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A look at my favourite new camera, cute and compact… my precious little Sony A7r. A small revolution in the world of photography — a full-frame sensor in a compact body! Impossible? Oh really? Sony pulled it off, even if it meant making some compromises. As always, nothing is perfect, and every camera has its fans.
Size and weight are the major selling points of this new body. I used to own a Sony Alpha 77 and an RX100 as a backup. The Alpha is great when you’re off to visit a museum or a city — you pack your camera bag with all the gear and go shoot monuments. The RX is great when you’re out on a motorbike and don’t have room for the Alpha, except that when you use two cameras you’re never happy with the one you picked! Damn, I brought the RX but I wanted the Alpha; on a hike with the Alpha, damn, I should have brought the RX, it’s lighter.
With the A7 you get the best of both worlds. Going out to dinner in the city but don’t want to miss a beautiful sunset over the Garonne? Bring the A7. Well, now I have no more excuses for not taking great shots.
Sure, once you mount a lens like the Zeiss 24-70 f/4 FE you quickly end up with something as bulky as a DSLR — but where before I was forced to choose between compactness and image quality, now I don’t have to think about it. The only question left is which lens to bring. Need to travel light? Take the 35mm. Otherwise, the 24-70.
The sensor
After tasting the image quality of APS-C cameras with the Alpha 55 and then the Alpha 77, I wanted to take the plunge into full-frame. I hesitated for a long time between the Alpha 99 (yes, I’m sticking with Sony — I love the electronic viewfinder). Looking back, I’m glad I waited, because I never thought Sony would be able to fit such a sensor into such a small body.
This is one of the trade-offs Sony had to make to pack so much technology into a small package. If flash is absolutely essential for you, this camera isn’t for you. There is of course a hot shoe for adding an external flash.
On this point I’m stepping down from the Alpha 77, which had a fully articulating screen and especially let you take selfies or record yourself while seeing the result directly on the screen facing you. That’s no longer possible here — you have to shoot blind! Well, not completely — Sony does let you send the image from the A7 to your phone (Android only?) via WiFi, which lets you frame shots and trigger the shutter remotely. A nice touch.
The lens selection is pretty sparse right now — only 4 E-mount options (35, 55, 24-70, 28-70), with much smaller maximum apertures than equivalent focal lengths on other mounts. It is possible to adapt other mounts (Canon, Nikon, Leica, Alpha), but only with adapter rings that will cost you some features (aperture control, AF). If you’re a NEX mount owner, you’ll be able to use your lenses on the A7 with a crop of the image to fit the full-frame sensor.
Another step back compared to my old Alphas: it’s a shame they couldn’t integrate a GPS chip to automatically geotag photos directly from the camera. There are solutions though, like recording your route with a My Tracks-type app on your phone. That app generates a GPX file that you can import into Lightroom (v4 and above), and your photos will automatically be tagged along that route by matching the timestamps.
