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ZEISS DTI thermal imaging cameras. For more discoveries at night, and during the day.

Sony RX10 1V the new boy. (2 Viewers)

I've seen and played with the FZ200 and FZ1000.

In any case, I've ordered the Sony and will report back in a week or two once I have started to play with it and have formed some rudimentary opinions.

I'm really looking forward to your reports.
 
One other comment about Sony and high end mirrorless vs Canon/Nikon is that the battle with micro AF adjustment and lens calibration is something that, to my mind, really, really holds back DSLRs to this day, and frustrates me. Even in optimal conditions with a perched bird and good light and center point autofocus, I am amazed that my 7DII cannot deliver 100% focus performance with any lens I've tried on it. Mirrorless cameras have their own issues but it seems to be trending that they are more or less catching and perhaps already overtaking SLRs on autofocus as we speak. I think it is highly probably that in 5 years mirrorless bodies will be outperforming SLRs even at the highest levels. The performance of the A7III and A9 tracking eyes and faces of subjects in motion is damned impressive.
 
One other comment about Sony and high end mirrorless vs Canon/Nikon is that the battle with micro AF adjustment and lens calibration is something that, to my mind, really, really holds back DSLRs to this day, and frustrates me. Even in optimal conditions with a perched bird and good light and center point autofocus, I am amazed that my 7DII cannot deliver 100% focus performance with any lens I've tried on it. Mirrorless cameras have their own issues but it seems to be trending that they are more or less catching and perhaps already overtaking SLRs on autofocus as we speak. I think it is highly probably that in 5 years mirrorless bodies will be outperforming SLRs even at the highest levels. The performance of the A7III and A9 tracking eyes and faces of subjects in motion is damned impressive.

One might hope that the in body image stabilization could also deal with any micro focus issues. No idea however whether that has been part of the design criteria.
 
One other comment about Sony and high end mirrorless vs Canon/Nikon is that the battle with micro AF adjustment and lens calibration is something that, to my mind, really, really holds back DSLRs to this day, and frustrates me. Even in optimal conditions with a perched bird and good light and center point autofocus, I am amazed that my 7DII cannot deliver 100% focus performance with any lens I've tried on it. Mirrorless cameras have their own issues but it seems to be trending that they are more or less catching and perhaps already overtaking SLRs on autofocus as we speak. I think it is highly probably that in 5 years mirrorless bodies will be outperforming SLRs even at the highest levels. The performance of the A7III and A9 tracking eyes and faces of subjects in motion is damned impressive.

I know that this is a discussion about Sony mirrorless cameras,but what do people think about the Olympus OM-D E M1 MarkII.Several well-know photographers seem to have gone down this route and changed from DSLRs.
Tom Lawson.
 
I know that this is a discussion about Sony mirrorless cameras,but what do people think about the Olympus OM-D E M1 MarkII.Several well-know photographers seem to have gone down this route and changed from DSLRs.
Tom Lawson.

The Olympus should make a great birding camera,i moved over to mirrorless but with Panasonic.
How good it would be for you depends on the type of birding you do.
 
As I understand it, the Olympus set-up should be between the quality of DSLR (say the Canon 7Dii + 100-400ii) and the best bridge camera (this Sony RX10IV), but more expensive and notably heavier than the Sony, with no DSLR compatible big lens option (nothing to match the reach of the 7Dii and a Canon big white: 600mm or 800mm).
 
As I understand it, the Olympus set-up should be between the quality of DSLR (say the Canon 7Dii + 100-400ii) and the best bridge camera (this Sony RX10IV), but more expensive and notably heavier than the Sony, with no DSLR compatible big lens option (nothing to match the reach of the 7Dii and a Canon big white: 600mm or 800mm).

It's not that simple, when you take crop factors into consideration and the high quality of m4/3 lenses the lack of big white primes of 600/800 becomes less important.
Most users will not buy these expensive long primes and they go with up to 400 and a 1,4 converter,m4/3 can hold its own in this area,
Never been a canon user but if ime right the 100-400 becomes a FOV on the 7D of 160-640, my Leica 100-400 on m4/3 gives a FOV of 200-800, if you then take into consideration a lot of bird photographers crop any way the larger 7D sensor starts to lose some advantages.

If a high percentage of your photography is BIF then the 7D may be a better choice but that is the only area its any where near clear cut.
 
The Olympus with a Panasonic 100 - 400 lens is appealing but is twice the price of the Sony and, although a lot lighter than a canon with 100 - 400, it still will weigh about 400g more than the Sony and, probably more importantly, its lens won't retract.

If I were starting from scratch this would probably be the way I would go but as I'm likely to lose a lot if I sell my well-used SLR gear I'm not sure my pockets are that deep and I think carrying it and a scope would still be annoying.
 
The eastern bluebird shot.........i certainly would'nt say that is amazing feather detail and the double outline on the branches is'nt great either.It's good but for most it's still a choice between weight and image quality......you still can't have both,even with this latest offering.
I still believe that when technology allows,the all in one camera will be the future.......this is'nt it compared to an slr if image quality is a top priority.

I've just seen the said Eastern Bluebird shot,and to my eye the shot was taken during dull/neutral lighting conditions? I've then pulled up the image to almost twice the actual size 13", and it looks absolutely amazing! It would be good to see similar shots taken under the same lighting and proximity conditions from a DSLR.
 
The bluebird in his blog is posted pretty small and low res - better to see it posted in a photo gallery. I couldn't find his original in his gallery, but he posted on Dpreview about that shot where you can see a much better, higher-res version of the shot and shows very good feather detail indeed:
https://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/60458410

I've shot with the RX10IV and in decent light or up to ISo400, the 1" sensor performs very well and detail is quite good. My personal experience is with the original RX10 which has the same sensor size but much smaller lens range (24-200mm), but compared to my DSLRs, SLTs, and mirrorless cameras, I never had a complaint about the sharpness and detail the RX series can deliver...the DSLRs and mirrorless with APS-C or larger sensors will have advantages when the light gets very low, at ISOs of 800 or higher, but the RX10 does remain quite usable for ISOs to 1600 and the lens' range and aperture are quite good compared to DSLRs, which generally require massive expensive lenses to achieve F4 at 600mm.
 
Looking at the Panasonic/Leica 100-400 has always made me wonder how much business Canon could get out of a something like a 500/5.6 EF-S specific lens with modern image stabilization.

Keep in mind that it would be a stop slower than the 300/4 so it could be drastically smaller, it would have newer components and up to date IS. Something like that would have been very interesting to many outdoor photographers but I doubt Canon will invest in a high end EF-S telephoto and I think mirrorless and bridge cameras will have that market locked up within a couple years if I had to guess. Perhaps APS-C will soon be a thing of the past?
 
The link in post 52 is the one that I was referring to....12' at 600m. F4 @ ISO 320, imo the detail at twice the size says all!

Cheers
 
I've just seen the said Eastern Bluebird shot,and to my eye the shot was taken during dull/neutral lighting conditions? I've then pulled up the image to almost twice the actual size 13", and it looks absolutely amazing! It would be good to see similar shots taken under the same lighting and proximity conditions from a DSLR.

Here's one in dull conditions at 4.4mp.
 

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I was a bit further away than 12ft.......that is why the picture has been heavily cropped down to 4.4mp.
I'm certainly more impressed with the sony though now ive seen the full size photo........these type cameras are definately going to be the future i think......but not just yet.
 
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Hi Steve,

I haven't gotten enough time to really play with it. My very rough, very initial impressions are this:

- The menu system is a big learning curve and while better than Sony used to be, is still really obtuse and has a lot of repetition of items and themes such that you're never sure what does what / affects what. Sony could take a lesson from Canon, Nikon, or Panasonic here.

- Programming settings and recalling them is a far cry from a professional DSLR body. It requires menu diving and multiple clicks and there is menu lag. As well, choosing AF-S vs AF-C focus modes (single shot or tracking) is via a physical switch so that can't be recalled with other stored settings. So switching between BiF and perched is a few clicks into a menu, a bit of menu lag, and a separate dial on the front of the camera.

- It's significantly more difficult to find birds at 600mm with EVF than optical, but I want to see how much better I can get at this.

- Image quality is about what I'd expect for a 1" sensor - it's a big step down from APS-C but a big step up from 1/2.3"

- It is a LOT smaller and lighter and easier to handle than a DSLR + 100-400

- Have not been able to effectively test the focus tracking yet. Need more time but it'll be next week sometime.

I'll start a new post with more thoughts and comments when I've had a better chance to play with it.

Cheers!
 

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