Thomas is a professional fine art photographer and writer specialising in photography related instructional books as well as travel writing and street photography.
All in Gear
When I was writing my epic three part Sony A6000 review, for whatever reason I left out any mention of the two best lenses that I have for the system. They are the Sigma 30mm and 19mm e-mount lenses. I’m not really sure how I managed to forget about these when I was writing the piece, but anyway, I’m making up for it now by writing this mini-review of the two lenses.
One of the biggest complaints that users of Sony’s Aps-c format E-mount cameras such as the A6000 have is the lack of good, inexpensive prime lenses. In my recent long term review of the A6000 I made this point, and I wished for an equivalent to Fuji’s excellent 35mm f/1.4. In fact, the lack of a good fast native prime for the format has been a real issue. Fortunately Sigma has just addressed that gap in the lineup with the launch of the new 30mm f/1.4mm prime lens for e-mount (and m43).
Since I posted my initial thoughts on the A6300 last week, there’s been a lot more information coming out about the upcoming camera. There are two things in particular that I missed when the announcement first came out, so I’m going to talk about them briefly now.
I decided to take my oldest DSLR out for a spin yesterday, and so I dusted off my ten year old Canon Eos 5D (the first one), charged it up and headed out to see what it was like shooting with the camera. The 5D Mark 1 still takes good pictures (in terms of Image quality) compared to today's cameras. The sensor is still pretty good at low ISO, and can hold its own compared to modern equivalents. That aspect of the camera actually holds up pretty well. However, the actual shooting experience wasn't great.
Yesterday Sony released the spiritual successor to the A6000, the A6300. I say spiritual, because the A6000 is still being sold. As many of my log term readers know, I’ve been using the A6000 for over a year now, and I recently wrote a 3 part real world review of the camera. The successor has been rumoured for quite some time, and now it’s here. I’m very impressed with what I’m reading about it, at least with the specs on paper. At first glance the A6300 may seem like a minor evolution over the A6000, but in my opinion, it’s a massive improvement over the older camera, especially in the area of video. In fact, for video, I think that it’s revolutionary to have these features at the price point and size.
After months of rumours and speculation the long awaited X-Pro II from Fujifilm has finally launched, and from the looks of it, it was worth the wait. While the new model looks very similar to the original one, there are lots of changes.
There will undoubtedly be lots of excitement surrounding the announcement of the new X-Pro 2 if it is announced as rumoured in a few hours time. However, if you're looking to get into the Fuji X system on the cheap, you should look at the second hand market. Certain Fuji cameras are going for very little on the second hand market right now. If you're on a tight budget and you are interested in becoming an X-Shooter it's certainly worth a look.
Continuing on from Parts 1 and 2, This third part completes my review of the Sony A6000. In this part I look at using the camera for Street photography, do come comparisons, and finish off with some conclusions and more sample images.
Last January, at the beginning of 2015, I decided to add a Sony A6000 to my ever growing camera collection. The reasons for the purchase were twofold. My Sony Nex–7 had died an unceremonious death, and it was going to cost too much to repair. Secondly, I wanted a small camera for video. Since then I’ve used the little Sony more and more and over the past 12 months I’ve really grown to like it.
I knew something wasn't right. My computer, a 2012 Mac Pro, had suddenly decided to go slow. Not just slow, but slow in a very specific way. It was like it was stopping to think every few seconds. It was something that was eerily familiar. I'd seen this before, and I hoped the cause wasn't the same, but I knew in my heart what was happening. My hard drive was failing. Worse, it was my system drive.
I’ve previously tried using Nikon lenses with my Sony A6000 and I’ve been mostly pleased with the results. There were a few minor issues though. For one, the focus rings on the Nikon lenses that I own are really bad. There’s a significant lag between when you turn the ring and when it catches the mechanism underneath. This makes manually focussing a tad tricky. Secondly, you have to control the aperture with a ring on the adaptor which has no stops, so it makes setting a specific aperture quite difficult. Using the Metabones adaptor with my Canon lenses was a much better experience.
For the longest time I've wanted to try out one of Sony's A7 series of cameras, and I finally got the chance this weekend when a friend of mine let me borrow his A7II. I've been considering replacing my ageing Canon gear with a camera from the Sony A7 series (mostly for video), but I've had some reservations about it, and so it was a great opportunity to try out the system. I haven't spent that much time with it yet, so this isn't by any means a full review. Instead, consider this more of a hands on, first impressions kind of report.
Now that the Sony A7RII is shipping to customers, there are lots of reports coming in about the camera. More importantly there are now raw files available online that you can download and check out, and Lightroom and ACR (along with Capture One) all now support the camera too. I've been reading a lot about this new Sony for a while now, and I am very interested in it, as it seems like Sony has really listened to its customers and created a very impressive camera.
After my first rather unprofessional test of the A6000 with the new XAVC codec last week, I set out to create a better video on Friday. This time I used my good Nikon 24-120 lens and a tripod. Unfortunately I still had a few issues, but they were entirely my own fault. Still, I think it's a nice result, and I was lucky as some interesting things happened while I was filming.
There was a nice little surprise for Sony A6000 owners yesterday when Sony announced a new firmware for the camera. Version 2 added one big new feature, and that is the XAVC-S codec. Up till now, if you were recording video on the A6000 you were stuck with the rather awful AVC-HD codec and a low bit rate, and frankly the quality wasn't the best. You could record uncompressed HD from the HDMI port on the camera, and having tried that in the past, the difference is remarkable. But adding an external recorder defeats the purpose of having a small camera. With the new firmware, Sony is adding a much better codec and the results are pretty great.
I'm a big fan of Sony Products, and anyone who follows this blog knows that I've a soft spot for their cameras. I currently have an A6000 and I've previously shot with a Nex 7. I've also been eagerly following the developments of the A7 line with great interest. I've said it before, but Sony are one of the few companies really innovating in the imaging space. Not only are their sensors used by pretty much every other major company now, but they're constantly pushing the envelope in the camera market. From the RX1 which brought a superb full frame sensor to the compact camera form factor, to the A7 Line which made full frame really affordable and small. The A7 line certainly isn't perfect, but with the recently announced A7 R Mark II Sony are getting pretty close to it.
It’s hard to believe it, but a few days ago Canon announced the official 10th anniversary of its game changing 5D Camera. The Canon 5D was the first digital camera to make full frame affordable and to it to the masses. It was the first enthusiast camera to have a full frame sensor, and it brought with it a huge step up in terms of image quality when it was first released back in May 2005. I was one of those who bought one of the 5Ds in the first year of its release, and it was a game changer for me too, in terms of my photography.
I recently upgraded my phone to an iPhone 6 plus (from an iPhone 5) and I was curious to see what the camera was like, especially with Apple's recent publicity on the matter. I was out in the city today for a little while so I decided to try it out. I didn't spend too much time with it, so I don't really have any major opinions as to the quality yet, but instead here are some images that I shot, and some observations on using it.
