Equipment Sony A7 Hands On Review

We all knew the Sony A7 was coming, it had been rumoured for the past year and indeed here they are. The video covers all the main points of the A7 and it's been a very photographic weekend for me personally. I started with some long exposure photography, moved to car photography, portrait photos, and finally some nature shots with Kitty, my pet Caique parrot.







This image appears to have light banding but the original does not, I've written it off as a Facebook quality reduction thing...








Hands down, pretty amazing camera!

 

Facebook compression murders photos, I'd put the photos onto flickr instead as it doesn't compress images as harshly.

 

I think that would be the go as there's a flickr lightroom plug in

 

In other news, Christmas comes early. I'll test the battery grip out and do a video on it as well!

 

It's one of the best for that reason, creating Photosets and uploading without having to leave lightroom is just awesome.

 

And now, reasonably priced too



Just finished the Battery Grip Review for the Sony A7/A7R. The VG-C1EM is one of the more useful accessories it seems.





Pros:

1. Great stability regardless of whether or not you are shooting portrait or landscape.
2. Only drains one battery at a time.
3. Doubles battery life of the A7 or A7R
4. Exactly the same layout as the A7 in landscape with a manual focus button, custom button, two dials and a shutter

Cons:

1. Preview mode still thinks the camera is shooting in landscape
2. Although it can't be helped, it does defeat the purpose of the small and lightness of the A7.
3. It doesn't make you coffee in the morning or tuck you in at night.

 

I'd like to have a play with the A7R to see how it compares to the D800.

 

I doubt you'll see much difference in terms of IQ (roughly using the same sensor) but the weight and size differential will be massive.

 

I've got both Nikon and Canon metabones adapters and am heading to the Garage88 car meet this Sunday, should be fun!

 

I think you'll notice a Huge difference in IQ depending on which lenses you use of course & DOF control will also be different.

Making things small doesn't always make them better.

 

Surprisingly this is pretty well covered and the specs of the A7R are well within the range of the D800E, often surpassing it as well.

The IQ of both cameras, as I mentioned is very, very similar. Sony makes the sensors on both bodies so that doesn't really come as much of a surprise. You can check out a direct comparison here: http://www.cameralabs.com/reviews/Sony_Alpha_A7r/Sony_A7r_vs_Nikon_D800e_noise.shtml

You'll notice that the A7R has much, much better ISO performance but the main difference here is that the D800E weighs twice as much and costs two thirds more.

 

Canon 85mm 1.8 wide open selfie style with the metabones adapter. So slow to auto focus that you may as well just manual focus it with peaking.




Terrorising the locals at Woolies with the 50mm 1.4 Nikon, again with the metabones adapter.




85mm 1.8, pretty sharp wide open.

 

Finished my metabone adapter review for the A7!



Here's my breakdown:

Canon Metabones Adapter Pros:
Auto Focus
No need to touch the metabone adapter during operation
Solid build quality

Canon Metabones Adapter Cons:
Slow to focus (although quite sharp and accurate)
Bit of a tight squeeze and no click when you attach a lens
Nothing else to report really



Nikkon Metabones Adapter Pros:
Great fast manual control
Solid build quality
Clicks on and off easily

Nikkon Metabones Adapter Cons:
No automatic model available
Can't see actual aperture whilst shooting
Nothing else to report.

 

These are some wide open aperture photos with the kit lens. Whilst not even close to the 35/2.8 in sharpness, it does an adequate job. Took these on my recent trip to the Hunter Valley

 

Some test shots with a range of the Zeiss FE lenses that I did.


Zeiss F4 24-70mm (unreleased lens)

Zeiss F2.8 35mm
http://flic.kr/p/ikvExj - Feather Detail
http://flic.kr/p/iY7Huq - Landscape

A7 Kit Lens F3.5-5.6 28-70mm
http://flic.kr/p/ikwntK - Feather Detail
http://flic.kr/p/iY5TQh - Landscape

Hardly a scientific test but from my experience with the new 24-70 yesterday it's got a good amount of contrast and sharpness and really is only bested slightly by the 35mm 2.8 which is the fastest and sharpest FE lens available in the range so that's not bad at all.

Both lenses are T* so you'd expect good performance out of them anyway but I can see quite a few being discouraged by the price.

The real winner for the new lens is the optical steady shot which is almost better than having a steady cam rig. The film I took with it was mostly with one hand and with two hands you can almost convince people that you had shot on a tripod, it's that good and you can see that footage when I get around to uploading it to YouTube.

All in all, great lens if you want a high quality, constant AF solution that comes with in-built stabilization and weather sealing.

 

I'd be tempted to get an A7 but I just don't trust Sony to keep the Lens standard long enough to make the investment in glass worth it.

 

Point taken but I don't think we are moving away from 35mm Full Frame anytime soon, especially not in the consumer space.

Couple that with the fact you can mount pretty much anything with the adapter and you're set!



Had the lens for only a few hours and whipped up a video. Couldn't do a complete run down as the 24-70mm Zeiss I had is an engineering sample and isn't final build quality (although as you'll see, still damn good).

Worth the price tag? I'm waiting on a mass production unit and will do a full review and comparison then.

 

Did an overview on the Zeiss 55mm f1.8!

 

Had the Zeiss 55 1.8 for the day and whilst I didn't get the chance to use it for portraits, I did manage to sneak some car shots.







The focal plane is really nice and narrow when wide open! Feel free to pixel peep as I haven't done any sharpening or noise reduction to the RAW images and have only done minor colour adjustments.

 

Probably the most in depth review I've done a lens so far, especially as far as the technical analysis goes!