BIF or bird in flight. White faced heron, Egretta novaehollandiae, Wilson Inlet, Denmark, Western Australia. Olympus EM1 mk I with Panasonic 100-400mm lens.
I’m not talking about the Oscars but Birds In Flight. I’m finding this a very troublesome aspect of nature photography.
If you listen to bird photographers talk this is the holy grail and if you take a picture of a bird in a tree it is derisively called a bird on a stick and is seen to have no merit at all. In fact BIF is now considered such an important part of photography that with each new camera launch the manufacturers herald its new bird tracking autofocus capabilities. These cameras are now capable of shooting incredibly high frame rates in excess of 20 frames per second which encourages photographers to just machine gun the subject – the so called spray and pray – in the hope of capturing something interesting. So why do I feel this troublesome. Well this technology doesn’t come cheap and the fact is that you have to be seriously minted and committed to bird photography to afford the equipment. The Sony A1, the Nikon Z9 and the Canon R3 are all around $9-10,000 AUD. Slap on a suitable long fast prime lens like a 600mm f4 and you have a package that will set you back a cool $30,000 AUD. Predominantly I shoot with Olympus’ cameras and their newly released camera plus their top wildlife lens will set you back around $15,000. So as you can see it’s not for the faint hearted or the financially embarrassed.
A Yellow-billed Spoonbill (Platalea flavipes) flying back to its nest on the Avon River. Canon EOS 550d with a Canon EF 70-200mm f2.8 IS L lens.
So does this state of affairs mean that unless you are wealthy you shouldn’t take up nature/wildlife photography? No because I happen to believe that it is the skill of the photographer that makes great photos and not the size of their bank account. Nothing beats going out into the field and spending time getting to know your subject and the environment they live in. The more time you spend out there the more picture taking opportunities you will have.
The Eastern Osprey (Pandion cristatus) is known to the Nyoongar people of the south west of Western Australia as yoondoordo. Oyster Bay, Lower King, Western Australia. Olympus OMD EM1 mk ii with Panasonic 100-400mm lens.
Secondly don’t obsess about equipment. Get what you can afford. Any camera with interchangeable lenses with a long lens is capable of excellent results. What matters is that you spend time with your camera and learn how it works. Eric Hoskins, 1908-91, was a pioneer in bird photography. He worked with what would now be considered very primitive – large format single shot cameras with no metering, no auto focusing and slow film emulsions (10 ISO) – yet he changed the face of bird photography with his use of flash and he enabled people to see birds in a way that they’d never seen before. Buy stuff second hand. Take advantage of the well heeled enthusiasts who have to have the latest and greatest. They change their equipment like I change my socks and often sell off perfectly good equipment for far less than they paid for it.
Blue sky. Check. Bird in flight. Check. A great egret (Ardea alba modesta) flying over the Creery Wetlands Nature Reserve in Western Australia. Olympus OMD EM1 mk ii with Panasonic 100-400mm lens.
Thirdly there is more to nature/wildlife photography than birds in flight. I find endless pictures of birds flying across a blue sky boring. I like to see animal’s behaviour – feeding, building nests, rearing young, mating rituals etc. Show the animal in its environment.
Kooljak is the Nyoongar name for the Black swan (Cygnus atratus), Toodyay, Western Australia.
Fourthly you don’t have to go on expensive safaris to take pictures of animals. Thanks to the power of the internet what can be found in your backyard is interesting to people in different countries so capitalise on what you have close to home because the skills you learn will pay off in spades if you are able to go on a trip of a life time to somewhere exotic.
A Western Corella flies amongst the tree tops along the Avon River in York.
The shots below were taken at Tomato Lake which is in a park in one of Perth’s suburbs. The camera used was second hand with an older adapted lens with adequate autofocus. A few hours of being prepared to sit in mosquito ridden undergrowth by a lake gave me the chance to take some photos that I’m happy with and enjoy myself.
An immature Nankeen Night Heron, , Nycticorax caledonicus subsp mannillenis.
Australian Darter, often called Snake Bird, Anhinga melanogaster subsp. novaehollandiae.
This is the second part of a series of articles on upgrading camera equipment on a budget. Parts 1 and 2 can be found here and here.
Mount your Canon EF lenses to your Sony A7rii using the Metabones V Smart Adapter.
TLDR
Metabones was an early innovator in terms of lens adapters entering the market in 2013 with the Speed Booster which was an adapter. With a focal range reducer that allowed full frame SLR lenses to be used on smaller format mirrorless cameras at close to the full frame field of view. The first with autofocus capabilities was a Canon EF to Sony E. Metabones themselves described its performance as:
“Autofocus speed is very slow and inadequate for most moving subjects. The autofocus speed is unfit for professional use for sure, and it would disappoint most enthusiasts.”
By 2016 Metabones was able to offer a “Smart Adapter” that allowed Sony users to access all the AF modes when using Canon lenses. The adapter makes the lens behave like a native Sony lens. Sigma had beaten them to the punch with their MC-11, but, that had the caveat of only promising that performance with certain Sigma lenses. The Metabones Smart Adapter V EF to FE is the latest incarnation and this is the model that I’m looking at. This is not a Speed Booster – there are no optical elements in the adapter. It is designed for mounting full frame Canon EF lenses on a Sony Alpha series body. In Australia this retails for a whopping $780 AUD. A lot of money when you consider that outcomes are not guaranteed. Luckily there are plenty on the secondhand market and you can expect to pay around half the retail price.
Mount your Canon EF lenses to your Sony A7rii using the Metabones V Smart Adapter.
Build Quality
The Metabones Smart Adapter V for Canon EF to Sony FE mount comes in a smart hard plastic case. Included are two Allen Keys, one for removing the Arca Swiss tripod mount and the other for carrying out adjustments.
The adapter comes in a nice hard plastic case with two Allen key that are for removing the attached Arca Swiss tripod mount and carrying out adjustments. Picking it up the adapter feels well made with a metal body and both mounts are chromium plated brass for long life. There is a rubber gasket on the Sony mount side to prevent dust and moisture ingress and the adapter is lined with black flocking to prevent internal reflections. On the left hand side of the adapter is the lens release button, a USB port, an IBIS off/on switch and button you can customise its function like the ones found on the Sony G and GM lenses. There are two bad points. First is that the plug for the USB port is not of the flap variety that Sigma use that is attached to the adapter. In the six months I’ve had it the plug no longer fits snuggly and is prone to dropping out which potentially means it could be lost making the adapter susceptible to damage. I’ve taken to taping over it with a bit of gaffer tape but it is not what I would expect from an item costing so much especially when Sigma at half the price have a better approach. Second is the black flock used inside the adapter is a dust and hair magnet and it inevitably finds its way on to the camera sensor. I seem to be forever cleaning the adapter, the sensor and having to spot my photos.
Metabones line the adapter with black flocking to prevent internal reflections.
On the left hand side of the adapter is the lens release button, a USB port, an IBIS off/on switch and a customisable button.
A crucial part of whether the adapter will work is the ability to download and install firmware updates. Sigma enable you to both update the adapter and the lens firmware. With the Metabones you can only update the adapter firmware and this is a bit of a dogs dinner. You download the updater appfor Mac and Windows from their website. This and opening the app is the easy bit. When prompted you connect the adapter to your computer via USB cable. I primarily run a MacBook Pro running OSX Big Sur version 11.6 with Thunderbolt 3 and no matter what adapter for USB A to USB C I used the app would not run. I then tried my 2012 iMac running Mojave thinking the native USB 3 will be the solution. Nope. At the back of the cupboard in my office I found 2009 MacBook running El Capitan and having USB 2 ports. Did this work? Did it heck. The app recognised the adapter and advised that there was a firmware update available but when I went to install it the app just froze. So as a last ditch attempt I pulled out of a box in the shed a Sony Vaio from 2003 running Windows XP. I downloaded the Windows version of the app and it worked! It took an hour to download the update but it got there. This is important because the app just doesn’t up date the adapter firmware but allows you access various functions.
The Smart Adapter V has two modes:
Green Mode or basic mode
Advanced Mode
There is no instruction leaflet with the adapter so you will need to access the support page for it. How these two modes operate will depend upon your Sony camera. As I’m using it on a Sony A7r2 I’ll concentrate on that.
Green Mode
Auto focus – uses phase detection autofocus and is compatible with, according to Metabones, “virtually all AF lenses” but there is no eye-AF, poor video AF which is contrast-detect and requires half-pressing shutter release button to activate if at all, doesn’t work well with telephoto lenses and requires good light and high contrast to work. Most of the Sony native AF functions are not available. The lens only stops down when you press the shutter button. On the plus side it has low power consumption.
Advanced Mode
The autofocus uses a hybrid of contrast based and phase detect autofocus which makes it fast and accurate. It is not compatible with as many lenses as green mode. Eye-AF is supported. In video you get continuous phase detect AF. The AF works better with long lenses. The aperture stops down as you turn the aperture dial on the camera causing a lot of clicking noise and higher power consumption.
To tell which mode your adapter is in there is a small LED on the top. For Green Mode the LED shines blue and for Advanced Mode it is red. In an ideal world you’d want to be able to switch back and forth between modes. There are two ways of doing this. The first is via the Metabones App which as we’ve already found out is less than ideal. The second can be done in the field and it involves pushing buttons mounting the lens switching on and off etc. It is fiddly. Don’t try to follow the instructions just watch the YouTube video by Alex & Nadia Fediakov. After a short while of using Green Mode and not having a lot of success I just switched to Advanced mode and have left it there ever since.
Performance
I’ve used the adapter with 3 lenses:-
Canon EF 24-70mm f4 IS L
Canon EF 70-200mm f2.8 IS L mk i
Canon EF 100mm f2.8 macro IS L
Besides running tests I also used the camera and lenses in my normal day to day photography – nature, landscapes, events and grip and grin. Right from the beginning I’ll say what you get and don’t get in general terms and then go on to describe how things went with each lens.
There is no correction for vignetting or colour fringing. You have to manually select lens profiles in your editing program of choice.
The adapter enables EXIF data recording for focal length, aperture and make and model ID.
The adapter has no optics so there is no effect on lens performance. Any possible degradation in optical performance will come from the fact that Canon lenses are designed to work with the sensor stack of Canon cameras not Sony. With the three lenses I used there was no problem.
The auto focus generally works very well allowing access to all the AF modes on the camera. However, how well is specific to the lens. Focal length and the motor technology in the lens play a part in how well the adapter works.
Using the adapter in Green Mode in body image stabilisation is favoured while in Advance Mode both IBIS and optical image stabilisation are used.
In Green Mode the power consumption is low. In the Advanced Mode because the lens aperture is constantly opening and closing and both forms of image stabilisation are used the power consumption is high.
Tests
The Sony 28-70mm f3.5-5.6 OSS was introduced in in 2013 as the budget kit zoom to accompany the Sony A7 mirrorless camera.
The reluctant running bull terrier test with the Sony A7r2 andSony FE 28-70mm f/3.5-5.6 OSS lens.
To help me get some sense of what I was seeing I needed a point of reference and for that I used the Sony FE 28-70mm F3.5-5.6 OSS kit lens which can be picked up second hand for about $200 AUD. I wasn’t looking at optical quality but autofocus performance. Each of the Canon lenses had to equal or better the AF performance of that cheap kit lit lens. When shooting sequence of a moving subject (my reluctant Bull Terrier Frida) the Sony 28-70 was achieving a 90% hit rate which I thought was impressive.
Canon EF 24-70mm f4 IS L lens
The Canon 24-70mm f4 IS L mounted to a Sony A7r2 via a Metabones V Smart Adapter.
My initial tests were very disappointing. Using single point continuous AF with a burst of 5 frames none of the shots were in focus. So I changed the settings to lock on flexible spot with continuous AF and got a hit rate of 50%.Shooting video things were more promising. The autofocus was quick and positive and tracked well, but it didn’t do as well as the Sony 28-70.
Canon EF70-200mm f2.8 IS L lens
The Canon EF 70-200mm f2.8 IS L lens mounted to a Sony A7r2 via a Metabones V Smart Adapter.
This lens did not work well in expanded flexible spot with continuous autofocus. Typically the lens racked back and forth, then would settle on the subject for a couple of seconds and then drift off out of focus. Switching to other focus modes was a very different story with the lens quick to acquire focus. I abandoned the bull terrier test in favour of a plane doing some crop dusting. Out of 5 runs I got 3 with a 100% hit rate, one with 92% and one of 61%. This averaged out at 90%.The video performance was woeful. At the short end wide open the lens was very slow to acquire focus and when tracking it would loose the subject and be painful slow to reacquire. At the long end wide open it was incredibly slow – glaciers move faster and the AF motor made a lot of noise while the lens racked back and forth.
Canon 100mm f2.8 macro IS L lens
The Canon EF 100mm f2.8 macro IS L lens mounted to a Sony A7r2 via a Metabones V Smart Adapter.
I didn’t test this lens with moving subjects as macro lens are notoriously slow to autofocus at the best of times. The lens was slow to focus in single AF mode both at macro distance and normal distances. At normal focus ranges despite being slow it was very accurate. At macro distances it would often get confused and I found that this would increase in low light or with subjects that had low contrast. For most people macro photography isn’t a fast moving high pressure scenario so this wouldn’t be really a problem. What was a disappointment was that the OIS didn’t combine with the IBIS and I had to use OIS only.
White Spider Orchid, Caladenia longicauda subsp longicauda, Wambyn, Western Australia. Sony A7r2 with Canon EF 100mm f2.8 IS lens mounted via the Metabones V Smart Adapter.
Real World Usage
Canola fields flanking Helena Road. York, Western Australia. Sony A7r2 with the Canon EF 24-70mm f4 IS L lens.
A farmhouse surrounded by canola in York, Western Australia. Sony A7r2 with Canon EF 70-200 f2.8 IS L lens.
Mounted Archery demonstration at the York Medieval Fair. Sony A7r2 with Canon EF 70-200mm f2.8 IS L lens.
Enough for the tests let’s look at real world usage. For landscape and macro work all the lenses did OK in real world usage. But for events and grip and grin work it was not all beer and skittles. The event I photographed was a medieval fair and I used both the 24-70 and the 70-200. The 70-200 did rather well with photographing mounted archers and taking candid portraits. Excellent stuff. The 24-70 didn’t do so well. I photographed a display of medieval combat and only 1 in 5 were in focus. These guys weren’tmoving fast they were just erratic and the tracking just could n’t cope. With static subjects everything was fine. I photographed an awards ceremony with the A7r ii and the 24-70. This sort of work is quick paced but straightforward photographically. I shot 220 frames with roughly a third out of focus, one third in focus but not critically sharp and the remainder were critically in focus.The experience was the AF wasn’t snappy but laboured and ponderous. Halfway through I was wishing that I’d had my micro four thirds system or my Canon DSLRs.
York Medieval Fair. Sony A7r2 with Canon EF 70-200mm f2.8 IS L lens.
York Medieval Fair. Sony A7r2 with Canon EF 24-70mm f4 IS L lens.
Conclusion
In conclusion my experience with the Metabones Smart Adapter V was quite a mixed bag. The lens that I thought would do very well, the EF 24-70 f4, didn’t do very well at all.The lens I really wanted to work but thought wouldn’t do well because of its age was the 70-200mm f2.8 and it did surprisingly well. The 100mm macro did as I thought it would.
The Sony A7rii with the Metabones V Smart Adapter and the Canon 100mm f2.8 IS L lens.
Obviously as I own Canon EF mount lenses this is about the EF version. Sigma state that their adapter is for use with their Global Vision lenses which comprises of three lens lines:
Art
Contemporary
Sport
As of the time of writing there are 44 Sigma lenses that are compatible with the adapter and these allow users to access all the auto focus modes on Sony E mount cameras. This is important to me as I want to be able to use the 150-600 for bird photography.
The Sigma 150-600mm F5-6.3 DG OS HSM Contemporary lens is one of the lenses that is compatible with the Sigma MC-11 lens adapter.
The first thing you notice when you pick up the MC-11 is that it is very solid and well made. The body is of metal construction and the lens mounts are chromium plated brass. Disappointingly there are no weather seals. On the body is a USB port behind a soft plastic flap and on the opposite side is the lens release button. Just by that is a tiny LED light which is very hard to see when it is off. The purpose of the light is to inform you about how well the lens attached will work it does this through one of four states:
Constant green – the lens is compatible
Flashing green – you need to update the lens firmware
Flashing orange – the adapter firmware needs updating
No light – the lens isn’t compatible
The light only comes on for 2-3 seconds when you switch on the camera.
Speaking of firmware updates to do this you will need to download the Sigma Optimization Pro software from Sigma’s website. To update the adapter just needs a USB cable, for lenses you will need the Sigma Dock UD-01. I find it somewhat frustrating that you can’t update the lens firmware through the MC-11 adapter. The dock isn’t expensive to buy although in Australia the retail price varies between $80 to $120 AUD so it pays to shop around. Luckily there seem to be plenty for sale second hand on EBay for about $40. I ended up updating both the adapter and lens firmware and the whole process was very straightforward.
In Use
Before I updated the firmware I found that there was difficulty in acquiring focus when shooting in low light, backlit situations and with subjects in undergrowth. Once upgraded things worked a lot better. I experimented with the settings on the camera by setting up two custom modes. Custom mode 1 was in shutter priority with the shutter speed set at 1/500 sec, Auto ISO, Auto Focus Continuous, Lock on AF with a medium sized flexible spot and the frame rate was set to low speed continuous. Custom mode 2 was in shutter priority with the shutter speed set at 1/2000, Auto ISO, Auto Focus Continuous, lock on flexible spot large and high speed continuous drive. Both modes had the following parameters set:
Phase Detect Area – on
Pre AF – off
Priority set in AFC – balanced emphasis
AF with shutter – on
AF drive speed – fast
AF tracking sensitivity – high
With birds in trees that weren’t moving too quickly I found that I was getting a hit rate of around 90%. With more erratic moving birds my hit rate dropped to 36% when I was using my custom mode 2. When I switched to mode 1 the hit rate improved to 85%. Photographing my dog running towards me both custom modes acquired focus very quickly, but the results from custom mode two weren’t very consistent fluctuating between 60 to 85%. In custom mode 1 I got very consistent results at 85%. When shooting birds in flight I found that I didn’t get a single shot with critical focus which was disappointing to say the least.
The video performance of the A7r II and the Sigma 150-600 was surprising. Shooting wide open at the short end AF performance is good, it is quick and confident. At the long end the AF is a bit slower but it does acquire focus and lock on. What is very apparent is the noise of the lens motor, it is quite loud and would mean that any sound would have to be recorded using an external microphone.
Conclusion
The Sigma MC-11 adapter allows certain Sigma EF lenses to be used on Sony E mount bodies while retaining autofocus and image stabilisation.
In practice it would certainly seem that shooting at higher frame rates the autofocus struggles to keep up and dropping the frame rate improves the hit rate considerably. Whether using this combination is a good idea depends very much on your expectations and what you want. If you want the performance of a Sony native lens then you are better off getting that. But if you already have the lens and want to change from a Canon DSLR to a Sony full frame mirrorless camera and you are shooting birds in trees, scrub, on the ground or on water then this works very well. For birds in flight you’ll want either a full Sony set up or a full Canon set up.
Sample Images
Menekedang called the Red-capped Robin (Petroica goodenovii) by white colonialists.
Melkullya called the Yellow-billed Spoonbill (Platalea flavipes) by white colonialists.
Menekedang called the Red-capped Robin (Petroica goodenovii) by white colonialists.
Red Wattle bird (Anthochaera carunculata subsp. woodwardi) known to the Nyoongar people as wodjalok. Yellagonga Regional Park.
Three wise corellas – hear no evil, see no evil, and sorry my mouth is full. Yellagona Regional Park, Western Australia.
Manyt or the Western Corella (Cacatua pastinator subsp. derbyi). Yellagona Regional Park, Western Australia.
Dillabirt, known to non Nyoonga people as the Magpie-lark (Grallina cyanoleuca). Yellagonga Regional Park.
Melkullya or Yellow-billed Spoonbills, Platalea flavipes, amongst the paperbarks on Lake Joondalup in Yellangonga Regional Park.
Melkullya or Yellow-billed Spoonbills, Platalea flavipes, feeding at Lake Joondalup in Yellangonga Regional Park.
The eponymous Willie Wagtail, Rhipidura leucophrys leucophrys. Yellagonga Regional Park, Western Australia.
Despite their small size the Silvereye, Zosterops lateralis, has an incredibly loud birdsong. Yellagonga Regional Park, Western Australia.
An Australian Pelican (Pelecanus conspicillatus) feeding on Lake Joondalup in Yellagonga Regional Park.
A white-faced heron looks out from its tree top perch over Horse Swamp. Whiteman Park, Western Australia.
Western Grey Kangaroo, macropus fuliginosus, Whiteman Park, Western Australia.
Christmas Rock Walk Trail that is. Christmas Rock is in Wongan Hills and I’ve written about going there before. This time I’m writing about the Christmas Rock walk trail which is located in a 2000 hectare reserve. It is an easy 2.7Km walk along relatively flat well marked paths not far from the centre of the town site. Along the trail are interpretive panels which give insights into the reserve. What makes it worthwhile is that at wildflower time the walk passes through country that is a riot of colourful flowers. It is a gobsmackingly beautiful sight this year as the weather conditions have been ideal. The bird life in the reserve is also pretty impressive and their song provides a fitting score for a very pleasant walk.
Cristmas Rock Walk trail is an enjoyable easy 2.7Km walk trail in the Wheatbelt Town of Wongan Hills. Sony A7r with Tamron 35mm f2.8 lens. Exposure: 1/160 sec, f8 at ISO 100.
Yellow everlastings at Christmas Rock, Wongan Hills. Sony A7r with Tamron 35mm f2.8 lens. Exposure: 1/125 sec, f8 at ISO 100.
Pink Everlastings, Christmas Rock, Western Australia. Sony A7r with a Tamron 20mm f2.8 lens. Exposure: 1/160 sec, f8 at ISO 100.
The rock gets its name from the Western Australian Christmas Trees (Nuytsia floribunda) which used to be found there and flowered at Christmas time. On the top of the rock is an elaborate series of channels that were designed to harvest rain water run off for the “Railway Water Supply” which was built in 1916. But the rock is also home to a wide variety of plants such as lichens and mosses. On a warm sunny day if you’re quick enough you might see the lizards who live in the various cracks and crevices.
The walk takes you up on the top of the rock which was part of the “Railway Water Supply” built in 1916. Rainwater runoff was harvested through a series of channels and creeks. Sony A7r with Tamron 20mm f2.8 lens. Exposure: 1/800 sec, f8 at ISO 100.
A suprising number of plants grow on Christmas Rock. Sony A7r with Tamron 20mm f2.8 lens. Exposure: 1/320 sec, f8 at ISO 100.
Rainwater captured on Christmas Rock in natural forming crack, depressions and gullies. Sony A7r with Tamron 20mm f2.8 lens. Exposure: 1/400 sec, f8 at ISO 100.
But for me it is the display of orchids which brings me to Wongan Hills. There are so many different types in large quantities. It made me feel like a kid on Christmas Day. The funny thing is that it could have been very, very different. Prospectors actually dug pits looking for asbestos. Luckily they didn’t find it in large enough quantities to make it a viable commercial operation and went looking elsewhere. So in September give Wongan Hills a visit. This isn’t the only walk as there’s Mount O’Brien Lookout, Gathecole Nature Reserve, and the Mt Matilda walk trail. Then there are the lakes which host lots of water birds. So instead of a day trip why not make a long weekend of it.
Pendant Spider Orchid (Caladenia pendens, subsp pendens). Christmas Rock, Western Australia. Sony A7r2 with a Canon EF 100mm f2.8 IS L macro lens. Exposure: 1/40 sec, f5.6 at ISO 125.
Lemon Scented Sun Orchid aka the vanilla orchid (Thelymitra antennifera). Christmas Rock, Western Australia. Sony A7r2 with a Canon EF 100mm f2.8 IS L macro lens. Exposure: 1/200 sec, f5.6 at ISO 125.
Lemon Scented Sun Orchid aka the vanilla orchid (Thelymitra antennifera). Christmas Rock, Western Australia. Sony A7r with Tamron 20mm f2.8 lens. Exposure: 1/250 sec, f8 at ISO 100.
A White Spider Orchid (Caladenia longicauda subsp longicauda) among the everlastings on Christmas Rock in Western Australia. Sony A7r2 with a Canon EF 100mm f2.8 IS L macro lens. Exposure: 1/125 sec, f5.6 at ISO 125.
Chameleon Spider Orchid (Caladenia dimidia). Christmas Rock, Western Australia. Sony A7r2 with a Canon EF 100mm f2.8 IS L macro lens. Exposure: 1/800 sec, f5.6 at ISO 200.
Sugar Candy Orchid, Caladenia hirta subsp. hirta. Christmas Rock, Western Australia. Sony A7r2 with a Canon EF 100mm f2.8 IS L macro lens. Exposure: 1/250 sec, f5.6 at ISO 125.
Pink Candy Orchid, Caladenia hirta subsp. rosea. Christmas Rock, Western Australia. Sony A7r2 with a Canon 100mm f2.8 IS L macro lens. Exposure: 1/80 sec, f5.6 at ISO 125.
Cowslip Orchid, Caladenia flava subs. flava. Christmas Rock, Western Australia. Sony A7r with a Tamron 20mm f2.8 lens. Exposure: 1/160 sec, f8 at ISO 100.
Lately I’ve been reading a lot of how photography has become really expensive. Sony released the A1 at $10,000 AUD, Canon are due to release the R3 at the same amount. As for lenses well the latest fast primes are priced in the stratosphere. But here’s the news – photography is very expensive if you treat it as technological proliferation. If you insist on having the latest and greatest you are going to have to pay. But do you really need the latest and greatest? Do you honestly need 30 fps shutter speed? 8K video? 4K 10 bit 4:2:2 video at 120fps? Fifteen stop dynamic range? Only you can say what you need, but I’m guessing that like 90% of photography enthusiasts you don’t. I know I don’t. Let’s face it the greatest photos of the Twentieth Century were taken with basic equipment. The vast majority on cameras that didn’t have autofocus or built in metering.
The back bone of my professional kit has been full frame Canon DSLRs since the launch of the original Canon 5d in 2005. Here is my 6d with my lenses.
Maybe you’re a bit like me. You’ve been doing the photography thing for quite a while. You were a happy SLR user in the days of film and when the digital revolution took place you patiently waited for the affordable DSLRs to arrive on the market and you made the switch. You bought into a system, acquired some nice lenses and upgraded the camera body as needed. But now something has come along that threatens that. That something is the advent of the mirrorless camera. These new wonder cameras are technological marvels with their WYSIWYG viewfinders and their information overlays, the incredible image stabilisation systems, the convergence with video, and the list of features goes on and on. The fly in the ointment is that to achieve this the manufacturers abandoned their lens mounts and developed new ones that could take advantage of the lack of the mirror box. This is where the expense comes in because to make the switch you have to spend big on not only a new camera body but also on new lenses. When I went digital I went Canon and over the years I ended up with a modest kit based around an EOS 6d, a 24-70 f4, a 70-200 f2.8, a 100mm f2.8 macro, a 50mm f1.8, and a Sigma 150-600mm. To get the equivalent kit based around an R6 body would cost me a few dollars under $20,000. That is a phenomenal amount of money. My wallet puckers up just thinking about it. So I looked at the more wallet friendly option of the R6, a Canon EOS-R Mount Adapter to adapt my EF lenses to the new RF mount, and a Canon RF 50mm f1.8 STM as my old 50mm f1.8 wouldn’t cope with CAF needed for video. The damage would be just under $5000 which while more wallet friendly was still more than I really wanted to spend. The other problem is that theCanon EOS-R Mount Adapter is currently back ordered here in Australia at the time of writing with no word on when stock would become available. Bugger!
The Olympus OMD EM1 mk ii with the Olympus m.Zuiko 60mm f2.8 macro lens.
Time to reappraise the problem. As regular readers will know I went mirrorless about ten years ago with the Micro Four Thirds system and this is what does the bulk of my work. But I wanted a larger sensor and higher resolution for certain situations. A bit like when I was running Canon35mm SLRs in conjunction with a Pentax 645n II. So m43 gives enough quality for about 80% of my needs. I wanted auto focus, 5-6 fps frame rate, in body image stabilisation, 4K video , and of course full frame. So the Canon R and RP wereimmediately excluded. Then it occurred to me that if I was going to have to adapt my Canon glass to use on an R series camera why not consider adapting them to another make such as Sony. Now again regular readers will be aware that I acquired a Sony A7r with which to use my old collection of manual focus Olympus OM mount and Voigtländer M mount lenses. So perhaps going Sony was the solution. From what I read the Sony A7r was not a suitable candidate for this because of its contrast based auto focus so it was going to have to be 2nd generation cameras or later. New prices were still out of my league, but secondhand looked promising. I also found that the secondhand prices on the Metabones Canon EF to Sony E-mount T Smart Adapter (Mark V) and the Sigma MC-11EF-Mount Lenses to Sony E mount were less than half the price of new. To keep within my $2000 AUD budget I decided to go for a Sony A7r II as I wouldn’t need to buy extra batteries as I already had loads for my A7r. So it was just a case of searching and eventually I came up trumps and found an A7r II with less than 50 shutter actuations, a Sigma and a Metabones adapter that kept me within my budget.
The Olympus OM Zuiko 35mm f2 mounted on a Sony A7r.
So did this end up a workable solution? Well I’m not going to review the A7r II as that has been done to death on the internet. But, suffice to say it gave everything I was looking for in a full frame mirrorless camera. The next two parts will look at how well the adapters worked with my lenses and the A7r II.
The Sony A7rii with the Sigma MC-11 and Metabobes V EF to FE lens adapters.
Mount your Canon EF lenses to your Sony A7rii using the Metabones V Smart Adapter.
Will the Sony A7rii work well with my Canon lenses? Is it time to say “Adios EOS”?
No this isn’t a new trilogy of mummy porn it’s because everything round here has turned a shade of yellow. Mostly that acid yellow that is canola, but the wattles give a nice counter point.
Canola fields flanking Helena Road. York, Western Australia. Sony A7 r ii, Metaboned V smart adapter, Canon EF 24-70mm f4 L lens. Exposure: 1/20 sec, f11, at ISO 100.
A farmhouse surrounded by canola in York, Western Australia. Sony A7 r ii, Metabones V Smart Adapter, Canon EF 70-200mm f2.8 IS L lens. Exposure: 1/60 sec, f16 at ISO 320.
Yellow wattle and yellow canola fields. York, Western Australia. Sony A7 r ii, Metabones V Smart Adapter, Canon EF 24-70mm f4 IS L lens. Exposure: 1/30 sec, f16, ISO 500
A gratuitous wren shot as wrens make everything better.
A bird on a stick – more specifically a female Splendid Fairy-wren, Malurus splendens subsp splendens. Whiteman Park, Western Australia. Olympus OMD EM1 mk ii with Panasonic Leica 100-400mm f4-6.3 lens. Exposure: 1/500 sec, f6.3 at ISO 320.
It has rained and rained here. I know not as much as in Germany, China or India, but it has rained a lot for here.It feels like I should be starting a DIY project – Ark building for dummies. Nah! I’ll skip that as I flunked woodwork at school. The Avon River burst its banks which drew lots of people in wanting to take photos of it. I even took a few myself.
The Avon River burst its banks in the recent rains. This park bench is normally a good 10m from the water. Sony A7 r ii with Canon EF 24-70mm f4 lens. Exposure: 1/80 sec, f8, at ISO 100.
The dog exercise area is now an aquatic park. Sony A7 r ii with Canon EF 24-70mm f4 lens. Exposure: 1/40 sec, f8 at ISO 125.
Despite all the wetness I’ve managed to grab a few sunny moments and head off to the local reserves. They are saying that all this rainfall is going to produce an amazing abundance of wildflowers this year. From what I’ve seen it looks to be true for our local reserves. Hopefully we’ll see some varieties come up that haven’t been seen for a few years – I’m looking at you Eastern Curlylocks.
The wandoo woodland that makes up St Ronan’s Nature Reserve.
This dark banded greenhood is one of the many orchid species that can be found in the understory.
The last couple of days have been fine and tomorrow we head off to the Stirling Ranges where the weather forecast is rain for the whole time we’ll be there. I suppose I should be used to it now. Thank goodness for Goretex and the weather proofing on my Olympus camera.
After all that talk the other day about street photography lets talk about a focal length that is synonymous with the street photography genre – the 35mm. In particular the Tamron 35mm f2.8 Di III lens.
Tamron 35mm f2.8 Di III lens mounted to a Sony A7r.
TLDR
Introduction
The Tamron 35mm f2.8 lens for Sony E mount cameras was announced back in November 2019 as part of a trio of prime lenses which share the same exterior design, construction, size, filter diameter and f stop. The other lens being the 24 and 20 mm. As lenses are becoming ever faster and even larger with price tags to match it is nice to see Tamron do something significantly different. The modest apertures and price tags may put off lens snobs, but they have enabled Tamron to give good optical performance at very reasonable price of $450 AUD. To many f2.8 may be disappointing, but honestly apart from bragging rights about shallow DOF we do not honestly need ultra fast lenses as todays cameras have absolutely astounding high ISO performance. When I started photography you needed fast lenses because film speeds were slow. I regularly shot ISO 25, 50 and 64 film emulsions and I wanted to do it handheld not on a tripod. Now shooting full frame digital at ISO 6400 gives the same image quality as as shooting ISO 64 film stock.
Specifications
A schematic of the lens construction.
Focal Length
35mm
Maximum Aperture
F/2.8
Angle of View (diagonal)
63° 26′ (for full-frame mirrorless format)
Optical Construction
9 elements in 8 groups with 1 low dispersion element and 1 moulded glass aspherical element
Minimum Object Distance
0.15m (5.9 in)
Maximum Magnification Ratio
1:2
Filter Size
Φ67mm
Maximum Diameter
Φ73mm
Length*
64mm (2.5 in)
Weight
210g (7.4 oz)
Diaphragm Blade Number
7 (circular diaphragm) The circular diaphragm stays almost perfectly circular up to two stops down from maximum aperture.
Minimum Aperture
F/22
Standard Accessories
Flower-shaped hood, Lens caps
Compatible Mounts
Sony E-mount
Golden Orb-Weaving Spider, Nephila edulis. Despite its size and their massive webs they are harmless to humans. Yellagonga Regional Park, Western Australia. The 1:2 magnification of the Tamron 35mm f2.8 makes this sort of photography a breeze.
For me the interesting aspect of this lens and indeed of its siblings is the cminimum focusing distance and it’s ability to shoot half life size. For me this makes them very suitable to creative macro and close up work. It’s not what you’d use to photography small critters as the lens has to be very close to the subject and will scare them off. For product shots, still life and another form of table shot photography it is a very interesting choice.
With a close focusing distance of just 15cm and a magnification ratio of 1:2 the Tamron 35mm f2.8 Di III is very suited to product photography.
Build Quality
In terms of build quality the Tamron 35mm the internet has largely been critical of it. The body is made out of some form of engineering plastic which you’d think had been manufactured by Tupperware judging by a lot of the reactions. Comparing this to recent Sigma lenses and Canon L lenses there is very little to distinguish the Tamron from the others. The only difference I can find without some sort of destructive testing is that the Tamron has a slightly more “satin” finish than the more “mat” of the Canons and Sigmas. The lens mount appears to be chrome plated brass which is nice, and there is an “o” ring which provides some semblance of sealing from the elements at the mount. There is no other weather sealing so I would say the lens isn’t really weather sealed at all despite Tamron’s claims. Tamron isn’t alone in this and I think it is high time the industry took a leaf out of Olympus’s book and actually stated to what level their products are sealed and give an IPX rating. Anything else is just weasley marketing BS as the majority of the camera and lens manufacturers state their products are weather sealed but won’t cover water water ingress under their warranties.
The metal lens mount as a gasket to provide some weather sealing.
The lens is larger than other 35mm lenses of similar specifications and feels quite light in the hand, but it doesn’t feel cheap. It feels quite sturdy and well made. On the lens barrel there is only a ribbed focusing ring which is of the focus by wire type which means there is little chance of getting repeatable focus pulls using it.A the front of the lens the front lens element is well recessed and while the lens doesn’t focus internally it extends within that recess so it does not protrude beyond the front of the lens barrel. Like all Tamron’s mirrorless range so far the 35mm f2.8 has a 67mm filter thread. Tamron thoughtfully include a lens hood with the lens. Other manufacturers please take note – if Tamron can include a lens hood with its budget lenses there no reason why you can’t. I’m looking at Olympus and Canon here. The lens hood warrants some discussion here as it is quite an interesting design. It is not the conventional bucket or petal shape. Instead it is like a plastic blank that has had a rectangular hole cut in the front and it is very effective at preventing flare and would also provide a degree of protection for the front element. The hood is threaded to take 67mm filters which means that you don’t have to remove it if you want to use a polarising filter. Somebody at Tamron has been doing some thinking. The hood bayonets into place.
The front lens element is well recessed.
Optical Performance
The Tamron 35mm f2.8 has built in lens profiles that are applied to jpgs and RAW files if so selected in the camera’s menu. I’ve opened the files in both Lightroom with the profiles switched on and then in RawTherapee with no profiles.
Click on the chart to see larger.
In terms of sharpness well at f2.8 at the centre of the image the lens is nicely sharp and contrasty. At f4 the it reaches its best performance and stays there to f11. At the edges wide open it isn’t quite as sharp as the centre, but by f5.6 the edges are as good as the centre. The old adage of stoping down two stops from wide open to achieve optimum performance certainly holds true of this lens. By f16 the image starts to soften as diffraction rears its ugly head.
In terms of optical aberrations well once the lens profile is switched off there is very slight evidence of pincushion distortion and vignetting. At f5.6 the vignetting disappears. A small amount of lateral chromatic aberration can be seen, but it is so slight I had to magnify the images to 300% to see them. Easily fixed in Lightroom. With a maximum aperture of f2.8 longitudinal chromatic aberration is not a problem. It is really fast apertures of f1.2 and f1.4 that really cause problems with this.
Without a lenshood the lens exhibits quite pronounced ghosting flare. Note the discolourateion on the tree trunk halfway down and the polygonal shape on the trunk at the bottom of the frame. At f22 the sunstars are pronounced, but aren’t that well defined.
Flare resistance is a bit on the pedestrian side without the lens-hood with ghosting visible. The lens-hood is included in the box for a reason so use it. The seven bladed iris produces what to me are quite attractive sun-stars. Speaking of how the lens handles specular highlights the bokeh is not what I would call thrilling but it is not offensive either.Wide open in the centre there are round balls with faint onion rings present from moulded aspherical element. I suppose the final polishing wasn’t as smooth as that on more expensive lenses as a cost cutting measure. The edges of the balls are not smooth, they have a fuzzy appearance as the light bleeds into the darker areas which is a form of halation. At the edges of the image the bokeh balls take on that elliptical cats eye shape. By f8 the bokeh balls take on a definite polygonal shape.
In the bokeh test we can see quite nice round balls in the centre of the image wide open, but on closer inspection onion rings are present and the edges have a fuzzy appearence to them. At the edge of the frame the balls have a definite cats eye shape. As the lens stops down the bokeh balls take on a polygonal shape which is really apparent from f8 and beyond.
Click on the image to see larger.
Comparison
The Olympus OM Zuiko 35mm f2 mounted on a Sony A7r.
Is a cheap auto focusing lens worth getting over a classic manual focusing version? Well to find out I’m comparing the Tamron 35mm f2.8 lens to the Olympus OM Zuiko 35mm f2 lens. Forty five years separate the two optical designs and a lot has changed. There are several different version of the Olympus lens. It had a long production run from 1974 to 2002. I’m using a later multi-coated version. This MC version is 43mm in length, 240g in weight and has a filter thread of 55mm. It has an optical construction of eight lens elements in 7 groups and a minimum focusing distance of 0.3m. When it’s performance is studied we can see there is slight barrel distortion evident in the test image. CA is present when wide open and clears up on stopping down Wide open the lens is quite soft and lacking in contrast both in the centre and at the edges. Both sharpness and contrast improve in the centre when stopped down to f8. The edges show some signs of improvement but not as much as the centre.
Our test subject for the comparison.
Comparing the two lenses in an actual real world shooting scenario we can see that with both lenses set to an aperture of f2.8 in the centre of the frame there is virtually no difference between them and I’d say they they are equal. In the corners, however, it is a very different story. The Tamron has a good level of sharpness while the Olympus is very soft. Stopping down to their respective minimum apertures – f22 for the Tamron and f16 for the Olympus -we see again in the centre that there is just a very marginal difference. In the corner the Tamron is better by a gnat’s whisker. Just remember that the Olympus was given an advantage. The Tamron shot wide open at f2.8 while the Olympus was stopped down at to f2.8 allowing an improvement in optical performance. At f16 the Olympus didn’t suffer the amount of diffraction the Tamron did at f22.
A comparison between the Tamron 35mm and the Olympus 35mm at f2.8. Click on the image to see it larger.
The same again but at f22.
Conclusion
When Sony launched the original A7 and A7r in 2014 critics poured scorn over the nascent system by saying there were no lenses. Early adopters divided into the system and tried their hand at adapting lenses they did have to fill the gaps in the line up. Fast forward to 2021 and Sony have done a tremendous job at fleshing out their line up. But the most significant thing is that Sony allowed third parties to access the lens mount protocols and this has meant that are lenses that range in price from decidedly wallet friendly all the way to those that would make a trust fund baby wince. At the time of testing the Tamron lens is selling for $350 AUD (which is the equivalent of being given away with a McDonalds Happy Meal in the USA). Looking on EBay the Olympus is selling for between $300 to $700 AUD depending upon condition and version. The version I have would count as a mint late model which would place it in the upper range. So the question is whether having a new autofocuslens is worth more to you than having a potentially more expensive 20-40 year old lens. Well I had the Olympus lens left over from OM film days (along with quite a few others) and I actually got a secondhand Sony A7r camera so I could use the Olympus lenses. I was very happy with that arrangement. The Tamron registered on my radar because of its macro capabilities.
So you want to go full frame mirrorless with a 35mm prime lensbut don’t want f1.2 lenses or can’t afford them then buy the Tamron. Don’t want want to carry around a lens that is capable of blocking the Suez Canal buy the Tamron. It is nowhere near a perfect lens. It is a modest lens, with a modest price and with a better than modest performance. So with what it costs and with what it can do it is a great buy.
A few days ago I made the 260Km round trip out to Corrigin to try and find the Pygmy Orchid, Corunastylis tepperi. I’d never seen it before and it is an early start to the orchid season. I also wanted to try out some new ideas for photographing orchids before the season proper starts. I knew roughly where to look, but once there it was like looking for a needle in a haystack. The plant lives up to its name – it is very small. The flowers are about 3mm and they can be found on a stalk 2-3 cm tall. As the the orchid prefers leaf litter found in mallee woodlands this makes them even harder to find.
Pygmy Orchid, Corunastylis tepperi. Corrigin, Western Australia.
When I drove up to the spot my heart sank a little as I had hoped that having just come up a fresh green plant would be fairly easy to spot, but as luck would have thanks to some rains we had a few weeks ago some grasses had begun to sprout as well. The area was covered in litter – not recent, it was old, very old. There were rusty steel ring pull cans all over the place. Now I’ve been in Australia thirty three years and drinks cans were aluminium back then, so I would say they were forty years old at least. The beer bottles looked even older. Take your litter home folks and then you can collect the 10c deposit on each item. As luck had it I found a whole patch of the pygmy orchids about 700m from where I’d parked the car.Having finished so quickly I decided to head off to experience the delights of downtown Corrigin.
Pygmy Orchid, Corunastylis tepperi.
Now besides orchids Corrigin’s other claim to fame is its association with dogs. The town holds the world record for the most dogs in a ute. Non Australians probably will be a bit perplexed by this but for a few years it seemed like very country town wanted to cram as many dogs as physically possible into a ute. The town also has a dog cemetery which has become quite a big tourist attraction so I made a quick stop there. It’s not the first time I’ve visited but I wanted to see if there was anything new as the owners of the dogs erect memorials and I’m fascinated with how their love for their dogs expresses itself.
The entrance to Corrigin Dog Cemetery, Western Australia.
One of the good things with photographing orchids as opposed to photographing wildlife and in particular birds is that you don’t have to get up at stupid o’clock. In fact some species of orchids will only be at their best in the middle of a bright sunny day. So by the time I hit down town Corrigin it was well past lunch time so I went into one of the two cafes and ordered a BLT sandwich. Two minutes later the waitress informs me that there is no sliced bread would I mind it being in a roll. Another two minutes and I’m informed there’s no lettuce. A further two minutes passes and I’m told there’s no tomato. At this point I’m starting to think that I’ll be told there’s no bacon when the waitress brings this enormous baguette with half a pig in it. It is literally the biggest bacon roll I’ve ever seen.
Hooch’s grave in Corrigin Dog Cemetery.
The night before we’d watched the movie “The Dry” staring Eric Bana. Although we’ve not had a drought the drive out to Corrigin reminded me very much of the movie. I love driving through the Wheatbelt – you get the feeling that the roads could go on forever and the movie very much captured that feeling. If you’ve never seen the movie give it a watch as I thought it was very good.
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