Why I opted against the Sony a7xii (it's all about Metabones)

lightgrabber · May 20, 2016

There may be other ways but what I do is, hit the fn button, navigate to the focus area section using the wheel, I have flexible spot selected mostly so, if you then hit the central button an orange square will light up in the centre of the screen and you can move it around again using the wheel thingy. Sounds complicated but actually becomes fairly quick and intuitive after a few times.

jayphotoworks · May 20, 2016

lightgrabber said:
There may be other ways but what I do is, hit the fn button, navigate to the focus area section using the wheel, I have flexible spot selected mostly so, if you then hit the central button an orange square will light up in the centre of the screen and you can move it around again using the wheel thingy. Sounds complicated but actually becomes fairly quick and intuitive after a few times.

I'm quite reluctant about this combination. Can I get a candid review on this setup? I want to hear about all of the issues rather than what works well.

a) A7RII w/ IV adapter

b) A7S w/ IV adapter

c) A7S w/ Speedbooster for S35

d) A7S w/ Speedbooster for S35

2 of my friends have an A7RII combination, and while the focus was acceptable, there was the odd lock-up. The entire combination would lock-up and you couldn't change anything until a reboot. I don't anticipate ever investing in Sony native lenses because there is a lot more equipment accepting EF lenses than Sony lenses so EF functionality is critical for me.

Also, If you are using this setup for professional work stills and or video, how comfortable would you feel?

In a Photokina year, I probably won't make any purchases until after Sep, but if its working well, I might consider.

Tobamory · May 20, 2016

jaybr said:
The difference is a slightly larger "hole" and the addition of "anti-reflective flocking":

http://briansmith.com/metabones-t-smart-adapter-mark-iv-canon-ef/

Aside from this, there is no difference between the two adapters if they are both running the same firmware versions.

If anyone is in doubt, can I suggest contacting Metabones to confirm the difference.

J

You are correct 100%

i was sent the wrong one and rang metabones the T is the new version. With flocking.

i use it on a7rIi and its fine I use canon 24-70 f4 and 70-200 f4 and both work fine, I do get the odd lockup that I just power off or remove batt if It gets intense but very infrequent

'wish I could afford all the g masters but a fortune

Dan_168 · May 20, 2016

jlg84 said:
I'm coming to the realisation that the camera will be primarily a walking-around and travelling camera, so lightning-fast focusing is not that critical, though of course it would be preferable. Perhaps a solution is to forego the whole adaptor issue and just get the camera with a good wide-to-tele zoom? Is there one that people would recommend?

That's exactly how I am using the camera, except I also use it as one of my main landscape came side by side with the D800E, where I am actually using manual focus 99.9 % of the time.

Your plan sounds about the same as mine except I don't care for mid range zoom but prefer a few fast prime, like 35 + 85, for wide to mid-tele kind of zoom, of course there is a new G master 24-70 2.8, and there is a also a F4 version of it if you are OK with its aperture and optic quality, but I am doing the 35 + 85 myself and waiting for my pre-ordered Batis 18, should be another nice lens for travel.

lightgrabber · May 20, 2016

Wish I'd known that before I traded in my M version for a T, so I could get the focusing working. :-( Guess I could have just updated the firmware on my M..oh well all water under the bridge now.

jlg84 · May 20, 2016

I had to return to Dunedin today so I stopped by the camera store to revisit the SONY a7ii, which I'd been told would have been updated to the latest firmware by now. This time it was the owner who looked after me, and I found that the focus was a bit better, but still not what I'd call ideal. We futzed around with the settings for a bit before concluding that it was still on firmware v1.2, so quite a bit out of date.

Unfortunately, upgrading the firmware was not on the table, and as I started to dither the battery died. So he took out a charger to rev it up a bit and while we waited another customer came in. He had an a7r with him and was using a Chinese knock-off adaptor to continue to use his Canon lenses, and he came in to the shop to buy a Canon TS lens. We started chatting and he could not say enough good things about his camera, and that his experience with the adaptor was generally positive. But he also asked why I didn't consider just getting a Sony lens and forgetting about adaptors. I had already begun to consider that and happily a suitable candidate was available. With the native lens the focus is very fast, and I was satisfied with the quality of the lens, as well

as with the ability to bring one lens with me on occasions when lugging several kgs worth of glass is not an option. So I am now the proud owner of the a7ii with a Sony 24-200 lens. Thanks to all of you for sharing your knowledge and opinions--it was very helpful!

I will be in NYC in a few weeks and will plan to revisit the Metabones at B&H, by which time I'll have updated the firmware and become more familiar with the camera. Also, while the camera and lens are cheaper in New Zealand, the metabones is much cheaper in the US, so it could be a win-win!

jaybr · May 20, 2016

Ugh, I hate to burst your bubble.

The Sony FE 24-240mm lens is one of the worst performing FE lenses available.

It's a jack of all trades, master of none lens. It's like putting a horse in front of a Ferrari.

Anyway, no matter, enjoy your new camera system.

J

jlg84 · May 20, 2016

jaybr said:
Ugh, I hate to burst your bubble.

The Sony FE 24-240mm lens is one of the worst performing FE lenses available.

It's a jack of all trades, master of none lens. It's like putting a horse in front of a Ferrari.

Anyway, no matter, enjoy your new camera system.

J

To be honest, I am sure that it will not prove to be the equal of my Canon lenses, but I'm satisfied with it for now.

lightgrabber · May 21, 2016

Congratulations on the new camera. I hope you will enjoy using it.

I suspect that once you get used to the camera you will indeed revisit the whole adapter question. I too have quite a bit of decent Canon glass, and I'm glad I can still use it with the Sony, especially since native Sony lenses don't really cover the longer end of the lens spectrum yet.

When I first moved to the Sony mirrorless system, (with an a6000) I was very impressed with the focus peaking function, which makes manual focus much more usable for me and means that I can even use older MF lenses quite easily, but the AF is a real help when it comes to things like birds and wildlife.

vett93 · May 21, 2016

jlg84 said:
jaybr said:

Ugh, I hate to burst your bubble.

The Sony FE 24-240mm lens is one of the worst performing FE lenses available.

It's a jack of all trades, master of none lens. It's like putting a horse in front of a Ferrari.

Anyway, no matter, enjoy your new camera system.

J

Click to expand...

To be honest, I am sure that it will not prove to be the equal of my Canon lenses, but I'm satisfied with it for now.

Both Canon and Sony make good and so so lenses. I looked at your Canon collections. Sorry to say but they are in the so so camp. I can see why you are satisfied with the FE24-240.

lightgrabber · May 21, 2016

I'd love to hear what you think are Canon's 'good' lenses if you'd care to name them.

jlg84 · May 21, 2016

vett93 said:
jlg84 said:

jaybr said:

Ugh, I hate to burst your bubble.

The Sony FE 24-240mm lens is one of the worst performing FE lenses available.

It's a jack of all trades, master of none lens. It's like putting a horse in front of a Ferrari.

Anyway, no matter, enjoy your new camera system.

J

Click to expand...

To be honest, I am sure that it will not prove to be the equal of my Canon lenses, but I'm satisfied with it for now.

Click to expand...

Both Canon and Sony make good and so so lenses. I looked at your Canon collections. Sorry to say but they are in the so so camp. I can see why you are satisfied with the FE24-240.

noap · May 21, 2016

Have you considered getting the Sigma MC-11 adapter? Canon lenses seem to work pretty well with it, judging from some YouTube reviews even better than on a MB. If you using Sigma lenses, it's even better: the lens performs just like a native FE lens with all focus options available.

Chris Joy · May 21, 2016

The A7rII is much better with adapted lenses. So is the a6300. The larger PADF array makes a big difference.

l_d_allan · May 21, 2016

jlg84 said:
jlg84 wrote:
But when I attached the Metabones IV adaptor (which we discerned had the latest firmware) my EF lenses were extremely slow to focus, almost to the point of being completely unusable.

Didn't read all of the thread ... sorry.

This "Canon 6d semi defector" has had a very different AF experience with mid-level, affordable FotodioX adapter ... quite good and exceeds [modest] expectations.

I'd estimate my Canon EF 70-200mm f2.8L IS ii does AF about as well, maybe better than on the 6d, in terms of accuracy and speed. Admittedly, the AF on the 6d is rather primitive.

By reputation, the AF on the 5d3 is better than the 6d, so I wouldn't expect my a7Rii + FotodioX + 70-200mm to match it.

I do find the ergonomics on my 6d and especially older 5d2 to be better than the a7rii.

I got tired of waiting for Canon to match the Sony Exmor sensor's performance. I think the Canon 80d is finally showing some potential to get closer to the Exmor's, but Exmors are also getting better.

Jeff2013 · May 21, 2016

For the benefit of others reading this who would like to use Canon lenses on their A7RII's:

(Since there is so much conflicting information out there, I will just add to it.

)

We have all watched the YouTube videos of how well focus works with the various adapters. What they typically omit is how well the outlying focus points work, which is crucial for portrait work at fast apertures.

With the MBIV (latest firmware) my Canon 24-70mm f2.8II works incredibly well with my A7RII's. I can shoot in a dark studio without modeling lights and focus is fast and accurate with all the outlying focus points. I compared this adapted lens with the GM 24-70mm f2.8 and really couldn't see any significant difference, other than no Eye Focus (caveat - I did not do a lot of testing in Continuous focus mode). My Canon 16-35mm f4 IS also works incredibly well on the A7RII.

The Canon 70-200mm f2.8 II works well with the center focus point, but does not focus well in low-light with the outlying focus points, so it is useless for me, although some, like Jason Lanier, seem to be happy with it. It is completely useless with the Canon 100-400mm II. In other words, the longer the focal length, the less acceptable the performance is.

Even better, the Canon mount Sigma 35mm and 50mm ART lenses work remarkably well with the MC-11, with the latest firmware on the A7RII. In fact, you would never know that they were adapted - even the Eye Focus works well. This is all great news for me, since I shoot dual systems with the A7RII's and 5DSR's.

l_d_allan · May 21, 2016

vett93 said:
jlg84 said:

lightgrabber said:

When you do check it out, could you be sure to try using a focus point away from the centre setting and see if that works for you/

As I've mentioned, mine focuses quite well if I use the central point but, if I move it off to one of the other points it really struggles. I'd like to know if this is a universal problem or something I am doing, or setting, incorrectly with mine.

Click to expand...

Will do my best! How do you select the focus point in the camera? Is it fairly obvious?

Click to expand...

Not much about the a7Rii AF system is obvious ... there is a significant learning curve. Some of that is because there are so many modes, and less-than-helpful menu system. Then adapters add another layer of complexity.

On the f/w ... it's been a while, but my impression was the a7rii updates were more for start-up time (still slow), uRAW, and working with GM lenses. I don't recall AF speed and/or accuracy changing much.

What I DO recall is how tedious and sloooooow it was to upgrade the f/w. Will the camera shop do that for you, before-hand? I suppose it is to their advantage to have the latest/greatest f/w on the camera that is being used as a demo.

IIRC, I think other models of the a7x camera family got more meaningful f/w updates, like better CDAF or PDAF on other models.

vett93 said:
You don't know how to change focus point and you wrote off the camera already?

Yeah, I had that reaction also.

vett93 · May 21, 2016

jlg84 said:
vett93 said:

jlg84 said:

jaybr said:

Ugh, I hate to burst your bubble.

The Sony FE 24-240mm lens is one of the worst performing FE lenses available.

It's a jack of all trades, master of none lens. It's like putting a horse in front of a Ferrari.

Anyway, no matter, enjoy your new camera system.

J

Click to expand...

To be honest, I am sure that it will not prove to be the equal of my Canon lenses, but I'm satisfied with it for now.

Click to expand...

Both Canon and Sony make good and so so lenses. I looked at your Canon collections. Sorry to say but they are in the so so camp. I can see why you are satisfied with the FE24-240.

Click to expand...

tammons · May 21, 2016

jlg84 said:
vett93 said:

jlg84 said:

jaybr said:

Ugh, I hate to burst your bubble.

The Sony FE 24-240mm lens is one of the worst performing FE lenses available.

It's a jack of all trades, master of none lens. It's like putting a horse in front of a Ferrari.

Anyway, no matter, enjoy your new camera system.

J

Click to expand...

To be honest, I am sure that it will not prove to be the equal of my Canon lenses, but I'm satisfied with it for now.

Click to expand...

Both Canon and Sony make good and so so lenses. I looked at your Canon collections. Sorry to say but they are in the so so camp. I can see why you are satisfied with the FE24-240.

Click to expand...

vett93 · May 21, 2016

Jeff2013 said:
...
The Canon 70-200mm f2.8 II works well with the center focus point, but does not focus well in low-light with the outlying focus points, so it is useless for me, although some, like Jason Lanier, seem to be happy with it. It is completely useless with the Canon 100-400mm II. In other words, the longer the focal length, the less acceptable the performance is.

Even better, the Canon mount Sigma 35mm and 50mm ART lenses work remarkably well with the MC-11, with the latest firmware on the A7RII. In fact, you would never know that they were adapted - even the Eye Focus works well. This is all great news for me, since I shoot dual systems with the A7RII's and 5DSR's.

How well does the MC-11 work with the Canon 100-400m II?

Why I opted against the Sony a7xii (it's all about Metabones)

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