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Birding-adapt lenses or buy new


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So I have an a7r II I bought used to replace my Fuji set up. I still have a canon 7d mark II and a canon 400 5.6 and sigma 150-600 contemporary. I don't really need both lenses. I know the a7r ii AF is not up to bird photography so I do plan to buy a new body that will work for that. But, I could sell the 7d and one of the lenses for now and by an adapter OR I could just sell all three and move to a native sony lens. Being that I'm new to Sony, I'd like to get people opinions. I don't really do much BIF yet. I'm still working on my skills there so I'm guess the AF on the a7r II should be good enough for that. Being that Sony has IBIS that removes that plus from the sigma. With the resolution of the R II, would that eliminate the advantage of the longer reach of the Sigma?

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19 hours ago, jimmy986 said:

So I have an a7r II I bought used to replace my Fuji set up. I still have a canon 7d mark II and a canon 400 5.6 and sigma 150-600 contemporary. I don't really need both lenses. I know the a7r ii AF is not up to bird photography so I do plan to buy a new body that will work for that. But, I could sell the 7d and one of the lenses for now and by an adapter OR I could just sell all three and move to a native sony lens. Being that I'm new to Sony, I'd like to get people opinions. I don't really do much BIF yet. I'm still working on my skills there so I'm guess the AF on the a7r II should be good enough for that. Being that Sony has IBIS that removes that plus from the sigma. With the resolution of the R II, would that eliminate the advantage of the longer reach of the Sigma?

I came from pentax when I switched to sony a7ii. As I had a lot of good glass I bought an adaptor and messed around for a couple of months and was every time disappointed by either the quality of the pictures or the slow or non ( manual) focussing. I slowly sold everything including long birding glass. I now have upgraded to the a7riii and have the following glass, all sony fe mount : FE28-70 (kitlens , but quite good) FE55, extremely good, FE70-300, very good at f/8, but certainly not for sports, FE90 macro, very good, but macro focussing is difficult.  (fe16-35 f/4 is on my wish list) 

My advice based on my own experience: don't spend money on adaptors, sell your old glass and buy only (f)e mount glass.

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On 7/14/2018 at 4:16 AM, Lescatalpas said:

I came from pentax when I switched to sony a7ii. As I had a lot of good glass I bought an adaptor and messed around for a couple of months and was every time disappointed by either the quality of the pictures or the slow or non ( manual) focussing. I slowly sold everything including long birding glass. I now have upgraded to the a7riii and have the following glass, all sony fe mount : FE28-70 (kitlens , but quite good) FE55, extremely good, FE70-300, very good at f/8, but certainly not for sports, FE90 macro, very good, but macro focussing is difficult.  (fe16-35 f/4 is on my wish list) 

My advice based on my own experience: don't spend money on adaptors, sell your old glass and buy only (f)e mount glass.

Totally agree.  All my nonnative (Canon) glass is gone except for one lens...the amazingly sharp Sigma 16-35 1.8 which I use on my A6500 where I don't need quick or silent autofocus.

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Sony's lenses from 100mm are all OSS. 85mm and less they don't. That suggests to me that Sony considers IBIS sufficient for shorter focals and insufficient for longer.

For your purpose I would consider the 100-400 GM.

I used an NEX-6 with adapted manual SLR and rangefinder lenses and got rid of all of that stuff when I got an A7. So I agree with the previous two responses. Among non-Sony AF lenses, people rate the Zeiss Batis line but they seem really expensive to me, even by Sony's exorbitant standard.

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On 7/14/2018 at 7:16 AM, Lescatalpas said:

FE70-300, very good at f/8, but certainly not for sports

Why do you say so?

My experience with fast moving dogs is that it does very well on the 7RM3. If the camera locks the subject then it tracks very reliably, even with other subjects getting in the line of sight. The difficulty is getting the initial lock but I don't think the lens is to blame for this—sometimes it's just difficult.

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Guest Jaf-Photo

Definitely go native. Sony only used to push adapted lenses back when they didn't have a full lens line-up. It wasn't really ideal but the best they could do at the time. But for AF-critical work you definitely need native lenses.

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8 hours ago, jimmy986 said:

I will receive the Sony 100-400 today.....so I'm very excited. On a related note, do I use IBIS and the lens IS together or do I need to turn steady shot off?

Let the camera sort that out.

With an OSS lens, iiuc, the camera turns off its pitch and yaw corrections, which the lens does better, and leaves its roll and x/y translation corrections on.

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On 7/20/2018 at 2:14 AM, thefsb said:

Why do you say so?

My experience with fast moving dogs is that it does very well on the 7RM3. If the camera locks the subject then it tracks very reliably, even with other subjects getting in the line of sight. The difficulty is getting the initial lock but I don't think the lens is to blame for this—sometimes it's just difficult.

Because at f/8 and let's say.. 1/1000sec for fast moving items, and a bit of cloudy weather you are very high in iso and I find the lens at f/5.6 (aperture fully open at 300mm) softish. Having said that, it is my favourite lens and is almost always on my a7riii because it is versatile for the type of photography that I do.

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7 hours ago, Lescatalpas said:

Because at f/8 and let's say.. 1/1000sec for fast moving items, and a bit of cloudy weather you are very high in iso and I find the lens at f/5.6 (aperture fully open at 300mm) softish. Having said that, it is my favourite lens and is almost always on my a7riii because it is versatile for the type of photography that I do.

I see. I thought you were referring to AF performance.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I had the A7rii which I sold and now have the A7riii (& a6500).  I am doing birding with Sony 100-400 w/ 1.4x teleconverter.  I had the Canon 7dii, Tamron 150-600, Canon 100-400 and other Canon glass along with Canon 1DX.  I tried the metabones iv adapter with the Canon glass on the Sony a6500 & Sony a7rii and in good light the AF with Canon glass was ok below 300mm. Above 300mm the AF on the A7rii w/ adapted glass was not fast enough to work with birding.  The Canon 7dii w/ Tamron 150-600 was very good snappy AF for handheld birding but I must to go with lighter gear.  I am happy with the Sony 100-400 w/ 1.4x on Sony a6500 or Sony a7riii.  

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Performance with the adapter isn't great, especially for birding. I'm using the Sony LA-EA4 with my Sigma 500 f/4.5 and it's very difficult to catch moving birds. Focus is slow, hunts, and coverage is limited.  For sports or birding, you'll definitely want better if your budget permits. 

I've used both the 70-200 f/2.8 and the 100-400 from Sony and both are excellent. The focus performance on the 70-200 is slightly better, but if you try to extend the range with the teleconverter, the focus performance and sharpness drop, and the 100-400 is definitely the better choice, and pretty close to the 70-200 in terms of performance and optics (slightly rougher bokeh, however). 

Bottom line, I echo everybody else when I say go native, if the budget allows. 

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