What do yuo know about Sonys lenses

I personally am really interested in what sony has been doing lately and there has been alot of talk about the a7 and a7r but when it comes to sonys lenses I know nothing about them. So just for discussion sake when using the a7r and the lenses made for this line...that is to say without an adapter , how do they compare to Canon? Obviously Canon has a great lens lineup and has some really spectacular lenses but if we can compare lenses of similar focal lengths does either company hold the edge or is it basically a wash either way? Another question is how is the auto focus speed when using native lenses? With Canon it seems that af is quite slow and manually focusing could be just as fast.

elitejp wrote in post #16576726
I personally am really interested in what sony has been doing lately and there has been alot of talk about the a7 and a7r but when it comes to sonys lenses I know nothing about them. So just for discussion sake when using the a7r and the lenses made for this line...that is to say without an adapter , how do they compare to Canon? Obviously Canon has a great lens lineup and has some really spectacular lenses but if we can compare lenses of similar focal lengths does either company hold the edge or is it basically a wash either way? Another question is how is the auto focus speed when using native lenses? With Canon it seems that af is quite slow and manually focusing could be just as fast.

Some Sony lenses were originally Minolta lenses. Sony purchased the Minolta DSLR camera line from Konica, and used Minolta designs as the genesis of Sony's first-generation DSLR's. Sony is only now starting to approach the range of Canon lenses for the E-mount series.

Frankly, you're one of the first people, if not the only person who has claimed that Canon lenses and cameras have slow autofocus. Canon redesigned their cameras in the 1980's to accomodate autofocus, and Canon's autofocus performance has been considered to be among the industry leaders. Of course, you're aware that autofocus is a function of the combination of both a camera body and a lens.

sorry, what i meant to say was that canon glass attached to the a7r is reportedly very slow. so my question was how well do native lenses perform focusing wise?

posting a question about a brand new camera system, from sony, on a canon board, will probably not net you the responses you want.

I have the A7r and i ve heard the Native Sony lenses for this camera actually Af pretty well.

Jerobean wrote in post #16577008
posting a question about a brand new camera system, from sony, on a canon board, will probably not net you the responses you want.

yes but many people on this board enjoy the technology aspect of photography as well so it doesn't hurt to ask

The zeiss 55mm 1.8 is a very sharp lens.
Plus you can adapt leica m lenses and that is a bonus in itself..

The Sony cameras with the adapted Minolta mount are the closest thing Sony has to a complete lens line. For sure this is not on par with the Canon and Nikon systems for completeness, but if your needs are not too esoteric you may find that they have the lenses you need to cover you. The quality faster zooms are quite expensive.

Since then, Sony has released two completely new and different lens mounts. At this time, both of these new mounts are very thin on lens coverage. I'd say a lot less people will find either the NEX or the new A7 cameras ready to cover everything and do it all since they have only a handful of lenses. And now with two new mounts, I wonder how fast Sony will be able to fill out the lines?

As for how the A7 and A7r perform.....in a word the performance is slow. Most people who have tried adapted Canon lenses report that the system is nearly manual focus only. With the dedicated lenses the reports are more mixed....it probably depends a lot on what kinds of subjects you are used to shooting and just how fast an AF system you need. For regular things the dedicated lenses are probably fast enough. For any real action I suspect a person who is used to phase-detect AF and ring USM lenses will be disappointed.

Hopefully now Sony have realised a stable lens mount is paramount to any future success. They have the camera body/sensor, now AF is where they need to concentrate, that is what will appeal to the masses. Users of these two cameras are reporting that MF is very quick/easy with focus peaking. People are using cheap old MF lens with them too, no need to go to a Zeiss only line up
I have interest in Sony's direction too, I held the A7 today with the kit lens, it was very nice, very nice indeed...............