Brief Tech Q

Does anybody know what happens when you put a Zeiss 24mm ƒ/1.8 ZA on a Sony A7 II?

[UPDATE: And the answer, you get about 10 MP in crop sensor mode, or a heavily vignetted cut-off circular image in FF mode. Thanks, everyone...even the comedians.   :-D  ]

Mike

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Comments

[Cateto/Jose]

Yes, these guys at DSLR Magazine know:

http://www.dslrmagazine.com/pruebas/pruebas-tecnicas/leica-vs-zeiss-sobre-sony-a7r.html

In Spanish but I think the pictures will give you more than an idea.

[I think they're talking about the A7r, for one thing, and different lenses. --Mike]

[Kenneth Tanaka]

Yes. The A7 II detects the E-mount lens and self-crops the active sensor area to APS-C. You get the same frame size as you would with, say the NEX 7, albeit from the better sensor of the A7 II. You also get a much smaller file size. And yes, the EXIF data reflects the full information on the lens.

The A7's ability to use E-mount lenses to capture excellent smaller files is a terrific, and rather unique, secret feature of these cameras.

[Thanks Ken. Do you know what the file size of the crop mode on the A7 II is? Maybe I can go find that.... --Mike]

[Douglas Frois]

I don't have the camera or the lens to test. But based on previous research I suppose you can use the camera in crop mode. You can also use it in full frame mode, obtaining an image with very dark borders, like this one:

http://www.cameralabs.com/reviews/Sony_Alpha_A7r/images/GordonVignette_a7R_640.jpg

The photo was made with the zeiss 24mm and the A7r. I bet you can crop it to a square using the full image height.

[Moose]

Pictures?

But you have to push a button.

Well, OK, round pictures, like this.

[Chuck Albertson]

Time stops, because you've reached the edge of the known universe.

[Dave Stewart]

Possibly the same as the first Sony A7, as DPReview illustrate on the first page of their review, in the Lenses section:
http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/sony-alpha-a7

[Right, I saw that, but they don't tell you what the resolution is in crop mode.... --MJ]

[brian]

"Does anybody know what happens when you put a Zeiss 24mm ƒ/1.8 ZA on a Sony A7 II?"

Yes. It makes you at least briefly reconsider a one camera/one lens plan with the X-T1.

[John Sparks]

dpreview says about the APS-C mode of the A7:

Whether camera automatically reduces the resolution to 10M when an APS-C lens is attached. The 'on' setting crops the image regardless of the lens. You can also turn off the crop feature, if you don't mind a lot of vignetting.

[Jim Bullard]

Your wallet implodes?

[Kenneth Tanaka]

[Thanks Ken. Do you know what the file size of the crop mode on the A7 II is? Maybe I can go find that.... --Mike]

Mine produces a RAW image file of approximately 11-12 Mb, Mike. The normal FE-mount file is 24-25 Mb.

[Romano Giannetti]

I think the crop mode is 10Mpixels. There are some shots here: http://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/54932078

[Christer Almqvist]

When I had just moved from the NEX 5n to the A7r I also used my NEX (APS-C) lenses on the A7r. The sensors of the two cameras have the same number of pixels per square centimeter, which was the reason I bought the A7r rather than the A7.

Ceteris paribus, I found that quality wise the pictures shot with APS-C lenses on the A7r were similar to those shot with the NEX, with the exception that the image circle was larger on then A7. I generally did not use the automatic crop function as it cut off too much usable picture information and my crops were often different from the system crop.

The only disadvantage with the "crop-off" mode was that the display showed the picture elements smaller than when automatic crop was selected as the cropped area then filled the display.

[Kevin Purcell]

Mike said: [Right, I saw that, but they don't tell you what the resolution is in crop mode.... --MJ]

Sony APS-C crop is 1.5x so divide the "full frame" parameters by 1.5

i.e. 4000 x 2667 (or so) or 10.7MPx

[Daniel Evan Rodriguez]

I think it is something like 10.3 megapixels (3936 x 2624), which is the number derived from a Nikon D610 in APS-C mode.

[Jake]

It makes mediocre JPGs?

[Michael T]

From the Sony specs for 3:2 aspect ratio: APS-C L: 3936 x 2624 (10M), M: 3008 x 2000 (6.0M), S: 1968 x 1312 (2.6M)

[Ash]

Wouldn't you rather put it on an A7-S?

[Christopher Lane]

Tried to help you, but the manual for this camera stinks. Which is probably why I won't be buying one. Sigh. Good luck.

[David Zivic]

I use the pancake 16-50mm on my A7r. With the camera set at 36 megapixels I get 9 megapixel files and the vignetting predicted by Sony support seems very slight even with a UV filter.

[JG]

I am fairly certain the second file size listed in the specs for the camera -- 3936 x 2624 -- is the APS-C file size, as this is the case with the other A7 bodies. In which case, the file size works out to a mere ~10.3MP. 8^(

[Carsten W]

What perspective do you want, FF 24mm or FF 35mm? Whichever, there should be a better solution than that.