I like the feel of it. The handling, the button lay out and controls. I find the others to be over complicated and the controls to be awkwardly located. Problem with system cameras of course, is once you collect more than a few lenses, swapping systems is expeeeeeeensive.

So go get your mits on one and give it a spin!

 

[japro]

The lens lineup of sony is a little bit disappointing, if you want to have fast prime lenses. Even the new zeiss manual focus lenses are not delivered with a sony mount.

What exactly is lacking there?

35/1.4, 50/1.4, 85/1.4 135/1.8 (!)... Nikon and Canon have 200/2's and Canon has a 50/1.2, is that what it needs today to have a satisfactory linup of fast Lenses 😕

I mainly shoot with Minolta AF gear but only have one digital body (a D5D). The FF-bodies are tempting, but at the moment i'd rather put a full frame sensor into my D9's and buy a lens for 1600$, since the D5D has been adequate for my digital needs so far.

 

[Frank Petronio]

I think that we achieved all the resolution most commercial and "practical" serious photographers ever needed back a couple of years ago with the Nikon D300. The improvements in ISO and range may come eventually but not until the manufacturers stop trying to win the (dumb marketing-driven) megapixel race. Kudos to Nikon and Leica for at least trying to balance resolution versus ISO and dynamic range performance.

 

[user237428934]

What exactly is lacking there?

35/1.4, 50/1.4, 85/1.4 135/1.8 (!)... Nikon and Canon have 200/2's and Canon has a 50/1.2, is that what it needs today to have a satisfactory linup of fast Lenses 😕

I mainly shoot with Minolta AF gear but only have one digital body (a D5D). The FF-bodies are tempting, but at the moment i'd rather put a full frame sensor into my D9's and buy a lens for 1600$, since the D5D has been adequate for my digital needs so far.

I was aiming at fast wideangle like a 35/1.4 or 24/1.4. Yes, at least it seems that Sony has a 35/1.4 but I didn't find it on the sony website. Looked it up in a price-finding website. So I must admit that they have it.

But still Zeiss does not produce it's lenses with a sony mount. Does anybody know the reason?

 

[hans voralberg]

I was aiming at fast wideangle like a 35/1.4 or 24/1.4. Yes, at least it seems that Sony has a 35/1.4 but I didn't find it on the sony website. Looked it up in a price-finding website. So I must admit that they have it.

But still Zeiss does not produce it's lenses with a sony mount. Does anybody know the reason?

Zeiss ZA range has Sony badge on it as well, there's no Zeiss only lens for the Sony mount.

 

[user237428934]

Zeiss ZA range has Sony badge on it as well, there's no Zeiss only lens for the Sony mount.

Zeiss has "Zeiss (ZA)" for Sony (mostly Zoom lenses) and "Zeiss SLR Lenses" which are prime lenses for Canon, Nikon, Pentax. And I was speaking of those Zeiss SLR Lenses where they have really good ones and intersting wide angle lenses.