Farewell to E-mount....AGAIN

Having used cameras from Sony's E-mount range extensively over the last 5 years, initially with an A7R, then a Nex-6 and most recently an A6300, I found them to be brilliant. The Nex-6 and A6300 with the compact stabilised 16-50 powerzoom became my grab and go camera of choice.

Last time I left E-mount (when I sold the A7R and bought a Pentax K1) I quickly regretted the loss of the facility to simply mount old manual film camera lenses, especially the Russian Leica screw rangefinder lenses, with their slightly quirky images and tiny size compared to many modern AF lenses. A few weeks later, I bought the Nex-6 and was happily back in E-mount land, albeit in APS-C rather than full frame

The A6300 was a natural update to the Nex-6 when I realised that lugging a full frame camera and its associated heavy lenses around all the time was a mugs game. I still use the K1 with its amazing IQ (upgraded to K1-ii spec for a reasonable price by Pentax when they brought the new model out - a nice touch Pentax, Sony please note with your 2 new models a year) but the weight, particularly with the 15-30 f/2.8 zoom leaves it mainly for "going out to shoot some photos" days or astro, rather than "going out, chuck it in the bag and I might take some photos".

As the winter dragged on, I was thinking about possibly doing a motorcycle trip this year and looking at upgrades for the A6300 - particularly with IBIS (in-body image stabilisation).

Initial thoughts were the A6500, or the new A6600 from Sony but the 6500 didn't seem enough of an upgrade and the 6600 was a lot of money and still has the same sensor as the 6300.

So I started looking at alternative mirrorless CSCs, so that I can use legacy lenses in L39 and PK mounts.
 A7ii ? - only £900 now....tempting! but no, stop it! I don't want another full frame camera with big heavy lenses.
Fuji XT-3

After reading reviews, I ended up at a choice between the A6500/6600 and the Fujifilm XH1 with a 16 - 80 f/4 zoom in either case as a single travel lens, with a rank outsider on an OM-D.

The 6500 and the XH1 were around the same price, both heavily discounted from their launch cost and trying them out in the shop, I just liked the feel of the Fuji better and there was an L39 to X-mount adapter in stock, so I jumped that way.

So it's farewell to E-mount...AGAIN.

Did I make the right choice? ..... next blog.

Which lenses to take on a trip?

With a trip to Scotland and Orkney in the offing, I am agonising over which gear to take. Do I take the full frame Pentax K1-II and its weighty glass, or do I travel light with the APSC Sony A6300 and a couple of lighter lenses.

Part of the dilemma is driven by this shot which I took at Whitby, and really like the effect.

For this shot, I used the K1 with a Samyang 8mm, which is a crop sensor lens so doesn't fill the frame and only uses about 17Mp of which this is a 12Mp crop

Orkney in particular may offer spectacular big sky shots, and I could use the Samyang 8mm f3.5 on the A6300 (and get 24Mp images) or a very large and heavy 15-30mm f2.8 ED Pentax lens on the 36Mp K1, or even take the 8mm with the K1 and its standard 28-105mm f3.5-4.5 ED lens.

Here come several images I used to try to resolve the issue: All images have identical post processing settings and are at f/8.

 Sony A6300 and Samyang 8mm

Pentax K1 and ED 15-30mm @15mm

Pentax K1 and ED 28-105mm @28mm

I was surprised by how much wider the Samyang appears given that used on the Sony it would be a 12mm full frame equivalent.

Despite the noticeable distortion at the edges of both wide angle lenses, IQ is high in all images. Lens corrections improve the barrel distortion of the fisheye Samyang more than the slight pincushioning of the Pentax. I also find the fisheye more natural looking.

If I try serious pixel peeping on these images (0.6Mp central crops), all images still stand up well, but the quality of the Pentax combination is outstanding.

Samyang/Sony

Pentax/Pentax

The last picture is a tighter crop on the Sony/Samyang combo to match the Pentax crop. Pixellation is starting to appear at this magnification

Here finally is a crop into the 28-105mm image (@28mm). Again the ED glass has produced a great image.

So, the decision ?

Much as I like using the Sony, I really can't justify NOT taking the Pentax K1 and both ED lenses in my camera bag so I will have to man up and carry the weight. The 8mm lens is small and light enough to slip into a suitcase in case I feel the need. 

CSCs - the end of the line for DSLRs?

I wrote this blog about 2 years ago and never got round to publishing it, in the meantime, Canon and Nikon have both launched pro full frame CSCs and Panasonic have just come to the party with the Lumix S1R. Still love my Pentax K1 for quality but it definitely feels like one of the last of a dying breed.

Dslrs and Cscs are not the same but they sit in the same market segment of enthusiast to professional use. Currently the Cscs are only making limited in-roads into the Dslr dominated professional market but they are coming - everything is in their favour already except battery life and that will be fixed, or their unquestionable advantages will outweigh the need to carry spares.

Sony Alphas, Olympus OM-Ds, Fuji XTs and others are here to stay. When the market penetration of Cscs is sufficient, companies will simply stop developing Dslrs and they will go the way of film cameras, but probably much more quickly.

Why?

Because Cscs already do everything as well or better than Dslrs and in a smaller, lighter, more convenient package.  Its not a coincidence that Sony's A7Rii topped the tables in DxOs sensor lab tests for 2 years until toppled by the Nikon A850.

Until last year I was using a Sony A7r, the forerunner of the A7Rii and also in the top 5 until the Pentax K1 took 4th place between the Nikon D810 and D800E.  With full frame now available, I decided to abandon Sony in favour of my old favourite Pentax.  I don't regret the decision but it left a nagging gap in my camera bag,

Eventually I bought back into the Emount and Cscs with a low cost second hand Sony NEX6. OK, it only has a 16.1Mp Aps-c sensor rather than the 36Mp FF sensor in the A7R but it takes all of my legacy lenses, it takes superb photographs and it is small and light.  It has become my go-everywhere camera, pretty much replacing my excellent Rx100ii.  If I need the image quality of massive megapixels, or the weirdness of an 8mm fisheye on a full frame sensor I carry the K1 - if I want to use lenses over 100mm or am already weighed down with a tripod I carry the K1 - if I need great low light, high iso performance I carry the K1. For pretty much everything else I use the NEX6. I have a lightweight 35-70mm PK fit macro lens which I also carry - manual focus only but I will come to that.

The photo shows the compact size of the Csc, comparing the NEX6 with 16-50mm with a similar spec Pentax K5 fitted with an 18-50mm and with the full frame Pentax K1 with 28-105mm.  Certainly the NEX6 is bigger than the Rx100, but it has a couple of advantages, a larger sensor
(Aps-c vs 1inch) albeit lower pixel count and, critically, a great TFT viewfinder which makes it a "proper" camera.

As for weight, the Nex6 weighs 495g,  the K5 weighs 1050g, and the K1 weighs 1550g, all with the kit lenses as shown.

What makes a good TFT viewfinder better than a mirror?

Firstly, you see exactly what the sensor sees, focus peaking can be added to highlight the in-focus parts of the image and the focus can also be manually adjusted.

Sony cameras offer a focus mode called DMF as well as manual and autofocus modes which allows an autofocussed image to be manually tweaked to get the right focus where you want it, additionally this automatically displays a magnified image in the viewfinder.

Manual focussing with MF only and legacy lenses is assisted by the magnified image in the viewfinder or on the screen. With a Dslr this is only possible on the screen with Live View which results in a less stable grip than using the viewfinder on a Csc.

There is no mirror flip to shake the image as every shot is effectively a mirror lock up shot.

How can you adapt so many lenses?

Without a mirror to get in the way, the distance from the mount to the sensor is greatly reduced in the Csc (a downside to this is that more care needs to be taken to keep dirt off the sensor).

The distance from the mount to the focal plane in the Sony E-mount is just over 17mm whereas with Pentax K-mount this is 44mm.

This creates space to fit an adapter, so almost any digital or film Slr lens can be fitted. They will probably be manual operation only but manual focussing is well supported on a Csc (see above) and the viewfinder remains bright when the lens is stopped down (I normally use aperture priority with legacy lenses).

Lenses shown E-mount native 16-50mm, Russian Jupiter 8 50mm f2
with Leica to E-mount adapter, Takumar 35-70 macro with K-mount to E-mount adapter and  Samyang 8mm with K-mount to E-mount adapter.

Of course, when adapting lenses they need to be the same distance from the focal plane as in their native camera losing a lot of the size advantage of the Csc.

Sony SELP1650 at 50mm

Russian Jupiter 8  50mm

Takumar 35-70@ 50mm

Samyang 8mm - note slight vignetting and fringing in the corners

It is noticeable how the improved coatings on the modern lenses from Sony and Samyang give a more pleasing colour rendition that the 30+ year old Takumar and Jupiter lenses.


So where are the down sides to Cscs?

Some Csc ranges may be currently lacking a good range of native lenses, this used to be a criticism of the Sony A7 full frame range but this issue has been addressed (if at a high price). There are many lenses available for E-mount, Olympus micro4/3 systems and Fuji and no reason why other manufacturers of Cscs will not follow suit.

The most obvious criticism levelled against Cscs is battery life, and if you are out in the wilds, wishing to shoot thousands of shots without access to mains or in car recharging then you will need a few batteries.  After market batteries are cheap as chips and 250 - 350 shots per charge means that most people will never need more than 2 or 3. It is worth noting that the after market batteries may not charge in camera and need their dedicated charger, my Sony will only charge own-brand batteries through the USB port.

Cscs are breaking into the field of professional landscape photography, and wedding and event photographers are increasingly deserting their Dslrs for lighter, flexible, easy handling cameras.

Gradual penetration of professional markets and the ability to provide equal or better images from a smaller, lighter package suggests Cscs are the future and Dslrs the dinosaurs. Even T. Rex went extinct.


www.bailyimages.co.uk

Farewell to E-mount?

I haven't posted for a while - moving house and such like got in the way, and I have also changed my main camera.  As a happy Pentax user, I waited a long time for a full frame camera in the range. I eventually gave up and bought a Sony A7r at the end of 2015, then three months later Ricoh finally released the Pentax K1!

Don't get me wrong, the A7r is a stunning camera, as a regular on the "Talk E-mount" forum I posted quite a few photos and had the opportunity to see a a huge library of shots posted by other Sony users. Looking at the images posted led me to conclude that the A7r was probably the best of all the Sony cameras (yes, including the A7rii) closely followed by the old Nex7. Of course it could be that all the other users were not so good at post processing as A7r and Nex7 users but this is hardly likely. I also concluded that Canon lenses may well be the best, but as I don't have any that is a side issue. All my lenses except for one Russian 50mm f2 are on the Pentax K mount, and are mostly legacy manual lenses. 

The old lenses worked very well on the A7r but a couple of more recent zooms by Sigma and Tamron (which I was still using on my Pentax K5) were not so good and new "FE" full frame E-mount lenses are very expensive. The lack of in-body image stabilisation (IBIS) was a slight downside, but reasonable high ISO performance helped to mitigate any problems by allowing higher shutter speeds.  This also limits the impact of the rumoured "shutter shock" problem with the A7r. 

The Pentax K1 was still hanging there on my wish list and having agonised over the cost for months, and seen how well it performs on the DxoMark testing (I use the DxO suite for almost all my PP), I finally part exchanged the A7r for a K1 toward the end of 2016. (Yes I know the A7rii is the best here, so lab tests MAY not entirely reflect "real world" results)

BTW Canon fans, if you are wondering where the Canons are, they start at 15th place 

So is the Pentax K1 any good?

Yes! initial impressions are that it is very good. Compared to the Sony it is heavy and bulky, although it isn't a lot bigger than its APS-C siblings, the K5 and K7 (it is 200g heavier than the 5D Mk4 and 130g heavier than the D810 but with IBIS, the lenses will be lighter). The ergonomics are good with controls well placed although the buttons and knobs may not be quite as flexibly user defined as on the Sony. The Pentax body, and most of the modern lenses, are weather sealed so a small amount of rain won't hurt, although I wouldn't trust it in a real downpour.

 I haven't really pushed it yet, but definition and depth of colour are excellent although, when used in aperture priority mode, images are overexposed for my taste and I tend to preset 0.7 stop of under exposure to maximise retention of highlight information. The 5 stop IBIS works with all the old manual lenses as well as more modern glass and really helps longer exposures. 

The same system which moves the sensor for IBIS also operates the pixel shift system, taking 4 shots with the sensor shifted 1 pixel each time leading to a sample of each colour at every pixel location, like shooting 120Mp. The camera needs to be steady and with minimal movement in the image for this to work, but I will try it out when I have some large memory cards for the huge files it creates.

I believe 6 of the top 8 cameras in the DxO ranking use fundamentally the same sensor which is excellent.  The Pentax high ISO performance is slightly better than the Sony with very little noise below ISO 12800 (max is ISO 204000). 

So basicaly, it is great to be back to a Pentax based system again and the initial impressions of the K1 are very good, but I don't think I am quite ready to let go of E-mount. I enjoyed using my old Russian 50mm F2 lens (which is Leica mount and intended for a 35mm rangefinder camera) so I am looking out for a cheap Sony NEX on Ebay.

Infrared photography - filter or conversion ?

A few thoughts on infra red DSLR photography.  When I saw the images produced by infra red with white vegetation and black skies I wanted to have a go myself.  A "normal" DSLR has a filter on the sensor which passes visible light and blocks infra red to create good visible light images. A bit of online searching suggested that if a camera could "see" the light from a TV remote control, it could take infra red photos. I tested my 2 Pentax DSLRs and found that the K7 showed a bright white light and the K5 a pale orange glow when I pushed the remote buttons. This suggested that the built in infra red blocking filter on the sensor was less effectivwe on the K7.  

I spent £30 on a P007 Creative 720nm filter for my Cokin P holder and I was set!

I got some reasonable IR images with this filter (if you have Dxo Filmpack, try cross processing!). It is a cheap option but there are issues. The biggest problem is that the filter is very dark and when combined with a built-in partial IR filter very little light reaches the sensor. The image is too dark to frame with the viewfinder and long exposures and/or high ISOs are needed even in bright sunlight (the best conditions for IR photography).  It is necessary to guess the framing and focus manually or frame (and focus) the photo and then insert the filter (you are using a tripod for the long exposure anyway). Exposures longer than 10 seconds are not unusual - not good if there is any wind though.

This image was shot at 1/15s, f2.8, iso1600 using an external filter

This is the same image cross processed in Dxo

The alternative is to have an old/spare DSLR converted for infra red photography - old cameras have almost no trade in value and the conversion on the K7 cost me £250.  The difference is chalk and cheese. With a 720nm internal filter conversion, the camera works almost exactly as a standard DSLR, except that it only shoots infra red. Auto focus, internal metering and framing through the viewfinder operate normally and I can take images in daylight at 1/250s, f8 and iso200 - no more tripod or guesswork. 

This image was shot at 1/160s, f11, iso200 using the converted camera

Are there any downsides? Well, you need a body to convert, and then you need to carry the extra weight if you plan to do visible and IR photos on the same shoot (but many APS-C bodies don't weigh much). Check that the lens you want to use will be effective for infra red, ACS has a list of unsuitable lenses on their website.

There are options on the filter installed - from clear quartz to around 850nm hard infra red. 

In theory, clear quartz allows you to shoot visible light but passes infra red so that an external filter works better, 850nm will only give you a monochrome infra red and the others (680, 720 etc) allow some colour but are mainly infra red, These are more suitable for some post processing effects, Google colour channel swapping for examples. Lightroom doesn't have channel swapping facilities but there are somespecial presets available for download, or look for Photoshop tutorials, or GIMP.

Have fun 

JB 

More lens experiments.

Having seen a bit of chat on a Sony E-mount forum about problems with "shutter shock" on the A7r, I thought I would do a few test shots with different lenses, shutter speeds and apertures. There are 8 images and I have taken a central crop from each one at 3000x2000 pixels for a closer inspection. All lenses are close to their minimum focus distance.

The first lens is a Makinon 135mm

f2.8. 1/3200s

f2.8, 1/3200s

f8, 1/125s

f8, 1/125s

Next is a Pentax 50mm

f1.4, 1/800s

f1.4, 1/800s

f8, 1/60s

f8, 1/60s

Next is the Sony FE 28-70mm using deliberately long shutter speeds on a tripod (gorillapod resting on carpet)

f5.6, 1/20s

f5.6, 1/20s

f5.6, 1/10s

f5.6, 1/10s

 Finally, a Cosina 200mm - again with long exposures on the gorillapod

f4, 1/25s

f4, 1/25s

f6.3, 1/8s

f6.3, 1/8s

There is no doubt that the shutter does clunk a bit, but there is little evidence of camera movement in these images, maybe a little in the 200mm 1/8s shot mounted on an imperfect tripod. The image is slightly worse than the f4, 1/25s photo.

In theory the worst shutter speed range is 1/30 to 1/100s - but here, the 1/60s image at f8 on the Pentax 50mm is spectacularly the best image.

My general impression is that you have to be very picky to find a much fault with shutter shock and even then you have to try fairly hard to make it significant.

More old glass - 500 year old windows at "the Vyne"

First an apology - I was playing with the high ISO noise reduction setting on my Sony the other day and forgot to set my picture quality back to RAW+JPG so these images were all shot in high quality jpeg only.

We had heard about the restored Tudor stained glass exhibit at The Vyne, and as it is only a little over half an hour's drive from home thought we would visit on Sunday.

The Vyne is a Tudor house near Basingstoke in Hampshire, which has been owned by the National Trust since 1959.  It was built in the first half of the 1500s and substantially modified in the early 1700s.

The stained glass windows now in The Vyne chapel are part of a series made for the owners of The Vyne between 1515 and 1542, probably originally for the Holy Ghost Chapel in Basingstoke. They were moved during the English Civil War, concealed in chests and hidden in the lake to avoid destruction by the Puritans and then installed at The Vyne. The fine detail is applied as a paint and then fired into the glass.  This paint was becoming eroded and starting to peel, so a major programme of work was recently carried out by the National Trust, restoring the windows to their former glory and preserving them for the future. They are regarded as the finest stained glass of the period in the UK.

Here are 6 photographs depicting the main panels

Left panel upper
Hi res version

Left panel lower
Hi res version

Centre panel upper
Hi res version

Centre panel lower
Hi res version

Right panel upper
Hi res version

Right panel lower
Hi res version

These photos were all shot whilst trying to balance noise, depth of field and shutter speed in a low light environment so I used iso400, mainly f6.3 and shutter speeds varied between 1/13s and 1/300s.

Although the restored stained glass is a major feature, The Vyne is a beautiful National Trust property and well worth a visit - here a a few more views of the house and grounds

Higher res version

Higher res version