Sony A7R: Potential Gamechanger?

cgw · Dec 19, 2013

No camera warmongering intended. Worth a look:

LensRentals.com - Sony A7R: A Rising Tide Lifts All the Boats?

rexbobcat · Dec 19, 2013

If it was $500 cheaper I think it would be.

slow231 · Dec 19, 2013

cheaper price would always help it's impact. but being a FF camera i don't think the price is at all too high. i'd really love to get my hands on one for some testing.

Derrel · Dec 19, 2013

It looks like a nice try on Sony's part, but they missed on several fronts. Launching an "expensive" (there's that word again!) camera with an all-new lens mount and basically, no real lens choices was the first huge mistake. Simply HUGE. Sony really screwed the pooch on that. Without a real in-place lens lineup, the kind of customer who might want an A7 or A7R is left without any roadmap, no dream list, no wishbook material, just promises from Sony. The promise of a lens lineup in a year to 18 months just is not adequate for a camera launch, when that camera uses a BRAND-NEW, single-company lens mount.

Lens prices for the system are also pretty high. A $799 35mm f/2.8 prime lens is expensive, and although it *is undoubtedly* a fine, fine lens, it's also cursed with a slow, 1960's-era max aperture of f/2.8, not f/1.4, not even f/1.8. As a status symbol, a 35mm f/2.8 lens falls flat, even with the Zeiss by Cosina sticker on the side of the barrel.

Sony does have some amazing new in-camera image processing routines that eliminate CA and help to mitigate diffraction, plus the new sensor technology with the high-tech microlens arrays, so the camera with its native, profiled lenses offers OUTSTANDING imaging performance. Simply outstanding imaging performance, as long as the lens is high-quality AND is in the list of profiled lenses designed specifically for the sensor. The adapted lens performance really tails off as the light rays hitting off-center just do not cut the mustard, so it once again shows the system is built around using Sony's non-existent lenses...the ones they have promised to deliver, sometime in the future.

The battery life on these cameras is horrible, very poor consumer-level at best. And the shutter on one of them is God-awful loud. As in really,really,really loud.Wedding camera? Uhhh, no, not when every shot sounds like an aluminum baseball bat hitting one out of the park. Not sure why Sony built a high-tech camera with one of the loudest shutters possible. The focusing system seems to be average to good, from what I have read. Not sure what the term "game-changer" really is supposed to mean...it's a vague term, with no real set definition. Does that mean will it be a sales hit for Sony? Will Cosina rake in the big bucks assembling a tsunami of lenses that the Zeiss brand is slapped onto with that cool blue sticker? Will it convince the other camera makers to go mirrorless and FF with noisy shutters and 400-shot batteries? Will it encourage Canon and Nikon to create a BRAND-NEW lens mount that no third party is making lenses for? Will the other cameras makers launch an untried concept and launch with two bodies, a zoom lens or two, and a couple of out of reach primes, like a $1,000 normal lens and an $800 semi-normal/pseudo-wide-angle 35mm f/2.8? Who knows!!!!

It's hard to say what impact the Sony A7 and A7R will have, especially since Sony's head man says he likes to, "Come up with something totally different every six months." When it costs $1000 + $799 US dollars to buy a normal lens, and a semi-wide in a brand-new mount that only two bodies can use...I do not see this as being a "game-changer" in terms of sales, or adoption, but I DO SEE IT as a game-changer in the way Sony has made AMAZING in-camera CA and in-camera diffraction elimination possible through amazing new signal processing and amazing new microlens array design advances. I see the underlying technology in image processing/optics/hardware as being this camera's legacy. I think it will be a sales failure, but a technological milestone. I expect that if they put a decent shutter in it, one quieter than a hay baler, and a decent battery that's better than a P&S's battery, in Version 2.0, that the camera might gain quite a following, at least in terms of a Sony product. It's one thing to read the test reports of somebody like Lensrentals' Roger Cicala, who's buying with the power of a large company, with almost unlimited gear-buying resources and a price-is-no-object, we'll buy the $1,000 normal lenses and the $799 slow wide-angles, because-we-can-rent-them-and-make-them-pay-for-themselves. I think this camera's second versions might have a chance.

slow231 · Dec 19, 2013

I do agree that the biggest hurdle to adaption is the fact that it relies on a whole new system. it's hard to invest that much money on future promises. but that said, any FF mirrorless will essentially require a new lens series anyways to really take advantage of the mirrorless distance and size. so that issue really just comes with the territory when developing such a camera. i think "game changer" refers to the idea that there may well be a whole new series that will be developed around or for this format (and for this camera to be viable there kind of has to be).

personally love the idea of smaller lighter camera + gear without the need to compromise on anything. i kinda hope this does gather traction and takes off.

robbins.photo · Dec 19, 2013

Gamechanger.. hmm..nope. This is a gamechanger:

Y! SPORTS

robbins.photo · Dec 19, 2013

slow231 said:
I do agree that the biggest hurdle to adaption is the fact that it relies on a whole new system. it's hard to invest that much money on future promises. but that said, any FF mirrorless will essentially require a new lens series anyways to really take advantage of the mirrorless distance and size. so that issue really just comes with the territory when developing such a camera. i think "game changer" refers to the idea that there may well be a whole new series that will be developed around or for this format (and for this camera to be viable there kind of has to be).

personally love the idea of smaller lighter camera + gear without the need to compromise on anything. i kinda hope this does gather traction and takes off.

Would love to see it myself at some point, but I think were still a long way off - what a lot of reviewers fail to mention or consider is the lag inherint in an EVF system. Sure if i'm firing of one or two frames I probably wouldn't notice myself. But since I'm often firing multiple frames per second sometimes for several seconds that sort of thing is a big deal to me personally.

I think this might be a step in the right direction at least in some regards, but I'm not likely to invest in something like this for quite some time to come. Don't need to blow a couple of grand just so the beta machine in the garage that had to be replaced in less than 6 months by VHS can have some more company.. lol.

cgw · Dec 19, 2013

Shutter sound comparison: Sony A7R v The Rest | Tobinators

Derrel · Dec 19, 2013

Exactly my point. A very obnoxious, intrusive shutter sound. Loud, long, slow, and clattery. Decibels are not a simple progression. The Olympus's shutter noise is approximately one-fifteenth as loud as that of the Sony. So, is a shutter fifteen times louder than a competing mirrorless model a good thing? It's as loud as a big, honking Canon 1D-series with its flapping, high-speed mirror. And yet, the Sony has no mirror. Huh.

To me, the Sony's shutter sounds somewhat like a ponderous, vintage, cloth focal plane medium format SLR's shutter. But hey...great optics...interesting design...and best of all it's made by SONY. It's a nifty concept. If it took a lens mount that had some lenses, it might even sell well.

Noise Comparisons

It will be interesting to see what happens. Maybe it'll take the world by storm, the way Sony's a900 and a850 models did. Ot maybe it'll be a big sales hit, like the a99 was, with dozens of people buying it every day, all across Japan. It's just hard to know. The Fred Miranda cult of pixel-peeping landscapers with tens of thousands of dollars' worth of Leica M-series lenses might like it. People who can afford a $4,000 50mm lens might like it as a powerful statement of luxury and prestige. The sheer MTF 50 scores would earn the possessor of such a camera/lens combo high status in the measurebator's clubs.

minicoop1985 · Dec 19, 2013

If the Hasselblad Lunar and Stellar have a market...

I wasn't aware this was a different mount. Well then.

vipgraphx · Dec 19, 2013

Derrel, I'm with you on this. I have been so close to pulling the trigger and getting this but, when I look at the cost of lenses for this it really starts to lose my interest. Since I am in the market for a new camera I thought about going back to full frame. After testing out the NEX 6 I thought it really showed potential and with the A7 would be sweet. But once again I would really have to dump some money into lenses and I just can't see doing that as a prosumer hobbiest.

The shutter sound does not bother me but I can see if you were using this for a wedding and in a church you might disturb the mass.

Derrel · Dec 19, 2013

Vipgraphics,

Here's a cheap Sony A7R outfit for you.

Sony Alpha a7R Digital Camera ILCE7R/B

A7R $2,298.00

Sony A7, A7R Full-Frame Mirrorless Interchangeable Lens Compact: First Look from Adorama Learning Center

Zeiss Sonnar 35mm f/2.8 $799.99
Zeiss Sonnar 55mm f/1.8 $999.99
Zeiss Vario Tessar 24-70/2.8 $1,199.99
Sony 70-200 G 2.8 SSM II $2,999.00

$8298, (well, less four cents)

vipgraphx · Dec 20, 2013

Yeah cool good looking out. At that price I may just pick it up....looks like they are in stock ready to ship and could have it in just a few days.

Perhaps I can take out a nice personal loan at 30% interest so I jump on this sale prices right now.

gsgary · Dec 20, 2013

Derrel said:
Vipgraphics,

Here's a cheap Sony A7R outfit for you.

Sony Alpha a7R Digital Camera ILCE7R/B

A7R $2,298.00

Sony A7, A7R Full-Frame Mirrorless Interchangeable Lens Compact: First Look from Adorama Learning Center

Zeiss Sonnar 35mm f/2.8 $799.99
Zeiss Sonnar 55mm f/1.8 $999.99
Zeiss Vario Tessar 24-70/2.8 $1,199.99
Sony 70-200 G 2.8 SSM II $2,999.00

$8298, (well, less four cents)

And you dont even get a mains charger just a USB charger one of our club members bought the 7r and was well pissed off but she has the Rx100r so has a mains charger

Sent from my GT-I9100P using Tapatalk 2

robbins.photo · Dec 20, 2013

Derrel said:
Exactly my point. A very obnoxious, intrusive shutter sound. Loud, long, slow, and clattery. Decibels are not a simple progression. The Olympus's shutter noise is approximately one-fifteenth as loud as that of the Sony. So, is a shutter fifteen times louder than a competing mirrorless model a good thing? It's as loud as a big, honking Canon 1D-series with its flapping, high-speed mirror. And yet, the Sony has no mirror. Huh.

To me, the Sony's shutter sounds somewhat like a ponderous, vintage, cloth focal plane medium format SLR's shutter. But hey...great optics...interesting design...and best of all it's made by SONY. It's a nifty concept. If it took a lens mount that had some lenses, it might even sell well.

Noise Comparisons

It will be interesting to see what happens. Maybe it'll take the world by storm, the way Sony's a900 and a850 models did. Ot maybe it'll be a big sales hit, like the a99 was, with dozens of people buying it every day, all across Japan. It's just hard to know. The Fred Miranda cult of pixel-peeping landscapers with tens of thousands of dollars' worth of Leica M-series lenses might like it. People who can afford a $4,000 50mm lens might like it as a powerful statement of luxury and prestige. The sheer MTF 50 scores would earn the possessor of such a camera/lens combo high status in the measurebator's clubs.

So does the Sony make noise when your backing up too? Just curious.. lol