A6300 Gone

Fujifilm X-T2, Micro-Nikkor 55mm f3.5 AI

I've been enjoying the A6300 over the last week or so. It really is a nice little camera and a lot better than I was expecting in terms of ergonomics.

However something was bugging me about it, and I figured out what it was.

Basically, I'd got it because of Sony's better lens selection compared to Fuji, specifically in the case of telephoto zooms. But I'd still need to buy that zoom. The ability to share kit with my partner (who shoots my former A7II) and have access to some other interesting glass was secondary.

What was bugging me? In short, the A6300 cost me pretty much what a Fuji XF 55-200 does. That lens is basically the right answer for my long lens challenges. So the A6300 went back, along with the E 16-50, and a 55-200 and XC 16-50 came home in its place.

Workflow Thoughts

Fujifilm XT-2, AF Nikon 70-300mm f4-5.6 D

I hate doing post. Post is however a key component of getting quality images.

Right now I do pretty much all of my post in CaptureOne on my PC, with files backed up to OneDrive. It works and I like the end results but the process is clunky and I’d like something both more mobile and smoother. 

I’ve long maintained an Adobe Create Cloud subscription to get access to Lightroom Mobile for quick on the go editing. I also have a 1st gen iPad Pro on long-term loan from work. So I’m going to do some testing to see if I can put together a functional workflow on the iPad Pro. It is only a 32GB model, so a serious workflow would involve investing in a newer model with more reasonable storage, but 32GB is enough for testing if I don’t keep files on the iPad but delete after sync to Adobe Cloud.

This will also let me try out some of the neater presets out there. Lightroom has a much healthier 3rd party ecosystem than CaptureOne.
 

200 Posts

Nikon D750, AF Nikkor 70-300mm f4-5.6 D

I first posted on this incarnation of this blog on the 5th of December, 2013 and would be talking about switching to Sony on the very second post. I hit 100 posts on 10th February 2019, where I first discussed why I bought my original X-T1 despite my previous challenges with Fuji X-Trans bodies.

This is my 200th post here, having posted as much in the last 18 months as I did in the previous 5 years.

There's been more system switching and grass is greener posts than I'd like and far less 'good gear on a budget' and photography philosophy and technique posts. Here's hoping that my brain will slowly stop hating me and let me settle on one or a pair of systems so I can concentrate on writing about things that actually matter for photography. Most of my system switching of late has been about comfort or perceived value, the only real exception was dumping m43 last year so I could skip doing so much multi-shot work to get files I liked.

What's next? First up is finishing up the Fuji on the Cheap series of posts. I need to get a proper 135mm option and maybe a 7Artisans 55mm f1.4 to round that up. Then it will probably be a Sony APS-C zooms on the cheap, featuring adapted Canon zooms on Sony (specifically pairing Canon's excellent & inexpensive 10-18 STM and 55-250 STM with the Sony 16-50 to get an inexpensive and functional zoom kit for a low, low investment).

I also want to talk about long-exposure landscape work some, which means I need to buy a 6 stop ND (the most basic filter for this sort of work) and some step-up rings.

So, any bets on me hitting 300 posts by February, 2021?

Nikon's Z5 Pricing Problem

Sony A7 II, Nikkor 28mm f3.5 H


The Z5 looks like a great little camera, and the price for the body itself is quite reasonable at $1899CAD, some $500CAD cheaper than the A7III from Sony. The kits maintain a gap, but it narrows to merely $300 ($2299 for the Z5 with 24-50 vs $2599 for the A7III with FE28-70)

However, when you look into what a kit will cost you, things start to fall apart. Nikon's lens prices in Z mount are so high that it offsets the reasonable price for the body.

Want a 50mm f1.8? Well, that will cost you some $2699 with a Z5, and $2749 with an A7III. Hmm...where did the price gap go?

The rest of the f1.8's have smaller price gaps, with one exception. Those gaps range from $300 for the 35's down to $200 for the 20's. The exception? 24mm, as Sony only offers the $1899 24mm f1.4 GM, to Nikon's $1299 24mm f1.8 S. Too bad for the Nikon that the Sony is faster, smaller, 5gm lighter and arguably better optically. Seriously Nikon, you couldn't make a 24mm f1.8 that's smaller than your competition's class-leading f1.4 version?

That brings up the other issue with Nikon's f1.8 primes. They're frikkin huge. Sony's 50/1.8, at 186g, is less than half the weight of the 450g Nikkor. It's 8mm thinner and 26mm (yes a full inch) shorter. The 35/1.8's are closer, being the same length, but again the Sony is thinner and this time a mere 90g lighter (280g vs 370g). At 85mm the Sony is fatter by 3mm, but still 17mm shorter and 99g lighter. At 20mm, the Nikkor is 12mm wider, 24mm longer and 127g heaver.

Now in the case of the 35, 50 & 85 Nikon can at least claim that their lenses are decidedly better optically. But the two 20mm's are on par and Sony's 24mm GM is the better of the two 24mm's, arguably being the best 24mm on the market (and one of the smallest & lightest for those faster than f2.8).

And remember, you can buy 6+ native telephoto zooms from Sony, Tamron or Sigma, vs you might be able to get a single one from Nikon next week (and it's large, heavy and expensive and limited to 200mm vs out to 600mm with the Sony), otherwise I hope you got the FTZ with the bundle discount, it's $329 otherwise. Plus the A7II has a vertical grip, albeit at a ridiculously high price ($469CAD) but Nikon charging $269 for a battery grip with no controls is even sillier.

So Nikon, bravo on the Z5 itself, although that 24-50 ain't worth a $400 jump in the kit price. Now work on the rest of the package, you've got a window because Sony still doesn't have a FE UWA at consumer prices or a consumer-priced telezoom (Tamron has that coming though)

How Does the A6300 Fit?

Nikon D750, Laowa 15mm f4 Macro

So all random musings aside, how does the A6300 fit into my gear.

1. It provides me a more capable light/compact carry body than the X-E2. Frankly, I'd just been leaving the X-E2 at home, carrying the X-T's or no camera at all. While the X-E2 is a perfectly capable camera, I wanted a larger finder (X-E2 finder is 0.62x), a better grip and a flip-up screen. I got all of those from the X-T's with plates attached, but the A6300 delivers that in a smaller & lighter package.

2. It lets me adapt lenses I didn't have the right adapters for on Fuji. Specifically Canon EF lenses and Nikon G lenses (I still have a 16-85G VR DX). The Fuji EF adapters are very pricey, and I have access to the decent performing Fotodiox Fusion adapter in E mount (plus I own an EF 50mm f1.8 STM and can borrow a 75-300 USM III).

3. It gives me long lens with AF options. Fuji is VERY weak here, while E mount has a bunch of options, plus EF adapting is more viable opening even more options up. I just have had a hard time trying to justify getting Fuji's 50-230 OIS when the similar performing EF 55-250 IS STM can be had for half the price. For 55-200 money I can get into a 70-350 or a used 70-200/4 IS USM, a native 100-400 is cheaper & lighter than the Fuji 100-400. Fuji's strength is 1st party primes and wide zooms, but they're not that far ahead in wide zooms on APS-C (one Sony G UWA and it's a wash) and frankly Sigma and Samyang are doing well enough on the primes side that you can mostly ignore Sony's weak APS-C prime offerings.

4. I can share glass, batteries & other accessories with my partner in the field, as she now shoots my A7II. 

I'm not getting rid of the X-T's for now, frankly even if I did I'd keep the X-T1 and the 12 & 25mm lenses just to play with. If I did get rid of the X-T2, it would be for another A7 body, likely an A7III or A7RII or later. I can see myself carrying the X-T2 for wide and A6300 for long when hiking though.  

More Random Thoughts on the A6300

Fujifilm X-T2, 7Artisans 12mm f2.8

I got out yesterday for a hike on the Seaton Hiking Trail with the A6300, giving me a chance to really use it for more than just some neighbourhood flower shots. With 340-ish shots on it, we're still in New Toy mode. 

Frankly, it's clear that I was not giving the A series APS-C cameras a fair shake. I've been avoiding them for a while largely due to my mixed experiences with the earlier NEX bodies, specifically the 3 different NEX-5 variants I've owned and the two NEX-7's. 

The A6300 was the mid-range body of its generation, sitting between the older A6000 (which replaced the NEX-6) and the slightly newer A6500. The A6300 was for all intents & purposes the NEX-7 replacement body, delivering the build & EVF experience that a NEX-7 user would not have found on either the NEX-6 or the A6000. 

Compared to Fuji, it really sits in between the X-T20 and X-T2 in terms of capability, but is closer overall to the X-T20 in features and target market. Sony's flagship of this generation was the A6500, which featured IBIS and a truly impressively deep buffer (100 RAWs vs 48 max for the X-T2) plus a touchscreen, vs the better sealing, pro-grade shutter (1/8000 mechanical, 1/250 sync) and higher max fps (14 vs 11) of the X-T2, plus the X-T2's bigger finder (0.77x vs 0.71x for the Sony's). Interestingly, both Sony's were priced between the X-T2 and the X-T20, with the A6500 coming in a little below the X-T2 and the A6300 coming in just above the X-T20.  The pricing really does reflect the relative capabilities of these bodies, aside from AF performance, the A6300 and A6500 took the APS-C Mirrorless AF performance crown back from Fuji and have kept it ever since.

In terms of ergonomics, the A6300 is better than I expected, as I noted in the last post. I do like how many options Sony made assignable to buttons, there's about 50% more options that are assignable compared to on the Fuji's. You do have less buttons to assign to, but the switch allows you to overload one of them. The lack of a MyMenu is annoying, but Sony's Fn menu is more configurable than Fuji's Q menu. 

Sony's JPEG's are decent out of the box, but you're very limited on how you can tweak them (contrast, saturation & sharpening only) and there's no custom slots unlike Fuji or Nikon. Sony, you REALLY can do better here. The defaults are good, and there's actually more options there including some very specific ones (Autumn Leaves, Sunset) but the lack of tweaking limits you compared to the Fujis or Nikons.

Auto ISO is better than on older Sony bodies, but you still need to set a custom speed for lenses which need a speed higher than 1/60th if they're not electronically coupled. Luckily this is assignable directly to a switch (On Fuji, you can assign Auto ISO options to a switch and dive into a second menu from there, or put Focal Length on your MyMenu, which also writes EXIF and lets you leave Auto ISO on Auto shutter speed. Sony's quicker, Fuji's more powerful).

For IQ, frankly the RAW's aren't quite as good as the Fuji overall, as they're 14-bit lossy compressed (12-bit in continuous) and I like the default colours less. That said, there's more room to recover in the highlights on the A6300 than on the X-T2, meaning I can bring back sky using my Nikon D750 presets without too much issues. The Sony's are losing more data in the shadows from the compression and the shifting of 1EV or so of data into the highlights. Also the green rendering is closer to the Nikon's so it's easier to get that punchy green and deep blue look for landscapes that I love. Can't quite get the Nikon Indigo's yet, but I think that might be achievable from the Sony files, it's not on Fuji. 

I did a quick ISO test to see how the different bodies metered. I set the X-T2 to ISO 200, mounted my Nikkor 50/1.8D set to f5.6 and got a shutter speed of 1/1250. Swapped the lens onto the A6300 and matched the shutter speed at ISO 160. Then I swapped it onto the A7II and matched shutter speed at ISO 125. I was metering against blank sky with the same aperture, so the Field of View differences between the A7II and the two APS-C bodies shouldn't matter, at f5.6 there's little vignetting on the Nikkor so that shouldn't have affected metering either.

The takeaway from this is that there's about 1/3 stop difference in how the two APS-C bodies meter and/or rate ISO. That gives me effectively 2/3rd a stop lower ISO range on the A6300 (base of 100 vs 200 on the X-T2), which should be good for longer-exposure work when shooting rivers & streams. Combined with the extra RAW headroom in the highlights, I should be able to worry less about blowing highlights when shooting the Sony vs the Fuji.

First Thoughts on the A6300

Sony A6300, Sony E 16-50mm f3.5-5.6 OSS PZ

I had to make a quick run to the local grocery store last night, which gave me a chance to try out the A6300. Mostly I shot with the tiny 16-50 Power Zoom that's been the kit lens for all the APS-C Sony bodies since the late NEX era. Note I've owned the older 18-55 OSS with my first couple NEX's (the 5N and 7) and didn't like it much, it was too big and no great shakes optically. 

I was pleasantly surprised by how comfortable the grip is. The camera is a soapbox with a grip, and it's not a large grip, but it fits my medium-sized hands reasonably well. The thumb rest could do with some more definition, but that's all I can complain about.

I was also surprised by how thick the bodies are. After owning several NEX's, I was expecting pretty similar form factor (despite the pictures making the body changes obvious). The A6300 body is about twice as deep as the NEX bodies, including the 7 and that brings 2 real changes to the handling. The first is the palm section of the grip becomes much deeper, which is a good thing. The second is that there is now some actual surface for a tripod plate to stabilize against.

None of the NEX bodies paired well with tripods because of how unstable the plates were (the NEX-6 started to get usable, but I found I had to use adapted lenses on the NEX-7 when shooting on a tripod if only to be able to use the much better tripod feed on the adapters, particularly the LA-EA1 I used with my selection of A mount glass back then)

Control layout is good for the most part. The AF/MF+AEL button/switch combo is better located than on the A7II, and that makes it more useful as AF-On. C1 and C2 are in lousy locations though, C2 is basically unusable when holding the camera in shooting position (same issue with C4 on the A7II which is in the same spot) and C1 is just awkward. As such, I threw AE Lock on C1 (as I don't use it that much) and the Auto ISO Minimum Shutter Speed onto C2 (C4 on the A7II is Focal Length for manual lenses, but since Sony only uses that for IBIS and the A6300 doesn't have IBIS, that's not an option on the A6300). For the switch, in AF/MF I set it to AF-On, in AEL the button is Focus Magnification, so I can just flip the switch when using manual focus lenses. I disabled the movie button outside of movie mode, but sadly Sony still doesn't make it assignable in this body (better than the NEX-7 initially, but Sony added the disable there via firmware update and nothing has changed since then). I wish it was dual-wheel like the NEX-7 rather than having a mode dial, I was fine with Mode as a menu item, but most people do change Mode a lot more than I do (and I only really use 2 modes anyways, A & M)

Performance is good. The camera is responsive in most regards, although it does feel slower than the X-T2. Frankly, in terms of responsiveness it feels a lot like the X-T1, very good but not outstanding. AF is a little odd, it feels slower than the X-T2 (for the little AF shooting I've done), but it definitely tracks much better. I think the actual single-shot AF lockon time is a touch slower, but the AF tracking (and thus Video and AF-C performance) are decidedly better. Face detect is usable (it's not on the X-T2).

One thing I've missed from the Sony's is that they auto-switch to Manual Focus mode when mounting a manual lens or non-electronic adapter. One of my few annoyances with the Fuji's is you have to still flip the focus mode switch to M to get access to the manual focus assists, and that switch is awkwardly placed on the front of the camera (one of the few cases where I wish Fuji would ditch the dedicated physical control). This is minor, but it was a delight when I mounted my Nikkor 105/2.5 and realized that the camera went into MF mode by itself. I don't mind automation when it does the right thing.

As to the 16-50, it's impressively unimpressive. I can't think of a lens I've shot with that's as thoroughly mediocre without annoying me. Now I don't really like Power Zoom, but this thing is a pancake when retracted so I'll give it a little there. It's optically unimpressive, not bad, just not good either. Acceptable seems to have been the design requirement and they've hit it dead on. The one thing I will call out is that the close focus performance at 50mm is pretty good. I was expecting it to be mediocre, much as the FE 28-70 is (with 0.45m at 70mm), but it gets down to 0.3m at 50mm, which is actually very good for any 50mm non-Macro. 

Now I generally found the FE 28-70 to be a decent and arguably underrated lens, and optically I'd say it's visibly better than the 16-50, but the 16-50 is noticeably wider, a touch longer and just more flexible thanks to the closer MFD. 

At the end of the day, the 16-50 is an acceptable kit lens and a useful bag lens thanks to adequate performance, low cost and utterly tiny size when collapsed. Plus being Power Zoom, it collapses itself like Fuji's 15-45 but unlike Nikon's 16-50 or Olympus's 14-42 R. Sadly it's not the gem than the Oly 14-42 EZ is, but again, it's acceptable, cheap and tiny. Very useful as a small lens for light carry or light video work on the APS-C or A7R series bodies (in crop mode for the latter)