2020 Japan Olympics and the New Cameras

VidThreeNorth · Nov 23, 2019

If you want to make sense out of some of the new cameras that have shown up in the Summer, Fall, Winter of 2019, and coming in Spring 2020, then you should consider the effect of the 2020 Olympics in Japan. Note the last phrase: "Olympics in JAPAN" -- the home country of most of the camera companies in the world. This is a land where photography runs deeply in families.

Look at the latest Nikon Z50 and Canon M6 MkII and you can see "Olympics" written all over them. This is also why the Olympus OM-D, EM5 III finally came out. All these are cropped sensor cameras. Why does "cropped sensor" go with "OLympics"? Because "cropped sensors" are strong in the telephoto end. What kind of photography are you doing at the Olympics? Lemme guess: Sports? What kind of gear do sports usually need? Telephoto! Wow! And if you are a spectator, you probably want compact light weight gear. Guess what cropped sensor gear is like? Compact and light weight? Wow again!

Whatever happens next year, I do think the Japanese camera companies did some pretty good thinking about the products they wanted on the shelves in Japanese camera stores.

VidThreeNorth · Dec 19, 2019

The original post was inspired by comments I ran across on the Internet criticizing Canon and Nikon for the M6 MkII and the Z50, implying that these cameras were "wrong" products right now, and my point was that the people making those comments were wrong. Maybe they never played sports in high school, so the Olympics in Japan did not seem like a big deal, but it is.

I did not intend to post anything else on the topic unless someone else did, but lately I have seen reviews of the Sony E 70-350mm F4.5-6.3 OSS ("SEL70350G"). This lens was announced around Aug. 2019 at around $1,000 US, and being out of my price range I ignored it, so I do not know when they got to the stores, but I expect that if I asked around, it probably showed up almost immediately, and I do not expect it will be in short supply -- not because it poor sales, but rather, I expect that Sony planned this lens as part of their Olympics preparations, and probably started production early, and with high sales projections.

What about this lens says "Olympics"? Start with the "105 - 525 mm" equivalent focal length range, its fairly compact size, the stabilization, and its sharpness (the "G" series), and the relatively "fair" price (yes, it's too much for me, but not out of the range of many people who buy the a6400 or a6600 bodies) and that much is a good indication. But one subtle issue is the F-stop range. At the far telephoto end it is F6.3. In fact it starts at only F4.5 at the wide end. These are numbers that are fairly tight for many sports, but not for the Olympics. The Olympics will be well lighted. I would guess that you could probably cover most of it at around ISO 400, 1/1000 sec and around the F5.6 - F8.0 range. That much light? Probably yes. Every event is going to be well lighted for their local TV coverage (NHK plans on 8K video coverage), and the global feeds, as well as other Press.

So if you buy this lens and use it on one of these fairly recent a6nnn bodies, you will be able to get some nice pictures and videos. Just don't expect it to be quite so nice after the Olympics and you run into cloudy days, or indoors spaces not so well lighted.

So yes, this lens says Olympics to me.

[2020-01-01 14:43 added following link:]
Here is one of the "reviews" that I ran across:

"The Sony 70-350mm G OSS Impressed Me",
posted by "Arthur R" on Dec 17, 2019, [length 12:10]

""

Derrel · Dec 20, 2019

As cameras get better and better at relatively High ISO values of 1000 and up, the f/stop range will become less and less of a detriment.

Sharpshooterr · Jan 23, 2020

Vid, to both you and Derrel, the Olympics a very exciting place to shoot. Unfortunately most Photographers will never get that chance!!
The sports venues there are very crowded at best and way overcrowded at worst.
A lens like that Sony certainly has a place there but more as a convenient lightweight lens if that's what it is. It's a SLOW lens, yes very good high ISO performance can in some cases render the use of slow inexpensive lenses very helpful but less so for sports.
That said, at a place like the Olympics as with many sporting events a photographer needs the ability to make the decision to BLUR out the busy crowds or backgrounds or sometimes leave in enough to ad to the environmental effect and excitement of the event. But it needs to be the choice of the photographer, not the lens. Another very important aspect of a faster lens, and it's the reason all(most) 0f the pro lenses are f2.8 is that it's the only way those $6000 cameras can do their jobs WELL. Consulting a lens group chart one can see that at f4.6 or f5.6 a lens will drop a couple of groups in the focus dept., meaning that the camera loses the ability to use the "oh so important to fast moving sports", the ability to use a majority of the multi-cross points in the camera! The reason you see so many 400 2.8 lenses at field events is not so much the ability to blur the backgrounds as the ability to focus in bad light conditions using the very important cross focus points that a longer f4 500mm loses. In sports that's the reason to use a fast lens. Yes with a slow lens one can gain back speed with a clean and higher ISO but it can NEVER gain the ability to focus as quickly or as accurately in poor light as a faster lens!!!
Some of the big f4's might even be group A lenses(I haven't checked) but can't focus as quickly or as accurately as a lens letting in twice the light.
In the following shot, from my album, I felt that showing the rabid fans would help the shot but it was MY decision, not the lenses! At other times one might want to blur them out.
SS

TWX · Jan 23, 2020

I see what you're saying, VidThreeNorth, but I'm not so sure that the M6-II in particular is actually a good sports camera, versus being a good camera that is going to be marketed this season as a tie-in to the Olympics, without necessarily being really the best for this particular application.

You point out the crop nature which does make a 300mm lens act more like a 480, a 250 more like a 400, 200 more like a 320, but right now Canon doesn't have a native EFM lens longer than 200mm at f/6.3. One could well adapt an EF or EFS lens, but then most of the size advantages are lost, the camera might be smaller, but the actual savings is mostly negated by the lens. If they had a small fast telephoto lens then that might mean a true game-changer, but they're balancing giving hobbyists and amateurs something without cannibalizing sales of their premium products by avoiding making their mid-grade products appeal too much to the pros.

It would not surprise me if the sensor in the M6-II combined with that EF-M 55-200mm f/4.5-6.3 ends up being a good combination for amateurs, it won't have the depth of field and it won't have quite the reach, but if that EFM lens is sharp enough then it will allow for cropping down to the subject while still retaining a decent resolution. Obviously a lot of post-production work means time, which to a professional covering a live event might not be worthwhile if spending a bit more money up front on an expense that may be tax-deductible means that the pro's photos sell quickly for income.

So the amateur ends up buying a camera for sports that does okay at it, but in reality is a pretty darned good camera for all around personal use more that really oriented towards sports. Which still means sales and further development of products.

VidThreeNorth · Jan 23, 2020

You guys have covered a lot of territory lately and I'm only going to touch on things briefly. Going back to my original motivation which was generally the criticism of the Nikon Z50 and the Canon M6 mkii, and let's look at the auto-focus issue. I can say briefly that there have been comments by some of the more reliable testers that the Z50 autofocus seems to be better than the Z6 or Z7. Personally, I believe that this indicates that there will probably be another update to the Z6 and Z7 which will result in their "catching up" to the Z50. But at the least, the Z50 itself is benefitting from whatever they found.

As for the Canon M6 Mkii, for still photography, the "Dual-Pixel" technology seems to be working, again, at a very high level. But otherwise, the M6 Mii is not wonderful for video. The EOS 90D has a sharper 4K "cropped mode" which is missing from the M6 Mkii. the 90D's biggest problem is during video, and particularly in slow motion which is 1080p, when it falls back to contrast-detect. Now here I should point out that although the M6 Mkii with its lower price is, I think, the camera that Canon is pushing in the camera stores for the Olympics, but the 90D, which is weather sealed and is more complete for video is probably the better buy.

I think here is a good place to look at the historical success of the Canon M series cameras, and there is no doubt that in the Orient in general, and Japan in particular, it actually has been very successful. And part of that success has been the result of M-series users buying the EF adapter and using EF and EF-S lenses. I think that Nikon is looking at the Z50 as appealing to a similar consumer and therefore, as being well covered in this respect. For the Olympics they don't feel that there is a "hole" in the 200mm - 300mm range, both for primes or for zooms. They are expecting Z50 users to use F-mount versions (possibly used). We in the west seem to be "pickier" about this. But I think that this what these companies have been looking at -- what is going to happen inside the camera stores in Japan.

Now to step over to the Sony 70 - 350 (APS-C) zoom and again, this is a wonderful lens for this Olympics, which as I have written above, is going to be very well lighted, for all events in all venues. Autofocus is not going to be a problem, particularly with the latest a6100, a6400 and a6500 cameras which have better low light performance than the older bodies. What happens after the Olympics, in lower light conditions, is that it will more limited depending on the particular situation. No, I would not consider this for a Pro or even very serious amateur sports photographer lens. But I do expect to see a lot of them sold, and I expect the majority of the people who buy them will be happy with the results.

I should also add that because of the "sales pattern" of this lens, I think I might consider picking up a used one some day. In about 3 - 5 years, we'll see a bunch of them on eBay in good condition (typical of used equipment out of Japan) at attractive prices.