Personally, I would not buy a lens in this category without IS. If you are shooting at F1.4 and 1/100 now, your shutter speed will be much slower at F2.8! My personal experience is that I always get sharper results from stabilized lenses than non-stabilized, even when the latter is of supposedly superior optical quality. Your personal experience seems to bear this out too. My advice is to pass and wait for a stabilized version.

Interesting post in that my experience was a bit different. I had an RX 100 I and used it quite a lot in addition to my FF Nikons. Whilst the Nikon's undeniably make better images, the Sony was darned good and worked for when carrying a Nikon was not feasible. Then, I stupidly lost the Sony whilst on a trip and figured I'd get along without it. Well, that did not last and I found myself missing the Sony; many times I was missing good photo ops because I just could not have brought the big Nikon. So last week I succumbed to desire and bought a used RX100 II. It arrived today in mint condition and I'm back in business with a pocket cam. I chose the Mk II because I liked the extra reach of the lens and it was also much less costly than a III or IV. In the past I'd tried the A6000, but sent it back because the images were not as good as the Nikon's and although lighter, still meant carrying extra lenses and it was far from being pocketable. Personally I think the Zeiss lens in the RX is better than the 16-50 kit lens of the A6000 and there is not much difference in IQ between the two, even though the A6000 has an APS-C sensor! Like you, I find the big FF bodies a pleasure to handle and a Nikon D810 with a 28-300mm lens is a versatile combo producing great images without having to carry a bunch of lenses. But for when small is required, it's hard to beat the RX, I hope you don't miss yours too much!

Number one in what? Certainly not in image quality, a fact comprehensively documented by scores of reviews. Features? Nah, just run of the mill. Price? Nope, just as expensive as the others. Are they decent cameras? Sure, but not for all situations. Sales? Yes, they appear to be #1, but then they produce a ton of small mass market cameras to build volume. Toyota in may claim to be No.1 in auto sales but most folks might prefer driving a Bentley, Tesla, or a Benz. So, Canon may be No.1 for SS but it's only No.4 for me! Could always change if they produce something with decent IQ for my preferences

I can understand the OP's desire for full frame, my experience is that the FF sensors have better dynamic range and less noisy high ISO performance, not mention different DoF characteristics. While the Canon crop sensor cameras have some good attributes, dynamic range is not one of them. This is not so important for sports and action but a biggie for landscape and street shooters. I my case I mostly shoot with Nikon FF mainly because I found them to be better for my photographic needs. Their ability to extract shadow detail and not blow out the sky was better than the Canon's I tried. That said, I recently succumbed to GAS and acquired a Pentax K1 FF camera because it had features I found intriguing. I fully expected to not like it and send back, but the Pentax has proved to be a very competent piece. It has many desirable features such as: built in WiFi, built in GPS, articulating screen, in body stabilization, full weather sealing, dual SD slots, 36mp Sony sensor, great control layout (you can access almost all camera features with resorting to the menu), 5 programmable shooting presets. It also has "Pixel shift" a resolution enhancing technique that takes multiple shots moving the sensor by 1 pixel and then combining them into one shot of higher resolution. Not much use for handheld or subjects in motion but incredible for landscapes shot on a tripod. The downside to the Pentax is that they don't have a huge selection of modern lenses although they do have many popular bases covered. It is also not a good camera for action as the frame rate is slow and the buffer fills quickly, so may not be suitable for sports or BIF's. Another plus is that there are a ton of Pentax and third party legacy lenses than can work on it; the IBS makes it unnecessary to use stabilized lenses. To start, I bought the following: 35-80mm F3.5-4.5, 50mm F1.4, 28-105mm F4, 24mm F2, 70-300mm APO Sigma (new), the total cost for all, just north of $500! After being convinced the K1 was a keeper, I got a new 100mm F2.8 Macro (this has turned out to be sharpest lens I've ever used). The kicker here is that the FF Pentax K1 body is approx. the same price as a Canon 7DII crop sensor! So, my recommendation to the OP is to take a look at the K1.

To err is human, something I can attest to from considerable experience in making errors!

[quote=markngolf]1500 ft. per second = 12657 miles per hour. That's pretty fast!! That's 669908168 ft per hour or 186085 feet per second. So suppose you set your shutter speed at 1/8000. The object passes through 23.26 feet in 1/8000 of a second. Can it stop action of the pellet as it passes through, say 1 foot. Hopefully you begin to see the speed of the pellet as it traverses a distance at 1500 ft. per second. Im sure others, with more knowledge than I, will jump in and explain what type equipment is used.
Great question!!
Mark]

I think your math is a bit off here! 1500 feet per second is 1,022 miles per hour.
1500 x 60 x 60 = 5,400,000 feet per hour/5,280 = 1,022 MPH
Shooting at 1/8000 shutter speed the pellet would travel 2.25" during the exposure. If you used an electronic flash with, say, 1/40,000 flash duration, the pellet would travel 0.45" you might see it in the shot but it would be blurred!

Very nice, no chance to get those shots where I live!

The beauty of the 28-300 is the range; since I got mine (Nikon) I find most of my shots are at near 28 or near 300, much of the time one right next to the other, very hard to do swapping lenses.

Seems to me Snapsort does not "review" in the sense of actually trying the cameras, they simply list the difference in specification, draw conclusions and recommend products based on specs alone! Whilst somewhat useful, no substitute for an actual hands on review and IQ comparison.

I was hesitant to get a 28-300 as it was pooh-pooh'ed in a number of reviews, but went ahead and got one anyway (Nikon in my case) and have loved the lens! It's on my camera most of the time and delivers very good results. In fact, I've met 3 pros who use the lens extensively. One of the members of the camera club I belong, shoots a Tamron 28-300 on a 6D and gets great results, confirmed by the consistent high scores he gets in our monthly judging! The 24-105L is a fine lens but does lack the versatility of a 28-300. If you have a 30 return option on the new Tammy, I suggest you do some shooting and draw your own conclusions. I have a feeling that once you put that 28-300 on the camera, you might not want to take it off!

Like most things in life, there is a trade off! I too, have been experimenting with lighter, smaller sensor cameras and, for the most part, have been disappointed with the IQ. I have the Nikon 1 V3, chosen because it comes with an adapter that lets me use my existing lenses. I also have a few 1 Nikkor small lenses for it (10-30mm, 30-110mm and 10-100mm), it has a 2.7 crop factor. In good light my results are acceptable, but if you have to crank up the ISO, quality degrades quickly. Yes, it's small and light but limited. I tried the Sony A6000, it is good and it's APS-C sensor produces images comparable to the D7100. But, by the time you add lenses, the size and weight savings over the D7100 really isn't that much, so I sent it back. My favorite small camera is the Sony RX 100, it has a very good lens and easily fits in my pocket. Sensor size is 1", same as the Nikon 1 V3, but I find the IQ better, especially in low light. Sony's JPEG processor is way better than most, and you do have the RAW option if you prefer. So, for the moment, I've chosen to retain my FF D610 and D810 and when traveling, take one of them plus the Sony in my pocket for when I really want a small camera. Been spoiled by the superb images from the FF Nikons, just can't quite accept the step down in quality of the smaller sensors....yet!

An adorable pup for sure! I like the second shot using FX labs. My question is why you could not get the same effect using Lightroom? You mentioned doing a "quick RAW retouch" in Lightroom; did that include adding clarity, contrast, sharpening and vibrance? I'm curious as Lightroom has been my go to program and I've wondered if something better may be out there!

Thanks, indeed we are blessed to have little ones!

Last weekend there was a show in Boca Raton, a nice collection of foreign and domestic iron in original, restored and modified condition. Here are a few shots for the car lovers among us!

A classic Packard with totally modern underpinnings.

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Interior of a beautifully restored and original 1961 E-Type Jaguar

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Jaguar Engine 3.8 liter

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Packard emblem - they don't make 'em like this anymore!

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Chevy Truck

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American Power - 1960 Corvette

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Classic "knock off" wire wheel.

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Ford Hot Rod Truck

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A peek into the engine of a Jag XK-120

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I respectfully disagree with you on this. Although the Sony has steps and most digital zooms are stepless, the methodology and effect on resolution are the same. The in camera processing does make a difference and the Sony are quite good at doing a decent job. However you mention, correctly, that the digital converter drops the resolution from 24 to 12 megapixels, whereas an optical converter would provide the same field of view but still produces a 24mp image. No doubt optical converters will degrade an image, but the effect is fairly minimal with high quality converters from Canon, Nikon and others, so I'm inclined to think that an optical converter would give better results than digital. A potential advantage to digital is that there is no adverse effect on lens speed which can cause autofocus issues in low light on some cameras.