[Klaus]

The credibility and manufacturer independence of a magazine can simply be correlated with their rating system.

The more 4* and 5* ratings they publish the less reliable they are. At the end of the day it is as simple as that.

Another highly suspicious thing are reviews that are published straight after the embargo has been lifted which just shows that you are part of the marketing circus more than everything else. There's an inherent problem here because the press "sells the news". Yesterday's news is not news anymore and less readers will read your stuff.

 

I haven't bothered to check the print magazine landscape for years but back in the days this meant that 90% of them were not even worth the paper they were printed on. Just to mention the very obvious - if you receive lenses from a manufacturer your contacts are in marketing. Now what does that tell you already? For starters - marketing owns the ad budget.

 

To be honest with you - we are losing lots of revenue because we are not taking part in all this. If we did PZ full time we would probably have to simply out of necessity - shielding your bottom line. And fortunately we "don't have to feed a growing family". ;-)

[Klaus]

And again - please don't escalate the discussions.

[Klaus]

I am surprised by your comments and have to disagree. With the A7s you mentioned, the ability to focus accurately in low light is unprecedented. AF works down to quite low levels and after that accurate MF is possible in levels where you can barely see with the naked eye. Compared to any DSLR i tried, the accuracy of AF and MF is much better - especially with fast primes in low light. DSLR make too many focus errors with fast lenses in low light. There is an issue with speed which can be slower than DSLRs (particularly in AFC) but the accuracy and light level operating window is much better

 

The problem is that fine spot AF (which I am using all the time) is lost in very low light. In this case the camera is expanding the AF field to look at the "grand picture".

 

That is not really surprising - the sensor noise is very high in such a situation and this has impacts. The same is true for DSLRs but the AF photodiodes are MUCH bigger thus not quite as prone to noise.

 

I haven't used the A7S (II) - it's probably much better than on the A7R II - but I still doubt that it goes down to DSLR levels here based on spot AF. Feel free to correct me though.

 

As mentioned we would have to define what "low light" means. I am talking about -say- 10 candles in the living room here and focusing on a person with fine spot AF.

[Guest]

  :lol: Foto Magazin as a reference?

Desperate measures in desperate times   

[Brightcolours]

Fot Magazin rates Nikon and Sony cameras traditionally very high, so if one want sto talk about bias... there you go. And then there is the fact that Sony and Nikon are their biggest advertisers. 

 

Just writing nonsense about them without actually knowing the magazin well is just showing bias too. In the issue I mentioned, who has the top spot in the ads? Sony, on the back page. "Kodak" on the inside sleeve back page, Tamron on the front sleeve inside  page. 

 

Foto Magazin is the only print publication I have come across which does such investigative tests periodically, sometimes with AF tracking tests and in this particular issue AF accuracy. No one here apparently has read the test and seen its results, yet some are bound to discredit the publication and the test results. Talk about bias. I can tell you that the test seems to be very methodical and thorough, with graphs of the test results and detailing what all they have taken into account (lens "Wirkungsgrad" wide open, direction of the AF start, bright daylight and low inside light conditions, 15 shots per AF type/light condition run.

The resulting graphs speak for themselves.

[davidmanze]

Aber alless en Deuchhausen! nich comprendre hausen!

[JJ_SO]

C'est pas pour comprendre, dave, c'est la reference à la realité, la vérité et la 42.

 

^_^

[thxbb12]

What, you peasants didn't know Foto Magazin is THE reference for AF accuracy reviews in the whole galaxy? ;-)

[davidmanze]

Oh mon dieu, on est maintenant quand même les paysans,  les peu chers des DSLRs......., Bonne  mère,  bonne mére..........

 

 

    Alors ça, vivre les quarante deux, mon pote! 

[Brightcolours]

Aber alless en Deuchhausen! nich comprendre hausen!

Growing up with german police series on TV like Unser Alte and Derrick taught me some german at a young age. Later reading german magazines (which are/were of much higher quality than american/english/dutch publications) about photography, computers (ST-magazin among others) and cars taught me to read german well.