Sony A7 series Crappy lens selection

Mini Rant,just an opinion,but you're welcome to chime on in

How does Sony release such an amazing piece of tech for a camera body, and such a poor lens selection. A7 bodies is just about everything most photographers have been wanting for years in a camera body.

Slim,light,full frame,great in low light,plus much more,but yet with all of the 'game changing' strides the lens selection is a shortcoming, not to mention overpriced. Good adapters to use other brand lens will run you as much as a descent quality lens,but even with an adapter AF is major crapola.
Ever since I've mounted my metabones on the A7, in all honesty I must have shot with AF maybe 5 times.I prefer to shoot M when using my Canon glass so much easier to just focus manually (with peeking) than to try with AF.
IMO Its useless to be on AF, because it will hunt, and hunt, and keep hunting for Red October, unless whatever you're shooting is in perfectly lit condition or non moving. Your bowl of cereal e.g.

The 55 1.8 for $800 I can understand a 1.4 aperture for $800 but 1.8 really ? Thats half the cost of my 50 1.2 L. Why in the world would I want to spend that much on 1.8? ,its not even worth it, just so that I could have great AF ? For the rip of pricing of that 1.8 I can easily pick up a Chinese Mitakon 50mm .95 and enjoy shooting in utter darkness. (Dont even try to compare the Otus 1.4 in this situation it's not the same level of glass)

The 35mm f/2.8 ? $800 really ? Pleaseeeee what a joke! for $200 less I can have a Voigtlander 35mm 1.4 MF of course but still way better deal

The 24-70 f/4 for 1k ? I mean come onnnn!! for that price give us the 2.8.

I wont even touch up on the 70-200mm, for that price I would rather (hands down) all day long pick up the Canon 70-200 2.8 mk2 IS to use it cross systems.

The only lens I would say in the line up thats priced okay is the Sony 28-70 OSS but thats a piece of glass I would give my kid to play around with,not my cup of tea.

Again overpriced glass and really the only usefulness of that glass is the ability to have fast AF thats just about it. IQ isn't any better than some of cheaper Canon or Nikon mid level glass.

When will Sony get around the idea that they have a popular product on their hands that will fly like cupcakes if they can have a reasonably priced glass and a better selection of lens?

And no I'm not getting rid of my A7, best thing that really happened the past few years. Its ideal to take with you just about everywhere and anywhere.
In actuality, I would even consider taking it on professional gigs if the glass was right i.e. 35mm 1.4/1.8,50/55 1.4, 24 1.8/1.4,85 1.4 maybe a 70-200 at $1,500 sticker.These would sell like crazy if they were available to buy.
Where are the goodies at ? Sony sleeping on a goldmine.

Simple. No one can offer everyone everything. It's always about compromise. By the time they catch up in lenses, Canon will have a better sensor.

Personally I find the 55 to be a very nice lens and worth every cent.

Do you actually think a company suddenly invests heavily into lens production for a new camera platform without seeing how it fares in the marketplace?

But lets be real here, would you rather pay $300 for that lens or $800 ? What gives it the $800 price sticker ?

memoriesoftomorrow wrote in post #17102460
Personally I find the 55 to be a very nice lens and worth every cent.

Eiro wrote in post #17102472
But lets be real here, would you rather pay $300 for that lens or $800 ? What gives it the $800 price sticker ?

Quality that Zeiss is known for.

i shoot legacy manual focus lenses and the A7 has just been wonderful. i don't really plan to add any AF lenses into my lineup as i don't really need AF. i am mostly a legacy lens shooter for canon as well, aside from the occasional events gigs where i bring my AF lenses out to play. the adapted MF lens market for A7 is huge! especially considering the AF adapters available. lots of people adapt AF contax G lenses with AF and they work great.

banpreso wrote in post #17102823
i shoot legacy manual focus lenses and the A7 has just been wonderful. i don't really plan to add any AF lenses into my lineup as i don't really need AF. i am mostly a legacy lens shooter for canon as well, aside from the occasional events gigs where i bring my AF lenses out to play. the adapted MF lens market for A7 is huge! especially considering the AF adapters available. lots of people adapt AF contax G lenses with AF and they work great.

No complaints in that department, this is about the available native lens selection that's overpriced and not all of that.

Disclaimer, I haven't seen any of the products you're discussing hands on yet, but I have an A7R and 55 1.8 on order.

I kind of agree with you on every lens opinion you mentioned except for the 55. The ONLY complaint I've read about the 55 is if someone simply doesn't like that focal length, which let's be honest, is not a fault of the lens. I've read nothing but rave reviews and rave videos about the 55. From people saying it's Zeiss quality through and through to the "sharpest lens on the market edge to edge", perfect colors, etc. In fact, based on everything I've been hearing, I hope I'm not setting this lens up for failure by setting too high a mental bar for it.

I've seen Canon L Lenses that did not live up to my expectations. My 24-105 was incredibly soft and I couldn't get rid of it fast enough. And that lens cost more than this 55 from Sony. Let me put it this way, with the price of all "professional" lenses these days, if the 55 is even half as good as all the hype, it will be worth the cost. I actually think the 35mm would be more in line with what I need, but I went with the 55 just because it's impossible to find anything negative about it. The 35 has a generally good review, but a few folks have voiced disappointment. You just don't see that with the 55.

Great rant.. - I agree to a point , I do love the 55mm though its a killer combo for me , I think the build and optics are superb , regarding Metabone adapter , I was expecting a tad quicker AF for a £200+ adapter or was it £300?.. cant remember WAY expensive though.

Im happy in most regards as 80% of my photography is now Manual focussing for landsacpes with my TS-E and the 16-35mm but I do need to rethink on that 20% when I want decent AF and wider than 55mm - I wish the Ziess 24-70 was a little wider , Id have no problem selling the 16-35 for it , but Ive made the mistake of going to 24mm as my widest lens before and wont do it again.

The 35 2.8 and 55 1.8 are both Zeiss Sonnar lens and both AF lens.
The 24-70 f/4 is $1k? How much is the Canon EF 24-70 f/4 IS?
a friend of mine who owns some really nice Leica M lenses for his A7 bought the 55mm 1.8 and he's very happy with it.

I have a Sony A7 as well and like you am using legacy manual focus lens on it:
Voigtlander 25mm f/4 Color-Skopar
Voigtlander 35mm f/2.5 Color-Skopar
Voigtlander 50mm f/1.5 Nokton ASPH
Leica 90mm f/2.8 Tele-Elmarit-M
OM 21mm f/3.5
OM 50mm f/1.8
Canon FD 50mm 1.4 SSC
Canon FD 50mm 3.5 Macro
Canon FD 100-300
Nikon 50mm 1.8 E
Nikon 135mm 2.8 AIS
Nikon 200mm 4 AIS

but sometimes I yearn for an AF lens.
the main reason I have no plan on getting any AF lenses is the size, beats the purpose of getting a smaller camera then strapping a lens twice its size.

Ok so here goes...

When looking at a lens the value is not always in how large of an aperture the lens is capable of. I have shot with Legacy glass that was soft wide open and had to be stopped down to f2 to start getting good sharpness and detail. Would I like a Zeiss lens that has auto focus and can shoot at F/1.2 Sure of course I would.

I own the Zeiss 55mm. And what I can tell you about the lens is that it is worth every penny. At 1.8 wide open it is tack sharp, It focuses accurately and fast. Produces beautiful colors and bokeh and just has all the characteristics of a great lens. Sure you can buy a Canon 50mm f/1.8 for like $95 but it in no way compares with the image quality the Zeiss has. I have owned cheaper 1.8 lenses from canon/nikon and was never happy with the results they were soft and I always had back focusing issues on them. Those issues are non existent with the Zeiss 55 I have.

So yes I would love to have some native glass that I can shoot at F/1.4 or faster but I am also not missing anything. Shooting at 1.8 blows out the background gives great bokeh and great color rendition. I would buy my Zeiss 55 even if faster Zeiss lenses were available because of how impressed I am with it.

Sony's in a difficult situation. They managed to fit a FF sensor in a small body but there's going to be compromises. Handling issues may come up because some have larger hands, the EVF draws a lot of power so the battery life is limited, and the AF is still subpar.

With the lenses, you can't ignore physics. Make the lenses fast and physically they're large and people will complain how they're too big. Make the lenses smaller and people will complain that they're slow.

Fast glass is on the horizon and the engineers state that they are on the way.

Would it be better if they're cheaper? Sure, who wouldn't like cheaper glass. But Canon/Nikon has years of history that can sustain a nice used market. Sony and other makers don't have a long history so the used market is both smaller and the potential buyers are much more limited.

I thought SONY was out of the lens putting a halt to lens development all together? where did I read that?

EDIT:
here;
https://photography-on-the.net …/showthread.php​?t=1378783

That article was a gag. At least according to the link you provided.

CyberDyneSystems wrote in post #17103622
I thought SONY was out of the lens putting a halt to lens development all together? where did I read that?

EDIT:
here;
https://photography-on-the.net …/showthread.php​?t=1378783