Long, windy, and purposeless . . . give it a miss if you bore easily. Out a few days ago with the R7 and a lens I recently picked up to adapt to the SL2, an EF 135mm f/2 L, the lens amazed with its sharpness on the R7’s ultra high resolution sensor. The adapter,…

Out yesterday with the R7 and RF 100-400mm, I came across a tree that had no less than FIVE species of sunbirds, including one I’d never seen before, flitting about. Knowing they’d suck up the nectar from all the blossoms and be gone within a few minutes, I started shooting away madly. Unlike the many…

The photo below is an example of what I mentioned in a previous entry regarding faded capture of LED lights. The lens “saw” the lights on the upper half of the hearts as red, blue, and white, when in fact there were other colors as well. And it didn’t capture the lights on the lower…

Just saw on one of the rumors sites that the 50mm Summilux-SL has been discontinued. My guess is that they never made more than one or two runs of it anyway. Having been a victim owner of the lens twice, I endured its 1..25kg weight with hood and filter in the hope that it would…

Familiar gear has an upside and a downside. One is that you know its strengths and where all the buttons and dials are. The other is that you can easily get reminded of why a past copy got ditched. So far, so good with the current critter setup, though. The most peculiar thing so far…

As many times as I’ve swapped gear in and out over the years, I don’t recall ever having ditched an entire system in one go. Nor do I ever recall feeling such relief outright glee after having done so. Sony joins Nikon on the “never again” list. Both brands have plenty of superb gear; but…

After determining that the a7r5 had lousy AF for birding as well as too much pixel noise even in moderate light, I acknowledged to myself that megapixels were not the answer for more reach and that small apertures probably affect autofocus in anything but good light. So what was my next move? Even more pixel…

Out with the a7r5 and (it doesn’t matter which) lens the other day, I had a bird I’d never seen before right in front of me, about 20 meters away, in an open meadow. The shot below was what I got AFTER I managed to wake the camera, AFTER I managed to get focus to…

Out for a walk yesterday afternoon, I tried both the 70-200mm f2.8 GM II/2X at 140mm and R 28-90mm at 90mm on a hazy, backlit cityscape. Both were sharp to perfection. But the R glass, a small degree of flare its only known weakness, out-contrasted the zoom/TC, even without the benefit of any cooked corrections…

Not long ago, after a few back-and-forth sessions with the two teleconverters on the 70-200mm f2.8 GM II, it became apparent that a limitation with the 2X extender was autofocus on the a7r5. Unfortunately the problem appears to be most pronounced when the subject matter is birds. On landscapes and other static matter, the camera…