Sony A9: Is Canon doomed ?

Wilt wrote in post #18335795
So it is 'buyer beware' in buying lenses for his/her Sony E-mount camera. gives one pause that one has to be so cautious in choosing products to fit their camera.
Curiously, the Sony (Zeiss) Sonnar T* FE 55mm f/1.8 has the FE designation in it...does it have or not have software corrections? It is Sony/Zeiss.
It is somewhat clear in some lenses have both the FE and GM, so they do not employ software corrections.
And according to the photozone.de reports, even the Carl Zeiss carry some breath-taking prices especially considering that 'the lower end FE lenses' employ aggressive in camera software corrections.

I'm getting more confused the more I learn.

Do you honestly think other camera manufactures don't apply corrections in firmware to the images they capture before writing out the raw file. Surely you are not that naive Will.

Hogloff wrote in post #18336037
Do you honestly think other camera manufactures don't apply corrections in firmware to the images they capture before writing out the raw file. Surely you are not that naive Will.

Actually, I think SONY pioneered this. I know Fuji is doing it too, but I do not think Canon does it,. it's all done in DPP. Not in camera anyway, no?

I don't consider it a trick or bad,. it's clearly part of the next step in processing. But I do think Canon is not there yet.

Hogloff wrote in post #18336037
Do you honestly think other camera manufactures don't apply corrections in firmware to the images they capture before writing out the raw file. Surely you are not that naive Will.

mirrorless companies have that correct info embedded in the lens, lens communicates with the body and passes that info to the camera and its attached to the output file.

Its not like the canon system where you have to add limited (was the limit 30 or 40? forgot now) number of profiles through proprietary canon software, and can only add canon lenses.

System in Sony cameras is more robust, you don't have to pre-load limited number of profiles.

CyberDyneSystems wrote in post #18336046
Actually, I think SONY pioneered this. I know Fuji is doing it too, but I do not think Canon does it,. it's all done in DPP. Not in camera anyway, no?

I don't consider it a trick or bad,. it's clearly part of the next step in processing. But I do think Canon is not there yet.

Fujifilm stores it in their RAF files? I totally did not know that. As XMP files ore embedded directly into the RAF? I always thought that all lens profiles were XMP embeds, but I've been shooting mainly Canon all this time.

CyberDyneSystems wrote in post #18335908
So far, everything I have read about the A9 is amazing, with this one exception. The fact they went through the trouble to install two SD card slots is tragic!

And not even two fast SD slots, but one slower than the other!

mystik610 wrote in post #18335910
Camera profiles are a reality for just about any camera system...including Canon. i.e., most everyone applies adobe lens profiles in post.

The only difference with what Sony is doing is that the profile is applied in camera profile is applied to the live-view image, so things like distortion are corrected during the compositional process in the field (makes it easier to compose for straight lines). This is something you cannot do with an optical viewfinder, and yes there are lenses on the EF mount that are on the heavy side in terms of distortion too.

The only reason that this became a topic of discussion, is that it was pretty obvious that compared to their other lenses, Sony left distortion correction up to the software side of things for the more budget friendly stuff.

And that bolded text is yet an even stronger reason to understand whether or not there is a means of getting brand new lens profiles into a 2017 camera like the A9 in the future, like when Sony brings out some affordable lens offering (which needs software correction, unlike the more expensive GM lenses?)

CheshireCat wrote in post #18335961
Again, photozone.de is not reliable. I invite you to try the lenses in person.

Also, the "buyer beware" is true for all brands. Canon also has several mediocre lenses in their lineup, and let's face it, some older lenses are crap by today's standards.

Want a 50 prime for your Canon camera ? Pick your poison:
- 50/2.5: Old design macro. Mediocre.
- 50/1.8: Mediocre but nice price.
- 50/1.4: Mediocre and overpriced. Can't believe this lens is still around.
- 50/1.2: Very good lens, but focus shifts. Not very sharp. Not for beginners. By the way, photozone.de says it's crap.
- 50/1.0: Good luck finding one. Costs $4k. Mediocre color rendering and weird bokeh. Unique rendering though.

As you can see, just buying a simple Canon 50mm lens needs a big "buyer beware". And there is no lens that really shines, regardless of price. Canon needs to fix this asap.

So I am supposed to switch to an A9 body on blind faith that the lenses all will be wonderful, and that software correction even makes the more affordable lenses perform wonderfully too, and that when more new lenses come out in 2019 that I can upgrade the software in my A9 for the profiles for the brand new lenses newly launched?!

Buying a brand new, but medicre lens for Canon, and then selling it off when it disappoints is one thing.
It is something else to hope that software updates for new lens profiles can be retrofit into a camera in which one spent $4500

So it sounds as if software correction profiles are built into the lens, to be read by the body. If that is the case, getting an A9 has less inherent risk than I feared. Where can one read up about this design feature, to make sure it is not another case of 'urban legend' being spread?

CyberDyneSystems wrote in post #18336046
Actually, I think SONY pioneered this. I know Fuji is doing it too, but I do not think Canon does it,. it's all done in DPP. Not in camera anyway, no?

I don't consider it a trick or bad,. it's clearly part of the next step in processing. But I do think Canon is not there yet.

yup.

If one looks at the 24-105 f/4 raw files and concludes they have already had some in camera corrections done to them, well, I don't know what to say.

or the 85 1.8 or any number of other canon lenses.

Hogloff wrote in post #18336037
Do you honestly think other camera manufactures don't apply corrections in firmware to the images they capture before writing out the raw file. Surely you are not that naive Will.

Outside of corrections to fill in gaps due to OSPDAF, it's actually not all that common and it's something that's easily detected with a 2D FFT of the RAW data. AFAIK Sony is the only one who actually bakes lens correction information into the RAW data itself. What is more common is to have correction data stored in the headers of the RAW file that are automatically respected by the majority of RAW converters [See pretty much all m43 cameras and maybe(?) Fuji].

raptor3x wrote in post #18336085
Outside of corrections to fill in gaps due to OSPDAF, it's actually not all that common and it's something that's easily detected with a 2D FFT of the RAW data. AFAIK Sony is the only one who actually bakes lens correction information into the RAW data itself. What is more common is to have correction data stored in the headers of the RAW file that are automatically respected by the majority of RAW converters [See pretty much all m43 cameras and maybe(?) Fuji].

But surely we see things like noise reduction and sharpening applied to the data before the raw file is generated. We see this from many manufactures...if not all. No raw files are pure.

Wilt wrote in post #18336066
And that bolded text is yet an even stronger reason to understand whether or not there is a means of getting brand new lens profiles into a 2017 camera like the A9 in the future, like when Sony brings out some affordable lens offering (which needs software correction, unlike the more expensive GM lenses?)

Firmware updates can be applied on the camera, even lens firmware.

This has happened before, nothing new.

Hogloff wrote in post #18336097
But surely we see things like noise reduction and sharpening applied to the data before the raw file is generated. We see this from many manufactures...if not all. No raw files are pure.

I don't know of much sharpening happening in RAW data although there is certainly some noise reduction happening in certain models under certain conditions (sometimes at the hardware level). As for "No raw files are pure", I would technically agree with you that there's always something going on: signal truncation, hot pixel mapping; but I do not agree on the large scale baked in corrections you were implying in the original post.

Wilt wrote in post #18336068
So I am supposed to switch to an A9 body on blind faith that the lenses all will be wonderful, ...

Honestly Wilt, I doubt there is a person on this forum, maybe on this earth that is actively trying to talk YOU into buying an a9. Do you really feel that is what is happening?

CyberDyneSystems wrote in post #18336149
Honestly Wilt, I doubt there is a person on this forum, maybe on this earth that is actively trying to talk YOU into buying an a9. Do you really feel that is what is happening?

I think the day Wilt is convinced into buying an A9, Canon is doomed.