No sooner do I say something nice about a piece of gear than I’m made to eat my words.

Most of my shooting during the past six weeks has been in bright light, where even a dog turd could look good in a photo. Often I had to stop down to f/8 to get the ISO up to 100! Yesterday I shot under canopy, well into four- and five-digit ISO even with f/5.6.

The results were not pretty. The sensor I raved about last week sucked eggs backwards. Confoundingly, the problem appears to be exacerbated by certain background colors. Even ISO 3200 was overly grainy (see 50% crop below), not a good look for any modern full-frame sensor. Noise reduction had minimal effect other than to obliterate the feather details. And God forbid I need to raise a shadow.

The winds of change are stirring and will likely be blowing up a storm once I’m back in a place that’s civilized enough to have a few camera shops . . .

a7cII/70-200mm f2.8 GM II/2X . . .