photo: The Runner

[Godfrey]

Sony A7 + Summicron-R 90mm f/2
ISO 100 @ f/2.8 @ 1/1250​

First shooting walk with the A7 today, fitted with either of the Summilux-R 50mm or Summicron-R 90mm lenses. The sensor is terrific, the camera a little odd and uneven in its design and implementation but it works well enough, the lenses ...

OMIGOD ... I think my hunch was right! These lenses NEED a FF, high Mpixel sensor to do them justice, and when they have it the imaging qualities are just amazing. Just like they are on film when shooting with the Leicaflex SL.

Very pleased. My goal in buying the camera has been realized.

Now to learn some of the other details about this camera's disorganized, messy menu and control system. It's *almost* right at this point, but no thanks to Sony's interface design and engineering team. Anyone complaining about Olympus menus after using this should likely stick with point and shoots...

Thanks for looking. Comments always appreciated.

G

 

[Jamie Pillers]

Shot at f4? If so, nice focusing job, catching him perfectly in focus with nice foreground and background blur... with a manual focus lens! Kudos!!

I look forward to your continuing assessment of the A7. As you probably know, dpreview had a lot of 'nitpicks' about the camera. Judging only by their review, I would've waited for the A7 v.2. But maybe you and others here will dispel those nitpicks? 🙂

 

[Godfrey]

Shot at f4? If so, nice focusing job, catching him perfectly in focus with nice foreground and background blur... with a manual focus lens! Kudos!!

I look forward to your continuing assessment of the A7. As you probably know, dpreview had a lot of 'nitpicks' about the camera. Judging only by their review, I would've waited for the A7 v.2. But maybe you and others here will dispel those nitpicks? 🙂

Thanks Jamie! Shot at f/2.8, actually. I'm pretty comfortable working manual focus lenses ... ;-)

The A7 control ergonomics are sucky, the menus are worse. The shutter is a bit clacky (no worse than the M9 shutter, really, IMO). Learning how to configure it given the abysmal menu organization is the biggest challenge. However, once you get it right, it's a very workable camera for my purposes. Looking at this first batch of exposures, the sensor is lovely and the Leica R lenses I'm using play very nicely with it.

I picked the A7 over the A7r as I suspected it would be a better job for these old SLR lenses, and maybe for some of my M lenses too. 24 Mpixel is quite enough really, assuming the lens and sensor get along. Seems they do, so far.

G