Photo credits: All images kindly provided by Lensrentals.
As promised, Lensrentals is back with part two of its flange-to-sensor measurement test, this time testing photo-centric cameras instead of cine cameras.
As Roger and his team meticulously pored over the measurements of every compatible camera they had on hand (the testing rig only had mount options for Canon, Sony and MFT cameras), they discovered a concerning percentage of Sony a7-series cameras had suffered from an unexpected and consistent failure of a key component.
Although Roger starts off his blog post with his Canon measurements, we`re going to begin with Sony, as that`s where the surprising and concerning discovery lies. In total, the Lensrentals team tested 487 various Sony full-frame and APS-C mirrorless bodies. To those concerned the in-body image stabilization (IBIS) would affect the flange-to-sensor distance, Roger has the following to say:
‘First let me mention that we asked and answered the obvious question “does the IBIS system change the flange-to-sensor distance.” We took some cameras, measured them, put a lens on, focused it on various things to run the IBIS, and measured again, about a dozen times each. Each camera had identical measurements every time.`
An overview of the flange-to-sensor distance measurements of all Sony cameras Lensrentals tested. Note the scale on all of these charts: this chart is -0.1mm to +0.1mm.
With that debate wrapped up, Roger presents the overall findings for Sony mirrorless cameras (seen above) before further dividing up the Sony camera bodies, grouping the Sony a9 and Sony APS-C cameras together and grouping all of the a7-series camera bodies together. Roger grouped the data this way because the a9 and APS-C models ‘look[ed] marvelous,` with minimal variation, while the a7-series showed rather dramatic variations, particularly with their outliers.
This is the a7-series chart, showing the a7R ...
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