Sony A7III 3 prime combination thoughts??

[Jack Kershaw]

Hi everyone,

I've recently switched from full frame Nikon to Sony and love the reduced size of weight that the A7III brings. I quit my job to travel about 2 years ago and am about to head off again for the foreseeable future. I photograph everything whilst I'm away, mostly landscape, street, portraits and a bit of surfing (mostly landscape shots of waves).

Previously I had a 16-35 f4, 50mm f1.8 and 70-300 f4.5-5.6 which was fine... it covered all the bases and did what I needed. I've found myself losing a bit of enthusiasm though and have become lazy relying too much on the zoom lenses, and as a consequence i think my compositions have suffered.

I really like to create depth in my photos with shallow dof's, and preferred the overall look and feel of the 50mm so I know I want to switch to fast primes. I know this is maybe a bit of a paradox but I want to be able to shoot astro, wide landscapes, have a relatively normal length for street photography and then also something with a little bit more reach for portraits/whenever it is needed. Ideally 3 lenses, size and weight the lower the better. After a lot of research I've narrowed it down to this.

Loxia 21mm f2.8

Wide enough for most landscapes and performs well for astro. Manual focus not too much of an issue with focus peaking on the A7III and since it'll be primarily my landscape lens I would be focussing manually anyway.

Batis 40mm f2.0

The perfect compromise between 35mm and 50mm. Although I loved 50mm it was a bit too tight sometimes. Autofocus is important since this would be my "daily" lens and i shoot a lot of street stuff spontaneously. High keep rate at this length is a necessity.

Sony 85mm 1.8

From online reviews image quality seems superb and very reasonably priced. Would be used for portraits and any scenario when I need a bit more length. If too short then the super35 mode could be activated giving me about 127mm

If anyone has any input or additional thoughts please let me know!

Cheers,

Jack

[howgus]

First - I think the 40mm choice is excellent for walkaround.  I use the 35mm f2.8 Sony and enjoy it a lot.  I also use my 55mm f1.8 and always marvel at the resolution, but agree it is sometimes too tight.

Second - manual focus:  Sony manual focus has an odd quirk:  it operates at the selected aperture, rather than wide open.  All other cameras I've used focus wide open, whether manual or auto, in order to take advantage of short depth of field in order to sense point of highest contrast. (I started in 1962, when all cameras were manual everything.)  I always use the autozoom (MF Assist) with manual focus, and stumbled on the odd behavior when I happened to be looking at the iris behavior during auto focus, where it opens wide while focusing then stops down for the photo.  Not true for MF assist, so if you want to achieve best manual focus you will need to open the lens wide with the dial, focus, then dial in the desired aperture.  The difference in being able to achieve acute focus was astonishing, especially with the 55mm f1.8.

[AZWolf]

As howgus says, the manual focus is quirky and IMO annoying as it's a hassle to have to open it up to focus manually every time. Of course the Loxia appears to have a real aperture ring so it will be a little faster that way.

Regarding the focal lengths that is very much a personal preference and I wouldn't argue with your choices. I personally have a 35 f2.8 Zeiss/Sony and a Batis 85mm f1.8 and they are a great combination. Right now those are my only primes. I also have a bunch of Sony zooms. I've gone back and forth on zooms and primes. Photography is my full time living so I need to have a broad selection but I like to carry minimal gear when traveling.

I think you're on the right track! If you still have that 16-35 you might want to keep it around for some versatility on the landsapes...but again...personal preference and how you like to shoot.

Whatever you choose, have fun with it!

Happy Shooting,
Joel

[howgus]

AZWolf couldn't have put it better: personal preference and how you like to shoot.  As you add more lenses to your collection, all that will change, at least it did for me.  I lean toward primes, but since Sony added the zoom auto focus in a7rm3, my 70-300 has come into its own.

An addendum to my previous post:  fixing this quirky behavior would probably be a 30 min. project for a decent firmware engineer.  Sony has developed the algorithm for auto focus, it works well, and it would be easy to apply to auto focus, at least from a coding perspective. 

[AZWolf]

6 hours ago, howgus said:

An addendum to my previous post:  fixing this quirky behavior would probably be a 30 min. project for a decent firmware engineer.  Sony has developed the algorithm for auto focus, it works well, and it would be easy to apply to auto focus, at least from a coding perspective. 

Being hopeful, I put in a request with Sony Pro Support requesting they do what you suggested...at least have the option for lenses to stay at maximum aperture when manual focus is invoked. This issue has been on the forums for some time so we'll see. On the other hand I know Sony does implement firmware updates if they get enough requests from pros through the Pro Support channel. Fingers crossed. -Joel

[howgus]

Thank you!  Not being a pro I have hesitated to spend the money for Pro Support, but maybe I will.  I have been tearing my hair out trying to get through to Sony about this.  Have talked to support a couple times in last two years, who are sympathetic, but to no avail.  Peppered the forums.  It took me 8 years of Sony mirrorless, starting with Nex 7, to realize why manual focus wasn't performing the way I remembered my cameras did back in the 60s.  When I stumbled on the iris behavior in autofocus, I immediately tried the manual opening of the iris before focusing.  'Twas am eye opener!  (pun intended).

[Jack Kershaw]

Ok cheers all. I actually don't have the lenses listed previously anymore - they were what I used when I shot on Nikon. I currently own a Tamron 28-75 f/2.8 and the Sony 70-200 f/4.

Im actually considering keeping the 70-200 because I feel there will be occasions where I need the length. Its a very good lens anyway and I definitely could use it for portraiture. I know I would regret selling.

The information about the manual focus is interesting. So if I'm correct, in manual mode I would have to physically set the aperture wide open, manually focus, and then dial in the aperture on the camera? I shoot most of my street photography (50% of my total work) very spontaneously so this just wouldn't work. Maybe AF on my wider prime is the way to go.

Since I want 3 lenses maximum, I guess this makes the question which 2 fast primes do I pair with the 70-200 f/4? My thoughts now are 25 f/2 and 40 f/2 Batis or 24mm f/1.4 Sony and 40mm f/2 Batis? Again any thoughts would be appreciated!

Jack

[sixzeiss]

No, you don't have to do that, and in some cases it will not work (focus shift). Manual focus is actually pretty easy, much less stuffing around with settings.

Loxia 25 (or 21) and Loxia 50 + Sony RX100VI (28-200 eq) ... but apparently the Batis 40 is quite versatile too, has some Macro capability (the RX100VI does not!).

Nice, compact, fastest AF and to the point. Hey look, you even get a backup camera ... how about that?

[sixzeiss]

On 11/19/2018 at 8:31 PM, AZWolf said:

Being hopeful, I put in a request with Sony Pro Support requesting they do what you suggested...at least have the option for lenses to stay at maximum aperture when manual focus is invoked. This issue has been on the forums for some time so we'll see. On the other hand I know Sony does implement firmware updates if they get enough requests from pros through the Pro Support channel. Fingers crossed. -Joel

Once upon a time, long long ago, there was a camera company called Fuji who released a camera called the X1-Pro, or something like that. It was a disaster. And then it got worse ... after releasing a camera before it was ready, and releasing firmware after firmware, and still it was not ready, Fuji did exactly what you asked for, and it was a disaster.

All of a sudden _no_ photos were in focus, not one, and why might that be asked the brown fox? Because Fuji was opening the aperture during focus, and then closing it ... and not adjusting for focus shift, which is pretty bad these days, since so much can be done in Firmware, Lens designers have gotten lazy, I suppose, or perhaps customers don't want to spend so much? In any case, another firmware was released and everyone hailed Fuji for being so responsive to their customers needs - images that are in focus, can you believe?

And some of us decided to spend a little bit more to buy a camera which was already finished.

 

Sony is doing what they are doing because they want the photos taken with their camera to be in exact focus. If you have an old adapted manual lens, or a good modern manual lens, you might find that the aperture is open until you take the shot. That is the case for my Zeiss Milivus 50M/2 using a canon adapter, and that works because the lens is _really_ good. However, most native lenses on the Sony system need correction.

 

Moral of the story ... If you want or need constant firmware updates, get a Fuji! Sony sings a different tune. Not better, not worse, just different.

Edited November 20, 2018 by sixzeiss

[jamiecrain]

The Sony/Zeiss 55mm 1.8 is outstanding. The sharpness is out of this world and pics look almost 3D with a shallow DOF. Highly recommended.

[howgus]

Well, the proof is in the pudding.  I have used manual focus quite successfully to get around the choices auto focus makes  on what to focus on, and I often open the lens aperture, without going to extremes, so I can see critical focus, especially in low light when the EVF noise would make it impossible to see.  The results are quite good, or at least a big improvement over auto focus in some conditions.  Also, there is no reason that Sony's MF Assist can't use the same focus shift correction that auto focus employs if Sony decided to use the same iris control as in auto focus.

[AZWolf]

On 11/20/2018 at 9:29 AM, Jack Kershaw said:

The information about the manual focus is interesting. So if I'm correct, in manual mode I would have to physically set the aperture wide open, manually focus, and then dial in the aperture on the camera? I shoot most of my street photography (50% of my total work) very spontaneously so this just wouldn't work. Maybe AF on my wider prime is the way to go.

Since I want 3 lenses maximum, I guess this makes the question which 2 fast primes do I pair with the 70-200 f/4? My thoughts now are 25 f/2 and 40 f/2 Batis or 24mm f/1.4 Sony and 40mm f/2 Batis? Again any thoughts would be appreciated!

Jack

Hey Jack,

Your choices are good and again, it's all about your personal preference and how you shoot. One advantage of sticking with the Batis lenses is their DOF readout. I say this because you said you do a lot of street photography. You can use manual focus and zone focusing. I suppose you can do this with Loxias as well but with the Batis line you have the option of auto focus. I don't know what body you have but the eye-autofocus on the A7R III works very well. I think between that and zone focus you'd be well equipped for street photography. 25/40/70-200 is a nice combination.

Just to illustrate differences in personal preferences: When I was shooting Nikon I did an 8 day street photography project in Manhattan and used the Nikon 28-300. It was a perfect lens for that. I didn't need it to be razor sharp to the extreme corners and I never missed a shot changing lenses because I didn't have to. On the flip side it was a large rig and outside of New York City it might be intimidating. My favorite walkabout lens for my Sony is the FE 24-240. It's a surprisingly compact rig- probably half the size of the aforementioned Nikon kit. All that said my 85 Batis is my favorite lens, especially for people. There's a certain quality to the images I just don't get with my other lenses- except perhaps the 35 2.8 but I don't use that one nearly as much.

Let us know what you end up with!

Joel

[Jack Kershaw]

On 11/24/2018 at 4:05 AM, AZWolf said:

Hey Jack,

Your choices are good and again, it's all about your personal preference and how you shoot. One advantage of sticking with the Batis lenses is their DOF readout. I say this because you said you do a lot of street photography. You can use manual focus and zone focusing. I suppose you can do this with Loxias as well but with the Batis line you have the option of auto focus. I don't know what body you have but the eye-autofocus on the A7R III works very well. I think between that and zone focus you'd be well equipped for street photography. 25/40/70-200 is a nice combination.

Just to illustrate differences in personal preferences: When I was shooting Nikon I did an 8 day street photography project in Manhattan and used the Nikon 28-300. It was a perfect lens for that. I didn't need it to be razor sharp to the extreme corners and I never missed a shot changing lenses because I didn't have to. On the flip side it was a large rig and outside of New York City it might be intimidating. My favorite walkabout lens for my Sony is the FE 24-240. It's a surprisingly compact rig- probably half the size of the aforementioned Nikon kit. All that said my 85 Batis is my favorite lens, especially for people. There's a certain quality to the images I just don't get with my other lenses- except perhaps the 35 2.8 but I don't use that one nearly as much.

Let us know what you end up with!

Joel

Hi Joel,

 

Thanks for the input. In the end I went with 2 Batis' - the 25mm and the 40mm. I managed to get a good black friday deal on both of them and paid $960 and $1300 USD respectively. The 25mm Batis was actually cheaper than the loxia so with the added AF it was a no brainer. 

I use a Sony A7 III so the eye AF should work well with both lenses. I've got a few months to test them before my next big trip but I'm happy with the combination on paper. I went surfing on Wednesday and ended up using the 70-200 f/4 for 80% of the day. The image quality is superb and I'm definitely going to keep hold of it. If I feel I am really missing a dedicated portrait lens I could always add the lightweight 85mm sony 1.8.

Thanks for your help everyone

Jack

[AZWolf]

11 minutes ago, Jack Kershaw said:

Hi Joel,

 

Thanks for the input. In the end I went with 2 Batis' - the 25mm and the 40mm. I managed to get a good black friday deal on both of them and paid $960 and $1300 USD respectively. The 25mm Batis was actually cheaper than the loxia so with the added AF it was a no brainer. 

I use a Sony A7 III so the eye AF should work well with both lenses. I've got a few months to test them before my next big trip but I'm happy with the combination on paper. I went surfing on Wednesday and ended up using the 70-200 f/4 for 80% of the day. The image quality is superb and I'm definitely going to keep hold of it. If I feel I am really missing a dedicated portrait lens I could always add the lightweight 85mm sony 1.8.

Thanks for your help everyone

Jack

Hey Jack,

Congrats on the Batis pair- I'm sure you'll be happy with them!

Cheers,

Joel