Review: Sigma 500mm f/4 DG OS USM S by DXOMark

On the a9 possibility: if they have a native mount solution, then you can get 20fps, and that sounds pretty cool. If it is through an adapter, the AF slows and you can only shoot 10 fps.

That said, I think I'd have this lens over the Canon simply for price with roughly equal quality. I will wait on thinking about a9s and the like, though, until they work out a few things, including giving me the ability to use my glass with zippy AF and fps.

-tig
PS: I'm a believer that mirrorless versus mirrored cameras don't matter much at all. It's all about performance, and I don't care what mechanism is inside. Mirrorless makes sense to me for the future, but I'm not going to switch until it is at least as good in the viewfinder and equivalent in other key performance measures, such as AF and frames per second. To my mind that means the a9 is probably the camera just before this inflection point is reached.
 
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tiggy@mac.com said:
On the a9 possibility: if they have a native mount solution, then you can get 20fps, and that sounds pretty cool. If it is through an adapter, the AF slows and you can only shoot 10 fps.

That said, I think I'd have this lens over the Canon simply for price with roughly equal quality. I will wait on thinking about a9s and the like, though, until they work out a few things, including giving me the ability to use my glass with zippy AF and fps.

-tig
PS: I'm a believer that mirrorless versus mirrored cameras don't matter much at all. It's all about performance, and I don't care what mechanism is inside. Mirrorless makes sense to me for the future, but I'm not going to switch until it is at least as good in the viewfinder and equivalent in other key performance measures, such as AF and frames per second. To my mind that means the a9 is probably the camera just before this inflection point is reached.

Couple of thoughts,
1) With no view finder black out, you have a chance at focus pulling in manual focus - small but a chance, I have shot w/ the a6500 that has -0- black out, focusing would be tough (as it was "back in the day" before autofocus)
2) The costs of a $12,000 ish lens that gets obsoleted in 10 years is only $1,200/year - pretty much outside the range of this enthusiast.
3) Though it is a Canon Forum, if the A-9 or its 2 years from now follow up, gets traction, then an E-mount on Sigma Art series make for a very interesting debate. I know Canon has a zillion lenses but how many are redundant consumer (still very good) versions vs. top of the heap. I don't expect anyone to have an 85 1.8 AND and 85 1.4 for example. This begs the interoperability convergence - Sony body w/ Sigma glass or will Sigma make a really top of the line body and be native?

Sony is going to get better, as will Sigma, as well Canon. As some 99+% of images are now viewed on a browser an awful of this incremental improvement is lost on an awful lot of the viewing public. 8 bit viewing w/ 14 (or 16) bit capture. If one is going to chase the hyper image quality turn it into a 8' poster use a larger format image capture. (pls recall I have done 200+ frame 5Dsr imaged stitched pano)

What I think is really cool, is that in the not so distant future, one could be truly vexed in a Brand X vs. Canon system of image capture and not have any compromise. Lastly, the hyper IQ imaging market is not expanding nearly as fast as the cell phone vid/still market, if it is expanding at all.
 
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