Thinking of buying an a7 or a7r

<p>I currently own a Sony NEX 7 and I quite like it. To me, its 24.3 mp sensor provides images that are usually more than high enough in resolution. Probably the only thing I really don't like about it, and it's a minor thing, is that it is an APS-C camera. I would like to own an FF mirrorless camera, but I have limited funds available. So I'm thinking about seeking out a clean a7 or maybe an a7r now that all the attention is being focused on the II-series. So I'm just wondering what it is I won't see that the upgrades have. I mean I've gone through the lists of features, but after a while, the mind numbs over and I wonder which improvements truly matter. Seems to me the biggest improvement is in-body stabilization, correct? I do a fair amount of telephoto work, so this is actually a compelling reason for me to wait. Are there other reasons that are compelling enough such that I should hold off and continue to save for a II-series? I guess I'm targeting owners of the original a7-series. Are you folks satisfied with your gear, or are you planning to upgrade -- or have you already? And why?</p>

<p>I guess it's helpful to mention what sort of photography I prefer -- I do mostly outdoor stuff. Nature, macros, some citiyscapes, street stuff. I used to do a lot of motorsports photography, shooting manual focus film gear. Recently I covered a day of motorcycle races, using my NEX 7 mounted to a manual focus Tamron 300mm f/2.8 LDIF. First time I've done anything like that in years. It was a hoot. I'd like to get back into doing that again. I also enjoy airshows. Framing and catching accurate focus of aircraft doing high-speed flybys is a major challenge.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>As my Olympus digital SLR gives 10 MP, my A7 is entirely satisfactory so far as megapixels are concerned. I feel no need for the even greater MP of the A7R. Another reason to prefer the A7 over the A7R is its focussing arrangement. You are correct in thinking that the chief added feature of the II models is in-body image stabilisation. For nature and macros a tripod is the obvious choice. For flying aircraft, some kind of image stabilisation ought to help.</p>

<p>In-body image stabilization is a compelling reason to hold off for an A7ii or A7Rii. It does an amazing job with any lens, including third party lenses with a mount adapter. There's no difference in image quality between the A7 and A7ii, but the latter also has better ergonomics. The A7R has high resolution, but this is offset by shutter vibration which cannot be eliminated, even using a tripod. The mod 2 versions have an electronic first curtain option, which eliminates any shutter vibration which could affect the image. The A7Rii goes one step further with a silent shutter option. This is great where silence is important (e.g., classical concerts and recitals). The only sound comes from the diaphragm closing or auto focus (which are almost inaudible with the camera to your face).</p>

<p>I'd suggest getting an A7 now. Besides having a lovely sensor, the A7 has first curtain shutter. I do a fair amount of macro work and that was a big one for me. At today's prices, the price/performance ratio is very good. The image quality is simply terrific. That may fill most of your needs and you can start using your adapted lenses on full frame as well as begin to gather some native FE lenses.<br>

For me, the IBIS of the A7II, and moving the shutter release, was not worth the upgrade cost although if I was just starting now, I might consider it. For sports shooting, I'd upgrade your 7 to an A6000. Another great price/performance camera. In fact, the A6000 may be all you need for everything. A wonderful, lightweight shooter with excellent image quality.</p>

<p>That said, no 35mm camera, from any maker, I've ever owned (and I've owned a few), comes close to touching the A7RII. It's a finely built, fast focusing, silent shuttered, smooth firing, Steady-Shot enabled, super high resolution/dynamic range wonder camera that fits in the palm of your hand. Next year these will be more affordable. Start savings now, trust me, you'll want one. As I write this I'm sitting here barefooted. I just got my FE 90mm f/2.8 macro lens and my first test shots on the A7RII have <strong>blown my socks off! </strong>Remarkable clarity and resolution.</p>

<p>I have the A7R and I have never seen blurring due to "shutter vibration" at shutter speeds shorter than 1/160 and/or focal lengths shorter than 90mm at any speed. That said, this camera is more at home on a tripod than not.</p>

<p>I think Louis' recommendation of the A6000 makes sense. :-)</p>

<p>But I chose the A7 over the A7r because I believe that Bayer sensors need a low-pass filter. The other reasons for choosing the A7 were the first-curtain electronic shutter and lower price.</p>

<p>The A7s is another choice worth considering. But wait for the third version - I think it's going to be amazing.</p>

<p>Perhaps you should go back to your first question and re-ask yourself why you want full frame. You say about the NEX-7, "its 24.3 mp sensor provides images that are usually more than high enough in resolution." You also say you do motorsports, where the extra "reach" of the APS-C format is an advantage. I'm just trying to make you think through your question about full frame. I went through the Nikon DX bodies, D70, D200 and then got a D700, and later a D800E. I'm now back to APS-C with the Fuji X system. <br>

Don't forget full frame cameras require full frame lenses, which tend to be large. You cannot change physics. The "advantage" of the Sony A7Rii, for example, (it's smaller than my Fuji X T-1, but not lighter) goes away once you start putting lenses on it. <br>

Good luck with whatever you choose, it's your choice, and your money.</p>

Another feature to consider is the autofocus system - the a7rii (and a7ii as well after a recent firmware update I believe) can autofocus

canon lenses with an adapter. There is even an adapter coming on the market that will autofocus Nikon lenses. May or may not be

important to you; for me it was essential - I've able to replace a canon 5d Mark II with an a7rii and use all of my canon and canon mount

lenses.

<p>Wow, thanks for all the responses, guys. Reasons why I like to read real-world reports like yours is you emphasize what's important to YOU, why you like your particular setup. It's often very hard to get that same sort of impression from a published review.</p>

<p>Eric, good advice, but trust me, I've had the same conversation with myself many times. I've been shooting with APS-C for over 7 years now. I can appreciate the extra apparent reach I get out of my telephotos, but I'm really tired of seeing my wide angles just sitting there, collecting dust. See, I have a lot of lenses, almost all of which are legacy, manual-focus glass. I have two 17mm's, one 20mm, and at least three 24mm's -- 28mms, I dunno, I'd have to count. I just really like the look I get with 24s, the 20, and 17s out of my 35mm cameras, and I'd really like to be able to get that same sort of "look" with my digital cameras. Without having to buy some expensive pieces of new glass. With a manual-focus ultra wide angle, there's essentially no focusing done really, so I don't much see the point of even worrying about AF with the really wide stuff. So why should I buy new? -- if I'm moving up to FF, that is. If I were staying with APS-C, then obviously, I'd have to think about new. Not much of a selection of very wide angles for the Sony APS-Cs though, except for the manual focus Samyang primes.</p>

<p>After reading through your impressions, I think I've made my decision based on your impressions and recommendations. It boils down to two cameras -- either the A7 or the A7RII. The early bare-bones camera has all the good features one would want in a modest package and the latest and greatest has all the early bare-bones one has and a whole lot more of the same sort of good stuff, plus all its own extra good stuff thrown in for good measure.</p>

<p>Does that about sum things up? ;-></p>

<p> </p>

<p>Michael,</p>

<p>I have been going through the same thought process. I thought the A7 would be a fine platform to go full-frame and allow me to use my legacy lenses. Then the A7RII came out and it completely changed my feelings. To justify the costs it would have to become my main camera system. I am writing down a list of all the types of photography I will want to do. Then I look at how well this camera does it compared to the competition.</p>

<p>The A7RII looks to do most of the things I want very well. I will probably rent one to give it a proper evaluation. Next week I am going to the WPPI show in Las Vegas. I hope to have a list of questions for the Sony reps.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>The A7ii and A7Rii are nearly ideal for use with manual focus lenses. It has two features for enhanced focusing - peaking (white, red or yellow patches where edge contrast is high) and magnification (5x or 12x). I don't find peaking very useful for focusing, and the color patches distracting. Magnification works out very well. With native lenses, magnification can be set in the menu to activate whenever the focus ring is turned slightly. With third party lenses, simply program one of the 12 buttons to engage it. Magnification turns off after a preset time, or when you half-press the shutter release.</p>

<p>While you don't need (or want) auto focus for landscapes and architecture, there are many situations where it's nice to have. In addition to a wide range of native AF lenses, there are auto-focus adapters for Sony A-mount lenses, Canon, Sigma and (recently) Nikon lenses. </p>

<p>I use an EM-1, mostly with legacy lenses. I recently bought used A7R. In a straight comparison, with the lens on the two bodies, aimed at the same target, I could not get a sharp image with the A7R, and this was at 1/400 or 1/1000 sec. I tried a tripod, a bean bag and Sorbothane on the bottom plate.<br>

The lens was 180mm, set at f8 (its best aperture for resolution) and I understand that around 200mm FL in the worst case.<br>

The shutter on the A7R sounds like a worn out cat flap. To market a camera with such vibration is a disgrace. I will be using it with flash, where I expect no problem.</p>

<p>All these Sony cameras are great. </p>

<p>With a limited budget and desire for FF, the A7 is an obvious choice. I have this camera, it's great. The II, as Lou wrote, has IBIS and the shutter button is moved. It's also heavier and bigger. </p>

 

<p>There's one other thing I should mention, which is pretty much a requirement. I used to do a lot of motorsports and I still attend airshows on a regular basis. I've recently gotten back into motorsports and so the ability to track high-speed action would be a big plus. With many motorsports situations and at airshows, often I would pan with the action. This allowed me to shoot with slower shutter speeds, typically 1/125 and 1/60, to blur the props on aircraft or to blur the wheels on racecars. Back in the 80s and early 90s, I wasn't shooting with AF, and what I would do was pre-focus on a spot on the track and shoot as a car passed through it. This was tougher at airshows, obviously, so I would make sure I had the lens stopped down to f/8 or f/11 to have as much depth of field as possible.</p>

<p>Most recently, I attended a day of motorcycle races at a local track. I used a manual-focus Tamron 300mm f/2.8 LDIF with my NEX 7. I had the NEX set to shoot in high-speed mode, like 10fps or so, I had focus peaking on, and I had prefocused on a section of the track. This setup actually worked very well. I was even shooting with the lens wide open at f/2.8 and I could see when the bikes were passing into that plane where they were reaching optimum focus (thanks to focus peaking), so I would fire away when the focus peaking began to light up.</p>

<p>I was at a local camera shop a while back and was playing around with an a7. One of the things I tried was testing how fast it would react when I panned with the camera. I found that there were these long pauses between frames where the viewfinder was totally dark. And I was thinking that was totally unacceptable. So I crossed that generation of the a7-series off my list. And I bought my NEX 7 instead. I bought the NEX because I knew it had that high-speed setting. What I didn't know at the time was the way it achieved such a high speed was by autofocusing on the first frame only. Months after buying the NEX, I tried duplicating the pan test I did with the a7 at the camera shop, and guess what I found? The performance was essentially the same! Oh well. I guess things slow down a lot when focus-tracking, or follow-focus, or whatever it's called, is engaged.</p>

<p>So I'm thinking I may have made the situation overly difficult for the a7-series, that is, what I expect from them. My 10.1mp APS-C Canon XS can follow most airshow action with its rather sluggish 3.5 fps and I'm hoping for something at least this good with the a7 and an AF lens, if I were to buy one for it. Anything beyond that and I set things to manual and do the trap focus thing. Back in my manual-focus film days at airshow, I used motordriven cameras, but I almost never shot bursts of photos. I used the md so I could keep my eye at the viewfinder and not have to remove it when I wound the film. So I was shooting in "semi-auto" mode, if you will. One exposure per push of the button. This was always plenty good enough. So if I can achieve the same performance level with an a7-series, I'll be happy. Plus, given that I've already become comfortable with the NEX 7's 24.3mp sensor, the A7 will fit within that same comfort zone. Right? Is there anything I'm maybe overlooking?</p>

<p>So, if you're familiar with the A7's capabilities, would you say it would meet my needs, based on my descriptions?</p>

 

<p>So, anybody? Nobody can comment on using an A7 in more of a sport mode?</p>

 

<p>In general the A7 series is not the best for sports. This is an area where DSLRs are currently still better. However, the A6000 and A6300 are apparently really really fast and very well suited to this kind of thing. Maybe one of those? When you aren't using native AF lenses with it, you can still use your manual focus wide-angle lenses, and furthermore, you can use them with a Speedbooster to keep their full AOV.</p>

<p>I've done OK using my NEX 7 with its 10 fps mode and focus peaking. I don't try doing a lot of follow focus, especially since I'm using legacy manual focus glass when I'm at these venues -- auto and motorcycle racing, and airshows. I'm mostly concerned about the viewfinder clearing the way a regular DSLR does. I can get my NEX to do this.</p>

<p>@ Harold Gough.<br>

You might find this article (and the two preceding it in the series) of interest, re: A7R shutter shock.<br>

http://www.josephholmes.com/news-sonya7rshuttershake-part3.html<br>

The Sorbonne would seem to be of no use, and actually might add to the problem. In addition, the sync. shutter speed seems to be the speed at which any blurring might be at its maximum.</p>

 

<p>Thanks, Peter, I had seen Parts 1 & 2.</p>