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70-300 on 7RM3? Or 70-200 and crop?


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I loved the insect shots on your Flickr site.  Were these with the 70-300" becasue IMHO, they about as shapr as one could expect.   Also, How diod you manage to get the dof in some  of these shots?  Are these built from several images or were they single shots?  

Until recently , I have been using two formats one for landscape and one for wildlife.  For wildlife I use the m43 becasue it is a whole lot lighter to carry with a lens that is from 100-400mm in length.  My A7r2 is my current landscape camera with shorter lenses from 17mm to 105mm.  But after seeing your images here, I am thinking I might well consider the 70-300 Sony lens.  You mention shooting at f8, I assume that is when your extended to 300mm.  How is the image quality and sharpness at shorter extensions and wider openings?

Again, thanks for showing those outstanding images on your Flickr.

Not all shots were made with the 70-300, but quite a few. This is a recent one: 42378252592_4b886d37ba_k.jpgDamselflies at work by Kees, on Flickr.

I do some post treatment, mainly in LR, and, as I have the a7R3, a fair amount of cropping with minimum quality loss. The dof is a characteristic of a telelens. When you focus at minimum distance, depth of field is small. All my shots a single shots, no stacking.  The f/8 is indeed at 300mm. Below f/6.3 I find the lens soft, but that is all relative. It is still sharp, but less so than at f/8.  Although not a macro, this is a recent photo at f/6.3:  (some distortion in the out of focus area caused by the glass this photo has been taken through)42642963231_b78cc3ddb4_k.jpgHawfinch by Kees, on Flickr

I can only speak for myself, but I find the lens outstanding, also considering the price. A  much more expensive f/2.8 telelens is hardly used at f/2.8 because of the shallow dof, and is very heavy. The 70-300 is therefore a nice alternative.

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There are two main benefits of a f2.8 tele zoom. First, they are sharper at wide apertures. This means you can shoot at lower ISO or higher shutter speeds, i.e. cleaner, sharper images. The second benefit is that you have the option of blowing out the background at f2.8. The shallow depth of field doesn't really matter on recent Sony cameras. They'll focus just as well at f2.8 or even better than at small apertures.

 

That said, you save money and bulk with a slower lens. So, the trade-off may be worth it for many.

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Not all shots were made with the 70-300, but quite a few. This is a recent one: 42378252592_4b886d37ba_k.jpgDamselflies at work by Kees, on Flickr.

I do some post treatment, mainly in LR, and, as I have the a7R3, a fair amount of cropping with minimum quality loss. The dof is a characteristic of a telelens. When you focus at minimum distance, depth of field is small. All my shots a single shots, no stacking.  The f/8 is indeed at 300mm. Below f/6.3 I find the lens soft, but that is all relative. It is still sharp, but less so than at f/8.  Although not a macro, this is a recent photo at f/6.3:  (some distortion in the out of focus area caused by the glass this photo has been taken through)42642963231_b78cc3ddb4_k.jpgHawfinch by Kees, on Flickr

I can only speak for myself, but I find the lens outstanding, also considering the price. A  much more expensive f/2.8 telelens is hardly used at f/2.8 because of the shallow dof, and is very heavy. The 70-300 is therefore a nice alternative.

All I can say is wonderful!  Beautiful post processing.  Thanks for setting the bar for excellence.

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Any user with "pixels to spare" ... basically, the "R" version bodies 

... might do well to experiment with Sony's Clear Image Zoom, not

the other zoom, the Digital Zoom. Basically, it scales up the pixel 

count while slightly cropping the image. Unlike Sony Digital Zoom, 

CIZ is conservative, offering only 2X maximum. My use of it, never 

exceeding 1.5X, often allows using a prime instead of a zoom.    

   

P.S. I'm joining the chorus of compliments on your work !

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`     

   

Any user with "pixels to spare" ... basically, the "R" version bodies 

... might do well to experiment with Sony's Clear Image Zoom, not

the other zoom, the Digital Zoom. Basically, it scales up the pixel 

count while slightly cropping the image. Unlike Sony Digital Zoom, 

CIZ is conservative, offering only 2X maximum. My use of it, never 

exceeding 1.5X, often allows using a prime instead of a zoom.    

   

P.S. I'm joining the chorus of compliments on your work !

Clear image zoom is a nice feature for jpeg shooters, it is not available when shooting raw.

Thanks for the compliments.

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`     

   

Any user with "pixels to spare" ... basically, the "R" version bodies 

... might do well to experiment with Sony's Clear Image Zoom, not

the other zoom, the Digital Zoom. Basically, it scales up the pixel 

count while slightly cropping the image. Unlike Sony Digital Zoom, 

CIZ is conservative, offering only 2X maximum. My use of it, never 

exceeding 1.5X, often allows using a prime instead of a zoom.    

   

P.S. I'm joining the chorus of compliments on your work !

A bit off topic: I had the A7ii before, and experimented with the zooming function on that machine, and did not like it. Now with the A7riii it's a different ball game. Because you pointed it out, I did some trials again: The quality of the image remains quite good, i.e. very usable. The focusing is not good with this function, but if you have the time, focus normally, switch to manual focus, then to the zoom, and it's not bad at all. Does not beat the real thing I guess. (more mm) But it's usable. I still prefer to go to apsc mode, no quality loss there, just a crop before you shoot. 

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A bit off topic: I had the A7ii before, and experimented with the zooming function on that machine, and did not like it. Now with the A7riii it's a different ball game. Because you pointed it out, I did some trials again: The quality of the image remains quite good, i.e. very usable. The focusing is not good with this function, but if you have the time, focus normally, switch to manual focus, then to the zoom, and it's not bad at all. Does not beat the real thing I guess. (more mm) But it's usable. I still prefer to go to apsc mode, no quality loss there, just a crop before you shoot. 

I love shooting in the apsc mode...I programmed it to the C3 button so at a button press I can activate that feature. 

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I purchased to70-300 a couple of weeks ago and used it to take a number of images at sea, with the lens hood. On a number of them I have random white circles, some are obviously caused by sun reflecting from a wave but some do not appear to be that. So far I am undecided on the lens - I can't make out if there is a fault with my version, or all the 70-300s behave the same, or if I am missing something that is triggering the spots in the images. I would attach the photo but cannot due to size constraints.

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On 5/25/2018 at 1:14 AM, thefsb said:

I'm attracted to the 70-300 over either 70-200 because it's more inconspicuous. Apart from that its only advantage is zoom beyond 200mm. But in that range its sharpness is relatively weak.

 

Pros and cons of cropping a sharp 42 MP image (or shooting APS mode) vs the less sharp longer lens?

So  just how soft in the centre is the 70-300 at 300 and what is the sharpest aperture? and as asked by the OP is cropping a 200mm going to give any better sharpness given the test results below?

https://www.dxomark.com/Lenses/Compare/Side-by-side/Sony-FE-70-200mm-F28-GM-OSS-on-Sony-A7R-II-versus-Sony-FE-70-200mm-F4-G-OSS-on-Sony-A7R-II-versus-Sony-FE-70-300mm-F45-56-G-OSS-on-Sony-A7R-II__1679_1035_1246_1035_1702_1035

Edited by adwb
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10 hours ago, adwb said:

"Given the test results below" it really won't make much 

difference. Those results are just numbers. Real world 

pictures are, at best, tenuously related to numbers. 

Edited by Username
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How sharp do you want them?  This is a LR adjusted crop of 985 * 985 pixels out of 7952 *5304 .   Only to show you how sharp the 70-300 is. And it's black!   Obviously I normally don't crop this extreme, it's to make a point only.

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On 6/14/2018 at 10:14 AM, adwb said:

So  just how soft in the centre is the 70-300 at 300 and what is the sharpest aperture? and as asked by the OP is cropping a 200mm going to give any better sharpness given the test results below?

https://www.dxomark.com/Lenses/Compare/Side-by-side/Sony-FE-70-200mm-F28-GM-OSS-on-Sony-A7R-II-versus-Sony-FE-70-200mm-F4-G-OSS-on-Sony-A7R-II-versus-Sony-FE-70-300mm-F45-56-G-OSS-on-Sony-A7R-II__1679_1035_1246_1035_1702_1035

That's a good question. OpticalLimits wrote: "Honestly, the Sony FE 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6 G OSS disappointed us a little. ... The lens is a bit expensive relative to its performance. If you want to have 300mm, you just don't have another choice at the moment but if you can live with a little less we'd rather recommend the Sony FE 70-200mm f/4 G OSS instead." But they also said "... the center quality is still very good at 300mm and that's where most of the action is at this setting - you rarely care for corner performance here." This was consistent with other measurements and opinions and led to my original question. The 70-300 suits me better but I didn't want to find myself a year from now being ambivalent about its performance.

So I went to Newtonville Camera (recently moved to Waltham) and tried both the 4/70-200 and the 70-300 in the parking lot. I couldn't see a difference that mattered to me using the VF to review pictures so bought the 70-300 with the plan of quickly swapping it for the 4/70-200 if I wasn't satisfied. That hasn't happened. Apart from IQ, I'm impressed with its AF capability, stabilization and background blur, which I think approaches that of the 100 STF.

As for center sharpness, Lescatalpas can get more out of the equipment than me for a number of reasons but I found a striking example of "good enough" sharpness among the snapshots I took while out for a walk with my pup and her friend Ivan last Sunday.

Handheld, center-lock-on focus mode, f = 300 mm, 1/1000s, f/6.7, ISO 250, distance to focus point = 129.46 m, width of the puppy's name on her tag = 12 mm. Can you read her name?

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Processed in C1P10 with only tone curve adjustments. I think it's clear that you can do better than this. I'm learning slowly the distance between what this gear can do and what I can do with my undeveloped skills and casual techniques.

But I'm still unable to compare this with the 4/70-200. I guess it doesn't matter if I'm satisfied with the 70-300 and feel that my capabilities are the limiting factor at the moment.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Well I finally picked up one used in what was called excellent condition from a email camera store.  Short story is I had to return it and am awaiting my refund. Long story is that I tried the lens out shooting targets I usually use to evaluate a lens. At 70 to 200mm the lens seems adequately sharp, but nothing great.  At 300mm the lens could not focus on an object and seems to show a slight double images.  I checked for shutter shock because thet is what it looked like, but got the same result with the electronic shutter, so that rules out shutter shock.  Most likely the lens had been dropped and suffered some internal issue.

What I gather from those who responded to this thread,  is that, this lens should yield very good sharpness at 300mm, perhaps not ad good as at shorter FLs, but still very good if shooting around f8.  I plan to seek out another one and then, my main use will be as a supplemental outfit for local wildlife and incidentally for the kind of macro work shown here.  My main wildlife outfit is a Panasonic GX8 and 100 to 400mm Pana lens.  So in full frame size that outfit provides the image magnification of a 400-800mm lens that I can carry all day without any strain.  I would love to see Sony offer a zoom that is in this range or a bit longer, but optimized for resolution at the long end of the zoom range.  Sony just is not yet offering an option like that, or, for that matter,  one that can match the portability and performance of the Panasonic outfit that I use.  

One thing I did learn from this exchange is just how good this lens might be when used as a Macro,  The insect shots presented are, IMHO, nothing less than outstanding.  And those shots are a very worthy example for me to follow if and when I get a fully function Sony 70-300mm lens.

My sincere thanks to all

Edited by sundial215
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  • 2 weeks later...

Citroen vlinder by Kees, on Flickr

Another example of a sharp image made with a7riii and 70-300mm

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