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Moving To Mirrorless - From Canon To Sony


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Like many of you I made the switch to a Sony system from DSLR earlier in the year. I tried out Olympus first and settled on a Sony A7II.

 

I found a lot of the content online at the time to be very statistic related and I found my self needing to study DxO mark scores which kind of ruined the enjoyment and creative side of photography for me.

 

I'm a software engineer by day, so it wasn't the technical aspect that I didn't like, it was just the sterile nature of discussing photos by numbers that turned me off, so I created a blog that speaks in a way that I would like to read it.

 

The first article is called "Moving To Mirrorless" and it talks about some of my experiences and thoughts in moving from a DSLR to mirrorless system. I suspect many of you here went through the same thing and I thought you might like to read it.

 


 

Thanks guys ,go easy on the flame comments :)

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Good read... I feel a lot of us had similar experiences.

 

Thanks

Yes I think it will be a familiar read for a lot of people and hopefully it might inspire those on the fence about switching to take the leap.

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I really enjoyed the article and had many of the same experiences switching from Canon to Sony Mirrorless.

 

 When I first bought the A7M2, I only used the Metabones IV adapter along with my Canon L lenses and a new Sigma 24mm f1.4 Art lens.  I found the auto focus to work albeit very slow.  And I was disappointed to not be able to use the phase detection (AFS-C) with non-Sony lenses.  I was trying to photograph my 8 month old grand baby and it was a challenge to get tack sharp images.  

 

So I bought the Sony 35mm f2.8 and Sony 55mm f1.8 lenses.  The difference is amazing.  I can't wait for the next visit in August to see the grand baby and use these native Sony lenses.  I think I'll sell all my Canon glass with the exception of the 70-200 f4 L.  And once the 85mm Sony Batis is available, I'll probably get rid of it too.

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Thanks

 

Yea I did the same and planned on using my Canon glass, until I read about how slow the AF was, and it also defeated the purposed of moving to a smaller system so I skipped the Metabones and just bought the Sony/Zeiss glass.   Im pretty happy with all my gear now, every lens is capable of great photos.

 

Im also considering the 25mm Batis :)

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Very interesting! Thanks for sharing your experience.

We can see more and more people switching from DSRLs to mirrorless and especially the A7 series. Even pros are starting to post YouTube videos explaining why they switched to the A7 series.

I think the A7II really initiated the big change and the A7rII will convince even more pros to switch. Once people will see that pros are changing their gears. it'll become massive and Canon and Nikon should really worry 'cause it seems like they're not seeing the move that's going on.

This is interesting too:

http://ilovehatephoto.com/2015/01/12/10-reasons-to-switch-from-a-dslr-to-a-mirrorless-system-with-examples-nikon-to-sony/

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Thanks Chris

 

You're right. I see a lot of people jumping, but what I dont see is a lot of people going back to DSLR's.   I think once the penny drops and you see photos of equal or higher quality from the smaller body its hard to go back.

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Altho at present I have a Canon DSLR with a mix of modern and

film-era EF lenses, I much prefer my Sonys. But I never complain

about AF systems cuz I consider AF a minor convenience feature

while it seems most other [younger ???] users consider AF to be

as primary to their camera as the sensor and imaging engine.

 

But the real mother load of old gear in my house is a halfa ton

of PRE-AF Nikkor lenses which suit me just fine and all I really

wanted was to put some "21st century film" at their focal plane

and get rolling. So, I loooooves me some Sonys and now have

3 APC and 1 FF plus 3 different adapters. Hawg Hevvin !

 

`

 

`

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Thanks Chris

 

You're right. I see a lot of people jumping, but what I dont see is a lot of people going back to DSLR's. I think once the penny drops and you see photos of equal or higher quality from the smaller body its hard to go back.

My journey is similar to yours. Sold all my Canon gear (other than the film bodies that I love and a couple primes to put on them). I think the canon was a symbol of my GAS years. I had four primes and three zoom and three speedlites)And all I ever got to use was maybe 2-3 of those lenses.

 

Now I have the 28 and 55 and plan to get the Batis 85. And I think that's it really. All of this will fit into a bag that I used for just the 5DII with a 24-70 on it.

 

But as with anything, timing matters. I think the Sony A7II came out just when I was ready to downsize and focus on the things that matter to me photographically speaking.

 

Of course, once you hang around on these forums you can see that GAS is not exclusive to Canikon shooters. It's easy to get lost in the plethora of adapters and third party lenses for the Sonys. I'm ok with that because it brings some buzz into the mix but for me all that matters is the size, simplicity, reliability and IQ of FE lenses.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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Hi Chenye.  Great article.  You perfectly described the thought process I am going through.  Now with the A7RII revealed, I'm even more ready to sell my Canon gear for Sony.  I too was leaving my camera at home due to size and weight.  

 

My main setup is the 5D Mark III with Canon 35mm F/2 IS.  The A7RII with the 35mm f/2.8 will be so much smaller, lighter and with so many extra features!

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Aside from the amazing image quality of the a6000, one of the other main benefits for me was size. In a pinch with the kit lens or wide angle the camera becomes very pocketable. which is nice where toting a bag might not work.

The mirrorless experience takes me back to my rangefinder days and the freenesses associated with it.

 I despise Digital viewfinders personally,, but the resolution and sensitivity of the a6000's EVF is very acceptable, especially when composing an image in a very low light situation.

 

Recently did a wedding with the a 6000 the images are very good, using the HVL-60m flash.  However, i personally cannot recommend the SELP-18105G for stills. It's awesome in video, But in stills its pin cushion distortion is horrible.

  During the wedding i got some odd looks, one person even wondered why i wasn't using a "REAL" camera. LOL

The only thing i really dislike about the a6000 is the grip, i've let it slip a couple times, but that's the trade off in size.

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Hi Chenye.  Great article.  You perfectly described the thought process I am going through.  Now with the A7RII revealed, I'm even more ready to sell my Canon gear for Sony.  I too was leaving my camera at home due to size and weight.  

 

My main setup is the 5D Mark III with Canon 35mm F/2 IS.  The A7RII with the 35mm f/2.8 will be so much smaller, lighter and with so many extra features!

 

Thanks. Yes, that A7RII is a pretty attractive looking bit of gear.  Had it been $1000 cheaper, I'm sure I would of talked myself into buying one, but its a little too pricey for a hobby camera.   I'll wait out for another 8 months or so and wait until they drop in price I think.   

 

I'm very happy with my A7II anyway, buying an A7RII would be a pure GAS purchase. 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Same Thing With Me: DSLR > MFT > Sony (APSC and Fullframe). My initial motivation was to shed off some weight: http://www.mopswerk.de/2012/05/fourth-dimension/ ... Even as I was happy with the 16MP sensors for the MFT and Image Quality, I had to do some chin ups to squeeze spherical panos out with a 4 Picture only setup (http://www.mopswerk.de/pole-panorama-lenses-comparison/) .  In the meantime I am happy to walk around with a body and a single lens only. And for my Panos I am happy using the A6000 with a former MFT fish eye lens converted to eMount :)

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I had a fairly similar experience, with a Canon 5D II and 4 Zeiss prime MF lenses. Because it was so heavy, I bought a secondary system that was light and that I could have with me at all times: Sony NEX 5 with Zeiss rangefinder primes. I upgraded the Sony to NEX 5N, then NEX 7, but the 5D III offered no improvement in IQ over the 5DII, so, at that stage, I felt I didn't need a large system any more because the lighter one was just as good, in a different way, and I sold all my Canon gear.

Since then I upgraded to a A7R, and soon a A7R II, and am really pleased with the performance.

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Hi, like the article very much. I shoot bot still and video, so I moved into the A7s. Amasing quality of video over Cannon DSLRs. I have ordered the A7R ii and by that will get an amazing combo for both stills and 4k video.

As I like shooting sports as well, I may keep the 1Dx - at least for a while.

I got fed up by the AF with Canon lenses on Sony, so have started to invest in FE lenses. So I see myself only keeping the big Canon (lenses) for sports and sell the rest off moving to FE glass. Will be very interesing to see how the A7R ii really are able to focus with 3rd party glass.   

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Thanks for the feedback guys.  Sounds like everyone went down the same path.

 

I have just about replaced all my Canon gear with equivalent Sony / Zeiss FE lenses now, all except my EF 16-36 MKII, which I intend to buy the Sony/Zeiss 16-35 f4 soon.   I would really love some smaller FE lenses,  like the size of the 35mm 2.8 but it doesn't look like that's going to happen soon. 

 

The A7RII looks amazing. I would love to buy one, but I really don't need it. My A7II is excellent and doesn't need upgrading.

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  • 3 weeks later...

It took 2 months, but I was able to sell my one year old Nikon body for $200 under my original purchase price. The only question my buyer had was if it comes with a UV filter and lens caps... So if I didn't include $5 in accessories you wouldn't buy? If you're looking to sell your gear, be sure to toss in all those little things that are practically free. I guess people actually fall for those product photos with all that crap surrounding the camera body.

 

Loving my Sony A7II

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  • 1 month later...

I'm also one of those canon owners who jump to sony mirrorless system. I must admit that sony a7ii sensor is much more superior then canon (comparing to my 6d sensor) especially in it's sharpness, but I have a view reasons to keep my canon at the moment. First, although some people said it was a joyfull to use an EVF, for me OVF is much more easy, realistic and accurate to compose and focusing. It feels like peeking on small lowres lcd monitor, and it gets worst in low light situation. Second, Im comfortable and get use to with canon tethering workflow. It's very easy and fast to work either via usb cable nor wifi on my laptop and tablet, and I don't get this from sony remote camera control & play memories software. Third, like everyone knows the AF speed and accuracy using canon lens via adapter is still not good enough, so in some situation I still prefer using the canon. So, except for those three exclusion I'm happy with my sony a7ii :)

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