{"id":24,"date":"2014-11-20T17:33:19","date_gmt":"2014-11-20T17:33:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sonyguides.com\/?p=24"},"modified":"2014-11-26T01:36:17","modified_gmt":"2014-11-26T01:36:17","slug":"why-im-switching-to-sony-sort-of","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sonyguides.com\/?p=24","title":{"rendered":"Why I’m switching to Sony…sort of."},"content":{"rendered":"
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You\u2019ve probably been seeing articles and blog posts about photographers who are quite a bit more famous than me \u2013 including Trey Ratcliffe \u2013 who have switched from Nikon (or Canon) to Sony in the past few months. Now, I\u2019ve joined them \u2013 sort of.<\/span><\/p>\n

Because of the unusual nature of my job, I\u2019ve always owned and used a full array of cameras from Canon, Nikon, and Minolta (now Sony), dating back to the \u201860\u2019s when I used Nikon Fs, a Canon Pellix, and Minolta SRT-101 as a newspaper photographer\/photojournalist. I even used a few Pentax cameras, including the Spotmatic, a pair of Olympus Pen F\/Pen FT models, and, while shooting weddings, portraits, and fashion, a Pentax 67 120\/220 SLR.<\/span><\/p>\n

More recently, my work writing camera guides has kept me diligently using a variety brands in my everyday shooting. For the past decade or so, I\u2019ve maintained a full \u201cpermanent\u201d complement of Canon, Olympus, Minolta\/Sony A-mount, and Sony E-mount lenses. I have rotated into my \u201csemi-permanent\u201d collection my favorite cameras for each of those platforms, with an EOS 5D Mark III eventually replaced by the latest EOS 7D Mk II, or the Olympus OM-D E-M5 bumped in favor of the newer OM-D E-M1.<\/p>\n

Through all that, my Nikon cameras had remained my \u201cgo-to\u201d models that I turned to for my most demanding assignments.<\/p>\n

Because I own roughly 30 Nikkor lenses, every Nikon SB-model flash unit, and most of the other accessories, it\u2019s only natural that I\u2019d come to use Nikon products more than, say Canon (10 lenses, and every Speedlite made.) Then, Sony made the transition from quirky to increasingly professional, and I was surprised to find myself using my Sony gear in preference to Nikon (or other) equipment more and more.I took a massive amount of equipment to an air show and spent a full day photographing the Navy\u2019s Blue Angels and other performers. After a few shots with my D4s and 300mm and 70-200mm Nikkor lenses with 1.4x and 1.7x teleconverters, I ended up switching to a Sony Alpha a6000 with Sony 70-200mm f\/4 zoom for the next 4,200 exposures. The darn thing has lightning-fast focus, and, as an ASP-C camera, gave me the equivalent field-of-view of 105-300mm for 24 megapixel images at 11 frames per second.<\/p>\n

A few weeks later, at a concert where \u201cprofessional\u201d cameras were considered an annoyance by the performers (even though I was an official photographer for the venue), my Sony a7r worked like a champ. Its low-light image quality didn\u2019t match my D4s or Df in terms of noise (although an a7s certainly would have), but I ended up with some 36MP shots that I liked very much.<\/p>\n

The a7r and Nikon Df were my main cameras during my month shooting in the Florida keys earlier this year. But, in planning for a month-long photo trip in a few weeks, decided to leave my Nikon gear at home and trust the Sony equipment to do the job. I was confident that there was nothing I couldn\u2019t do with my new array. Everything I needed fit into one small LowePro backpack:<\/p>\n

* Cameras.<\/strong> Sony a7r and a6000. I have my choice of shooting the a7r in full frame mode for 36MP images with full frame lenses, or in APS-C mode for 15MP with either full frame or APS-C lenses. If I\u2019d rather end up with 24MP resolution, I can use any of the lenses on the a6000, with the \u201cadvantage\u201d of its 1.5X \u201ccrop\u201d mode.
\n* E-Mount Lenses.<\/strong> The 16-35mm f\/4, 24-70mm f\/4, and 70-200mm f\/4 FE (full frame) Sony\/Zeiss E-mount lenses comprise a \u201choly trinity\u201d that\u2019s nearly the equal of Nikon\/Canon\u2019s equivalents, and can be used on the a7r or a6000. I\u2019m also taking several Sony APS-C lenses, including the 16-70mm f\/4 Zeiss, 16mm f\/2.8, as well as 12mm f\/2.8 and fisheye adapters.
\n* A-Mount lenses.<\/strong> Although Sony\u2019s LA-EA4 adapter isn\u2019t compact and sort of counters the advantage of the tiny size of the a7r and a6000, they do let me use my full assortment of A-Mount Sony\/Minolta lenses with fast autofocus. I\u2019m taking the adapter and Sony 50mm f\/1.4 full frame \u201cnormal\u201d lens for low-light photography, and Sony 35mm f\/2.8 macro lens for closeups.
\n* Accessories.<\/strong> I have the Sony RMT-DSLR 2 IR Remote, and Sony HVL-F43M flash. That\u2019s all I really need, except for a Gitzo Traveler carbon fiber tripod.<\/p>\n

Actually, a normal person doesn\u2019t even need all that stuff to take great pictures. Either Sony camera and a lens or two will do the job. However, I love the fact that I can tote along a whole bag of gear (including lots of extras for experimentation) without worrying about being loaded down. I\u2019m certainly not ready to abandon Nikon yet, but I\u2019ve found that a part-time switch to Sony no longer requires making any sacrifices. Stay tuned.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You\u2019ve probably been seeing articles and blog posts about photographers who are quite a bit more famous than me \u2013 including Trey Ratcliffe \u2013 who have switched from Nikon (or Canon) to Sony in the past few months. Now, I\u2019ve joined them \u2013 sort of. Because of the unusual nature of my job, I\u2019ve always […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonyguides.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonyguides.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonyguides.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonyguides.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonyguides.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/sonyguides.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50,"href":"https:\/\/sonyguides.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24\/revisions\/50"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonyguides.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonyguides.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonyguides.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}