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Why I chose the A7iii over Canon and Nikon

The Overrated Photographer

With both Nikon and Canon having released systems recently, quite a few people have contacted me to find out why I went Sony, so I would put together was some reasons behind the selection of Sony as opposed to Nikon and Canon.

Just to be clear, from a brand perspective, I have nothing against Nikon and Canon, they have great camera gear. I left Nikon previously and my reasons related to mirrorless. If I was with them now, they might be the logical choice. I saw mirrorless as the future about 3 Years ago. Unfortunately Nikon wasn’t talking a thinking of mirrorless at the time. I was unhappy with their lack of transparency, not the gear.

So, if I considered both, where did they go wrong? Continue reading “Why I chose the A7iii over Canon and Nikon”

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From Fujifilm to Sony – How my glass changed

The Overrated Photographer
Glass is glass, or at least that’s what you normally think. To a large degree, you would expect the focal lengths to at least stay static, but that’s not always the case has my recent move from Fujifilm to Sony shows.
There are the obvious items, like the availability of lenses in specific focal lengths, If it’s not available, it’s not available, but that played less of a factor than I expected.

Continue reading “From Fujifilm to Sony – How my glass changed”

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Sony has no intention of notifying you what is in their camera updates

The Overrated Photographer

I followed up with Sony after some question marks on the battery warnings they “hid” in their firmware updates. My issues were simple:

  1. If this was to help users identify fake batteries, why is there no option to turn it off? There are plenty of after market batteries that are affected by this.
  2. If Sony were honest about helping users, why haven’t they notified users of the functionality change in their firmware description? After all, this was an “honest” attempt to help users.

Whilst I  do have an issue with manufacturers limiting third-party batteries as a whole, I have a bigger issue when they add the functionality through updates because what has worked perfectly is essentially handicapped by firmware. I also have an issue when they secretly embed this in an update, which can’t be reversed and don’t include the information in the firmware. That strikes me as pretty underhanded. Continue reading “Sony has no intention of notifying you what is in their camera updates”

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Nikon sets a dangerous precedent

The Overrated Photographer

I  was reading the luminious landscape comments on the Nikon Z7 release and some items in the article raised major red flags for me.

I’ve copied a paragraph from the article to give you some context of what I am talking about:

“It seems that a long time ago, Nikon fell out of grace with Luminous-Landscape — or should I say, Luminous-Landscape fell out of the graces of Nikon. From what I heard, it was due to something Michael had said. Those of you who knew Michael know that he called it as he saw it, and I suppose he said something that Nikon didn’t like. I also wrote a story about Saying Goodbye to My Nikon when I made the switch to mirrorless years ago. Since then, we never hear from Nikon.”

Continue reading “Nikon sets a dangerous precedent”

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Lens aesthetics and third party brands

The Overrated Photographer

There is one thing that has always confused me about third-party manufacturers and that is their inability to apply lens aesthetics to each brand. Let me be clear, I’m not talking drastic redesigns here, I’m not talking about creating a retro looking lens for some brands and more modern for others, I’m talking simple colours. Continue reading “Lens aesthetics and third party brands”

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Sony vs Fujifilm – Let’s get real about it

The Overrated Photographer

I’ve had quite a few people email me in response to the article I wrote on the A7iii vs X-T3 because of my recent switch from Fujifilm to Sony. The types of questions coming through were akin to:

  1. Should they switch to Sony if it’s better?
  2. How could I have been happy with Fujifilm and now say Sony is better?
  3. If I knew what I know today would I have gone to Sony earlier?
  4. What would I buy today?

Let’s answer those in simple terms: Continue reading “Sony vs Fujifilm – Let’s get real about it”

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Are we overreacting about Railway Shoots?

The Overrated Photographer

I noticed in a Facebook group the other day that track (railway) shoot photos are now banned. Not illegal track shoots, not shoots conducted on live tracks…ALL track photos. I have no issue with the Facebook admins taking this approach, it is their group and their rules, but I do have to question whether we are overreacting and bowing down to safety nazi’s when we stop the posting of perfectly legal and safe photos because of a few idiots who do so illegally and unsafely, or because we believe people may try to mimic photos, which they will ultimately try do with any kind of photo. Continue reading “Are we overreacting about Railway Shoots?”

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Sony and Fujifilm? What’s your battery story?

The Overrated Photographer

Fujifilm and Sony have both embarked down a path which concerns me. For the first time we are seeing camera manufacturers warning users not to use third-party batteries in their cameras with a nice little warning message popping up on their cameras.

Now I have no issue if there are legitimate concerns, but excuse me if I have a health dose of scepticism when it comes to believing them for a couple of reasons: Continue reading “Sony and Fujifilm? What’s your battery story?”

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The Sony A7iii vs Fujifilm X-T3

The Overrated Photographer

I caught up with a good mate over the weekend. As a Fujifilm user, he had the latest X-T3, so we decided to swap cameras to allow us to play around and get our thoughts. He’s already penned his thoughts here so feel free to have a look at the different perspectives.

It was an excellent opportunity to see where the camera designs were going, and I put together my thoughts on the two. This isn’t a feature comparison, just some ideas comparing where the two cameras are in their life cycle.

Some of these photos are snapshots, the review wasn’t intended to showcase the best of these cameras, it was a casual outing with a friend and our kids in bright midday sunlight, not exactly ideal conditions, but I have thrown in some other samples as well.

My knowledge of shooting video is somewhere between zero and nothing, so please don’t expect any video related comparisons.

Continue reading “The Sony A7iii vs Fujifilm X-T3”

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Is it any surprise female photographers feel uncomfortable?

The Overrated Photographer

I had a mystifying experience on the Sony A7iii group run by SonyAlphaRumors.

Someone posted a photo of some ladies dressed in sailors outfits. The photo and pose weren’t to my taste but it was “safe for work” from a photographic perspective so the photo itself wasn’t the problem. What I found insane was the responses to the photos from the so-called amateur and professional photographers in the group, some of which run photography businesses. Continue reading “Is it any surprise female photographers feel uncomfortable?”