Let's talk about Dynamic Range, Low-light performance, action sports, and Sony Cameras

cydwhit

cydwhit

Active member
Ok, so I have a few questions and honestly would just appreciate some discussion from people who are better photographers than me and have experience with any of these cameras. First, for reference, my current setup:

-Canon 7d (og, not II)

-Ronkinon 6.5mm fish

-Tokina 11-16

-Sigma 18-200

-Canon 70-200 F4 L, non IS

80% photo, 20% video

-15% Fish

-50% 11-16

-20% 18-200

-15% 70-200

Subjects

-%50 Skiing (and skiing landscapes)

-%25 Mountain biking (crappy light in deep woods)

-%20 Misc (landscape, climbing, portraits, random fun stuff)

I love the 7d for skiing, and for everything else too honestly but I feel like I might finally be pushing its limits a little and want to upgrade.

Things I like about it:

-8FPS

-Indestructible

-I have lenses for it

Things I don't like:

-Not so hot in low light (shooting MTB has reminded me of this)

-Lots of noise at high ISO

-Not so much Dynamic Range as I would like to have (I think)

-Big and Heavy (touring with this and a few lenses is not the best)

Recently Sony's A7 Line has caught my eye. Reasonably solid low light performance, Full Frame, lighter, smaller, fancy autofocus stuff, the works.

Cons (as I see them, tell me if I missed some)

-only 5fps on the A7 (probably the one I would get unless someone convinces me otherwise)

-Slow startup time (probably not that big of a deal)

-Limited lenses, would have to adapt mine or sell them and get Sony lenses.

-Not a DSLR

Pros:

-Higher resolution (yeah, I don't really care though)

-Better Low Light

-Better Dynamic Range (I think?)

-Full Frame

-Not a DSLR

A7 vs A7II

Is it worth it to go with the A7II? looks like better AF, better IS, and a faster startup time, none of which seem mega huge to me but if anyone has hands on time with both and wants to weigh in...

Or am I on totally the wrong track and I should be looking at another DSLR? Any and all advice and experience would be much appreciated.

Thanks!
 
The A7s is an insane camera. But if you're that into photos, and already invested in Canon, you might want to upgrade to the 7D mk II. I have it and love it. Crazy fast fps continuous, 1080 60p video, bombproof. If you don't mind the size of the Canon DSLR I'd suggest doing that. That said, I've also considered getting the A7s as it looks like a really sick camera
 
13459044:SourSteezle said:
The A7s is an insane camera. But if you're that into photos, and already invested in Canon, you might want to upgrade to the 7D mk II. I have it and love it. Crazy fast fps continuous, 1080 60p video, bombproof. If you don't mind the size of the Canon DSLR I'd suggest doing that. That said, I've also considered getting the A7s as it looks like a really sick camera
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Yeah, it's tempting... Any comment on the low light from the 7D mk II? I don't really need the 10fps although that would be fun.

Also sort of temped by something like an Olympus OMD.

Mostly I'm trying to wean myself off that fisheye and go for a more "artistic" angle with more of a focus on composition, IQ and DR.
 
13459055:cydwhit said:
Yeah, it's tempting... Any comment on the low light from the 7D mk II? I don't really need the 10fps although that would be fun.
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Not absolutely superb but not bad either. I've been enjoying it a lot. It's great for photography but I will say that when I compare my video shots to a friend's A7s shots it's not as sharp and crisp.
 
13459055:cydwhit said:
Yeah, it's tempting... Any comment on the low light from the 7D mk II? I don't really need the 10fps although that would be fun.

Also sort of temped by something like an Olympus OMD.

Mostly I'm trying to wean myself off that fisheye and go for a more "artistic" angle with more of a focus on composition, IQ and DR.
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wouldn't say it's too much better than the original 7d, but it's not too far behind the 5d for low light performance
 
I shoot on a D800 now. It's insanely good with low light, I'm constantly impressed.

I know that Sony builds sensors for Nikon, if the A7 is anything similar to the performance of the new nikon sensors, you will be very pleased.

I shoot on an Olympus OM-1 as a 35mm film cam. Love it, but definitely wouldn't want to shoot an OM-D. It's great for what it is - fun, nothing I have to worry about, good lenses, easy to carry, discrete, easy to travel with. But modern DSLR cameras are meant to be workhorses - they take the guesswork out of thinks so yyou can do what you want - namely, focus on IQ, DR, composition, whatever... or they take the guesswork out of it so you can set that fuckin' dial to auto, then spray'n'pray.

IMO the OM system would be a little too hard to use all the time, especially for action sports. You will focus on the camera and less on the taking of the photo.... that's good for some people so they slow down and think, but not for me, not for everyone. If someone asked me how to "use" my camera, it would take me a minute to describe everything because it's so ergonomic that I don't actually think about what I'm actually doing to set it up for a specific shot. I don't feel that way about the OM system.

Now, if you want to get an OM-1 and shoot film, I would totally suggest that you do that. Less than 100$ for an OM-1 and a 50mm f1.8
 
Keep in mind that the A7 series cameras focus like you are focusing in live view mode on a canon. Not very fast and unreliable compared to your standard DSLR focus points.
 
13459752:TWoods said:
I shoot on a D800 now. It's insanely good with low light, I'm constantly impressed.

I know that Sony builds sensors for Nikon, if the A7 is anything similar to the performance of the new nikon sensors, you will be very pleased.

I shoot on an Olympus OM-1 as a 35mm film cam. Love it, but definitely wouldn't want to shoot an OM-D. It's great for what it is - fun, nothing I have to worry about, good lenses, easy to carry, discrete, easy to travel with. But modern DSLR cameras are meant to be workhorses - they take the guesswork out of thinks so yyou can do what you want - namely, focus on IQ, DR, composition, whatever... or they take the guesswork out of it so you can set that fuckin' dial to auto, then spray'n'pray.

IMO the OM system would be a little too hard to use all the time, especially for action sports. You will focus on the camera and less on the taking of the photo.... that's good for some people so they slow down and think, but not for me, not for everyone. If someone asked me how to "use" my camera, it would take me a minute to describe everything because it's so ergonomic that I don't actually think about what I'm actually doing to set it up for a specific shot. I don't feel that way about the OM system.

Now, if you want to get an OM-1 and shoot film, I would totally suggest that you do that. Less than 100$ for an OM-1 and a 50mm f1.8
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Yeah, I have an OM-10 I shot with a bunch last summer and loved, now its got some sort of shutter issue and it just got a little expensive for film. Definitely planning on jumping back into that soon though.

Funnily enough, I am trying to slow down and focus on the camera a tad more. I basically got pretty confident shooting skiing over and then got my butt kicked trying to shoot mountain biking and some nature/landscape stuff, so I really want to hone the "art" or "craft" or whatever obnoxious word it is, of shooting photos.

13459806:1337 said:
I'll post more tomorrow when it's not 3:15am haha
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Ha, awesome, thanks!

Good to know about the focus stuff. Like I said above, I could be down to sacrifice a little speed and ease of use for IQ. I could also potentially wait to upgrade a little longer and keep my 7d and canon glass, adapt some of the glass to the A7 and then still have the 7d as a backup, quick action camera. That way I could also have two bodies which I have wanted for a while. Anyway, I'll wait on your big response, thanks!
 
Jamie was telling me that 1d4's are starting to go for pretty cheap (around $1500 i think he said), that is starting to become more of an option for me as an upgrade from the 5d2, although it doesn't solve the weight issue for you.

It looks like the 5d4 might fall into the range of what you're looking for, rumor has it that the fps are going to get a bump up to around 7 or 8, which would be welcome to guys like us.

Honestly the thing that made the biggest difference for me in shooting touring/BC stuff was a good backpack.

I don't know a lot about Sony, so I'm staying tuned here for that, but personally, I'm invested in Canon, so I'll probably stay there. Although, Nikon's offerings, as TWoods said, look pretty sweet.
 
I have the 7Dii shooting 90% photo with Canon 17-40 f/4L, Rokinon 8mm f/3.5 and am currently renting the 70-200 f/2.8L (going to buy this week).

Overall, the camera is an absolute workhorse. I love it to death. Even though it's not full frame, having the 1.6x crop sensor can actually be quite useful for tele shots (especially with the 70-200). You'd be surprised on how useful the 10fps can be, especially when shooting wide. You end up getting a lot of frames that truly capture the moment.

Like you said, the A7 is full frame which can be really, really nice for cropping images and retaining quality.

If you want, I can link some low light photos taken with the 7Dii without grain reduction in post.
 
13463342:Powder_Purge said:
I have the 7Dii shooting 90% photo with Canon 17-40 f/4L, Rokinon 8mm f/3.5 and am currently renting the 70-200 f/2.8L (going to buy this week).

Overall, the camera is an absolute workhorse. I love it to death. Even though it's not full frame, having the 1.6x crop sensor can actually be quite useful for tele shots (especially with the 70-200). You'd be surprised on how useful the 10fps can be, especially when shooting wide. You end up getting a lot of frames that truly capture the moment.

Like you said, the A7 is full frame which can be really, really nice for cropping images and retaining quality.

If you want, I can link some low light photos taken with the 7Dii without grain reduction in post.
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Yeah, Interesting, how does it do at higher ISO's ?

Thanks!
 
The Fuji Xt1 may be a camera worth checking out, defiantly excels in the low light and it can shoot 8 FPS, or maybe I'm bias because it looks cool and I need to stop being a hipster
 
if you want dynamic range and amazing low light performance, definitely look into the A7S instead of the A7 if you can swing it
 
One last bump.

Probably going to snag the A7II when I get home, along with the kit lens and probably some sort of adaptor to use my canon glass with it.

Speak now or forever hold your peace!
 
CINEMA5D has a bunch of A7S and A7RII reviews. Head over to the website to see more on these cameras.
https://www.cinema5d.com/reviews/cameras/

Keep in mind the A7S and A7RII are both full frame cameras. I did not pay attention to the the lenses you listed in your original post, but keep in mind you probably want all of your lenses to be full frame rather then being designed for APS-C size sensors. The A7S and A7RII both do have a crop in option, which enables you to use the sensor at an APS-C size frame. So if you do have APS-C size lenses you can always turn that option on, or you can just turn on the crop sensor if you like APS-C framing better. Anyways I think either of the A7's give you plenty of options for both photography and video. I see a lot of photographers and cinematographers switching over to Sony's mirrorless technology.
 
13485155:xnick11 said:
CINEMA5D has a bunch of A7S and A7RII reviews. Head over to the website to see more on these cameras.
https://www.cinema5d.com/reviews/cameras/

Keep in mind the A7S and A7RII are both full frame cameras. I did not pay attention to the the lenses you listed in your original post, but keep in mind you probably want all of your lenses to be full frame rather then being designed for APS-C size sensors. The A7S and A7RII both do have a crop in option, which enables you to use the sensor at an APS-C size frame. So if you do have APS-C size lenses you can always turn that option on, or you can just turn on the crop sensor if you like APS-C framing better. Anyways I think either of the A7's give you plenty of options for both photography and video. I see a lot of photographers and cinematographers switching over to Sony's mirrorless technology.
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Yeah, Thanks! been reading those.

Looks like my 11-16 will work at 16mm and my 70-200 will work fine to fill in the voids above and below the kit lens
 
13463445:Jamartini said:
The Fuji Xt1 may be a camera worth checking out, defiantly excels in the low light and it can shoot 8 FPS, or maybe I'm bias because it looks cool and I need to stop being a hipster
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doesnt excel in low light at all
 
If you're doing mostly photo... the A7ii kinda sucks for sports. tracking AF is inconsistent as hell on mirrorless cameras - especially when you stop down (which you inevitably have to do when it's bright out or if you want deeper depth of field)

Reason? On a DSLR, the camera focuses with the diaphragm WIDE OPEN so as to make it far easier to focus, but with mirrorless cameras (and i'm quite sure the A7 does this as well) the diaphragm closes up in order to meter, and therefore, leads to obnoxiously slow AF. If you're using manual focus lenses all the time, or are always shooting wide open on fast primes, then whatever, but as somebody who really enjoys having AF when I'm shooting sports photography due to the higher amount of in-focus shots I get, I'd highly recommend a DSLR since you shoot skiing and cycling and shit. Landscapes and portraiture? yeah, you can use the A7 for that stuff, but it's not the best for street photography or sports. (Even the Fuji's - renowned for being awesome, small, street photography and general use stills cameras - have very obnoxious AF - even the newer x100t's and AT-1's have much slower and more inaccurate AF as compared to their DSLR counterparts)

unless you pre-focus and are shooting at f8 to deepen your depth of field, it will be difficult to use even with manual focus (so in that situation you might as well not be shooting digital anyway)

With that said, the 7D seems totally fine for what you're doing already, and I get the annoyances with the low light performance and whatnot, but in all honesty, you're not going to be getting a whole lot more from an A7 unless you're only doing video. It will not be as good for sports photography at all - there's a good reason sports photographers still all use DSLR's - and it's not because Canon and Nikon own the market or because they have worn their hands into the magnesium bodies with brand loyalty or something..

The recommendation from me might have be the 7D2. It does have better low light performance than the 7Di. It's not by much, but you can get at least another stop or perhaps more out of it before noise becomes an issue (shooting at 3200 doesn't seem to look too bad on them, nor the 70D which has the same sensor)... but on top of that, it's AF performance is fucking DOPE and at 10fps/1080p60? It's basically a poor-man's 1Dx with the same resolution and noise performance of the 6D... The 7D2 is badass. ALSO, you wouldn't have to go through the bullshit of finding new lenses - you can just pick up where you left off - and that's nice.

For video purposes, I'd want to say Sony/Nikon would possibly be better mostly because of uncompressed and non-upscaled 1080 like what canon does, but Nikon unfortunately doesn't have the FPS speed on any of their mid-range cameras that Canon provides (The D7200 or whatever gets like 7fps, but until you get a D700/D3/D4, you won't get an extremely worthwhile camera to have that shoots 8+fps - even with canon you can get a 1Dmk2n for like 250$ and that will shoot 8.5 or something with an awesome 1.3x crop sensor). The D750 would be a solid option with 6fps, uncompressed 1080p60, a flip screen, full frame, dual card slot and awesome AF performance, but then you'd be switching systems - which not everyone wants to do (besides me apparently?). The Sensor in the D750 is also the same sensor as the 24megapixel A7's (whichever model that is) so the image characteristics are more-less the same as those. The 36 megapixel A7's share sensors with the D800 and D810, and their resolution is off the charts (and they have great noise performance I understand?) but again... the AF for sports stills is useless - i'd probably just MF all day instead of bothering with wack ass AF that mirrorless cams provide for sports subject tracking.
 
13486007:DingoSean said:
If you're doing mostly photo... the A7ii kinda sucks for sports. tracking AF is inconsistent as hell on mirrorless cameras - especially when you stop down (which you inevitably have to do when it's bright out or if you want deeper depth of field)

Reason? On a DSLR, the camera focuses with the diaphragm WIDE OPEN so as to make it far easier to focus, but with mirrorless cameras (and i'm quite sure the A7 does this as well) the diaphragm closes up in order to meter, and therefore, leads to obnoxiously slow AF. If you're using manual focus lenses all the time, or are always shooting wide open on fast primes, then whatever, but as somebody who really enjoys having AF when I'm shooting sports photography due to the higher amount of in-focus shots I get, I'd highly recommend a DSLR since you shoot skiing and cycling and shit. Landscapes and portraiture? yeah, you can use the A7 for that stuff, but it's not the best for street photography or sports. (Even the Fuji's - renowned for being awesome, small, street photography and general use stills cameras - have very obnoxious AF - even the newer x100t's and AT-1's have much slower and more inaccurate AF as compared to their DSLR counterparts)

unless you pre-focus and are shooting at f8 to deepen your depth of field, it will be difficult to use even with manual focus (so in that situation you might as well not be shooting digital anyway)

With that said, the 7D seems totally fine for what you're doing already, and I get the annoyances with the low light performance and whatnot, but in all honesty, you're not going to be getting a whole lot more from an A7 unless you're only doing video. It will not be as good for sports photography at all - there's a good reason sports photographers still all use DSLR's - and it's not because Canon and Nikon own the market or because they have worn their hands into the magnesium bodies with brand loyalty or something..

The recommendation from me might have be the 7D2. It does have better low light performance than the 7Di. It's not by much, but you can get at least another stop or perhaps more out of it before noise becomes an issue (shooting at 3200 doesn't seem to look too bad on them, nor the 70D which has the same sensor)... but on top of that, it's AF performance is fucking DOPE and at 10fps/1080p60? It's basically a poor-man's 1Dx with the same resolution and noise performance of the 6D... The 7D2 is badass. ALSO, you wouldn't have to go through the bullshit of finding new lenses - you can just pick up where you left off - and that's nice.

For video purposes, I'd want to say Sony/Nikon would possibly be better mostly because of uncompressed and non-upscaled 1080 like what canon does, but Nikon unfortunately doesn't have the FPS speed on any of their mid-range cameras that Canon provides (The D7200 or whatever gets like 7fps, but until you get a D700/D3/D4, you won't get an extremely worthwhile camera to have that shoots 8+fps - even with canon you can get a 1Dmk2n for like 250$ and that will shoot 8.5 or something with an awesome 1.3x crop sensor). The D750 would be a solid option with 6fps, uncompressed 1080p60, a flip screen, full frame, dual card slot and awesome AF performance, but then you'd be switching systems - which not everyone wants to do (besides me apparently?). The Sensor in the D750 is also the same sensor as the 24megapixel A7's (whichever model that is) so the image characteristics are more-less the same as those. The 36 megapixel A7's share sensors with the D800 and D810, and their resolution is off the charts (and they have great noise performance I understand?) but again... the AF for sports stills is useless - i'd probably just MF all day instead of bothering with wack ass AF that mirrorless cams provide for sports subject tracking.
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Thanks for all of that, really appreciate it. Gonna try to respond intelligently and ask some worthwhile questions here but we'll see how coherent I am...

I know the focus on the A7II sucks (although it is supposed to be better than on the OG A7) but that's really not what I'm getting it for. I'm envisioning the A7II as more of an #art camera. It's smaller and lighter so I'd use it to shoot skiing and climbing and biking, mostly touring and set shots as well as a lot of landscape, lifestyle stuff. The kind of "sports photography I'm envisioning is set shots where I will definitely be able to pre-focus and the A7II's 5FPS will be plenty.

I would keep the 7D for more run and gun, event type situations where I need the fast focus and higher FPS.

Yeah, I would love a 7DII but I don't think it really complements my kit, I would keep my current 7d and use it like I said above, and I don't think the 7DII is that much better for that? I don't really mind the lack of FPS on my current 7D, I don't really need the lowlight for shooting the events I would use it for, and the AF is plenty fast for me ATM, so really I'm looking to diversify my quiver if that makes sense?

So really, current 7D for run and gun, event coverage type stuff and A7II for more thoughtful stuff.

I guess part of this is really me wanting to branch out in what I do a little, I love the way I've been shooting, usually tight and low and wide in well light conditions, and I'll keep the 7d so that I can still do that, but I also want to play around stylistically and get a little low light action and a different look and feel so that's why I would get the A7II.

It seems to me that those sort of complement each other? Maybe? I don't know, I've been shooting, skiing, editing or writing for 18 hours straight now so I'm a little loopy....
 
Yeah man, I don't know... for sports, mirrorless really is just a pain in the ass I feel.

If you were getting it only to get an awesome look for video, that's one thing, but for stills, I just don't see any advantage over the 7D besides maybe low-light usage - in which case, I kinda want to say you're better off spending the money on lighting and shit to give yourself a more dramatic look in staged situations.

I'm not trying to say don't do it - you know what you're looking for and what your workflow is better than anyone, but I personally can't see anything about the A7 that would be worth spending the money on in this case.

If you really wanted to just have a full-frame look with higher ISO performance you could save yourself a shitload of hassle dealing with spending the money adapting lenses and crap and go with a 5D or 6D for full frame and low light stuff...
 
13486782:DingoSean said:
Yeah man, I don't know... for sports, mirrorless really is just a pain in the ass I feel.

If you were getting it only to get an awesome look for video, that's one thing, but for stills, I just don't see any advantage over the 7D besides maybe low-light usage - in which case, I kinda want to say you're better off spending the money on lighting and shit to give yourself a more dramatic look in staged situations.

I'm not trying to say don't do it - you know what you're looking for and what your workflow is better than anyone, but I personally can't see anything about the A7 that would be worth spending the money on in this case.

If you really wanted to just have a full-frame look with higher ISO performance you could save yourself a shitload of hassle dealing with spending the money adapting lenses and crap and go with a 5D or 6D for full frame and low light stuff...
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Really good to hear, I'll keep weighing options.

Thanks!
 
13486782:DingoSean said:
Yeah man, I don't know... for sports, mirrorless really is just a pain in the ass I feel.

If you were getting it only to get an awesome look for video, that's one thing, but for stills, I just don't see any advantage over the 7D besides maybe low-light usage - in which case, I kinda want to say you're better off spending the money on lighting and shit to give yourself a more dramatic look in staged situations.

I'm not trying to say don't do it - you know what you're looking for and what your workflow is better than anyone, but I personally can't see anything about the A7 that would be worth spending the money on in this case.

If you really wanted to just have a full-frame look with higher ISO performance you could save yourself a shitload of hassle dealing with spending the money adapting lenses and crap and go with a 5D or 6D for full frame and low light stuff...
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Yea man. I would save up for a 5D mk3.

That camera is killer, honestly. I've been Nikon for 11 years now, and even taking my preference into consideration, I LIKE the 3... its a really awesome camera in every regard, and the low light performance is pretty stellar. I don't know if it's better than the d800 as I haven't tried to get a good image from a dramatically underexposed file as I have from my camera, but I have seen it do some awesome things, and it looks great at high ISO.
 
It's like the same price as the a7, too, isn't it?

IMO It's going to be a while before mirrorless overtakes DSLR as a real workhorse format for photos, and it's certainly not there yet.

**This post was edited on Sep 7th 2015 at 1:32:01pm
 
13493434:TWoods said:
Yea man. I would save up for a 5D mk3.

That camera is killer, honestly. I've been Nikon for 11 years now, and even taking my preference into consideration, I LIKE the 3... its a really awesome camera in every regard, and the low light performance is pretty stellar. I don't know if it's better than the d800 as I haven't tried to get a good image from a dramatically underexposed file as I have from my camera, but I have seen it do some awesome things, and it looks great at high ISO.
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isn't the new d750 a better comparison to the 5d mark 3?
 
13493479:nutz. said:
isn't the new d750 a better comparison to the 5d mark 3?
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Yea, but I'm talking about low light performance specifically, and I don't know what the d750 can do in comparison to the d800 or 5D because I've never worked with D750 files. I've worked with both d800 and 5D mk3 files.
 
13493500:TWoods said:
Yea, but I'm talking about low light performance specifically, and I don't know what the d750 can do in comparison to the d800 or 5D because I've never worked with D750 files. I've worked with both d800 and 5D mk3 files.
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Thanks for the continued input, I really appreciate it.

I'm still a bit undecided, I was pretty set on the A7II but then had a "buy plane tickets, not gear" moment that made me want to keep saving and just get better at using what I already have and instead go to better shooting locations

I also kind of want to wait and see if anything else comes up before this winter, who knows, maybe I'll hop on an A7II or a DSLR in October, or maybe I'll just keep making stupid threads on NS...
 
13493537:cydwhit said:
or maybe I'll just keep making stupid threads on NS...
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lol. Been there, done that. Glad I decided to buy glass and save for a FF body instead of jumping ship.
 
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