Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I picked up my a7 directly from the Sony Store on November 15th in Hong Kong. The first one I received was okay except it had a mushy delete/c3 button (it didn’t click when pressed), so I refused it and had to wait until the next day to get another one. The second body had all buttons and dials working properly, so I took it home with a giant smile on my face. I purchased the camera, body only. I also purchased the Zeiss 35mm F 2.8. Why I chose the a7 over the a7R. 1. It has less megapixels. Yes, you read correctly. 99.9% of the photos I take live in iPhoto. The only thing 36mp does compared to 24mp is take up more drive space. Also, I have a 20” x 30” blown up photo in my living room that I took on my old 12mp D300 and it looks amazing. So, 24mp is way more than enough for me. 2. It has Phase Detection Auto focus (PDAF), and the a7R does not. I wanted this faster focus because I will mainly use this for photographing my 6-month old growing up. 3. It has the low pass filter. I don’t want to have to remove moiré in photoshop or GIMP. I don’t even want to deal with photoshop or GIMP except for maybe that .1% of photos that don’t live in iPhoto. Also, this camera is also the home camcorder, and it is very difficult to remove moiré from video. (however, from test shots I have been seeing, the a7r doesn’t appear to have significant moiré problems, so this may not be all that important.) Now that you understand where I am coming from, here is my review. This is by far the best camera I have ever owned. Just in case you got here by accident, this is the smallest and lightest full frame changeable lens digital camera ever made. Full Frame just means that all the lenses out there for 35mm film cameras will look the same on this sensor. The pictures are amazing, the autofocus is lightning fast, and everything just feels like it should. It makes taking pictures very easy and fun. I moved to Sony NEX because I would often leave my Nikon D300 in the hotel, or at home because it was so darn bulky and heavy. You can stop reading now. It is a 5 star camera. The rest of the review consists of my comments about the various features on the camera. FIT and FINISH: The a7 feels extremely well put together, and exudes quality. The a7 has two differences from the a7R build. The a7 has a polymer front plate instead of magnesium, and it has polymer dials instead of aluminum. But, I cannot tell the difference between this camera and the a7R. They feel the exactly same to me (but this was only a showroom examination). If you owned both for a while, you could probably determine the difference, but it is really hard to. The a7’s weight is about 1/3oz more (9g). CONNECTIONS: This camera has a standard mic in port, headphone out port, micro USB, and a micro HDMI out. It also has Sony’s new MI hot shoe. This is based on the standardized hot shoe size. There are extra contacts at the front for using all sorts of attachments, but it will also fire off a regular Nikon or Cannon flash (you will need to use manual mode, though). It also takes the regular SD cards (but will also accept the Sony memory stick type). It uses the same battery as the NEX-6, which is the Infolithium-W, so all those accessories or AC adapters and battery chargers will work here. BATTERY: This camera does really burn through the battery. It depletes noticeably faster than the NEX-6. You should buy an extra battery and a wall charger. The camera is designed for “in camera” charging using the USB cable. However, this means your camera is out of commission while the battery is charging (which is 310 minutes in the camera according to the user manual). The wall charger is a must… and ONLY buy Sony batteries, and only from a big box store, a Sony store, or reputable camera shop. There are fakes even on amazon (many are only “fulfilled by amazon”). The last thing you want is a fake battery melting inside your $1,699+tax camera. Six months ago one of mine (marked Sony and bought through amazon) did melt, but it melted in my wall charger and not my NEX-6. Thank goodness. HOT SHOE: This camera uses the new style Sony hot shoe. So, if you have a lot of “auto lock” accessories, you will need an adapter. But, the good thing is that the new hot shoe is the standard kind, so it will fire even off brand speed lights (although, you will need to use the manual metering mode on the flash… it only receives the “fire” command from the camera, not all the settings). It is the same hot shoe as the a99 and the NEX-6, and is the shoe Sony will be using on all new products that have a hot shoe. SHUTTER SOUND: Some have complained about the “loud shutter.” It is louder than the NEX-6, but not by much. I would not consider it “loud.” The a7 has the electronic front curtain shutter, so it is quieter than the a7R. Anyway, this is NOT the camera to bring to the gym locker room to take illegal pictures of your fellow members, but it’s not so loud as to get you ejected from a friend’s wedding. VIEWFINDER: The viewfinder is beautiful. Also, the sensitivity for detecting your eye is better implemented than on the NEX-6. Now, it will usually stay on the rear LCD and only change when your eye is against the finder. On the NEX-6, it would often think anything nearby is an eye and turn off the LCD. Also, Sony has done something with the lens in the finder. I find the screen to look VERY sharp and VERY easy to see. It is a large improvement on the NEX-6 (and I love that finder). ERGONOMICS: The ergonomics of this camera are simply amazing. The only downside is that the shutter release may feel a bit high (it is on the camera top, not the grip top like the NEX-6). I thought so at first, but now it feels normal. I love the two dials and the rear wheel. However, it is easy to accidently hit the rear wheel and change your ISO. You can lock this wheel and require hitting the “fn” to unlock it, but I haven’t found it to be that disruptive. MENUS: I love the menus. They are not the NEX style menus, but a single menu screen with all of the various groupings across the top. It is very easy to navigate to find what you are after (I still forget where certain things are on my NEX-6, with its awkward menus). There is an option to overlay the NEX style “tiles,” but that is just a top screen. Once you are past that top screen, the menus are the same. THE MODE DIAL: Sony took the mode dial from the NEX-6 and fixed the two complaints I had about it. They added 2 custom slots to store all settings. So, if you are shooting and have everything set up perfectly for a common situation, just hit memory in the menu and set it to “1” or “2.” Now, when you turn the mode dial to “1” everything is exactly as you had set it. The second thing they did is get rid of having 2 different “auto” settings. Now, you have just one “auto” slot and pick if you want it to use “intelligent auto” or “intelligent auto+”. And… if you thought that two autos on the mode dial was a good idea, you can always put the second auto in one of your custom slots. So, everyone is happy. AUDIO: This camera lets you adjust your microphone input gain. It also shows you your recording levels, so you can see if you are getting your volume blown out or have your gain set too low. VIDEO: This camera has a dedicated “movie” location on the mode dial which you can set up any way you like. You can also press the movie record button from any of the other modes to record a video. The advantage of the movie mode is that the standby time is optimized for video. So, you can see your audio levels and have zebra striping on before you start recording. CUSTOMIZABLE BUTTONS: This camera lets you customize almost all buttons. I think “menu,” “play,” and up on the click wheel are the only buttons that don’t allow some level of customization. C1, C2, C3, and left, right, down, and center on the click wheel are 100% customizable. The Fn menu is customizable, but the Fn button always will go to this menu. The shutter release is customizable to remove AF and AE on 1/2 click (stop the camera from trying to refocus and re-meter when you snap a shot). The AF/MF – AEL button is fully customizable. Movie button can be turned off while not in movie mode. And the main front and back dials can be swapped between aperture and shutter speed. The rear click wheel is customizable, but I think the default of ISO is the best. LENSES – NON-SONY: The wonderful thing about the mirrorless camera is that the film plane is much closer to the lens mount than the SLRs. This means that you can fit an adapter in there and run old SLR lenses exactly how they were meant to be (i.e. the distance to the sensor is the same as the lens makers designed the lens for). I have an adapter for Nikon lenses, and love using them on the camera. Just make sure the adapter is “full frame” compatible because some adapters were designed for NEX’s smaller sensor and will block light around the edges. One cool thing is that Metabones makes a smart-adapter for Canon lenses that allows full electronic control and focus of the Canon AF lenses. Most adapters require manual aperture and focus, like the one I have for Nikon (but the camera still works just fine and meters perfectly). And all the leica rangefinder lenses are manual, anyway… so it works just the same (but with TTL viewfinding and focus peaking and focus zooming!!!). MANUAL FOCUS: Because adapted lenses will mostly be focused manually, manual focus is important. Sony has a brilliant system for this. They use a thing called focus peaking which puts a highlight on hard edges (you can chose white, yellow, or red). Anyway, if something is in focus, it will get this highlight (I use yellow in general). Also, it has a focus zoom function that will give you magnification into a very small part of the picture. So, if you are focusing a portrait, you can zoom in so that the person’s eye fills the whole view finder. You can get that focus sharper than you could ever hope for using an optical view finder. It almost feels like cheating. LENSES –SONY FE-MOUNT: The a7 / a7R are the first of a new line of cameras. So, native FE-mount full frame lenses are limited. In fact, there were only 2 when I bought this camera. The kit zoom, and the Zeiss 35mm F2.8. The Zeiss 55mm F1.8 will be out by Christmas. And, a Zeiss 24-70 F4 and Sony 70-200G F4 are coming in Q1-2014. So, there will be 5 native lenses in a couple months. Sony has published a roadmap and will have 15 lenses out in the next two years. However, you can get the Sony adapter so you can use all the Sony A-mount lenses (with full autofocus!). That adapter is about $400, and the one without the special autofocus motor is $300. One thing to be warned about is that all of the native lenses are… um… kind of pricy. Some would say, overpriced. LENSES – SONY E-MOUNT: The camera is also backwards compatible with all of your NEX lenses that were designed for the smaller APS-C sensor. By default, the camera will use those lenses exactly as they appeared on one of the APS-C cameras, by cropping down the full frame image. (On the A7, pictures will be 10.5MP, on the a7R it is 15.75MP) This means you will use only an APS-C sized section of the image sensor. You can turn this off and use the whole sensor, but you will get heavy vignetting because those lenses were not designed to cover full frame. (Note: The SEL 10-18 zoom is one lens that will cover the full frame at 16mm-18mm. No other SEL lenses will cover the frame that I know of, but all will actually cover more area than APS-C… you will just need to manually crop the image later and decide how much vignetting you will accept.) Minor Annoyances: 1. I have the PAL version of the camera, but set it to NTSC video mode. For some reason, the camera gives me a warning “Running in NTSC” every single time I start the camera. I mean, every single time. This is annoying. Sony needs to come up with a way to disable this alert. If you buy from USA Amazon, you should not have this issue unless you switch to PAL mode (I assume). 2. If you are wearing glasses , the viewfinder has to be up to your eye in just the right way before it will recognize your eye and turn on. It works flawlessly with contacts or no glasses. I wish there was a “glasses mode” that would make it more sensitive. However, I still prefer this to the over-sensitive NEX-6 which thinks everything anywhere close to the back of the camera is your eye. COMPATIBILITY WITH ACCESSORIES – (That I have actually tested) Stereo Microphone - ECM-XYST1M: The Sony web page says this is compatible, but it is not really. If you put it on, it will record sound. But, under the current firmware, you are unable to adjust audio levels. You can see my Amazon review for this microphone about its way too sensitive auto setting that will crank up the microphone during silence so you always get a low hiss in the background. I thought this would be resolved with the a7’s ability to adjust input gain… but for some reason, the audio levels feature gets disabled when you attach this microphone. The menu item just grays out! Do not buy this for use with the a7. (I have notified Sony about this and will update here if a firmware update solves this issue) MI Shoe External Flash - HVLF20M: This is the small one, not the giant speed light that is larger than the a7. I really like this flash. It meters through the camera and is small and light. It folds down out of the way (which also turns it off). It can only point forward or bounce off the ceiling, but that is okay for most needs. If you want more than that, you probably need to get creative with tape and a 3x5 index card to direct the light where you want. For what it is, it’s great. It takes AAAs. But, be careful… there is an identical looking version that is for Sony’s old style hot shoe and it will not fit on the a7 without a separate adapter. Be sure the version you get is for the MI Shoe (you can just copy and paste the item code I mention above).