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Austin Rogers's picture

[DISCUSSION] Open Letter to Sony Engineers

It's not all rainbows and butterflies.

In this thread you can suggest changes to Sony products including cameras, lenses, etc. What features do you wish your camera had? How do you think the design could be improved?

Keep it civil, you never know who will end up seeing the post. ;)

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13 Comments

One lens I'd like to see added to the Sony / Zeiss FE lineup is a compact portrait f/l. Something like an 85 or 90 f/2.0 or f/2.8 in more or less the 55 f/1.8 form factor would be beyond perfect for me. Hell, an f/4 portrait prime would be fine.

I agree, I recently sold my D800 and 24-105 and now the longest Sony lens I have is a 24-70. I still have a Tamron macro lens with Novoflex adapter.

There's the Batis and the Otus lines, two exceptional lines of lenses

Hi I recently rented a Sony A7R II for a shoot in which I needed to use silent mode and found terrible banding on all the imagery, I tested this on a A7 and got the same problem. This has cost me - as my client is insisting I pay for the reshoot and Sony claim its a camera fault with the camera I rented - but finding the same result on another body proves this is a fault with the Sony and its noise compression in silent mode.
Any Sony enthusiasts keen to offer a answer ? I can upload the metadata.

I think this is actually a lighting issue. If you were shooting with constant lights that were not designed specifically for photo/video purposes, it's likely that there was an AC flicker on the lights. It's fast enough that you can't see it with the naked eye, but if you film anything in those lights in slo mo (high frame rate) it'll look like a strobe light. In silent shutter mode, the camera reads the sensor progressively from top to bottom, and the shutter speed reflects the time that each pixel is read, while the entire exposure, start to finish, is actually longer. The flicker issue is the reason that lights like Kinos are so expensive- no flicker.

So, you can tell the client that if they insist on silent shooting, they can either get better lights, or also rent a sound blimp (like those used for on-set stills.)

You will get this problem with some constant lighting that has a frequency close to your shutter speed, and it's happening (at least for me) only when you are in silent shutter speed. It also seems, again for me, that longer i shoot stronger is the problem (at first you see those shadows a little bit and then it become more and more obvious), then the only solution i found was to stop the silent shutter speed and power off the camera for 5 to 10minutes. Now Im just trying to shoot silent when I'm outside or using flashes.

I've seen rumors that it's coming soon, but an FE 70-200mm f2.8 would be huge for me. I have the 85mm f1.8 Batis ordered (which is also incredibly frustrating) but I just need a sharp, fast portrait lens, STAT. I think they could even forgo Image Stabilization for improved image quality since the new generation of A7's have IBIS. I have the Metabones Canon adaptor, so I'm seriously considering getting the Canon 70-200 f/2.8L IS II, but I'd much rather get a native mount lens if possible. So, Sony, hurry it up!

Me I like the orange/coper color ring, and the fact there is no touch screen, i think that a touch screen would makes things complicated for me, by touching it by accident, unless they allow the user to deactivate the touch screen, so it's good for everybody. If they change the screen, I would just like a better quality screen, pictures looks just so much better on the computer than on the screen, something must be wrong on it.
Focus by wire doesnt bother me much but that would be great to have a line of lenses that doesnt cost as much as the otus but have manual (mechanical) and auto focus, manual aputure, to gives us more options for videos aswell it gives everything for stills. Sony cameras (especially the a7rii) are great for both, that would be very nice to have those kind of affordable quality lens.
The most important thing to change would be the menus. Worst thing ever, if i got this right, ill be the most happiest man in the world

Austin, I started a new group for a7S users.

I really do not like the fact that while you have your finger half pressed on the shutter the controls for shutter speed and aperture are disabled. It really disrupts my flow when I have the focus locked but want to change my exposure without recomposing.

Holy cow. I never noticed that now I can't stop thinking about it.

Sorry buddy!

The weirdest thing is that my Sony a6400 has touch to focus but doesn't have a touch menu. That should be an easy fix as far as I can tell.