Studio work with A7III

[jmarcus]

Hi,
I just shot a test with five models last night. I used a Sony A7III and a Zeiss 85mm F/1.8. I was disappointed with the speed of the autofocus and the hunting that would occasionally happen when the lens was trying to focus. I might not know enough about the camera but I was hoping that it would detect the eyes and focus there more frequently. I did have the Eye AF turned on and the latest firmware. The feature of the A7III that is amazing is the dynamic range, I can pull real detail out of shadows, of underexposed images.

Not sure if this is the correct place to post this, but why are Leica rangefinders considered to difficult to work within the studio? Is it because of the lack of accuracy of the viewfinder?

So what about using a Visioflex with an M10, doesn't that essentially turn the M10 into an SLR/mirrorless camera?


I'm curious to hear what people think?

 

[Larry H-L]

The Zeiss Sonnar Batis 85mm f1.8 does seem slower to focus than other Sony FE mount lenses. Low light levels in a studio (modeling lights on strobes) might also slow down the autofocus speed of the camera, and cause some EVF lag.

Yes, an EVF on a Leica M would make it pretty much like any other mirrorless camera, however many standard M-mount lenses don’t focus as close as other mirrorless brands. There are work arounds to solve the close focus issue.

Bang for the buck is another issue, a 61mp Sony is half the price.

 

[airfrogusmc]

I shot a clients extesive car collection over 70 cars with Leica Ms. M10, M 262 and M-E. 4 black line speedotron 4808s with 4 heads each in a 10 X 30 overhead softbox and I didn't find the Ms any more difficult to shoot in the studio than other camera. I would say becasue Ms fit the way I see and work it was maybe easier for me to use Ms. Now keep in mind that in film days I did most of my studo work with 500 C/Ms or view cameras.

 

[Archlich]

You don't need a Leica to manual focus. Just do it with the a7III.

 

[Ko.Fe.]

I use M-E with flash for indoors portraits. Just plane simple auto flash. I also have Meitz made for Leica TTL flash, but it is more like souvenir. Leica seem to have no knowledge on TTL flash, at least with M. Yet, to have profit they made proprietary (primitive) TTL, to have only Meitz flashes with Leica logos "working" as "TTL". So, if you like to use strobes, you will have to know how to use non TTL systems.