We are almost there. A rant about my perfect camera beeing around the corner.

[Amazeballs]

On 12/27/2022 at 3:16 AM, herein2020 said:

The L Mount alliance is dead,

I like the blatant confidenace with which you spit out such statements. No biggie. Righ now l-mount has the second biggest lens selection after e-mount (around 105 FF lenses) and its growing cos Panasonic and Sigma are working on it. And other manufactures can join the alliance and start making lenses for it as well if the ever want to (unlike say for Canon RF). Now they have DJI - a very intresting and innovative player in the market. Tha main problem for them is the absence of a reliable AF. If they can solve it (and we all hope they will pretty soon) its hard to predict the future of the system. If more players will join it (like BM, and maybe some chinese\korean manufactures like Youngnuo, Samyang) it might become very relevant at some point. Lets see what Panasonic finally brings out with a S5II lineup. Crossed fingers for PDAF with some fancy AI features. 

Another imporant thing to understand is that both Sigma, Panasonic and DJI do have other profitable buisness so they can afford to invest into L-mount without an urge to make it profitable. 

[FHDcrew]

20 hours ago, Amazeballs said:

Maybe they'll just figure out how to generate realistic motion blur with a help from neural nertworks in post. That would actually be even better. You could use gyro for stabilisation and than add MB in post and no need for an ND 💁‍♂️

Isn’t RSMB already pretty realistic?

[Amazeballs]

36 minutes ago, FHDcrew said:

Isn’t RSMB already pretty realistic?

I sort of never heard about it before you have just mentioned ☺️

will try it out!

Though OFX plugins are usually damn slow and for this one you would want it to be quick. I hope Resolve will improve on its own plugin a bit. 

[FHDcrew]

19 minutes ago, Amazeballs said:

I sort of never heard about it before you have just mentioned ☺️

will try it out!

Though OFX plugins are usually damn slow and for this one you would want it to be quick. I hope Resolve will improve on its own plugin a bit. 

Yeah. From what I’ve heard RSMB is quite slow!  You could edit your whole video, then just let it cache overnight once the project is finished. Would make internal ND filters irrelevant

[herein2020]

6 hours ago, Amazeballs said:

I like the blatant confidenace with which you spit out such statements. No biggie. Righ now l-mount has the second biggest lens selection after e-mount (around 105 FF lenses) and its growing cos Panasonic and Sigma are working on it. And other manufactures can join the alliance and start making lenses for it as well if the ever want to (unlike say for Canon RF). Now they have DJI - a very intresting and innovative player in the market. Tha main problem for them is the absence of a reliable AF. If they can solve it (and we all hope they will pretty soon) its hard to predict the future of the system. If more players will join it (like BM, and maybe some chinese\korean manufactures like Youngnuo, Samyang) it might become very relevant at some point. Lets see what Panasonic finally brings out with a S5II lineup. Crossed fingers for PDAF with some fancy AI features. 

Another imporant thing to understand is that both Sigma, Panasonic and DJI do have other profitable buisness so they can afford to invest into L-mount without an urge to make it profitable. 

Primarily because I owned the S5 and did a ton of research before deciding not to go all in on Panasonic's lenses and ecosystem; the #1 reason of course was the dismal AF but the second was the lenses.  You are focusing on the numbers but not the user experience. 

What I found in my research was that sure tons of lenses and multiple vendors; but each one was tweaking their lenses to work optimally with their own native cameras. So the "Alliance" is primarily in name only and yes the physical mount is the same across cameras, but in reality unless you owned a Sigma body and got Sigma lenses or a Panasonic body and got Panasonic lenses then there was no guarantee that you would have the best user experience. This would manifest itself in everything from FW support to AF issues to working properly with adapters.

So, if you go right back to square one and focus on only the lenses from each maker working optimally with their own bodies then yes; your lens selection is in fact limited again unless you go all in on MF lenses or just don't care about AF or adapters. Dead is probably a strong word, but to me, converting my entire camera ecosystem to something like that while trusting that the lenses and adapters that I need will all work properly was definitely an idea that was DOA for me.

[newfoundmass]

 

25 minutes ago, herein2020 said:

What I found in my research was that sure tons of lenses and multiple vendors; but each one was tweaking their lenses to work optimally with their own native cameras. So the "Alliance" is primarily in name only and yes the physical mount is the same across cameras, but in reality unless you owned a Sigma body and got Sigma lenses or a Panasonic body and got Panasonic lenses then there was no guarantee that you would have the best user experience. 

That's not just an L-mount issue though. Sony is starting to do the same thing, where if you're not using Sony lenses you miss out on things like focus breathing correction. A big selling point for Sony was how open the mount was, which resulted in tons of third party lenses when Sony themselves didn't have much of their own lens selection. We're now seeing them becoming a bit more closed off with features that only work with their lenses. And Canon is trying to cut out every other third party completely. Granted, they aren't in any "alliances" but the end results are the same: if you're not using their lenses you're taking a hit with capabilities/performance.

The thing about the L-mount alliance is that things can literally turn around in a moment for them. IF Panasonic finally go the PDAF route, I think you'll start seeing a ton of third party lenses for the mount, like you've seen for Sony and Fuji. Ideally the alliance would have more cooperation, and I hope there is more of it moving forward, but even if there isn't it's not really any different from what every other camera manufacturer is already doing.

[herein2020]

30 minutes ago, newfoundmass said:

 

That's not just an L-mount issue though. Sony is starting to do the same thing, where if you're not using Sony lenses you miss out on things like focus breathing correction. A big selling point for Sony was how open the mount was, which resulted in tons of third party lenses when Sony themselves didn't have much of their own lens selection. We're now seeing them becoming a bit more closed off with features that only work with their lenses. And Canon is trying to cut out every other third party completely. Granted, they aren't in any "alliances" but the end results are the same: if you're not using their lenses you're taking a hit with capabilities/performance.

The thing about the L-mount alliance is that things can literally turn around in a moment for them. IF Panasonic finally go the PDAF route, I think you'll start seeing a ton of third party lenses for the mount, like you've seen for Sony and Fuji. Ideally the alliance would have more cooperation, and I hope there is more of it moving forward, but even if there isn't it's not really any different from what every other camera manufacturer is already doing.

Sony does it and Canon definitely does it but at least that is to be somewhat expected when buying into a vendor's ecosystem. The difference with the alliance though is that the customer's expectation is that everything will just work and if you don't dig in past the marketing material you will have no idea why things aren't working later. Your focus breathing correction is a great example; one article I read even said that Sigma disables certain features in their lens protocols if they detect a non Sigma lens has been attached....not exactly an open alliance in my book.

I agree it could turn around but what incentive does it have to do so? The alliance was formed out of necessity and no other reason, at the end of the day each member really wants you to buy their first party lenses and bodies, they don't make anything when you buy another member's products. 

I think if one of the members does go the PDAF route the cracks in the alliance will become even more obvious because newcomers and existing users would expect all of the features they see out of Canon and Sony to just work after buying a L mount body with PDAF (eye tracking, low light tracking, face/head/body/car/animal detect AF, CAF, etc. when in reality it would probably be very hit or miss depending on what alliance member made the lens. I believe even @MrSMW reported first hand that the Sigma L lens was significantly worse at AF than the native Panny lenses and that is just DFD.

So @Amazeballs no I didn't just make such a statement lightly, a lot of research went into me reaching that conclusion. The ability to mount a lens to a body and how many lenses can perform this feat are just two small parts of the equation, the total user experience is the rest and IMO the "alliance" cannot currently offer a user experience equivalent to the E mount on Sony cameras, or the EF or RF user experience when mounted to Canon bodies.  Personally, I decided not to buy into a mount that "might" turn around one day when making my body and lens purchasing decisions.

 

[newfoundmass]

 

2 hours ago, herein2020 said:

Sony does it and Canon definitely does it but at least that is to be somewhat expected when buying into a vendor's ecosystem. The difference with the alliance though is that the customer's expectation is that everything will just work and if you don't dig in past the marketing material you will have no idea why things aren't working later.

 

I haven't seen a ton of complaints honestly about using Sigma lenses with Panasonic bodies. My primary reason for not getting Sigma lenses is due to the dual IS that I can get with Panasonic lenses. The complaints I have seen, and it's kinda hard to call them complaints because the people I've seen weren't that angry or anything, is that autofocusing on Panasonic bodies in VIDEO is slightly better with Panasonic lenses. I'm not saying there shouldn't be more cooperation, and that lenses shouldn't work flawlessly regardless of the body manufacturer, but I don't really think that there are that many people out there who feel like their expectations weren't met, especially if they follow the camera industry. I also think there's some confusion about what the alliance means/meant: they are still camera companies that are in competition with one another, fighting for the same customers (well, maybe not Leica.)

2 hours ago, herein2020 said:

I think if one of the members does go the PDAF route the cracks in the alliance will become even more obvious because newcomers and existing users would expect all of the features they see out of Canon and Sony to just work after buying a L mount body with PDAF (eye tracking, low light tracking, face/head/body/car/animal detect AF, CAF, etc. when in reality it would probably be very hit or miss depending on what alliance member made the lens. I believe even @MrSMW reported first hand that the Sigma L lens was significantly worse at AF than the native Panny lenses and that is just DFD.

Sigma, if I'm not mistaken, already has PDAF on their fp L don't they? So one of the members already has gone in that direction. @MrSMW would know better than me, but in videos like this I've seen that the AF performance with Sigma lenses isn't that much worse than with Panny lenses in video. And maybe my trust is misplaced, but I think if Panny goes the PDAF route they'll pretty quickly end up at the Sony/Canon level. They have a track record of delivering when implementing new technology into their cameras.
 

 

2 hours ago, herein2020 said:

So @Amazeballs no I didn't just make such a statement lightly, a lot of research went into me reaching that conclusion. The ability to mount a lens to a body and how many lenses can perform this feat are just two small parts of the equation, the total user experience is the rest and IMO the "alliance" cannot currently offer a user experience equivalent to the E mount on Sony cameras, or the EF or RF user experience when mounted to Canon bodies.  Personally, I decided not to buy into a mount that "might" turn around one day when making my body and lens purchasing decisions.

I don't think anyone faults you for your purchasing decisions, I think people just are a bit confused about your insistence that it's a "dead" mount/alliance when your complaints for why honestly apply to every other camera manufacturer. I guess those issues aren't as significant because they're not in a formal "alliance?"

I think you went with Canon, right? I feel like I'd be a lot more annoyed buying into a system that decided four years in to clamp down completely on third party manufacturers than I would be on the L-Mount alliance's issues. With some luck Panasonic will finally go PDAF, and we'll start seeing some of those really affordable Viltrox and other third party lenses finally getting released for the L-Mount. Maybe even Tamron! There are a lot of possibilities on the horizon.

[Trek of Joy]

Honestly an a7sIV with a stacked 33mp sensor would be the perfect hybrid for me. I'd buy 3! Hell, even if they took the a9II's 24mp sensor and added the new processor so we have 4k120p and excellent DR would be fine. But nobody is going to build the perfect hybrid below the Z9/A1, because then I wouldn't be forced to buy the a7sIII and a7IV and even consider the a7rV as a primary photo and video backup cam. The r5 was close to unicorn status until the overheating issue reared its ugly head. If the rumored r5II can deliver, my Sony days may be numbered. Lenses are the one Canon RF bugaboo, not doing the EF adapter bullshit. But there's a massive gap in the $4000 range for a unicorn (completely ignoring Panasonic since they pretend PDAF doesn't exist LOL!). We've said this for a decade - Nikon has no video line to protect, just do it. Sadly nobody will.

Chris

[herein2020]

3 hours ago, newfoundmass said:

I don't think anyone faults you for your purchasing decisions, I think people just are a bit confused about your insistence that it's a "dead" mount/alliance when your complaints for why honestly apply to every other camera manufacturer. I guess those issues aren't as significant because they're not in a formal "alliance?"

But my problems with the "alliance" actually does not apply to every other camera manufacturer. When you buy a camera body and native lenses from that camera maker you will get the best user experience; I think we both agree on that. I think we also both agree that both Sony and Canon produce every lens you could possibly need in your collection. Notice I said "need" not want. 

My problem with the alliance is that if you buy an L mount camera each individual vendor has a limited lens selection meaning you will have a higher chance of needing something from another vendor which may not perform as well as the native lens you need that doesn't exist. If you take the marketing hype from the alliance at face value then it is easy to assume that you will get a native lens experience from any lens maker in the alliance. This is in contrast to buying a Canon or Sony body then buying a 3rd party lens. Most people I know who bought 3rd party lenses for their Canon/Sony bodies were due to cost not due to lens availability from their chosen vendor. 

I see the alliance the same way I saw the Canon R5 overheating fiasco; Canon heavily marketed the R5 as a very capable video camera when in reality it was not fit for purpose due to overheating. The alliance still markets heavily to consumers that any lens in the alliance will meet the user's expectations when mounted to any L mount camera body. It is easy to extrapolate that into thinking any lens in the alliance will perform the same as native lenses from the individual makers.

The thing is my purchasing decision was far from the minority here when you look at market share; for 2021 all of the alliance members combined market share was less than 11% with Panasonic taking 4.4% of that. When you take out non alliance members, DSLRs, MFTs, etc. the total L mount market share is probably less than 5% and it is only that high thanks to Panasonic's 4.4% contribution and that is assuming Panny owners are buying L mount lenses vs adapters and taking an educated guess at Panny's Point and Shoot numbers. Of course, I wish the alliance well, I am a consumer just like everyone else and more choice is always a good thing but an alliance whose members are competing with each other and impacting the user experience for the purpose of advancing their own brand is a dead alliance in my book.

IMO a real alliance would have been one where they all collaborated on lenses and released non vendor branded lenses where every member made a percentage of the profit from lens sales. That would have ensured maximum compatibility regardless of camera body manufacturer and given them all incentive to provide strict adherence to the specs. Of course, that type of alliance only exists alongside fairy tales and unicorns when you are talking about for profit corporations.

4 hours ago, newfoundmass said:

I think you went with Canon, right? I feel like I'd be a lot more annoyed buying into a system that decided four years in to clamp down completely on third party manufacturers than I would be on the L-Mount alliance's issues. 

But you are just proving my point, Canon has literally every lens I need and adapted EF lenses including 3rd party EF lenses work just as flawlessly for me as native RF lenses.  With that said, the one impact it did have on me was I decided not to get the Viltrox speedbooster for the R7. Even if I got my hands on one there was a risk that a future FW update would disable it so I didn't want to take the risk. So was it an annoyance; absolutely, but it was a nice to have not a necessity. 

All of this is strictly my opinion, I don't expect it to be shared by anyone else (although the market share numbers show it is shared by nearly everyone else 😄) but I did feel I should provide context behind how I reached my conclusions. 

Anyway, it definitely was not my intention to hijack this thread 🤣, I did forget two entries on my wish list for the R7 and R6II that would help make them the perfect cameras:

• Dual Native ISO - The S5's second native ISO is 4000 and I found that incredibly useful in low light. The R7 doesn't have dual native ISO and I don't think the R6II does either
• Global Shutter - While we are dreaming I might as well add this one to my list.

 

58 minutes ago, Trek of Joy said:

Lenses are the one Canon RF bugaboo, not doing the EF adapter bullshit.

 

I agree with you if you do not already own tons of Canon EF glass, but for those of us that do, its great to just have to buy one of Canon's recent bodies and every EF and EF-S lens you already own work just like it did with the EF mount. With that said, it would be very mentally difficult for me to go buy a brand new EF lens today knowing the mount has reached its end of life, but the adapters are a great stopgap for lenses that are still optically excellent and still perform like the day I got them.  EF lenses even have some advantages over the RF lenses such as speedboosters, drop in ND filters, etc.

[MrSMW]

13 hours ago, herein2020 said:

I believe even @MrSMW reported first hand that the Sigma L lens was significantly worse at AF than the native Panny lenses and that is just DFD

Marginally…in some cases. 

Some of the Sigmas are in fact better!

I do think L Mount has one of the strongest lens lineups available now with perhaps only Sony having stronger?

Not including old(er) ef Mount.

If the new rumored AF is good, then ladies and gentlemen, I would suggest we’re going to have an extremely strong system.

[SRV1981]

On 12/27/2022 at 3:02 AM, IronFilm said:

Just that by itself if it had been in the FX30 would've been enough to bring it to near enough perfection. 

Why fx30 over a7iv? 

[newfoundmass]

5 minutes ago, SRV1981 said:

Why fx30 over a7iv? 

I think a lot of folks would go with the FX30 over the A7IV because it's more video focused and won't overheat. It's a very compelling option if you're not obsessed with full frame. 

[newfoundmass]

On 12/29/2022 at 3:21 AM, MrSMW said:

Marginally…in some cases. 

Some of the Sigmas are in fact better!

I do think L Mount has one of the strongest lens lineups available now with perhaps only Sony having stronger?

Not including old(er) ef Mount.

If the new rumored AF is good, then ladies and gentlemen, I would suggest we’re going to have an extremely strong system.

This is speculation, but I'm guessing the primes do better than the zooms? I really debated picking up two 28-70 f2.8 but I ended up getting two of the 24-105 f4 Panny lenses because of the ability of having dual IS.

[MrSMW]

There are so many variables with lenses it’s hard to say and I have found at times some lenses have been better or worse than others for no seemingly explicable reason.

My own Panny f4 24-105 for instance has been reliable on some jobs and then every now and again, is not. All day long, ie not just in some particular lighting scenario.

The Sigma 85mm f1.4 is more reliable for stills but less so video compared with the Panasonic 85mm f1.8 which is the opposite.

I don’t worry about it. The quality and reliability is more than good enough for me.