A7S + Sony Lens with REPEATABLE FOCUS?

C

Copperplate

Active member
Hello all,

I've been considering the A7S + Metabones Speedbooster Mark IV or Commlite CM-EF-NEX adaptor, however, it just seems like a big hassle with losing speedy autofocus, and the somewhat finicky compatiblity/boot up issues. I was wondering how the AF handles on the A7S with the Sony LA-EA4 adaptor, and if there's any A-Mount or E-Mount lenses that have great autofocus and are also capable of repeatable focus pulls (the travel of the focus ring doesn't change based on how slow you turn it).

Thanks so much for your time and any advice!

~Adam
 
Hmm... I just noticed the Sigma 18-35 f1.8 zoom comes in A-mount, but that would mean only using the camera in APSC crop mode.

EDIT: Also the Sigma 24-105 F4 and the Sigma 50mm f1.4 ART are full frame. Not sure if that 24-105 has repeatable focus/hard stops like the 50mm ART, though.
 
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It's too bad that many manufacturers remove the image stabilisation on their A-Mount version.
If they didn't, the LAEA4 adapter would be a great choice. Now you have to choose Metabones and IS or LAEA and auto focus.

Ive found that on many quick and dirty jobs, auto focus is invaluable. As is image stabilisation. Which pretty much only leave native e-mount lenses.
 
dmitrizigany said:
It's too bad that many manufacturers remove the image stabilisation on their A-Mount version.
If they didn't, the LAEA4 adapter would be a great choice. Now you have to choose Metabones and IS or LAEA and auto focus.

Ive found that on many quick and dirty jobs, auto focus is invaluable. As is image stabilisation. Which pretty much only leave native e-mount lenses.
Click to expand...

Thank you dmitrizigany for your insights. Yes, I noticed nice lenses like the Tamron 24 - 70 f2.8 VC does not have the "VC" on Alpha mount! That's quite annoying. However, some lenses don't have IS to begin with, so it's not such a big deal. Do you know if this quote from the LA-EA4 adaptor means you can't use your lenses with ANY type of AF (even one-touch AF) if your lens is set wider than f/3.5 or if only the TTL continuous AF is disabled above f/3.5? "For video, aperture is fixed at the maximum f/stop of the lens or at f/3.5, whichever is lower."

If however, you can only shoot at f/3.5 in video mode no matter what, that would be terrible. Any insights on this would be appreciated.

Thanks very much again for your time.
 
that lens certainly is quite nice.
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Yes it is nice , but heavy .
I do not know how laea4 works , but I have laea2 (with fs100)and I like to use for tracking object , but when you try to use it real world , I hate it . Autofocus jump from one object to another , this looks terrible . I much more prefer native e mount lens where transition is smooth .
For 7s there is a few very interesting native lens 16-35 f4 , 24-70 f4 , 70-200 f4 , all of them with OSS . I wonder how autofocus works with 7s .
 
For my limited tests with the 35 and 50mm apsc e-mount lenses, autofocus works pretty well on the A7s.

For me, I'm intending to keep buying e-mount lenses for these quick jobs and handheld stuff. Then Samyang cine lenses for use in more controlled situations.

Down the road I guess I'll add a Metabones or similar adapter as well...
 
Thank you Tom1 and Dmitrizigany for your insights on this. I certainly wouldn't want to trade repeatable manual focus pulls for good AF, unless I wanted a lens only for photography. For me personally, I think I'll settle for IS on a lens like the Tamron 24-70 f2.8 VC and the Metabones Mark IV or Commlite.
 
Cause the focus is software controlled / fly-by-wire, I wonder how hard it would be for Sony to offer a menu option so you could set the focus control from "normal" to "proportional"? The only e-mount lens I've used that seemed to be as close to repeatable as fly-by-wire is going to offer was the (original) 50mm SEL50F18.
 
Thank you, Alex, for your input. Does anyone know if the SONY FE 55MM F1.8 ZA SONNAR T* LENS also suffers from a non-linear focus design?
 
I've been trying to figure this out for some time. The 24-70 f4 OSS is so nice for video in every way excluding the focus ring. The OSS is insanely good and it has the nice Zeiss colours that I love for video.

It's currently my 90% lens but I have to use auto focus for almost every shot. When I throw on my Canon 35mm f2 IS the focus ring is just perfect. Single shot autofocus also kindve works but it's not nearly as reliable.

In terms of workhorse video lenses, i'll end up either keeping the 24-70 f4 OSS and living with the focus ring, grabbing a Canon 24-105mm and doing without reliable autofocus or splurging on the Sony 28-135mm and dealing with the size and weight but having the OSS and good autofocus options.

Or Sony could just release a firmware update and make the focus ring non linear...
 
I'm also pissed about the focus. I'm selling my Canon 24-70 f2.8 since it's too big and heavy for the a7s and the AF just doesn't work (I'm getting more into photography again after a detour with the BMCC) But it shouldn't be too hard to fix with firmware to at least have the choice of how you want it, why not both? If they could add a linear curve via firmware that means we can have a full 360 degree rotation! So long lenses with only 90 degree focus throw!

But I would also like to see an 24-105 in the same format, or the 28-135 in a smaller package. 70mm is a little to limiting sometimes in a full frame.
 
Metabones, relatively recently, came out with the Speedbooster Ultra for EF to NEX. Supposedly much quicker in AF, but I haven't really seen many reviews of it.
 
Thank you, Draculr for answering my question and providing your input! And thank you Hempo22 for also providing your thoughts on this issue.
 
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