Don't fall for the Sony A7 IV Youtube hype!

Sony just released its latest mid-range camera, the A7 IV, and of course seeded the camera to over a dozen of popular Youtubers, most of which are not photographers, but just paid shills. You can skip most of them, because they will not tell you that this update is bogus. Yes, they bumped the resolution up from 24 mpxls to 33 mpxls, but they also raised the price from 2000 USD to 2500 USD. This is a camera in a completely different segment than its predecessor, it's a marketing trick. It also only shoots 5 fps, if you want to shoot RAW (lossless compression), previously it was 10. They added some new video features, but the camera has terrible rolling shutter, and they're fixing it with a silly software tweak, that actually crops in your lens and degrades your quality. On the other hand you have Nikon's Z lenses that virtually have no focus breathing by design. It seems that Sony has hit an innovation wall when it comes to cameras that are not flagships. Unfortunately this camera will sell, because some people are sheep. For an honest review I only recommend DP Review's video, spare yourself everybody else:

 

Real photographer exposes the marketing hype behind the Sony A1

British photographer Allen Blasdell made a brilliant video exposing the recent hype behind Sony's new flagship, and showing why cameras like the Nikon D780 are just as good, if not better in certain experts.

Visiting the Taipei International Photography & Media Equipment Exhibition 2020

The Taipei International Photography & Media Equipment Exhibition 2020 is taking place these days in Taipei. I visited on the 2nd day in the morning, so that I could avoid crowds, but that wasn't a too successful effort. I reached there around 11 and it was already quite busy, since it was a Saturday morning. I stayed until after lunch and it got really crowded, and the vendors had more activities at their booths, such as models posing with gear and hosts interviewing photographers. While Taiwan just celebrated 200 days without a local coronavirus infection, I still did not want to take any chances, so I left early. Let me share my impressions of particular brands and how the show looked like in general.

Influencers are leaving Sony Alpha ambassador program

It's been a rough year for Sony Alpha in my opinion. A little over a year ago Sony silently removed Jason Lanier as one of their ambassadors after a model alleged improper behavior and sexual harassment. At that time (in May-June 2018) there were just rumors, but nobody knew for sure why he was ditched, and Lanier never addressed this issue when his followers asked him about it. He was one of Sony Alpha's most prolific ambassadors in the early days of the brand's foray into the full frame mirrorless market (2013-2017). The whole scandal blew up this summer when several women came out and shared their negative experiences with Lanier, and alleged several instances of abuse. As a consequence, Rotolight, Lanier second biggest sponsor after Sony, suspended cooperation with him as well.

I impressed a Sony troll on Twitter

Sometimes you reply to a troll in a way that he has no choice but to acknowledge defeat. This happened to me when I responded to a Sony Alpha troll on Twitter who was trying to belittle Canon after Kaiman Wong commented on some Canon 90D specifications. It felt like a total homerun for me, a virtual touch down, a buzzer beater par excellence. Here's a screen grab of the exchange:

Jessica Kobeissi responds to Jason Lanier?

A screen grab from Jessica Kobeissi's video.

Jessica Kobeissi is one of the largest Youtube photography channels out there. With currently 1.4 million subscribers, she is in the top 5. If we remove channels run by non-photographers like Chelsea Northrup or Fro Knows Photo, she is de facto the largest. She recently made a long video (54 min) about the Dark Side of Modeling what seems to be in response to Jason Lanier without ever mentioning his name. She used examples from Lanier's own videos to highlight inappropriate and unprofessional behavior. A lot of these examples are still available on his channel today.

Manny Ortiz, 'The biggest Sony shill on Youtube' decides to become 'honest'

"Hi, My name is Manny Ortiz, and I am the biggest Sony shill on Youtube" is the beginning of the latest video by photography Youtuber and now former Sony Ambassador Manny Ortiz. In a very frank video he explains why he's leaft the Sony Ambassador program, that uses popular photography Youtubers and other influencers to market their cameras and/or try to taint the reputation of other brands. Sony was pioneer in this regard. When they launched their A7 and A7R series of full frame mirrorless cameras in October 2013, they went aggressively into the (at that time) very nascent community of online influencers. In 2013 Youtube was far from being as big as it is today. The biggest channel on the platform at that time had something over 10 million subscribers. In 2019 there are over 400 channels with over 10 million subscribers. Instagram had 150 million active monthly users in 2013. In 2018 they surpassed a billion. The times have changed a lot, also in the photography gear influencer community.

The downfall of Jason Lanier: Removed as Sony Artisan of Imagery

I wrote this post in May 2018, when it was noticed by some people in the photography Youtube community that Jason Lanier was silently removed as Sony Artisan of Imagery. It was an interesting topic, as it's a very rare thing to happen. Lanier has never addressed this issue, and people were guessing what happened. There were some rumors already at that time that it had something to do with allegations from his models, but it were just rumors. One year later this topic became interesting again. The reason was that several women who used to work with him came out publicly alleging misconduct, some even mentioned sexual assault. This is the reason why I have decided to expand my original post to update on what is happening right now. There's a lot to digest here, so if you just want to know why Jason was dropped as Sony Artisan of Imagery, scroll down to the very end. This post is being updated regularly with new information. Please note that I am merely reporting on what each party says: Lanier made a long video where he alleged several things about his former models, and the models made videos a few days later where they responded and alleged several things about Jason Lanier. Both parties claim that they have initiated a legal process against the other side, but we do not have much details about that. Meanwhile both sides have decided to discuss this publicly, hence my blog and several other Youtube channels, photography forums and websites have been sharing their views. My goal is to not share my opinion on who is guilty of what, I just want to report on what all sides said, I'm merely an aggregator here.

ORIGINAL POST (MAY 29, 2018)
Jason Lanier is a photography gear Youtuber, who built up his career with the help of Sony and their Alpha series of mirrorless cameras. At the same time he greatly helped building up Sony's name in the online hobbyist photography community, and probably helped to sell an enormous amounts of their overly expensive Sony Alpha cameras. His clickbait style videos coupled with his arrogant persona often went viral on YouTube and gave Sony immense exposure. Lanier and his antics against Canon and Nikon DSLRs became a known name in the photography gear review community, and was a few years ago one of the top channels. This all changed in 2018.

DSLR cameras outsold compact cameras for the first time, still outselling mirrorless

There is this divide among photography enthusiasts, where online warriors place themselves into 2 camps: The mentally unbalanced people who are ardently pro mirrorless (usually Sony fans), and everybody else (people who tend to see things as they are - complex). For the past 5-6 years there is a real mirrorless hype mainly driven by Sony fanboys and their artisans (who are some of the most annoying people on the internet, to be honest).

Tony Northrup and the problematic Sony A7 III "review"

A reader forwarded me the link to Tony & Chelsea Northrup’s Youtube video titled Sony A7 III review!. It’s a 7:44 minutes long video, that talks about the newly launched full frame mirrorless camera by Sony. It struck me more as an advertisement than a review, so I decided to write this post. Most camera gear manufacturers are working with photographers and photography gear influencers. The first are actual professional photographers that are often seen in promotional videos by various brands, while the latter are photography enthusiasts with large social media following (Tony Northrup, Jared Polin etc), or websites dedicated to photography (DP Review). While traditional brands like Nikon, Canon and Fuji usually focus on photographers (so called brand ambassadors), Sony usually (in addition to that) creates carefully staged launch events for the top social media influencers and gear reviewers and pays all their expenses in exchange for exposure.

The problem with Sony mirrorless cameras

A while ago I was almost buying a Sony mirrorless camera. The geek that I am, I was totally excited over the at that time new Sony A7Rii, a 42 megapixel full frame mirrorless camera, that offers features like internal 4k video, in-body AF, and 399 on-sensor Phase Detection points, but also comes with a staggering price tag 3200 USD (in Taiwan at that time 99,500 NTD, a tiny bit less). This was way above what I wanted to spend for a camera, and it did not even include a lens, but I was excited and would not let go of the idea. The hype online was huge, from international Youtube channels to Taiwanese tech reviews, this was the camera of the year for many people, who were at the same time proclaiming the death of DSLRs, as well as Nikon and Canon. If the A7Rii cost half of the price, I would probably buy it without putting much thought into it, but since Sony wanted me to pay over 100,000 NTD for a camera with lens, I just couldn't help but make a careful analysis on whether this substantial investment really makes sense for me. Here I want to share some of my reasoning, that made me decide against Sony mirrorless, and why I went back to a solid good old DSLR.