Camera Labs

Ruben, I think you're missing the point of common live view. Do not expect it to be used in the same way as on compact cameras. You use the best method for the job, and at times, the best method is live view. When that happens, not having it is a real disadvantage. You're not going to see an action photographer use live view, as they need the phase AF speed. But if you want to get the best focus accuracy possible, magnified live view is the way to go.

Not having main sensor live view was a significant contributor to me not getting the Sony A900 early on, and not keeping the Canon 5D1 more recently. Sony does at least seem to have rectified that on the A5xx, so hopefully going forward it will not be an issue. It has, and will cost them customers to leave out easy to implement features such as live view and video even on high end cameras.

On the video side, there's a specific example of a high end camera that owes a significant part of its popularity to having video, the 5D mk2. Ok, part of that popularity is not by photographers, but for now it is the cheap big sensor video camera. Then again, if that helps or hinders those who want to use it for photography is a deeper question...

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Canon DSLRs: 7D, 5D2, 1D, 600D, 450D full spectrum, 300D IR mod
Lenses: EF 35/2, 50/1.8, 85/1.8, 135/2+SF, 28-80 V, 70-300L, 100-400L, TS-E 24/3.5L, MP-E 65, EF-S 15-85 IS
3rd party: Zeiss 2/50 makro, Samyang 8mm fisheye, Sigma 150 macro, 120-300 f/2.8 OS, Celestron 1325/13
Tinies: Sony HX9V.

I agree with you.
I was thinking about seeing a pro sport photographer using live view.
That bundeled with a huge lens
That was I meant, for allday photography I think Live view is useble, but as said, more beginners will use LV than more pro persons. But why? Does it seem like the pro is a ''noob'' when using LV, or what?

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Ruben

Panasonic DMC-FZ18, Panasonic DMC-FZ28, Canon G5, Canon 350D, Canon 50D + BG-E2N
Tamron 17-50 2.8, Canon EF 70-200mm f/4L USM,
Canon 18-55 II plus lots of Minolta MD/M42 lenses and bodies

I think the lack of live view on the A900 is due to the huge viewfinder (as big as the 1Ds III or so...about the biggest one in the business, I believe), with a pentaprism and 100 % viewfinder. They would have to have made compromises there, to accomodate the secondary sensor used in the A550 (for some reason, the A550's viewfinder is now as big or a tad bigger than the 500D's/D5000's, even with the secondary sensor...), and the flagship model would have to excel in every aspect, including the size of the optical viewfinder...

Also, at the time the technology was clearly not exactly great. Live view was just achievable (most of the competition having really slow and practically unusable live view), but video ?

I think Sony preferred a "wait-and-see" approach, rather coming later into the game than being the first and not getting it right at once.

Popo: imagine using an A900 with vertical grip, and a 300mm G f/2.8 SSM mounted (or the upcoming 500mm G f/4 SSM ).

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Sony α77V/VG-C77AM/α350/18-70/70-400 G SSM/NEX-5/18-55 OSS/Lowepro Pro Trekker 600 AW/CompuTrekker AW/Nova 140 AW/Street & Field gear/Toploader Pro 75 AW. And a huge wishlist...

My photos on Flickr...

Particularly for a pro, the end result is important, not how they got it.

Also I'm with sdowden on the Sony quick AF live view. It is still something I miss having after jumping to Canon. It really does open up some possibilities not otherwise possible, at least not without significant cost and inconvenience from not being built in.

Joris, the A900 missing live view was not the A3xx style fast AF method, but the main sensor "MF check" method. There are two possible implementations of live view, one as viewfinder replacement, and in that area Sony owns with A3xx and A5xx. The other is critical manual focus use by main sensor, and it is poor not to implement that. For the latter, it is of use where the camera is in a fixed position, so weight is no issue.

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Canon DSLRs: 7D, 5D2, 1D, 600D, 450D full spectrum, 300D IR mod
Lenses: EF 35/2, 50/1.8, 85/1.8, 135/2+SF, 28-80 V, 70-300L, 100-400L, TS-E 24/3.5L, MP-E 65, EF-S 15-85 IS
3rd party: Zeiss 2/50 makro, Samyang 8mm fisheye, Sigma 150 macro, 120-300 f/2.8 OS, Celestron 1325/13
Tinies: Sony HX9V.

Correct - the reason why the A450 has manual focus check live view, contrary to the A500/A550, which have both.

Well, guess you shouldn't have jumped ship to Canon (I'd rather go Nikon...but I'd terribly miss my 70-400!) ...(just kidding ).

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Sony α77V/VG-C77AM/α350/18-70/70-400 G SSM/NEX-5/18-55 OSS/Lowepro Pro Trekker 600 AW/CompuTrekker AW/Nova 140 AW/Street & Field gear/Toploader Pro 75 AW. And a huge wishlist...

My photos on Flickr...

The way of life is you can't have everything. For every shot I could have got sticking with Sony, I would have lost more from not jumping. I even went dual system for a while but it wasn't efficient.

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Canon DSLRs: 7D, 5D2, 1D, 600D, 450D full spectrum, 300D IR mod
Lenses: EF 35/2, 50/1.8, 85/1.8, 135/2+SF, 28-80 V, 70-300L, 100-400L, TS-E 24/3.5L, MP-E 65, EF-S 15-85 IS
3rd party: Zeiss 2/50 makro, Samyang 8mm fisheye, Sigma 150 macro, 120-300 f/2.8 OS, Celestron 1325/13
Tinies: Sony HX9V.

Hi Ruben, I think many 7D (and even higher-end) owners will use LV a lot - or should do in my view.

Yes you can use it handheld for unusual angles (for which the Sony quick focus system is unrivalled), but for me the real value of LV is being able to see exactly what the sensor will capture, not just for 100% coverage, but for 100% magnification to confirm focus.

When testing cameras, you'd be surprised how many slight focusing errors there are with phase change AF systems and uncalibrated lenses. In almost every case you could get a potentially sharper result by using LV and magnified focusing assistance. Indeed I use it for all my test shots now.

Obviously to be practical, it works best with static subjects and a tripod mounted camera, but this includes a lot of landscape and architectural work. In these situations, I'd now never use the phase change AF alone.

PS - I believe popo agrees with this approach, but I wanted to say it again!

The pro's use LV for, I think, for other things than beginners (or users with Sony) would. I mean, using a dSLR as a P&S, always look at the display, I dont think pros do that;) They will use it to confirm focus, not as P&S.
I agree with every statement here.

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Ruben

Panasonic DMC-FZ18, Panasonic DMC-FZ28, Canon G5, Canon 350D, Canon 50D + BG-E2N
Tamron 17-50 2.8, Canon EF 70-200mm f/4L USM,
Canon 18-55 II plus lots of Minolta MD/M42 lenses and bodies

I'm fairly sure I know what you're trying to say, but basically you suggest that Sony users are not professionals (not that I'm pro or anything). So a professional using an A900 with a 24-70 and a bunch Zeiss and G-glass is not a pro ?

Having said that, perhaps most Sony users will it in the point & shoot style, since it's so convenient. It's only after they got more used to their DSLR and when upgrading to a more prosumer-like model like the A550, which has manual focus check live view, that they will start to wonder how their focus can be improved.

Hope that Sony includes micro-adjust for lenses on the A7X0...

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Sony α77V/VG-C77AM/α350/18-70/70-400 G SSM/NEX-5/18-55 OSS/Lowepro Pro Trekker 600 AW/CompuTrekker AW/Nova 140 AW/Street & Field gear/Toploader Pro 75 AW. And a huge wishlist...

My photos on Flickr...

I think Ill stop posting here, I really cant say in English what I want.
Not for nothing I almost can go to the 4th class because my marks for En are soo bad.
I try it for the last time:
How do people have their PS in their hands? Straight away from their body. You wont see that with a dSLR. Maybe you can see that with entry level sonys, because they're aimed at starters who had a P&S, they will certainly use LV more than 80%. Because they used to use LV all the time, they wont use the VF much.
Pros, they never have had LV, so they will stay with the VF, and use LV for macro work, not as P&S screen.
I hope you understand, I really dont know how to say.

But, LV is a very useble function on Sony cameras, but you wont use it all the day on, say Canons or Nikons, the AF is too slow. For MF work it's just perfect.

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Ruben

Panasonic DMC-FZ18, Panasonic DMC-FZ28, Canon G5, Canon 350D, Canon 50D + BG-E2N
Tamron 17-50 2.8, Canon EF 70-200mm f/4L USM,
Canon 18-55 II plus lots of Minolta MD/M42 lenses and bodies

Firstly isn't a pro anyone who is working as a photographer?
I've been working getting paid and making enough money to call myself a pro and yet I use Sony.

Like I said LV is useful if you need it. I use it for when shooting in a pack of photographers and have to get a shot above my head, without AF LV it can be hit & miss.

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http:/dowdenphotography.com/
Camera: who cares its the photographer
Lens: Lots

Cameras have changed over the years, but if you really look closely, very rarely has new features replaced older ones:

- Colour Film was the first big quarrel, that still rages today. But, you can use both colour and B+W in any film camera. Camera makers didn't choose one over the other.

- Autofocus, you can use it, or you can simple switch to manual. I'm not aware of any DSLR that doesn't have a full manual focusing mode.

In some cases, development time and money has gone into improving one feature over another, no denying that (in the case of colour film which almost at one point killed off b+w film). However, in other cases, some things just can't be improved, i.e. manual focus. Sure, you can make incremental improvements, but manual focus is manual focus.

In the case of video, I think that in order for enthusiasts to continue to enjoy development of better cameras, we have to tolerate the marketing gimmicks that sell cameras (I still think video is a gimmick simple because from my experience with it on the 7D, its not really a pleasant experience). Also, it may have been a case were companies simple didn't have any other areas to innovate in. A lot of things can be improved, but the technology may have been impractical to implement or develop any further. Sure, I can't see my LCD outside, and that needs work, but screen technology on a whole is lagging, and most DSLRs have market leading technology, and its still no good ... so, the point being, these things happen and until the DSLR comes defaulted to shooting video rather than taking photos, complaints should be kept at a minimum.

Also, if people didn't want it, they wouldn't have bought it. Sony has lost big in the last 2 yrs for lagging behind without video (amongst other things). If video wasn't important, and if people were against it, Sony would be rolling in the dough! So, the market wants it, and putting philosophy over market demands is a very dangerous game to play.

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I wish there was a way to randomly cycle through click-able thumbnails of my most recent images :'(

http://www.laroygreen.com (under construction)

I agree, but I think that if you look at the A900 for instance, that it more matters to potential A900 owners to have a huge optical viewfinder (yes, huge is the word that has to be used here), fast continuous shooting and class-leading resolution. I happen to have just seen a crop from a D3X (using a Nikkor 300mm f/2.8 lens) which has the same sensor, and the detail a 24.6 megapixel sensor captures is nothing short of amazing...

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Sony α77V/VG-C77AM/α350/18-70/70-400 G SSM/NEX-5/18-55 OSS/Lowepro Pro Trekker 600 AW/CompuTrekker AW/Nova 140 AW/Street & Field gear/Toploader Pro 75 AW. And a huge wishlist...

My photos on Flickr...

So you don't want something on your DSLR, the rest of us who do want it, must not have it too. Why whine about things that *you* don't want? Just don't press the video button instead of demanding the feature must never be implemented for anyone else either, who do want it.