Tag Archive for: review

Sony A7RIII first quick look

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I love new gear….
I’m always looking forward to testing new hard and software, but I also always have high expectations. And let’s be honest nobody wants to wait 4 years for just a small bump in specs and speed right?

 

I have to add to this review that I only got the camera for 2 days to test. My own version will follow as soon as possible I hope but this review is based on those two days. I try to be as detailed as possible but more will follow.

 

One of the main complaints about Sony is always that they upgrade their cameras so incredibly fast… well I agree to disagree. Sony is indeed upgrading their line up almost constantly but I don’t see this as a bad thing. They have a lot of cameras and often even keep the older models available, so people can actually choose. The cool thing about this is that whenever you need or want a new camera there always is something new for you, instead of having to wait at least another year for the refresh cycle (which than can dissapoint). And that’s the other thing…

Sony NEVER dissapointed me with upgrades.
When I switched from the A7RI to the A7RII I was blown away by the sheer amount of extra features, improvements etc. Now I some time ago claimed that the A7RII is actually almost the perfect studio camera and in all honesty I wouldn’t see any reason to get a new one, ever…. do I still stand behind that….. Well Yes and no. There was one thing that annoyed the HECK out of me with the A7RII, to I point I really thought that Sony wasn’t thinking straight.

 

Wireless tethering is AWESOME
I love shooting tethered and do it as soon as I have the option. When I shoot in the studio I’m always connected with a Tethertools cable, RAW files are transported very fast and it’s a great tool for both me as the client or group of students. I love tethering.

But sometimes on location it’s very tedious to always beware of cables, cables get dirty or damaged and …. well it can be really limiting when you move around a lot. There are of course many solutions for shooting wirelessly but most of these don’t work on Sony, and the ones I did try all failed in one or more departments making them unreliable in the field or even unusable.

For good wireless tethering you need a HUGE bandwith to transport RAW files, and because we don’t have that a perfect wireless solution should be able to keep the RAWs on the card and shoot the smallest possible JPGs to the display, and preferable that should be a tablet or smartphone. As it happens to be Sony has that perfect solution already inside, it’s called “smart remote” and it rocks…… but on the A7RII it didn’t….. well ok it worked, but as soon as it was active the EVF didn’t work anymore, you could only shoot via the LCD, not a real deal breaker but not my cup of tea if I’m forced, I just love shooting through the viewfinder.

This was actually the first thing I tested on the new A7RIII and I can say….. ladies and gentlemen it works and it works like a charm, just like the A9 it’s now not a seperate app but it’s intergrated into the menu and you can even shoot with FTP access….. now we are talking Sony this is awesome.  The app that makes it all work on you smartdevice is called “Playmemories home” and is a very handy app that will actually let you control the camera also from a distance, so it doubles as a shoot and show tethering solution plus an external monitor and remote….. it’s actually incredibly cool.

 

The megapixels
The new A7RIII didn’t get a big bump in megapixels that some actually thought, and in all honesty I’m not dissapointed with that. I much rather have Sony invest in more dynamic range and less noise than in bumping up the megapixels because it looks cool. But they did add something else, that might tickle your “I love MP” bones….

 

Pixelshift
A new option in the A7RIII is shooting not 1 but 4 42MP images. You need Sony software to “stack” these and the result is more detail, less moire etc. One could say it’s still a 42MP image but with way more detail…. I still have to dive into this feature in all honesty, but I’ll do that as soon as I have my own camera. It does promise to be an amazing tool for still live and reproduction work.

 

Autofocus
The A9 was a beast compared to the A7RII, but in all honesty I never really had complaints about the AF on the A7RII, but I’m more a studio shooter than anything else, in fact the A7RII focussed in the dark studio with backlighting MUCH better than most Canon and Nikons. So it wasn’t one of the first things I tested with the new camera, but I immediately noticed a huge difference. The A7RIII is lighting fast. I took the camera with me during yesterdays Phottix Pro tour and focussed WITHOUT ANY Problem in a pretty dark studio with small flash, in all honestly I didn’t even notice it was dark in that area untill the students started shooting and asked me to get some light in because the camera couldn’t focus, that was pretty impressive because the A7RIII focussed noticably faster in the dark than the A7RII in the light…. pretty impressive stuff again.

Shooting in burst
Now this got me all excited.
Besides shooting models I LOVE shooting sports, birds and street stuff. Auto focus helps but most of all I love a good big buffer and loads of frames per second. I don’t need it in most cases, but it can come in pretty handy. Shooting high resolution always meant that you would handicap your frames per second and buffer, but somehow Sony broke that barrier… are you sitting down…..???

10 Frames a second….. Yep 10 FRAMES a second
With intelligent continues AF (most other cameras don’t have continues AF during bursts)
And a HUGE buffer, in fact the first time I tested it I just stopped and saw my buffer clearing very fast with 50-60 frames, I was flabbergasted… I saw this on the A9 but now even on the A7RIII WOW WOW WOW, sports guys will LOVE this. And for the very simple reason not only that it’s fast with a huge buffer but most of all because there is no mirror black out, in other words it looks like you’re filming, you can frame your subject and keep it where you want it.

 

Image stabilization
The IS in Sony already was pretty impressive but the new A7RIII claims to go from 4.5 to 5.5 stops…. in all honesty it looks pretty darn impressive but I couldn’t say if it was a full stop, I did film some vlog style video and it was rock solid, where the A7RII would just show a little but of movement.

 

Dynamic range
Same thing here, Sony claims another stop of dynamic range, and I believe them.
We shot some images during the workshop yesterday with available light and indeed the high-iso images (64000) looked a bit cleaner than on the A7RII but I didn’t shoot them next to other, but I know the quality by heart. I couldn’t say if it was 1 or 2 stops cleaner but it DEFINETLY was sharper and a bit cleaner.

 

Video
I love to also do video and the A7RIII is a big step up again from the A7RII
Of course you have audio in and out (for headphones).
And FINALLY the record button is now placed a bit more handy, not the small button burried in the side, but it’s now nicely located close to the viewfinder.
The video is now supposed to be a 5K video that is down converted to 4K (just like the A9) which gives you much better performance and less rolling shutter, again… in the short amount of time that I tested the camera with some video this seems to be 100% true, video is very solid and has DEFINTELY less rolling shutter than the A7RII or D6500 (which is pretty bad in this department).

Autofocus and face tracking always was good with the Sony and the A7RIII didn’t miss a beat.

You now also have S-Log3 included for 14 steps of dynamic range for better color grading and pushing and pulling the pixels in post, plus a HLG for “instant” HDR workflow. Still have to test all of this when I get my own A7RIII, 2 days is just WAY too short, but I did want to mention it.

Battery
Sony has bad batteries…..
It eats batteries….
Yeah we all heard it.
In all honesty it never really bothered me, I always use a grip and have 2 batteries in there and 2 extra in my bag, it actually happened maybe once or twice that I emptied all four, most of the time I come home with one empty battery and one half empty.

But don’t worry, the new A7RIII has new batteries and these babies go on for a LONG time.
I charged them when the camera arrived and did 2 workshops with them (where they did charge a little bit over USB) and did a whole vlog video with it and the batteries are still at 70%, this would have emptied my A7RII battery without a doubt, so this is very impressive and good.

USB-C
Oh my, USB.
Don’t even start me with this.
I HATE those little USB connectors and never understood why there was no locking mechanisme, so that’s why we use the Tetherblock (www.frankdoorhof.com/store) or jerkstoppers on most cameras. Luckily Sony understands this and with the A7RII and now also the A7RIII it delivers a ROCK SOLID Tethering solution, which in my opinion is more than suitable for tethering but less for use with HDMI or monitors. I do have to add that on the A7RII I loved the connection but on the A7RIII it seems like the designers added it later on and were puzzled on how the heck make it work, they did find a solution but it’s not as elegant as on the A7RII, but hey it works and it works great.

Ok anyway.
You now have the old small fragile USB connector, but Sony also added USB-C, very smart because for tethering Tethertools only starts delivering USB-c cables start of 2018, so for now we can still use the old cables and than switch to USB-C.

Two cards
Loads of people wanted it, and now it’s here.
The A7RIII now has 2 card slots, you can use SD or Memorycards from Sony which are now all capable of VERY fast data transports.
In the menu you can set both cards up to store RAWs or JPEGs or combine it and much more, it’s pretty impressive what kind of options you get.

 

Displays
Both the EVF and LCD have been upgraded, the LCD now also touch options for for example focus, which is pretty handy of course. In comparision to the A7RII you can see the upgrades, especially the EVF seems more responsive and smoother.

 

Conclusion for now
The list of improvements is HUGE and I only touched the tip of the iceberg, but as mentioned at the start I only got the camera for two days.

The A7RII is a studio photographers dream, it does everything very well and is an incredible machine.
The A7RIII is a studio photographers wetdream, it excells over the A7RII and is a beast outside with incredible speed on AF a HUGE buffer and a fricking 10 fps RAW burst (it’s insane)

Should you buy one?
If you already own an A7RII it’s a huge step up for auto focus and framerate.
If you also do video I would say, RUN TO THE STORE AND GET ONE.
If you shoot still lives…. same thing

If you just shoot for a hobby and love your A7RII keep it for now and testdrive an A7RIII.
It REALLY is a HUGE improvement, but the A7RII is already a dreammachine, in essence it’s all about YOU the photographer and not the gear, but that said…. man this is a beast of a camera and I loved every second I had my hands on it, and I will definitely upgrade, but I will add the grip because for my hands…. the A series is just a tad too small.

HIGHLY HIGHLY recommend this camera. And I’m not saying this because I shoot Sony. It really is a marvel of modern technology.

 

 

Some images I shot with the A7RIII
Again more will follow as soon as I have the camera a bit longer.

 


 

 

 

 

iPhone x

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Ok so the iPhone x has been released what are your thoughts? Let me share mine.

I’ve been critical to Apple ever since the mbp. Since than my Apple Watch has been switched and even my Macpro and iPad are replaced. The reasons….. very simple.

Where Apple always was first and best it’s now the best in build quality and probably experience but it’s running behind on things that are already available with the competition.

So what are my thoughts.

Don’t worry this will be short.

Love love the iPhone x

Let’s be honest it’s gorgeous it’s amazing and incredible, almost magical (like Apple said) the design is really nice and I like the new camera options although in all honesty you can do the same very quickly in Lightroom mobile or other apps.

Love the depth effect on the front camera

Love wireless charging, although I don’t see me doing this at home. But at Starbucks, airports etc it’s very handy

Face recognition is WOW and I mean WOW. Awesome and magical.

And that’s about it.

I don’t care about animojis. Yeah it’s fun and I would love to use it for fun.

Now in all honesty I was almost planning on not switching to the Samsung note 8. I’m still a bit terrified to do it because I only had ios smart phones. But my experiences with the Samsung tab s2 has been nothing less than good and very positive.

So what did me change my mind…..

Something I never expected to say, the design of Apple iPhone x has a MAJOR flaw and I can’t believe that they did this.

We have all seen the mock ups with the top part where all the cameras are housed. My expectations were that when you watch a video or look at a photo that this part would be totally black. To my horror it isn’t. At first annewiek told me that that would be something I could get used to…… heck no. Never. It’s like a dust particle under my protector. My eyes just drift towards that gaping gap where video or photos are supposed to be…… it’s not the way I would expect a end design team to work. I’m actually quite shocked.

So what next

I’ve been waiting for a new phone because I wanted to do more with video on the phone and IS on the tele is very welcome plus external audio. The note 8 caught my attention to the very bright screen (1200 nits vs 750) which is awesome when flying my drone in the sun. Als the Samsung supports external mics

I love the depth effect but also want raw support and of course being able to alter the effect after taking the shot. Samsung offers this including the option to take both wide and tele shots and altering the effects afterwards.

AR looked awesome but in reality I will never use it. I’m just not a gamer. I shoot and edit photos and video, I consume media, do mail and social media and I love the idea of the spen for video editing. (Love iMovie but with your fingers on the iPhone 7plus was not really handy. With the iPad Pro it’s awesome).

So……

After many many years of Apple iPhones which I absolutely loved it’s now time to say farewell to my beloved iPhone series. And even when you take out the idea of the gap the pricing Is just insane. 999.00 will be 1159 euros in the Netherlands which means the 256gb will probably be 1350. The note 8 retails for 999 plus a free dex station valued at 159.00. Saves me a lot of money.

What will I spend that money on…..

On the Apple TV 😉

Finally 4k and hdr and with Apple TV you know for sure that Netflix and youtube will be supported plus I found a good working remote on android 😉

So what are your ideas?

Don’t get me wrong. I still love the whole Apple feel and mood. And will probably always be an Apple fanboy. Only now without Apple products.

Man it feels weird.

One more thing….

4k 60fps is superb but my other video material is all 4k 25fps so I have to integrate it into that timeline. Also 1080p 240fps is great but I hardly use it for “real” material. But hey that’s me. Your opinion might be totally different.

Note 8 after a minute hands on review, Android from an Apple Fanboy’s perspective….

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images from internet

 

It’s an exciting time for many of us… well I know it’s for me.
Finally after years of delivering great phones but sticking to a “standard” design, Apple is releasing the iPhone 8 and just a few days ago Samsung released the Note8. Now a few years ago I couldn’t really care less about what Samsung, LG, Google or whatever was doing… well let me say it differently, I loved seeing it but I was just curious, but things change.

If you have been following my social media stream you know that I switched from YEARS on MacOs to Windows in December last year for our studio PC, replacing a MacPro for a killer desktop PC (well it doesn’t really fit my desk but you know what I mean), after the “normal” problems when you switch OS-es it’s been a very smooth sail to be honest, the PC is blazzingly fast and cuts through 4K multicam video like it’s nothing, and rendering times….. well Adobe listen FIX this… FCPx is much faster with rendering, but luckily we also have Resolve which is also very fast, but for now I still edit on premiere…. well ok it’s not about this, but it’s important to know a little bit of background.

The reason I switched my desktop was due to the release of the new MBP, bare with me.
My laptop is what I use daily, most of my videos are edited and recorded on the laptop, it’s with me when I travel, one could say my laptop does 90% of the work, where the desktop does 10, so switching my desktop was a no risk endeaver. So I decided to try it with that. I liked it so much I actually a few months later switched from my MBP (the good “old” 15″ with cardreader, large battery and HDMI) to the Dell XPS15 and I all honesty I never looked back, I LOVE that laptop, it rocks.

Next up was the Apple Watch.
LOVED it, LOVED it, but I’m someone that does love to track my workouts and steps, sleep, food etc. and the Apple watch, in all honesty… well it just lacked A LOT, it did promise a lot, but we ended up with in my personal opinion a great watch for casual use, fun to track your steps (fill the circles) and very very good for social media and notifications. What Apple promised (loads of health options) didn’t come, so I didn’t even upgrade to the series 2, I didn’t even feel the urge (which as a gadget lover is really weird). Enter the Garmin Vivoactive HR, which I fell in love with within a few days…. yeah the display SUCKS compared to the Apple Watch, the notifactions are….”ok” but the dashboard for workouts, sleep and food are stunning, this is what a watch should do (if you use it like me), it even counts my strokes while rowing, it syncs up with my heartbelt, it syncs with my cadance meter, and it even is able to beam the heartrate to my bike computer (Garmin Edge 820). Awesome combination.

Next up…….
Well I never expected that I would switch phones.
Let me make one thing 100% clear, I’m not against Apple, heck I love the company, I think it’s one of the most innovative companies on tech out there (or was), I love the brand, I love the build quality, but most of all the intergration and ease of use and stability. Of course it changed a bit over time, I do have an iPhone that SOMETIMES crashes, my Apple watch sometimes stopped counting steps, my Apple TV’s remote control via the iPhone is less accurate than a few years ago, but overall I must say that I maybe have 1% problems and 99% smooth sailing. And with smooth I mean… everything is smooth (and this is important to remember for later).

Friends often showed me their androids and claimed that their CPUs were SO MUCH faster than my overpriced piece of junk iPhone… well when I scrolled through images, showed them 4K video and zoomed in images it always was smoother than their so much faster phones and tablets. So I’m more than happy with my iPhone, which indeed is a bit higher priced. But I’m more than willing to pay that premium. I also owned almost every iPad including the Pro, but maybe that’s actually where the dissapointment started, the iPad pro is awesome don’t get me wrong, the Apple pencil is pure magic. When you draw I can’t think of a better mobile device. But the promise of a professional photography and video editing solution on the go…. well as with much with Apple the last few years…. it just didn’t happen… is this Adobe’s fault? is it Apple’s fault? I don’t know and I don’t care. I bough a very expensive iPad PRO and I hoped and expected to be able to do more with it than consume media on a big tablet. In fact the iPad pro is so big that when I fly I sometimes regretted buying it because it simple was uncomfortable to use and I was afraid it would break in the bags in the chairs. No I’m not saying it’s a bad device, I was too fast with buying it, knowing what I know now… I would have stayed with the iPad air.

Ok so now to the case at hand.
Android…..
When the iPhone 8 rumours started I was very enthiousiastic. I work hours on my phone every single day, I take photos and video with it, do social media, even type blogposts on it (not these kinds but the shorter ones), I use it…… well for almost everything, my phone and I are BFF (just kidding but not really). So when a new one is released I love to upgrade, I just love trying new things and there is always something that triggers me (mostly the cameras). Over the years the road upwards with the iPhones has been a steady one, the prices have gone up considerably, but well…. I use it constantly so I’m willing to pay it.

When the price speculation of the iPhone 8 started with 1100.00 for the stepin and probably 1500.00 for the 128GB version (I try to get the 128) I had to swallow a big lump, remember dollar prices are often multiplied with 25% over here with iPhones. (taxes and some other things), that’s A LOT of money, but the alternative……. leaving the Apple Eco system….. no… and than it actually hit me (pretty hard), over the last 6 months the only things left were my airports (Apple stopped making them… WHY) and my AppleTV…. so what Eco system?

So I slowly started looking at alternatives for (dare I say it) my iPhone.
Now I actually did the same “trick” as with my PC’s.
I ordered a Samsung Galaxy Tab S2 tablet, a 9.7″ android tablet (I have to say that it’s very light and nicely build, love the less smooth back), not the newest but because every manufactorer uses a different “look” for Android and my main attention was aimed at Samsung (at that time the 8+, the only thing I didn’t like was the single camera, I use the second one A LOT). When the Note 8 rumors started with dual cameras I knew it for sure…. this would be the battle… the Note 8 vs the iPhone 8, also seeing the Note 8 is released in shops just a few days after the announcement of the iPhone 8 makes this almost too much of a coincendence. Wait what Apple announces and than switch (or not).

So let’s take a look at my opinion at the moment on Android.
A few years ago I got an Android phone for a few weeks and absolutely hated it, I loved the idea of new tech but Android crashed on me, there were weird behaviours of the phone, cutting and pasting was a dissaster and…, well overall it just wasn’t nowhere near iOS. But things have changed.

The Samsung tablet runs Android 7 and my opinion is based on this vs the current iOS10.

Look and feel
In all honestly there is not much difference.
iOS over the years have become relatively cluttered with settings that aren’t that easy to find anymore than in the time of iPhone 3/4 but it’s more than doable. At first the Android was a bit overwhelming but after a few hours I have to be honest I found everything relatively fast. The look…. well let me put it this way, they looked VERY closely to iOS.

 

Handling
As an Apple user you get used to certain things. Things that “we” take for granted which you find out later are not that normal on other systems. Take for example the touchpad. According to most the Dell and Surface pro touchpads are the best PC touchpads… well that might be the case but compared to the MacBooks they are pretty standard. I still love it when I’m behind a mac and use the touchpad, on the other hand I’m now 100% used to the mouse again and with the new Logitec mouse I’m more than happy and very accurate.

What strikes me however is how confusing android can be.
For example swiping in a browser, how easy is that…. well not on chrome… you have to go to the top and use the backbutton… WHY… well because if you swipe from the side you actually open settings… well …. change that?

Also going back from an app brings you back out of the folder…
Ok let me explain
I love to have my apps in folders, but I have a folder Social media that contains all the social media apps which I open one by one to check and reply. On iOs hitting the home button brings me back to the active folder, pretty cool so I can go to the next app, home repeat. With Android I’m brough back to the complete page, so I have to open the folder again and click the next app. You can of course use the back button but that will go through all the steps I did…. a minor thing but pretty annoying.

The other thing is that VERY often I’m in an app and literaly stuck on a page, there is no way back or forward. Well not in the screen, use that backbutton again. Now this is actually something I’m now used to but on iOs you’re always swipe away from rescue.

What I do like A LOT is the close all option.
We often have many apps open and this can slow down a device (although some claim it can’t) and with iOS you have to swipe them all away one by one (or three by three if you get your fingers right), on Android there is a cool “close all” option.

What I also like A LOT are the small widgets you can place and resize on pages, I never thought I would them that much to be honest but now when I look at my iPhone I go like “mmmm it would be nice”. Which by the way also brings me to another point. The interface itself and the pages look a bit “cluttered” although that’s not the correct term probably, let me put it this way, iOS looks much cleaner and organized with the bottom meny much more clearer away from the screen than on Android, the bottom part is too much a part of the page for my taste…. but without a doubt also my personal thing 😀

What I do have to get used to are in fact the three buttons, home, open apps and return, often by accident I hit one of those buttons when I want to do something else. But in all fairness it’s getting better.

 

Apps
This is of course where it all boils down to.
I can say that for everything that I need I found an App.
Of course the app store from Apple is better filled and the quality is better (I already installed some real junk on my tablet which would have never cleared the Apple app store I’m afraid) but when you keep to the big names and 4-5 stars rated apps it’s pretty much the same.
The only app I’m missing is capture pilot but we can also use that via the webbrowser so no big deal.

 

Stability
This is a difference in all fairness.
My tablets Chrome browser was at one point absolutely unusable, it wouldn’t even open 90% of the time and when it did it crashed within seconds. I booted the tablet in safe mode and purged the cash and ever since it’s been rock solid, but it shouldn’t happen, on the other hand I also had some problems with apps on my iPad in the past and also had to reboot that with a hard boot, the hardboot in iOS is however less intimidating, you just reboot, with Android it feels like you’re rebooting a PC in safe mode… not a thing when you’re not afraid of tech but I can imagine some people would be totally put off by this, but again it only happened once (in all fairness I’ve owned the tablet for a week and it happened on day 1).

Also the Samsung seems to lag sometimes, play a game like candy crush (yeah sorry I like it) and you can see that some animations are smooth but not smooth… I know it sounds weird, it’s like they have to ramp up, it’s not that the tablet doesn’t have the CPU power because it handles more complicated animations easy but it’s always at the start of an animation that it just “stutters” a bit. Not something I every experienced on iOS.

Overall Android feels more fragile to me.
I know this is a very vague term, I have the same with Windows by the way. It’s absolutely not grounded in experience of crashes but somehow MacOs and iOS feel Rock Solid, like whatever happens it will recover, don’t worry where with Android and Windows I’m always afraid of “oh no… here we go” only that last part actually never happens. So take it for what it is… maybe I grow over it, I have with Windows, which I now trust almost as much as MacOs with what I do (no games, just Creative cloud, Resolve and some other programs).

 

Apps part II
And this is a biggy.
As a vlogger and content creator I’m always working on ideas and things I want to do and share.
I shoot with Sony cameras and if I want to “beam” a picture from my camera to my phone or iPad that’s easy, but not as easy as it could be. Make connection to the wifi of the camera, start the software, copy files… sounds easy (and it is), in reality however since iOS10 I have to input a new password EVERY single time, trust me this becomes very frustrating at one point. On Android the story is different. Just click the two together and voila there is a connection… it’s beyond believe for me that Apple doesn’t allow this over their NFC system, it makes my life so much easier.

Another thing that struck me was our dreambox (sat receiver).
On iOS I have tried several apps and all could mimic a remote control but finally I ended up with one where I could select the bouquet, zap and see the EPG, pretty cool stuff. On Android I want something similar, the first few I tried were terrible but than I found one that blew me away, not only does the remote work, not only can I see the bouquets, but… I can also stream in full HD to my tablet and watch television. On iOS I had a similar solution but it never really worked flawlessly unless I used VLC player or a seperate app.

 

Access
I’m not an iTunes hater.
I’m not an iTunes lover.
I like the fact that we have one allround solution for music, podcasts etc. but I never liked the way that MacOs handles my filmroll for example, I always used preview to empty my filmroll or Lightroom. With Windows it already surprised me that I could just connect my iOS device and it would show up like a DCIM folder and I can copy all my images and video like from an external drive.

I also love to read digital comics and watch series when travelling.
On iOS you can very easily use iTunes to drag and drop files into the apps that you want to use… but it’s a bit of a work arround, an easy one but… well you know what I mean. On Adroid you can just drop it in a folder and let the app look for it. In fact VLC and my comic reader actually didn’t even need instructions they both found all my files spread over internal and external memory and showed it in the library…. pretty cool stuff.

 

Connectivity and memory
With Apple you pay through your nose for extra memory, this is really ridiculous, but you don’t have a choice.
I did use a USB stick with lighting on one side and USB on the other when travelling with movies, but you needed to play the movies with the accompanied app… to make a long story short I never used it a lot because the app sucked and crashed a lot on me, plus I needed to take my case off because the stick was too wide (aargh).

On my tablet (and most Android devices I believe) you can just add a micro secure digital card and extend the internal memory that way, I use a 64GB card and that’s plenty of room for what I do on the tablet (tablet also has 32). On my phone I would probably just add 128. The cool thing however is also that without the need for apps or drivers you can just use STANDARD USB sticks on a short mirco USB to USB cable (or USB-C of course with the newer tablets/phones) and the software will just see it as…. well external storage. Meaning there is no more limit to what you can bring with you, just buy some 64GB sticks and switch.

 

Image quality
As mentioned before I bought the Tab S2, the newer one is the S3 but because for me this was a test I didn’t want to fork out the money for the S3 which is on part with an iPad. What strikes me however is the screen quality. It’s incredibly bright and it shows a really nice almost 3D image quality with high contrast, deep blacks and incredibly sharp images withouth ringing (making it artificial sharp), color is not accurate, but so isn’t the iPad pro (let alone the new screen technology apple is using), but for consuming media it’s ok to have more “favorable” colors, as long as I don’t have to edit on it and it’s just my tablet…. why not.

Note 8
This afternoon we visited a Media Market and to my surprise they had a sales version of the Note 8 on demo, no stock but a demo unit. this was my first experience with the Note 8, and what follows now is my HONEST opinion, don’t flame me, read it as MY opinion.

What strikes me is the sheer bloody brightness of the screen, this is one bright screen. I cannot imagine using that one on full power unless flying the drone in bright sunlight, and this was actually one of the things I had on my list of plusses for the Note 8 (very bright screen).

What also strikes me is the curved screen… I still don’t know if I’m a fan of the total lack of bezzles, where do you grab the phone without loosing some of the material that’s on the screen, how about protectors, how about….. well time will tell, but it does look gorgous.

Double camera.
I could play with it a little and I still think the interface from Apple is slightly better. I couldn’t find my way back for example to use the Tele or Wide setting after changing exposure, and as mentioned before I have this on several occasions with Android, it just isn’t logical, in the end I find my way back… but it could be easier. That said the preview focus effect is fricking awesome, also knowing you can do this later on really excites me, I love this effect and use it pretty much all the time (except when shooting RAW of course). Also the fact that you have the option to shoot the same scene on BOTH the tele and wide lens has great appeal to me, add to this that both cameras have image stabilisation and from what I could tell in the short time I had with the Note 8, the image stabilisation is INSANE…. and I mean INSANELY good.

 

Handling and the stylus
Unless you have been living under a rock you probably already read about the stylus, insane specs for just a pointing device, very nice specs for a drawing device. Will you draw on the screen? well I don’t know, maybe some doodles, but what I do like is the fact that you can use the stylus to write notes on the screen while the phone is OFF… yeah that is very handy. Taking the stylus out is pretty easy, but it’s an extra thing you have to do so unless you really want that stylus I think most of the time I’ll be just using my fingers. If you always find the need to doodle this will be one AWESOME device for you.

 

App connect
With the note 8 it’s now also possible to connect apps. Meaning you can for example run YouTube on top and surf the web underneath, a pretty cool trick but in all honesty I would rather use the floating youtube window for that, however mail and browser open can be pretty handy when you are making an quote for a client and you have to look stuff up and copy paste, this could be a tremendous time save.

 

Handling
The biggest screen on the market on a phone…. you would expect something HUGE.
But in all honestly it felt ok in my hands and I don’t have huge hands, it’s certainly not a phone you can operate with one hand but it’s MORE than doable and it doesn’t feel like much bigger than my iPhone 7 Plus. I do feel the Galaxy 8+ feels a bit more ergonomical due to the more rounded areas. Also the fingerprint scanner is a joke…. I’ve read about it but in real life it makes you wonder why the person who designed it on the Galaxy 8+ wasn’t fired before the Note 8 would be released… but it’s in the same ridiclous position. It’s something that you can get used to without a doubt… but was that really the only spot?

 

Quick conclusion
With a price point of just under 1000.00 the Note 8 is a VERY expensive phone.
You REALLY have to ask yourself do you NEED that second camera, do you NEED that stylus. Otherwise you can MUCH better get a Galaxy 8 plus, the screen is similar in size, it has a slightly larger battery and the ergonomics are slightly better. For me the deal breaker is actually that double camera so I would opt for the Note 8…. or the iPhone 8……

Of course some of you will say “why switch, what’s wrong with the 7Plus”
Well nothing really, except it frustates the heck out of me that I can’t get an external microphone to work anymore, which worked just fine on previous iPhones with headphone jacks and I really want that option back. And as mentioned before… I just love a new phone because I work on it so much.

At the moment the changes are 90% that I will go for the Note 8. Especially now that I’ve seen the phone and played with the camera a bit. Can Apple win me over… well yeah. Improve the camera over the Note 8 and I’m with Apple unless there is a price difference of 300.00 or more. And this is probably gonna be the thing. With the Note 8 I can keep adding memory if I need it for almost free. With iPhones I’m stuck. Also I love the look of the Note8 and Galaxy phones. Plus…… and maybe that’s also a big factor at the moment I feel like I’m losing my love for Apple. They keep raising prices and calling things pro that in my honest opinion are NOT pro. They introduced a touch bar that’s a joke, some people will love it but most people I talk to never use it anymore, but they changed FinalCutPro to be optimized for the touchbar, an option which at that time was only on ONE mbp and not on seperate keyboards. I more and more feel Apple is losing it’s way, and maybe the love is over…… or maybe the other side just makes devices that are a bit more thought out for functionality than design (although, again the note 8 and galaxy’s are gorgous).

We will have to wait till September 12th (I believe) but this will be keynote where I actually can’t be dissapointed anymore… my choice will probably be the Note 8, unless Apple blows me away…… and silently I hope they do……

 

First impressions Sony A9

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Ok I know some of you have been waiting for this so I decided to upload this quick review as fast as possible.
We actually just got the A9 in so these are my first impressions without shooting an image…. you might think “what the heck Frank… why?” but read on and you will find out very quickly why I wanted to do this.

 

Don’t get we wrong, I absolutely love my A7RII and I’m not planning on replacing that camera anytime soon, however…. there are some things about the A9 that will make it VERY VERY hard to give this camera back.

 

Wifi shooting
For years I’ve been telling Sony they had a real selling point for people like me that teach workshops, shoot in the field etc. in other words everyone that wants to see their images coming in for clients or attendees during workshops. Now there are solutions out there like EyeFi, CamRanger, Cam-Fi, Case-Air etc. but they are all external and in all honesty, on my Sony, I didn’t yet had ANY solution that worked like I hoped, broken connections, slow slow slow transfers, no options to just transfer RAWs and so on…

Sony’s own Play Memories is actually awesome, it blazingly fast transfers 2MP files (or full res) and it saves it on your phone/iPad or whatever device you connect. The problem…. you can only shoot looking at your LCD on the back, and although that’s not a REAL problem it’s pretty annoying, especially in bright sun, plus I love to shoot through the viewfinder.

But stop the presses……. SONY FIXED IT.
Now you don’t need an app in the camera anymore, just go to “smartphone control” and voila…. it works on the LCD and the viewfinder…. oh thank you Sony, this is a HUGE selling point in my opinion for everyone that loves to shoot tethered, because trust me this system works like a charm, most location workshops I’ve done in the last few months we actually used the wireless function and besides some issues we had with passwords (solved) it’s been rock solid.

 

Video recording
Of course you can still shoot 4K and 1-100fps special effects (slow-motion and super fast) but one of the HUGE frustrations of the previous generations is now also solved… you can now actually start the video straight from the shutter button instead of that little annoying hard to hit when vlogging button (I actually programmed my C2 button for start recording and always wondered why not the shutter)

 

The viewfinder
Sony is working with a so-called Electronic Viewfinder, this means that…. well in essence without making it more difficult than it is… you see what you get (or you can make it behave like an always bright enough viewfinder for in the studio). This is literally awesome and when you’re used to it going back is a drag and almost frustrating. The A9 has one of the most beautiful and biggest viewfinders I saw till now… one word is WOW, it’s like going from a big screen TV to the cinema…. love it.

 

The shutter
I think the A9 is missing a market if they DON’T advertise the camera for all those people that shoot on movie sets, classical concerts, churches, weddings etc…. let me put it this way…. do you need an SSSSSSILENT shutter? well, this is it. In fact, when I placed a card I wondered if my camera was actually shooting because there is no blackout during shooting but seeing the led for the writing to the card action made me realise I was shooting already. Now on the A7RII I also have a silent mode but this is very limited (but it is DEAD quiet, as in absolute zero sound unless you close your aperture and then you will hear a VERY VERY faint click which is actually the aperture closing and opening again)

 

Speed
OH MY…. this baby is fast.
Of course you’ve seen the adverts with xxx fps, but trust me it’s not just that, I tried some quick focus tests in a dark room and it’s spot on and tracks like crazy, also with a series of shot it seems the A9 just is very resistant to losing focus, it just keeps tracking the object (in a dark room) without any problem… wow. Sports and bird photographers will LOVE this.

Extra dials
Don’t want to dive into the menu to change something like Speed modes, Bracketing, timer, Focus modes etc?
No problem, the A9 now has a hardware dial just for that, and also for some other settings, I really like this a LOT because the less I have to dive into a menu the better.

Thinking about tethering
I HATE those little USB connectors, they are fragile, can come loose and if you don’t use the Tethertools jerkstoppers you’re facing a huge repair when something goes wrong. The A7RII already surprised me with an awesome on board “jerkstopper” although it doesn’t work for my HDMI cables…. but the A9 ups the ante just a “bit” more with support for….. yeah NETWORK cable. Yes, you read it correctly you can just plug in a network cable…

You might wonder.. well Frank why so happy with this?
Well this is a big thing, in essence, it would mean LONG LONG runs without any form of extra boosters, extension cables etc. just a plain network cable, setup and FTP on the computer side, run Capture One and you’re all set, another big AWESOME.

 

Dual card slots
For some people very important, but for me not really, but hey it’s there.

 

New menu
I for one did like the old menu, but I have absolutely no problem with the new menu, it reminds me a bit of a marriage between Canon’s menu and the old Sony menu, it’s indeed all somewhat easier to navigate but again for me it wasn’t necessary but I have, to be honest I adapt rather fast.

 

New batteries
Ok this one is pretty neat (and not)
The Sony’s do “eat” batteries, on the internet, it’s often HIGHLY exaggerated like you can’t shoot a day without running through 4 batteries…. yeah well some people don’t seem to like Sony :-)…. anyway on a NORMAL shooting day I would run through probably 1-2 batteries and seeing I’m using a grip it normally means I come home and have to charge… no big deal… now video is another story, for the Vlog I can just barely make the whole day and have on average 20-25% left which is not that bad but also a bit scary… on the other hand…, just bring fresh batteries (I don’t really see a problem with this). Anyway, Sony solved it with new batteries which are supposed to run a lot longer… well we will see during the coming week in the UK where I will be using the A9 A LOT.

 

Microphone and headphones
for video, it’s nice to also be able to monitor the audio and with the A7RII this is possible but not on the A6500 which is a shame, but the A9, of course, does have both.

 

New method for video sampling
One of the MAJOR problems with CMOS sensors is the readout.
Due to the fact the sensor is not read out at once you will often see an effect called ROLLING SHUTTER, pretty nasty when you’re not careful and hardly noticeable if you plan your shots, but the A9 got “rid” of this… well let me put it this way it HIGHLY suppresses the effect, don’t ask me how but I guess they read out this sensor at an INSANE speed because the effect is really a LOT less visible, and I don’t mean 10% less, no I really mean A LOT (still testing this).

 

What the…. 
The one thing I don’t understand about the A9 is the lack of video settings for Log etc.
It’s like Sony deliberately handicaps the A9 to not make it too good for video, in other words, you will probably see an A9s for video that does have the Log settings… I think this is a BAD decision, just skip the A9s and make the A9 the perfect all-round camera.

 

What the…. 2
SONY why not a flip up or flip side screen.
The vlogging market is growing and this is REALLY something that is handy. I’m using an external monitor but it’s a bit bulky, or I just wing it (which works pretty well as long as you use the same lenses) but Oh My a flip up screen would be SO welcome.

 

Conclusion
As mentioned we just have the A9 and I need to do A LOT more testing but so far… I can only say wow.
And I wonder why a lot of the reviewers missed some of these points which in my opinion are incredibly important. But hey everyone looks at it differently I guess.
More about the A9 this week (starting tomorrow) in our daily vlog in the UK with tips, review, workshops and loads more. Follow our YouTube channel at www.youtube.com/frankdoorhof for much more.

 

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