^ Why not? Nikon did 24mm with their collapsible 24-50mm kit lens.

You know, I have many thousands of pounds of gear and always try to shoot at f5.6 or f8 to get the best quality. I find shallow depth of field a tired cliché and a sign the photographer cant use backgrounds properly. It also makes me feel queasy looking at it. So it's about how you choose to view this lens, to me it could be perfectly fine so long as its sharp

@Bigsensorisbest
Yes!

@ TORN: Many are doing great work with such lenses. What have they missed?

Remember many people are happy to pay 4.5k for a travel leica Q2 with a 28mm lens

^ Strange comparison. The Leica is a niche specialist prime, this is supposed to be a mass produced versatile kit lens zoom. Most lenses of this type typically start at 24mm.

Yes, 28mm isnt wide enough for typical kit lenses. 24mm is standard (Panasonic starts at 20mm).

Prime lenses on the hand come in various focal lengths, are fixed and arent inherently always wide.

Yeah, why not make a 16-600 pancake lens while we're at it?

entry level ? at that price point ?
I would say a camera between 1200 and 1500 USD is an entry level camera, not this one.

I was thinking entry level is along the lines of an E-M10 III or Fuji X T100, circa $4-600..

@dansclic it is a entry level FF for Sony. or you will call it a high end FF ??

The a7II or even the first generation a7 is the entry level camera (latter one can be found new in retail stores for under 600€ with kit and some accessories in Germany)

Two grand for a dark camera lens combo? What a waste. No need to go ff for that.

Video especially with its wider aspect ratio and crop requires a wider focal length.
Also, the competition has a24-60mm kit lens and a 20-60. Both more useful.

@badi, yes, you are absolutely right. FF cameras with dark lenses have no sense! But once you use a bright lens on such a camera, then no smaller sensor camera can compete!

That's the point. Use a small and cheap lens to get the same result as with smaller sensors.
Or use a still small and cheap e.g. 85/1.8 lens to get a step above.
Or use a big and expensive lens e.g. 35/1.2 to get something FAR from a small sensor camera.

You have the choice with FF.

And in this case, the " dark FF lens is actually so much smaller and cheaper than the Pro M4/3 lens, and the combo still offer better low light performance. and once you put a F1.4 lens on it, what lens can the M4/3 system use to keep up with????

@Mr Bolton The sensor in A7c is far superior to anything in Fuji APS-C range.

The latest Sony made Fujifilm sensor is far superior in some ways than the A7c sensor. Often there won’t be an advantage with noise or DR (unless you are an idiot and can’t expose an image properly), but the APSC has a faster sensor readout and less rolling shutter. It is capable of 20 FPS and 4K 60p which the “lesser” FF is not.

So it depends on what your priorities are. Would you rather have a better built camera with less rolling shutter and better video and faster frame rates along with better SOOC colors? Or a FF camera with occasionally more DR and the worst EVF? 😀

One reason to use full frame lenses at smaller apertures is to get better sharpness than from using an equivalently-fast crop lens wide open. This is highly dependent on the particular pair of lenses being compared, of course.

@Quiquae - yes, that is somewhat true, but of course there are many advantages, some reiterated by others. For one myself I would totally prefer this A7c with the kit lens (which seems quite good) to the olympus big pro lens (but somewhat equivalent in terms of total light gathering).
Even in combinations that are effectively equivalent, for the smaller sensor the lens must resolve the smaller pixels of the smaller sensor (which is why it needs to get big and expensive), so in reality an F5.6 lens on a 24MPx FF sensor will usually perform better regarding sharpness and aberrations compared to a F2.8 on a 2x crop sensor with close resolution. Though the overall look of the image is exactly the same.

My initial answer was only directed to that amazing "FF look" on a F5.6 lens comment :)

Ooh... so you were talking how individual pixels look!
(end of sarcasm. Couldn't resist)

Also, no point in adding more to my or others previous answers. Physics is physics, no matter if you think otherwise or not...

The A7c is an a6x00 replacement. With a rapidly contracting market and low sales number, Sony can develop FF exclusively and charge more than they would for APSC. Like you said the A7c is much cheaper to produce. It’s price could drop to $1000 eventually.

All manufacturers can develop FF exclusively.... If they want too The question is, would it be a smart move?

Would it make them more money, if Sony would quit APS-C?

APS-C sales still make up for 80% of the sales volume and for Sony this is no different than for other manufacturers.

APS-C for Sony has been used to lure people into the Sony ecosystem and E-Mount. The goal in the end is to have people upgraded.

Volume dictates the strategy.
A small profit but large volume can still be a better thing than to go for a large margin but too then loose on sales volume. Both of them go hand in hand.

Up the price and less people will buy it or can afford it.
Lower the price and more people are willing to jump onto it.

When prices of FF cameras will fall below or near the 1000 dollar mark. It would for sure be the death of APS-C. As margins would be too low to be sustainable for such system to keep on producing.

But it will take at least another 5-8 years before we will reach that point.

Jones
APS-C cameras exist because in the early days of digital photography there were no FF sensors. If a company builds FF cameras as their primary system it probably doesn’t make sense to offer a complete and fully fledged APS-C system - you end up competing with yourself. Nikon, for example, treats APS-C as something geared toward casual users... you know, smart phone people.
The A7C could be seen as moving into the APS-C space, but the high price ($1800) protects their APS-C cameras - but are they selling? Nikon, for example, just introduced a $1300 FF camera, definitely lowering the bar. And look at Canon with their $1000 RP.
I doubt Nikon will ever introduce another premium high performance APS-C camera - and they shouldn’t. I do expect an all plastic Z30 for $500 with a lens and a very low margin. Sony will have to make the same decision, their APS-C lineup is confused because they never seem to discontinue anything.

APS-C cameras still exist because, for significantly less coin I can get a lot nicer of a camera of similar size and weight, maybe even less. Excellent AF, dual card slots, weather sealing; faster bursts, less rolling shutter, less propensity to overheat in longer 4K video sessions.

I can live with a half stop less DR on a camera that does so many other things as well or better, and is nicer to use. And cheaper.

"because, for significantly less coin I can get a lot nicer of a camera of similar size and weight"
Exactly, but once the price difference becomes less significant, and considering that for "serious" things APS-C camera always used FF glass, as no manufacturer produced pro glass in APS-C (of course excluding the manufacturers that produce cropped formats only)?

Mr Bolton
You describe APS-C cameras as having greater utility and overall value with respect to price. And BTW it’s always going to be about one full stop of DR, not a half stop, because with all things being equal the APS-C sensor is less than half the area of an FF sensor (2.35:1). Problem is that everything else about the APS-C camera costs nearly the same while being seen by consumers as worth comparatively less.
If you have to pay a premium price for premium equipment regardless of sensor size then you might as well have the larger sensor.
This is Olympus’s problem right now, and it’s becoming Fujifilm’s problem for their X-mount. FF cameras moving down market act like a vise with smart phones pushing from the other size, squeezing 1”, m4/3 and APS-C cameras in the middle, shrinking their market.

That's exactly it - In the end the only difference is the price of the sensor that sits inside the camera. All of the other components are all pretty equal in cost price.

Production-, R&D costs, wharehousing, shipping an marketing costs of an APS-C camera are not less or more than they are for a FF camera. The LCD and EVF are equal in both systems. The processor and buffer memory is no different either, nor is the card slot(s) that sit in the camera. The PCB will be equally priced as will the IBIS system will only differ a few dollarcents.

Weight and size of the body's are no different either, and when using equivalent glass there is not even a true difference in weight and size.

I own a Fuji camera myself.
But I make no illusions over the fact that Fuji is heading in the same direction as Olympus once FF cameras go below the1000 dollar mark. Fuji is going to face immense pressure from the upper side of the market, and those in denial stick their heads into the ground.

Sometimes I feel like gummy bears, the sour ones, but they're so sweet and it's never worth all the sugar.

You know what I mean?
You know what I mean! ;)

'I'd rather shoot a smaller sensor' too, MFT is too big, I'll use my phone and it's smaller lenses.

Kids theses days, comparing apples to oranges.

We're discussing the A7C, an FF sensor camera.

Of course a smaller sensor will be more compact, but to use your logic my phone is smaller, lighter and much cheaper again. Where does it end?

You can't compare your Camry to a Ferrari. It's just stupid.

Thank you, but still i don't see what i think could be useful.

There is one landscape @iso 1600 where i can see almost nothing due to noise, but seems that left side is blurry.

And an old building, but full of obstacles to judge sharpness...

@ggc

Quit trolling. There are tons of pictures there and in the gallery above that show you its a great kit lens.

Here's a shot of a brick wall which is pin sharp edge to edge at 60mp.

https://www.dpreview.com/sample-galleries/9578803859/sony-28-60mm-f4-5-6-sample-gallery/2472266168