65 replies to this topic

[loftus]

Is anyone familiar with convertors available to use other lenses with Sony mounts. For example is there a convertor to allow use of Tokina 10-17 with Canon or Nikon mount?

[gobiodon]

Is anyone familiar with convertors available to use other lenses with Sony mounts. For example is there a convertor to allow use of Tokina 10-17 with Canon or Nikon mount?

You can use it on any NEX with adapters (MF only) but not on SLT or SLR cameras I'm afraid.

[rtrski]

The sony slt's do not use an optical view finder. They use a tiny sensor and an evf. Not as good as the one in the gh2, from my brief inspection at a store.

I'm sorry but the above isn't accurate. The Sony SLR's (e.g. a580) in live-view use a tiny sensor in the VF tunnel to supply an image to the rear screen. The SLT's on the other hand don't have any secondary sensor in the VF tunnel...just the AF phase detector. They use the main sensor (which is always illuminated thru the translucent mirror) to provide the image to the EVF screen.

I'm not commenting about the GH2 comparison in particular, as I haven't handled one, just the source of the view. The a33/a55 sequential-color EVF is probably to 'blame' though if the view isn't as good, not a 'tiny sensor'. As of course the APS sensor is bigger than 4:3rds.

The new OLED EVF in the a65/a77 is full-color progressive 1024x768, essentially. Sounds like it might stack up as nicely comparable with the Pany's.

Electronic first-curtain shuttering is also rather interesting. Tiny 'speed' improvement...but might be enough to equate the introduction of 'video lag' in the EVF vs. an OVF? (EDIT - Just read Image-Resources preview. They said that at about 53msec pre-focus shutter delay, the a77 was as fast as any other DSLR they've tested, regardless of price. That 'pre-focused line is of course a key, as is human response time being off the EVF which might be lagged...but that's good news for a sub $1.5k body)

Quick P.S. - I'm actually almost as interested in the a65 as the a77: sacrifices a couple FPS in the high-speed dedicated mode, 1/4000th vs. 1/8000th max shutter, some screen articulation flexibility, and stored lens focus adjustment. Except for that last one, it might be a significantly better buy. I was hoping it would be almost identical to the a55 in layout but it looks light the right shoulder button placement is fairly different. Still...Ike might be able to bang out a quick rear-face housing upgrade for the a55 housing that I just received a week ago... I'd LOL at myself if I weren't weeping a tiny bit inside.

Edited by rtrski, 24 August 2011 - 12:41 PM.

[Don in Colorado]

My bet is Ikelite will support this camera. I think the other housing manufacturers will hold off until the camera is throughly tested. The spec are impressive. I don't know what Sony's lens lineup looks like, and that might me the limiting factor for underwater use.

[rtrski]

Sigma lenses are available in the Sony mount in a pretty good variety...unfortunately most of their "standard zoom" ranges these days have HSM and OS which makes them fat...too fat for Ike ports or at least sleeves, if you follow Ike's recommendations at least.

I'm testing out an older Sigma 17-70mm f2.8-4.5 DC Macro which Ike says should be behind an 8" port behind their 6" 5503.80 port instead. Suffers some vignetting at the widest end from the shade for sure, but I think the corner sharpness just might be acceptable without a diopter once it's stepped down to f5.6 or so. (With a dipoter it might just barely crash the dome interior at the long end, so I might have to split some rubber tubing and glue on a protector to cover the little teethies on the leading edge of the diopter ring if I decide to use one, and be limited to like 60-65mm or so.) Depending on who you believe though, the cheap kit 18-55 might be almost as good as the 17-70 though. The a77/a65 come with a newer 16-50 lens that also might beat it.

Edited by rtrski, 24 August 2011 - 06:25 AM.

[DrMark]

Well, the race is now on. Anybody care to speculate who will be the first manufacturer to house the a77? I've already seen some on-line reviews where they compare the image quality of the a77 favorably to full-frame cameras costing 4X as much. The image quality isn't quite as good, but it is really close.

As somebody who does about 50-50 still and video, I can't wait to get a good all-in-one camera so I don't have to take two housings on my dive trips, and choose which camera to dive with. You still people think you have it bad with the macro vs. wide-angle question before every dive. Try adding video or still?

--Mark

[Don in Colorado]

Well, the race is now on. Anybody care to speculate who will be the first manufacturer to house the a77? I've already seen some on-line reviews where they compare the image quality of the a77 favorably to full-frame cameras costing 4X as much. The image quality isn't quite as good, but it is really close.

As somebody who does about 50-50 still and video, I can't wait to get a good all-in-one camera so I don't have to take two housings on my dive trips, and choose which camera to dive with. You still people think you have it bad with the macro vs. wide-angle question before every dive. Try adding video or still?

--Mark

My bet. Ikelite will be the first manufacturer, followed by Nauticam and then Aquatica.

12 frames per second ( unlimited ? ) would appeal to me. I was taking pictures of cliff divers yesterday.

Edited by Don in Colorado, 24 August 2011 - 09:09 PM.

[Drew]

Hmmm sync speed is only 1/250... aw shucks! It'll be interesting to see if the circuitry is any harder to get TTL etc than Canikon and other companies. That LCD is SLICK! I can imagine a housing using it as a viewfinder!

What the Sony Alpha range lacks is a good range of lenses.

[edmond320]

Hmmm sync speed is only 1/250... aw shucks! It'll be interesting to see if the circuitry is any harder to get TTL etc than Canikon and other companies. That LCD is SLICK! I can imagine a housing using it as a viewfinder!

What the Sony Alpha range lacks is a good range of lenses.

Drew,
Any idea how long Alpha 77 able to film video before overheat warning appear ?My Alpha 55 cannot continuously using the video mode like a video cam, overheating warning always an annoying issue to me.
Thanks

Edmond

[Drew]

Well, looking at the battery specs, I suspects it's not very long! I really have no idea. I'll be looking at it in a week or so and will let you know.

I think most ViDSLx will have this difficulty as processors get more powerful and video quality gets better. The form factor and weather sealing just doesn't allow proper venting.

[gobiodon]

My bet. Ikelite will be the first manufacturer, followed by Nauticam and then Aquatica.

12 frames per second ( unlimited ? ) would appeal to me. I was taking pictures of cliff divers yesterday.

Good examples for the 12 FPS on a77:
http://www.youtube.c...nel_video_title

[Don in Colorado]

Good examples for the 12 FPS on a77:
http://www.youtube.c...nel_video_title

Impressive!

This camera is going to be some serious competition for Canikon. Maybe Nikon will put a bigger buffer in their next DSLR. 10 frame RAW buffer in the D7000 is starting to look pretty small.

[rtrski]

Drew,
Any idea how long Alpha 77 able to film video before overheat warning appear ?My Alpha 55 cannot continuously using the video mode like a video cam, overheating warning always an annoying issue to me.
Thanks

Edmond

Edmund:

They claim to have 'fixed' the overheat problem entirely. In the a55 it was worst with in-body stabilization on. Video overheated in supposedly 2-5 minutes, with a max of like 6-9 minutes with it off. The a77 is claiming almost 30 minutes, with or without in-body stabilization on I believe.

Even the a35, which still has a 16mpix sensor has a 'new generation' of the sensor in the a33/a55, and claims to have licked the overheat issue. So the a65/a77 generation sensor should have the same improvements.

All the above is topside of course...in a housing...in sun....???

1/250th sync vs. 1/320th or 1/400th is annoying...don't know why 'top tier' cameras limit themselves like this. My Oly E-30 had 1/320th sync at least. And in the Ike housing the a55 internal flash doesn't raise enough to fire off (keep thinking about trying to fool the detector contact so it thinks it's up) so safe bet is that the a65 at least will be the same. I'm still not convinced Ike will house the a77, but a65 seems like a very small control point change from the a33/a55 housing (one additional top button right side, one slightly moved, and the 3 on the right 'shoulder slant' slightly moved). They might be able to get away with just tweaking the control bends and use a jog to let one button shaft service the two top buttons vs. adding or changing penetrations at all.

Edited by rtrski, 25 August 2011 - 07:49 AM.

[loftus]

Hmmm sync speed is only 1/250... aw shucks!

The smallest thing can be a deal breaker. Makes it just a little harder to get black backgrounds in the pool.
Can't take a 10-17.
But 12fps would be great for wildlife, and sport - hmmm longest lens sony makes is a 300mm.
Just not quite there yet.

Edited by loftus, 25 August 2011 - 04:12 PM.

[edmond320]

Hi Drew,rtrski,
Thanks for your information. From dpreview, they have this :
"The A77 is free of the overheating concerns during movie shooting that affected the A55 (recording times could drop as low as 6 min at 30°C with SteadyShot switched on). Sony estimates the A77 can shoot for its full 29 minutes at 30°C, dropping to 13 minutes only when the ambient temperature rises to 40°C"

Thanks.

Edmond

[edmond320]

The smallest thing can be a deal breaker. Makes it just a little harder to get black backgrounds in the pool.
Can't take a 10-17.
But 12fps would be great for wildlife, and sport - hmmm longest lens sony makes is a 300mm.
Just not quite there yet.

May be Tokina will have Sony A mount for the 10-17 later.
What about Sigma 15mm Fisheye F2.8 A mount? I have this len used for a month, great topside but I don't have a chance to use it with my ikelite + underwatercamerastuff 5" mini dome.
Hope I can try it out shortly.

Regards
Edmond

Edited by edmond320, 25 August 2011 - 07:27 PM.

[Drew]

The smallest thing can be a deal breaker. Makes it just a little harder to get black backgrounds in the pool.
Can't take a 10-17.
But 12fps would be great for wildlife, and sport - hmmm longest lens sony makes is a 300mm.
Just not quite there yet.

And there in lies the rub, the range of lenses isn't up to the more established brands. I think it'll eat into Nikon more than Canon. With the video side of things being so solid, unless Nikon licenses the video portion and gets it right.

There are a few things like 12fps but only 13 RAW buffer. So @ 1.1 seconds the sequence is over. Plus using SDXC and SMP means the buffer won't be clearing very quickly either.

Still that sort of spec for $1400 body only is a big slap in Canon and Nikon's face, since both have a higher end line of cameras to protect.

[loftus]

Early rumblings are that the high ISO performance may not be that impressive. But then the high MP should make up for that, not so Drew?

[Drew]

Well look at the NEX7 Jeff, and judge for yourself. It's pretty darn impressive. And yes MP can be a factor.

[loftus]

Well look at the NEX7 Jeff, and judge for yourself. It's pretty darn impressive. And yes MP can be a factor.

Just trying to jerk your chain Drew....