Before Sony, what did you swap from?

[LeDave]

I've used Pentax for several years and upgraded the bodies throughout those years, K-2000(K-m), K-7, K-5 and K-3. I cannot be more proud to jump boat to Sony. Every technical aspect is so much better, making it easier to capture photographs and not waste time as well. The Sony A7iii is my dream camera and will use it until death do us part.

 

[Merlinator]

I shot Nikon for years before I switched to Olympus due to weight difference. Auto focus sucked but I did like the pro capture setting and IBIS. Wanted to go mirrorless and at that time Sony A1 was king so I switched.

 

[Deleted Member 5045]

I'll bet you a buck, right here, right now, that before long you'll be looking for the next best thing. Damn near everyone on this board has thought or said the exact same things at least once. Most of us stop saying it after the 3rd or 4th time...

You beat me to it!

All I say now is I'm not buying anything else this week, so long as it's pretty late in the week it's a pretty safe call...

 

[Matthias]

Started with Canon Powershot, multiple variations . Then nothing for a while and went shopping for a camera in 2019 for a trip to Costa Rica. Went to 2 stores and both advised to get Sony, I ended up with the a6300 + 18-105 f/4 which I still use today! Only added some lenses along the way.

 

[Deleted Member 5045]

I've always had an interest in taking nice photos of scenery with my phone when I'm out and about. So in October 2021 I thought I'd take it a little more seriously.

I've always had Sony televisions and it has always been my default brand if it's an option for the item. So naturally I thought of Sony cameras. To my surprise they were considered a front runner and I actually liked the industrial look of their bodies the most. The rest is history...

Want to add that with what I know about all the brands and what not these days. I know that whichever system I went with from Sony, Canon or Nikon, I would not have wished I went with another. I see them as all within a few percent of each other in accordance to their respective levels of price. You get GM, RF, Z, all in all they are basically all the same. An average camera in a great photographer's hands will trump a great camera in an average photographer's hands 100% of the time.

 

[AlphaWorld]

I wanted to cast two votes

Long term Canon user (had the original 5D after a film body or two). Switched to Nikon with the D800. Sort of switched back, but that’s when I bought an A7RII + the famous 55/1.8. Ran in parallel for a bit, but completed the cut. So I could argue that I switched from Nikon, or from Canon.

 

[xpc316e]

My first digital camera was a bridge from Minolta. I eventually bought an Alpha77 (IIRC) and then moved to a Sony RX10iv when I found the DSLR to be too heavy. The RX10 is wonderful, and I have no intention of getting rid of it, but the lack of weight/bulk in Sony's full frame mirrorless cameras has resulted in me now owning an Alpha7R4.

I am a Sony fan because for many years I used their VCRs and developed an admiration for the brand. I therefore bought their cameras and have never been disappointed. Now that I have a selection of lenses, I cannot see myself ever moving to Canon/Nikon/etc.

 

[alexpler]

My first DSRL was a Sony A300, then I swapped to shooting with smartphones for a while, all them Sony Xperia... And finally I bought the A7C.

So it's always been Sony for me, I guess. No swapping haha.

 

[FowlersFreeTime]

I had a slew of Olympus "tough" point and shoots for their waterproof nature, and gopro cameras for the same. When phones started getting waterproof AND better resolution, I no longer needed the point & shoot camera. I still have the gopro cameras though.
I got the Sony to upgrade my picture taking (on land) for family and vacation and it has been life changing.

 

[MeowZzz]

Neekhon, but I still use it, so it is not really a swap, per se. Indeed, just this evening I was using the D700 out in the woods. I see no issue with using both systems - the manual AI Nikkors are not worth all that much to sell and manual focusing with an optical (original flavor) viewfinder is a different experience. Then after the woods we stopped at a wee waterfall on the way downstream towards the railway tracks and used the A7iv on some little grey thingies flying there (plumbeous water redstart females) - in fading light, against a very dark background - so a terrible idea basically. Probably got one useable silhouette - but then again, it was not planned and part of the joy of this (pour moi at least) is having a go.

Why Sony at all if I am 'appy shooting MF? because I can't shoot moving things at high-ish hit rates (don't read that wrong) with manual focus as well as some people, I guess --- some birds and flanimals, granted, I can get them (which is a great feeling of course) - kites n egrets are usually slow enough. But there are a ton of them that are too fast. So, we got an A7; she basically took it over and so I went back to my Neekhon tank, until I had scared off all the furries (not the teenagers) and then put my head down and earnt a few more bickies and went out and bought a used a9ii --- which will focus at night and follows fast moving stuff (most of the time). Still, even the A7iv will get some pretty rapid moving feathers if usedproperly, i.e. better than when we first began with it (par de course?) -- like, it was all in how we were using the AF modes, and then bam!, the hit rate went up.

 

[liggy]

I added Sony to my Fujis for the better af and tele glass

 

[iamdlewis]

I don't remember the camera since it was like 30 years ago and film and my father's camera from the 60/70s. But I guess you could say that I was always Sony. When I decided to give photography a go again I knew I was going to get some kind of kit that was at the very bottom of the line up. I ended up with an A6000 with one of the major deciding factors being that it could be charged via USB which meant that I didn't need to bring any extra cables/plugs for when I traveled. I grew out of the A6000 not long after the release of the A9 which made it very clear to me the mirrorless was the way to go and since Canon and Nikon didn't seem to be interested in mirrorless Sony was choice.

 

[Clix Pix]

Many, many years ago my very first SLR cameras were Minoltas. Eventually I decided I was ready for what was then considered the "gold standard," a Nikon. From then on it was Nikon all the way, from SLRs to Coolpixes to DSLRs...... My first introduction to Sony came with the NEX 7, when a friend who was also a long-time Nikon user b brought over his new NEX 7 to show me. I was fascinated by the EVF and the mirrorless concept, and bought my own NEX 7 shortly after, but only bought a couple of lenses to use with it. Time went on and I bought Sony's RX100 M3 to use as a travel camera and loved it, too, and it was succeeded by newer iterations.

Then I went through a period where I didn't do much shooting at all and all my gear sat in the camera bags or the cabinet still loved but just unused. The spark, the flame of excitement around shooting photos had seemingly disappeared. In the summer of 2018 in preparation for a weekend trip to a beach area where we'd be doing various activities ranging from watching a boat parade and fireworks to attending a concert, I started thinking about what kind of gear I'd need. I was reluctant to use an interchangeable lens camera on the beach, with all that sands and salty air. Photos shot during the concert? No problem, I had my little RX100 for that, but the beach thing? I really wanted to shoot that boat parade....and get some nice closeups, too. I started researching bridge cameras and the more I read about the RX10 IV I thought, "aha, I think this will do it!" Ticked all the boxes.... Bought one and sure enough, it was ideal for that trip, that boat parade and fireworks situation.

Back home, I started taking the RX10 IV with me on walks around the lake and somehow, somewhere along the line this triggered the inner flame of excitement about photography again. Interestingly, though, I still rarely picked up any of my other cameras and about the only time I did was to use the NEX 7....

Mirrorless was becoming more and more prevalent and eventually I started thinking about getting a mirrorless FF body, At that point Nikon was talking about releasing their own new mirrorless line, Sony had the excellent A7III and A7R III, and I decided to wait until Nikon actually released something, as they were promising that customers could continue to use their older "legacy" lenses with an FTZ adapter which would be provided at release time, too. The idea of simply buying a new Nikon Z body with maybe one mirrorless lens and then being able to continue using some of my beloved older lenses was appealing. Unfortunately, when Nikon finally DID release the Z series in 2019, it soon became very apparent that while many of my older lenses would work with the FTZ adapter that they'd only be usable as manual focus lenses. A few of my lenses wouldn't work with the adapter at all. Worst of all, to my way of thinking, was that in that initial release and first roadmap indicating what would be coming in the next year or so there were no macro lenses. NONE. For me, a deal-breaker., especially since a couple of my favorite macro lenses wouldn't work with that FTZ. adapter.....

In the meantime, Sony was still there, waiting in the wings, and was appealing to me because I was already familiar with Sony products, the NEX 7, the RX 100 M series and the RX10 IV, and appreciated the quality. A look at Sony's lens offerings and I knew I could walk into the camera shop and get my hands on a macro lens or two and whatever else I wanted and needed. I had been thinking first of the A7 III, then after more investigation, was realizing that for my purposes the A7R II might meet my needs better. I was still waffling over this, but once Nikon was absolutely off the table was getting more serious about a Sony A7R III...... And then Sony announced the A7R IV! More waiting, but this time the end was in sight, the goal very clear.

Traded in all my Nikon gear and came home with a Sony A7R IV and three lenses. Two of them were macro (no surprise there!) and one was the amazing 135mm f/1.8 prime. Yes, kind of unbalanced in the beginning! About a month later, once I had become more familiar and comfortable with my new gear, I added the 200-600mm and then later on as budget permitted, and the need arose, other lenses came into the family as well. I had kept the RX10 IV and the RX100 M6, so this is an all-Sony household now.

It was much later that one day I realized how I'd actually come full circle, from those first Minolta SLRs to my current Sony camera gear....

 

[Uncle Kevriano]

Minolta>Pentax>Nikon>Sony over a 38 year period.

 

[RogerSmith]

I was a Canon shooter. I waited to see what their 100-500/600 would be like, and when they released the 100-500 I didn't like the loss of 100mm on the long end, the external zoom, and the slower aperture relative to the Sony 200-600. So safe to say the Sony 200-600 was my hook. I also had an old gen 1 Canon 300 f/2.8 which I loved. But it was so old that it wasn't going to AF as well with the R5 and I wouldn't get the full FPS, so it was time to switch.

 

[Landshark99]

Shooting professionally I have owned and used most every camera brand and type that there is on the market from 35mm to 8X10.
For my own work I shot with Nikon film SLRs for many years, eventually getting into rangefinders like the ContaxG2 and Mamiya 6 and 67, my first taste of digital for me were the tiny Sony P&S cameras that fit in your pocket, from there I went to the Sony DSC-F828, from there it was Olympus/Panasonic M43, then FujiX100, XPros and Xts, finally a Sony RX1R, RX1RII, A7RIII,A7RIV and now the A!, A7RV and the RX1RII

 

[DaveC Oz]

My first cameras show my age. Box Brownie, and Kodak 233 Instamatic. These were followed by an old Praktica manual everything including a hand held light meter SLR, followed by a Yashica FX-3, then a Yashica FX-D, and my last film camera was a Minolta X-300. When this broke down in the early 90's I replaced it with various Olympus & Panasonic point & shoot digital cameras, before getting my first Sony, an A6000 in late 2016 followed by an A6600, and now an A7CR

 

[Tachikaze]

Nikon D7000. It did the job for a decade, but it was bulky and overly complicated for what I do. Sold the whole lot to B&H and bought a A7II and a couple lenses and love it.