Is a Sony Camera Something to Lust After? Or Avoid?

[gsgary]

Minolta have made some of the best lenses you can buy quite a few Leica R lenses were made buy Minolta, and the Leica R camera was co designed by Minolta

 

[Fred Berg]

I would't turn my nose up at an RX1.

 

[gsgary]

I would't turn my nose up at an RX1.

RX1 is a great camera there is a war photographer that uses one its his favourite camera

 

[Derrel]

There is ONE thing that Sony has the intellectual property rights to that could help them attract some customers, and it's a lens that the other camera makers do not offer, and never have offered: a beautiful 400mm f/4.5 APO (apochromatic) autofocusing lens, which was formerly offered under the Minolta brand in a light, whitish color finish. It used to cost around $1,699, but now on the used market from Japan is around $2200-$2500 with its factory trunk case on e-Bay.

This 400mm f/4.5 (2/3 of a stop faster than f/5.6) would be a good counter to the lens Tony Northrup constantly harps on as being Canon's big "system advantage", the Canon 400mm f/5.6 prime lens.

Minolta High Speed APO 400mm F4 5g Excellent Condition from Japan 043325424007 | eBay

 

[gsgary]

There is ONE thing that Sony has the intellectual property rights to that could help them attract some customers, and it's a lens that the other camera makers do not offer, and never have offered: a beautiful 400mm f/4.5 APO (apochromatic) autofocusing lens, which was formerly offered under the Minolta brand in a light, whitish color finish. It used to cost around $1,699, but now on the used market from Japan is around $2200-$2500 with its factory trunk case on e-Bay.

This 400mm f/4.5 (2/3 of a stop faster than f/5.6) would be a good counter to the lens Tony Northrup constantly harps on as being Canon's big "system advantage", the Canon 400mm f/5.6 prime lens.

Minolta High Speed APO 400mm F4 5g Excellent Condition from Japan 043325424007 | eBay

Haven't you read on here where someone said Minolta were rubbish [emoji3]

 

[Derrel]

I shot the Minolta SRT-101a bit, over 35 years ago, in junior high school...it was a nice enough camera, with the 50mm f/1.7 Rokkor lens. I remember that here in the USA, Minolta ran an advertisement in the big photography magazines, Popular Photography, and Modern Photography, in which they had as I recall, a full page showing multiple photographs, all fairly small, but assembled in a grid formation. They had hired a BIG-NAME photographer to shoot basically, the same shot of a model and set, using a bunch of different camera brands, all with as I recall, a 50mm lens. The results were...mostly identical. The idea was to show that Canon and Nikon were not really "superior", and that Minolta gear was right up there with the best of the offerings in 35mm photography. Instead, I think it really showed that Minolta offered no visible advantage over anything else...again, part of the problem with the old Minolta corporation's lack of intelligent marketing in a competitive industry.

Okay: HERE is one of the ads in that campaign. This was not the only ad, there was another one with a Japanese flavor, like a geisha-dressed model.

vintage everyday: Vintage Minolta Camera Advertising

This one was shot by Irving Penn.

 

[gsgary]

One thing minolta did better than most was light meters pros still use them today

 

[Stevepwns]

Steve, I totally "get" what you are saying, and I agree with almost everything you say. Please let me offer my ideas of what lies on the other side of the coin. In some industries, getting people to "jump ship" NEVER occurs in significant enough numbers to benefit a new entrant in the marketplace. Ford vs Chevy, Jim Beam vs Jack Daniels, John Deere versus "the red brands", Macintosh versus PC, Packers vs Bears, Yankees versus Red Sox..there actually are many longstanding allegiances that no amount of marketing, not even hundreds of millions of dollars and literally decades' worth of hype and PR and advertising, can overcome. Some allegiances, formed early, last a lifetime. A head start is worth a hellll of a lot in most races!

The camera market is divided into the traditional "camera maker market" segments, as well as the newer, consumer electronics market segments. For some people, a camera is a cam-er-uh. For others, it is an electronic gadget. Sony has entered a market that has had a number of companies that had been in the camera market segments of the business for many decades. Sony entered a market where Nikon had basically, a fifty year head start in Nikon F-mount lenses, and a legacy. Sony entered the "serious camera market" segment of the business after having been in the lower-end P&S digital business for a few years, when they bought up the serious camera intellectual property and the lens mount of a bankrupt camera maker, the smoldering ruins of Minolta, which went +i+s up and sold out to Konica, which formed Konica/Minolta; Konica had been an old Japan based camera maker-OLDER than Nikon, but it too had gone +i+s up...so...Sony tried to buy its way into a legacy-dominated camera segment with the wreckage of TWO failed traditional camera makers, Minolta, and Konica, neither of which could handle the competition from Canon and Nikon.

Let's say I am Donald Trump, and I want to start my own world-wide soda pop company. I plan to dethrone Coca~Cola brands, and Pepsi~Cola. I have 977 million dollars for advertising. Know what? I have a snowball's chance in hell. This is what Sony is trying to do, in a business where the products are **expensive**, and there are older, more-established brand names, with resale outlets for older, discarded equipment, as well as millions of legacy lenses and accessories for sale. Even though Sony severely cut prices on its d-slr offerings, like the A900 24-MP FF camera at $2499, and the A800 24-MP FX d-slr at $1899, the $7,999 Nikon D3x outsold both of those very,very nice, beautiful Sony cameras. All three cameras used the same Sony-made sensor. Sony has tried to "buy into" a very exclusive, mature camera market dominated by two much older, legacy camera brands, with the idea that the industry is just a niche within the consumer electronics business. News flash: not all of it is consumer electronics.

I totally agree, You said it much better than I did. I mentioned building a customer base, which is what they are doing. But I want you to think about something. Take me for instance, I have a youtube channel and I made video with a sub 200 dollar handy cam and free software. I like to play with computers...... In the attempted to make better videos I looked into getting a better camera. I heard that DSLR's shot 1080 video so I looked into it. I also have been studying or practicing some form of art my entire life. So I figured at the least, I could play with some photography when I had the time. I did my research and I found that the old Minolta lenses worked on the new Sony body's. To ebay I went..... I made some lists of what I wanted, a couple lenses and a body that suited my needs for as cheep as I could go all things considered. I found an A33, and 5 lenses for less than 400 bucks, a 1.8, 2.8 and 3 F4.0's. I tried to do the same thing with Nikon and Cannon. My only stipulation was that it be a camera no more than a couple years old. I couldn't do it with the other 2. I have since upgraded twice and Sony has an all be it "Loyal" customer. Just my continued business alone took 2 years to gain. If they keep innovating and putting a strong showing up, in another 10 years, I believe they will have grown even more. The chances of building their own following are better than getting half of the pro's already invested heavily into the other systems. Unless they deliver undeniably better systems, they will simply have to last long enough to build their own following. I think the media and social media pushes a less patient opinion. Creating these conversations when its unnecessary.

 

[Derrel]

I think you are correct, that Sony has a good chance of building its brand based mostly on all-NEW customers, people who are entering the market for the first time. Of course, other camera makers offer competition too, and those other companies might innovate too. Right NOW, in late 2014, I think the majority of the camera market is stuck in limbo, as the camera companies are really struggling to find something, ANYTHING< that they can hitch their wagons to. Fuji has gone for the "retro" camera look, with analog-style controls on the lenses and top deck, Sony is trying several approaches, Nikon has like five full-frame cameras and three APS-C models, Canon has a bunch of APS-C Rebels and two FF models, Pentax is sticking with APS-C cameras with loads of weather-sealing and beautiful lenses, and on the other side, the video market has more and more entries, and the m4/3 makers are emphasizing higher-profit expensive SUPERB lenses...but we're still stuck mostly with cameras that work just like they have for years. Meanwhile, smart phone stills and video get better and better and better. You know, if say Apple comes out with a smart phone that has two, or three lenses, and uses a large sensor like the one in the Sony Xperia phones...the "camera makers" could be in some deep,deep doo-doo.

Have you seen any pics from the new Sony Xperia phones, with the f/2.0 lens and the small-camera-sized ( 1/2.3" size sensor, like a compact digital camera) sensor? Because the sensor is so small, the Depth of Field even at f/2 is pretty good, and the low-light potential is as good as a compact camera. Video doesn't require all that much from a lens, so it's possible that in 10 years' time, smart phones will more often have the capabilities of a real camera. And I am not kidding about using two, or even three different lenses in a smart phone: I think it will happen, and so do others. And I think it will come first from Apple. We ALREADY have two lenses on basically every single new smart phone, the front-facing and the rear-facing camera lenses. It's not much of a stretch to add a "telephoto" lens to the main camera, or to design a sliding-switch wide/tele lens array, which was done on the 110 Instamatics 40 years ago.

I honestly do not really see Sony (or Nikon,Canon,Pentax, or Samsung) as having the software or the design background to lead anything, but I do see it from Apple. I think the camera business is getting ready for the next big disruption,and I think it might come from Apple. Samsung is a highly-successful follower; that is in fact their corporate strategy and has been for decades: enter the market LAST, after seeing everybody else's efforts and failures, but with with a product that has been (cough cough, stolen!) inspired by the earlier entrants' failures and successes. Sony's new A7 series--nice bodies, but everybody buying off-list lenses, using old, adapted lenses...how is that helping Sony? That launch, of an amazing new body, with basically four lenses....was brain-dead. That's not innovation...that's self-immolation.

 

[goodguy]

What? The Sony Alpha line has been around for years and the a77ii is arguably the best APSC body out currently. As far as being proprietary can you give any examples?

The top APS-C cameras are
Canon 7DmII
Nikon D7100
Pentax K3
Sony a77.

I would take the Pentax K3 over any of them.[/QUOTE]

I would go with the D7100, well I did, I owned it.
The K3 is fantastic but yuo pretty much gets stuck there while the D7100 with FX glass is a great starting point to move to FF if you feel like it someday.
Over all the K3 is very close to the D7100 so one vs the other they are both wonderful.
The 7D II they say is good but man its expensive for crop sensor camera so unless you are very serious about sports I would say the D7100 is the best choice.

 

[theraven871]

I've owned both the K-3 and the D7100. They are actually very similar cameras.
Autofocus performance is nearly identical.

Nikon has the ability to upgrade to full frame. Pentax has the most APS-C lenses on the market.
Nikon has the CLS system. Pentax has the best prime lenses (The 77 is simply amazing).
Both of them use the same Sony sensor.
They both have fairly fast autofocus, but I slightly prefer the Nikon's.
The Pentax feels much more rugged and it has far superior weather sealing.
Metering is slightly better on the Nikon.
Auto White Balance on the K3 is the best I've ever used.
Pentax has anti-shake reduction built into the camera body. Nikon does not.
Pentax RAW files have less noise up to 800 ISO. At 1600 ISO and 3200 ISO the Nikon has less noise
At 6400 ISO (and above), they both are about the same.
On and off camera flash performance is identical (for both speedlights and studio strobes)
Off camera TTL/HSS is much better with the Nikon.
The Pentax shoots MUCH faster than the Nikon. There is a big difference between 8.3 fps and 6fps. Also, the Pentax has a larger buffer.
The Pentax has a better menu system.
The Nikon has a better rear screen.

They both are very similar feeling cameras with near identical specs.
They both perform nearly identical.

One feature the Pentax has (which EVERY manufacturer needs to copy) is its 'green button' on the back.
It allows you to quickly meter the light, even when you're in manual mode.
So, for example, if you're shooting a wedding (in manual) and something happens on the other side of the room; you can quickly spin and press the green button to meter your camera for that available light. During event photography, this prevents you from missing those shots that you only have a split second to capture.
You can even program this button to lean on the side of a wide apertures, fast shutter speeds, balanced........etc.

The only feature that the Nikon offers over the Pentax is its CLS and better ISO at 1600 and 3200 only. Then Pentax has many more features in its favor.
But you will get ZERO points showing up to a photo-shoot with a Pentax camera. Everyone thinks its a toy camera unless it says Nikon or Canon.
These are both awesome DSLRs and both capable of professional work.

 

[gsgary]

It's the photographer that turns up at the shoot not the camera if I used a Pentax and someone said something about my camera on a shoot I would tell the to stuff it and get another photographer, pentax also has medium format digital Nikon doesn't

 

[Gary A.]

I often read people say it is the photographer not the camera, but this isn't necessarily true.. (Which is a bit different than what gsgary stated.)

In truth, the greater skill and experience of the photographer ... better equipment will make a difference in the image. In other words, better equipment in a better photographer will make a better image. Better equipment in a not so very skilled photographer won't make a difference.

 

[theraven871]

I often read people say it is the photographer not the camera, but this isn't necessarily true.. (Which is a bit different than what gsgary stated.)

In truth, the greater skill and experience of the photographer ... better equipment will make a difference in the image. In other words, better equipment in a better photographer will make a better image. Better equipment in a not so very skilled photographer won't make a difference.

I both agree and disagree with you.
A professional with an entry level DSLR will always take better pictures than an amateur with a professional camera.
But, yes. A professional will take better pictures with better gear.

Its very similar to a musician.
A professional guitarist doesn't need a $5000 guitar to blow your mind. In the hands of an amateur, the benefits of a $5000 guitar are lost.

 

[sashbar]

One Pentax feature that others should copy is its Tv mode, when you can choose both shutter speed and aperture, and the camera adjusts the ISO. Ricoh borrowed it and I found it very useful. I do not know how identical is JPEG rendition and WB with Ricoh ( which owns Pentax) and Pentax DSLRs are, but I prefer Ricoh to Nikon in that respect, especially it's colour rendition. If I had to choose between D7100 and K3 now I would probably go for Pentax for the above reasons, weather sealing and built-in anti vibration. Lenses are another big factor. I was a bit disappointed with Nikon DX glass, which I feel is deliberately dumbed down to make amateurs/ enthusiasts switch to full frame.