Just a tad confused

[DennisT]

The new ALPHA 6000 - from what I have read (albeit not a lot) about this new unit I understand that it uses proprietary NEX lenses.
If it is an Alpha series camera does this not indicate that it should have an A mount and therefor accommodate all A mount lenses - or have I missed the point iro Sony nomenclatures.

[OldClicker]

The new ALPHA 6000 - from what I have read (albeit not a lot) about this new unit I understand that it uses proprietary NEX lenses.
If it is an Alpha series camera does this not indicate that it should have an A mount and therefor accommodate all A mount lenses - or have I missed the point iro Sony nomenclatures.

All of the E-mount bodies (including the NEX) were/are Alphas.

Sony has never been great at naming their cameras (understatement) and now it is quite ridiculous. The A3000 is a DSLR style body and the A6000 is a NEX/Rangefinder style??? Both are E-mount mirrorless.

An A-mount body (or bodies) is expected to be announced in March/April. Maybe they will call it the EOS D800E????????

[DennisT]

Thanks for restoring my sanity!!!!

[Franglais]

Sony E-mount lenses also come in two varieties - those that cover the full-frame sensor format used in the A7 and those that only cover the APS-C sensor format used in the rest of the Alpha NEX range.

I don't think that there is any naming system to tell them apart. There's always the price, of course.

I'm sure that someone is going to buy an A7 and put APS-C lenses on it (example: the so-useful 18-200) without realising that he/she is only getting half the pixels.

[OldClicker]

Sony E-mount lenses also come in two varieties - those that cover the full-frame sensor format used in the A7 and those that only cover the APS-C sensor format used in the rest of the Alpha NEX range.

I don't think that there is any naming system to tell them apart. There's always the price, of course.

I'm sure that someone is going to buy an A7 and put APS-C lenses on it (example: the so-useful 18-200) without realising that he/she is only getting half the pixels.

The FF E-mount lenses are called FE.

All the major mounts that have FF lenses also have cropped lenses - Sony E-mount, Sony A-mount, Canon, Nikon. Though I guess that the Nikon and Canon are not fully interchangeable.

[Franglais]

Aha. I did check before writing my piece but I didn't find the definition of FE.

A friend came across someone unknowingly shooting a small-sensor Nikon lens (18-200) on a big-sensor Nikon camera (D800). The person didn't understand why she was getting less on the picture than what she saw in the viewfinder.

So my friend pointed out that there the camera was displaying a rectangular frame in the (optical) viewfinder (what she was getting on her photo) and that outside the frame was dark at the edges (what she wasn't getting). He set her on her way to finish her holiday.

I suppose that in the electronic viewfinder of the A7 the camera recognises that you're using a small-sensor lens and just displays the final image

[OldClicker]

Aha. I did check before writing my piece but I didn't find the definition of FE.

A friend came across someone unknowingly shooting a small-sensor Nikon lens (18-200) on a big-sensor Nikon camera (D800). The person didn't understand why she was getting less on the picture than what she saw in the viewfinder.

So my friend pointed out that there the camera was displaying a rectangular frame in the (optical) viewfinder (what she was getting on her photo) and that outside the frame was dark at the edges (what she wasn't getting). He set her on her way to finish her holiday.

I suppose that in the electronic viewfinder of the A7 the camera recognises that you're using a small-sensor lens and just displays the final image

If the A7 is like the A99, it will automatically go to cropped mode and display it full size if it recognizes it as a cropped lens. The A99 doesn't recognize most cropped third party lenses so they just have the vignette. Non-Sony adapted lenses would have to be chipped to be recognized at all.

Terry

[TheKinkajou]

Sony has changed the way their naming works. Both a and e mount camera's are now alpha's. It seems that a quadrouple digit number such as a6000 is e-mount APS-C, a double digit (i.e. a65) is a-mount APS-C, single digit (i.e. a7) is e-mount full frame, and double digit 9's (i.e. a99) are a-mount full frame.

If anything their combining of the two into one big giant "alpha" bucket has made things even more confusing...

[TheKinkajou]

Oh boy. I think I'm confused on how the forum is displaying posts.... Hmmm...

Edit: I think I got it all figured out.

[OldClicker]

E-mount always were alphas, but agree that their naming must be targeting confusion.

[TheKinkajou]

Yeah. I much preferred e-mounts having the extra NEX tag so I could easily tell e-mount from a-mount. Now I have to think about it to figure out what's what.. a6000, a99, a65, a7..