Opinions about Sony's Camera Tech

[FORTHEWIND]

I live at over South East Asia (Malaysia). All my life I see people using primarily just Canon/Nikon branded DSLR for photo capturing at weddings, party and normal life event (with one annoying moment of a classmate girl using a flash in a fully lit indoor hall behind me for a far away object. Imagine a football match and someone is using flash behind you at the highest seat of the stadium). A lot of it is because of want to showoff (think iPhone as a status indicator) but why. I know Canon and Nikon image quality is good but what makes it deference from Sony's offering.

A lot of Sony's alpha got good (great?) reviews except for the control(?) but why are a lot of people are not using it including pro photographer.

 

[turtile]

Sony is just catching up with pro level products of Canon and Nikon. They don't produce high-end pro cameras and they are still rebuilding the lens selection. Everyone already owns tons of Canon and Nikon lenses.

 

[FORTHEWIND]

Sony is just catching up with pro level products of Canon and Nikon. They don't produce high-end pro cameras and they are still rebuilding the lens selection. Everyone already owns tons of Canon and Nikon lenses.

So is it because of Sony's weak lens lineup? Or there's something more? And is Sony not focusing on the pro camera market with their alpha brand? (the recent being the a7R)

 

[Young Grasshopper]

The reason pro's dont use Sony's is because they most likely already have a large selection of lenses for Nikon and Canon. They dont want to have to buy Sony lenses or deal with converters. Also the Canon/Nikon come with some features like dual memory card slots where the Sony's dont.

 

[turtile]

So is it because of Sony's weak lens lineup? Or there's something more? And is Sony not focusing on the pro camera market with their alpha brand? (the recent being the a7R)

They are pushing most of their resources to mirror-less which just isn't good enough at this point. The battery doesn't last long too. Good for consumers but not for pros.

The Alpha line hasn't been updated and still lacks good AF, uncompressed RAW etc. and is missing lenses used by most pros. Now, if they took the newest camera technology from E-Mount to Alpha, the camera would be great. But then, you still don't have the lenses.

 

[slashbinslashbash]

It's largely just a historical inertia thing. Canon and Nikon have ruled the SLR world since the 60's, with others like Pentax and Minolta (who sold their SLR business to Sony) playing bit parts. The Sony tech is mostly good, but for people who started photography back in the film days and owned Canon and Nikon gear back then, it only makes sense to stick with the same brands.

 

[AnitaPeterson]

I would also add that Sony has a less than stellar record when it comes to providing service for their products. Many consumer grade Sony devices break easily, and fixing them is usually expensive. Like Apple....

 

[finbarqs]

I've known a few sony A7R II shooters that have been using them in weddings since release. Incredible Image Quality. Use what you want as long as you can deliver. The tool doesn't matter.

 

[elitejp]

Like others have said its mainly due to Canon and Nikon dominating the market for such a long time. Its taken me close to ten years to build up my canon collection. Now I could sell it all and switch to sony or nikon which I do think offer better image quality and they both have great glass, but the problem is how much is this going to cost me. I can sell my $2000 lens that I bought new for 1600 and then pick up a new nikon or sony for 2000. In this scenario im basically out 800 total to just switch one lens. Now if your someone who buys used then maybe this doesn't matter. For most people its just too much of a bother and not enough of an upgrade.

As it is now if someone is starting off new in this (unless you have a friend or close family member that is heavily invested in Canon and you can borrow glass whenever you want) I recommend sony or nikon hands down.

The only thing Canon still has going for it is its selection of long focal length lenses. But most people arent going to be buying a 500mm or higher prime.

 

[ElFenix]

it's not just lenses, canon and nikon have dedicated pro service departments all over the place. when your livelihood depends on getting your gear into good repair *RIGHTNOW,* canon and nikon just might be it.

 

[DealODay]

It's largely just a historical inertia thing. Canon and Nikon have ruled the SLR world since the 60's, with others like Pentax and Minolta (who sold their SLR business to Sony) playing bit parts. The Sony tech is mostly good, but for people who started photography back in the film days and owned Canon and Nikon gear back then, it only makes sense to stick with the same brands.

So much this. They've created a name for themselves, photography is just what they do and they do it well. The market is filled with their lenses and to top it all off, the name says you're a professional using professional equipment.

 

[FORTHEWIND]

Hi again . I want to say thank you to all of those that really give good info and not just start a flame war about the state of camera tech (especially Sony's tech) . I want to ask another question (I really want to make this thread a sticky for just discussing camera tech like lens, sensor ) but is there any difference with the processing chip in Canon's, Nikon's and Sony's camera (one can do this, others can do that)?

 

[ElFenix]

Hi again . I want to say thank you to all of those that really give good info and not just start a flame war about the state of camera tech (especially Sony's tech) . I want to ask another question (I really want to make this thread a sticky for just discussing camera tech like lens, sensor ) but is there any difference with the processing chip in Canon's, Nikon's and Sony's camera (one can do this, others can do that)?

sony makes sensors for itself, pentax, and nikon. of those, last i checked pentax has tuned it the best. but they're all top quality. just one is slightly better than the others.

canon makes its own sensors as does (did?) samsung*. canon doesn't have on-chip amplification, so at higher levels of amplification the canon image quality degrades faster than the sony chips. in good to decent light you probably can't tell a difference at the pixel level, let alone the image level.




*saw something about nikon buying samsung's mirrorless camera, so maybe nikon will start buying samsung sensors as well

 

[jtvang125]

Hi again . I want to say thank you to all of those that really give good info and not just start a flame war about the state of camera tech (especially Sony's tech) . I want to ask another question (I really want to make this thread a sticky for just discussing camera tech like lens, sensor ) but is there any difference with the processing chip in Canon's, Nikon's and Sony's camera (one can do this, others can do that)?

Yes, there is a difference between the image processing chips. New features and better performance are usually introduced with each new iteration and this also varies among the different manufacturers. Sony has BIONZ, Canon has Digic and Nikon has Expeed. I don't think one is really better than the others but one may provide features that you are looking for so that manufacture might be more desirable to you.

Common specs that would be important to many users would be shot to shot time (FPS), buffer depth, AF capabilities, operational speed, video capabilities...etc, all handled by the processor.

 

[jtvang125]

sony makes sensors for itself, pentax, and nikon. of those, last i checked pentax has tuned it the best. but they're all top quality. just one is slightly better than the others.

canon makes its own sensors as does (did?) samsung*. canon doesn't have on-chip amplification, so at higher levels of amplification the canon image quality degrades faster than the sony chips. in good to decent light you probably can't tell a difference at the pixel level, let alone the image level.




*saw something about nikon buying samsung's mirrorless camera, so maybe nikon will start buying samsung sensors as well

I think it was me that brought that up but it was really all just speculations. So far both companies have denied that and still no official word from Samsung on whether they're pulling the plug on their camera division. Not a single word was spoken about their cameras at CES either. The oem battery for their flagship camera is shown as discontinued at B&H. Things that definitely make you go hmmm...

 

[ElFenix]

I think it was me that brought that up but it was really all just speculations. So far both companies have denied that and still no official word from Samsung on whether they're pulling the plug on their camera division. Not a single word was spoken about their cameras at CES either. The oem battery for their flagship camera is shown as discontinued at B&H. Things that definitely make you go hmmm...

Maybe that's where I saw it.


Forgot 4/3 cameras: Sony makes sensors for Olympus and Panasonic still makes its own sensors.