This is a guest post from Marolou. To write a guest post follow the instructions on that page. Thanks!

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Could this be? –  Every review a read about this famous lens was full of praise about sharpness…

End of June I happily took my first photos with this “Best Prime” – awarded lens.

First some portraits on close distance and macros: https://flic.kr/p/JLvz8C

Everything looked fine, for the first six pictures. Then a portrait at a distance of ca. 5m. I tried for several times. I could not get the eyes sharp. https://flic.kr/p/JLvA1E

Could be my fault. Then I tried some landscape and found out, that the lens suffered not only of a “trace” of corner softness. But look for yourself: https://flic.kr/p/JLvxYo

I got my Canon 70-200mm F2.8 to take a comparison shot: https://flic.kr/p/JLvxjY

Wow, this looked much better. I felt bad, so I contacted my online shop and asked for a replacement (sending in the photos). They were understanding and very cooperative. Only some days later I could test the new copy, with much better results: https://flic.kr/p/JuUehJ

Some comparison pictures:

Left upper corner:

Between center and right border of frame

Close to center = focus point (The fig tree)

Lessons learnt: Test every lens you purchased the next few days despite what you are/where reading in the different reviews.

Link to Flickr: https://flic.kr/s/aHskCWfPXi

marolou

This is a guest post from Hunter Report. To write a guest post follow the instructions on that page. Thanks!

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I just got a Sony A7Sii to use as a professional photographer and videographer. The possibility of completely silent shooting is appealing to me (weddings,comedy,music, ENG….) however, I was concerned that image quality would be compromised. Guess what….IT IS NOT. From here on out,  I will be shooting my stills in silent mode only….and if anything goes wrong, I will be the first to let you guys know!!! To living on the edge!

SONY a7sii: http://amzn.to/29vjUPy
SONY 24-70 f2.8 GM http://amzn.to/29rnneN
SONY Battery Grip: http://amzn.to/29vjSqB

I also made a funny short film about a young punk photog who finally earns the a7sii:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GgVNR18sY-Q

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHfQY7r28Kg

If you want to see what kind of image quality you get with a Sony 50MP medium format sensor check out the full size image samples posted by Ming Thein (Click here). And a reader sent me that real size comaprison between the X1D and the Sony A7rII:

Preorders:
The Hasselblad X1D-50c at BHphoto, Adorama and Calumet.de.
Hasselblad 90mm F/3.2 XCD Lens for XD1 at BHphoto, Adorama and Calumet.de.
Hasselblad 45mm F/3.5 XCD Lens for XD1 at BHphoto, Adorama and Calumet.de.

Sigma MC11 adapter review

Drasko (video above) and Tony (video below) posted some more useful test info about the new Sigma MC-11.

Sigma MC-11 store links: [shopcountry 47259].

ePhotozine (Click here) is the first site posting the review of the new Kerlee 35mm f/1.2 FE lens:

This is a fine lens, well made, with outstanding central performance. It suffers at the edges, although to be fair, when not photographing lens charts, which are flat of course, the real world results are very satisfactory. Sharpness is not really the main drawback, just a tendency to flare and quite a bit of CA at the edges. The very bright f/1.2 aperture is unique and may well be very useful in low light and for shallow depth of field effects. The bokeh is lovely and smooth.
In summary, a lens that can be used to make beautiful images, but do watch that flare.

Note: Photo By Richard tested the same lens but with Nikon F-mount.

Eric Naso tried to get rid of the overheating issue. In the first posted article he wrote:

With the Sony a6300 no fans are available inside to cool it down. So what if the camera could write files faster? Or if the card was faster maybe it wont heat up because it has more headroom. Would that help? Well… YES IT DOES!

But after a few days he changed it and wrote:

I’ve updated this post twice since it was published so if you’ve already read it go to the bottom of the post starting with UPDATE header for new info. I’m not sure the faster cards are helping. Today’s testing was crazy and I was getting wildly inconsistent results.

This is a guest post from Rick Birt. To write a guest post follow the instructions on that page. Thanks!

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By Rick Birt of Romeo Bravo Photo

This is a follow up to my previous posts:

My Take on the New Sony 85 GM

Like most serious photographers, I mostly shoot RAW.  However, both my wife and I have clients that just want jpgs straight out of the camera.  This wasn’t a problem with my wife’s old Canon 1Ds mkII that I first started with, but it was with my Sony a7R II.  The out-of-camera (OOC) jpg files produce less than desirable skin tones.  I’ve exchanged quite a few emails with Sony Pro support over this, and it turns out (after much testing), that my camera had an issue with either the sensor, or the software.  This has now been fixed, so this post is partly a test to see how the new camera is doing – with various lenses.  However, I also decided to rent a Fujifilm X-Pro2 with a 56/1.2, and an Olympus Pen-F with a Panasonic Leica Nocticron 42.5/1.2.

I wanted to judge skin tones in both OOC jps, and after processing RAW files in Lightroom (my version of Capture One doesn’t recognize the new Fuji RAW).

So, I grabbed my wife, and fellow photographer, Kelly Williams and we shot all Saturday afternoon.

First lets look at the OOC jpgs…

From the Sony a7R II using the “Standard” color profile (l did try all of the other profiles, but this seems to be the best)

OOC Sony 85GM