Sony A7/A7R: full-frame mirror-less lens-interchangeble

Sony A7 and A7R

"And here are the specs published so far:

• AF is faster than the RX series but still not as fast as the best in the mirrorless world
• A7 and A7r have focus peaking
• Eye tracking AF
• They are about same size as the Olympus OMD series
• There is an optional vertical grip
• They have Wifi and NFC
• No Tri Navi, They had scroll wheels in front and back (which were very much like nex-7′s) and an exposure comp wheel from RX1.
• One source the body quality is very good and the camera had a Pentax LX feeling.
• 1/8000 shutter speed
• Both have tiltatble screen
• No IBIS on both models (why not? Sony has been working with Olympus for a while now…)
• Centrally located EVF behind the hump
• On sensor PDAF on 24MP model, no PDAF but also no AA filter on the 36MP model   "

I recall some of you said you would be interested in something like that.

I want it. The downside is I don't think they have the lenses to support it. I guess Zeiss lenses would work but I'd like to see some Sony zooms. I don't like primes. At all.

Again, we aren't a rumor site. Since this announcement is imminent I'll leave it up but on NSN we have a policy against posting rumors and prefer to wait until the actual announcement is made.

That said, the A7r with the Zeiss 24-70 will likely be my next camera. D800E level images in a package that has a much smaller footprint and weighs a bit less than half of a D800 with Nikon 24-70.

Is the 7r the 36 or the 24mp?

It's the 36 with no AA filter. I feel like these days the only real innovator in the game is Sony.

E.J. Peiker wrote:Again, we aren't a rumor site.  Since this announcement is imminent I'll leave it up but on NSN we have a policy against posting rumors and prefer to wait until the actual announcement is made.

Ooops ! Sorry



Note to self: be patient.

E.J., if you look outside of the Canikon duo, I think there's a lot of innovation going on. Fuji, Panasonic, Ricoh/Pentax and others are doing some bold stuff, as is Sony. The #1 and #2 players seem to be innovating the least in some ways, in radical ways that is... mainly they're content to push ahead on incremental evolutions of their core product lines. The potential game-changing stuff is mostly brewing in the 2nd and 3rd tier players, I think. We're ripe for some more "innovator's dilemma" situations to happen.

So yeah, Sony looks to be fulfilling some of the promise I thought they might have way back when the whole Minolta acquisition took place. I just hope they can weather the meltdown in the consumer camera marketplace. Sony blunders a lot, but they're not satisfied to milk traditional product lines. They try stuff constantly, they do know product design and the entire pipeline pretty much; they have a huge integrated capability & suite of partnerships that amounts to the only heavyweight rival for Canon in the digital photography space. If they keep doing what they're doing and don't commit some major management mistakes, I think they will be a force to reckon with and will contribute significantly to the next round of upsets in the photography industry.

The only reason I don't own a lot of Sony gear already is that they're a bit less primetime today than would be the case for buying into Nikon gear with Sony sensors in them, something I already ruled out awhile back. I'm not making heavy investments in 35mm or smaller systems at this point, at least not until something shakes out in the compact mirrorless interchangeable lens market that finally compels me to pull the trigger. Fuji came close, but not quite... it's quite possible Sony will be the one to do it.

Now it's official:


Sony announces A7 and A7R: first full-frame mirrorless ILC cameras

Looks quite impressive incl. the new lenses. The 24-70 should be good, maybe match the Canon 2.8/24-70L II.

I hope this puts some pressure on Canon. I won't buy another system (although the sensor in the A7R sounds intereseting) because nothing matches the Canon lens choices (for my! type of work).
And I am already confused buy using two cameras (7D, 1DX) with the different layouts
(Note to Canon: It is really confusing that the ISO button is not at the same location!)

But for many (e.g. landscape shooters) this is very interesting stuff. Would love to try one, particularly the 36MP version. And innovation from Sony can only be good for Nikon/Canon shooters as this will increase the pressure to improve the weaknesses in their system (e.g. dynamic range in Canon DSLRs. It is not bad at all but could be better).

E.J. I am pretty sure you will test some of those, looking forward to reading about your experiences.

Markus

Would be nice to see some tests done using Canon lenses and an adaptor. I know Roger at Lensrentals was not too happy but stopped down to f16 for landscapes might be possible? As sony have no WIIIIDE angles lenses for this mount it would be a shame to buy one and not be able to use 16mm or so.

Now hurry and buy on E.J.

How exciting to see a FF mirrorless body with affordable price!
Wonder if it would work well with my Leica-M lenses w/ adapter.

And with that my relationship with Canon and Nikon has fianlly ended. Three strikes in a row from SONY, First the RX100, then the RX1 and now THIS!

BTW, There is an NEX autofocus adapter for Canon EOS lenses here:

http://www.metabones.com/sony/buy-eos-nex-adapter

It seems to me many serious Canon landscape and static subject photographers would want to buy this camera, given the large advantages of the Sony FF sensor in resolution and (especially!) dynamic range.

It also works on the existing full-frame E-mount camera, so should work on the new Alpha 7 and 7R.

By far the most exciting camera announcement in a long time IMHO.  My only gripe so far is that there is no PDAF on the A7R.  And not supplying external charging in cameras costing this much is a bunch of ....
DPreview fairly thorough preview here:
http://www.dpreview.com/previews/sony-alpha-7-7r

The comments below the DPreview articlwe are bizarre.  So here Sony basically introduces the camera s many have been screaming for ever since the dawn of mirrorless interchangeable lens cameras and the usual cast of anonymous haters that poopoo every thing are just going to town.

It will be interesting to see if the 7R could really be a replacement for a FF Canon body, while keeping a Canon lens lineup (at least in a transition phase, until Canon gets their act together (if they ever do). So how good the adapters are (they claim to keep AF, at least for "modern" AF lenses).
I wouldn't mind slow (but accurate) focus, however vignetting and / or other optical defects would be a no go for me.

lelouarn wrote:It will be interesting to see if the 7R could really be a replacement for a FF Canon body, while keeping a Canon lens lineup (at least in a transition phase, until Canon gets their act together (if they ever do). So how good the adapters are (they claim to keep AF, at least for "modern" AF lenses).
I wouldn't mind slow (but accurate) focus, however vignetting and / or other optical defects would be a no go for me.

There is little doubt that it will blow away the resolution and image quality capability of anything Canon currently offers.  The Sony 36 megapixel sensor has proven that many times already and this is a later generation of it.  For that matter, there is no Canon sensor that can touch the Sony 24 megapixel sensor of the 7 either. You do give up other things of course like breadth of lens line up, frame rate, AF performance (but not accuracy).  What adapter are you referring to that claims to keep AF using a Canon lens on a Sony E-mount camera???

[quote="E.J. Peiker What adapter are you referring to that claims to keep AF using a Canon lens on a Sony E-mount camera???"][/quote]

Right here:

http://www.metabones.com/sony/buy-eos-nex-adapter

Native ISO of 200 is a bit of a problem for me.

sdaconsulting wrote:

Right here:

http://www.metabones.com/sony/buy-eos-nex-adapter

I don't think that will work, that adapter is designed for APS-C E-mount sensors not full frame ones.  Also using lenses designed for PDAF on CDAF cameras is often a less than satisfying experience.

Update, in watching The Camera Store's video he does make vague reference to using the Canon lenses with a metabones adapter and "getting full frame capability back" so maybe it will work.  Time will tell.

This is awesome. A camera thats affordable and can be used until if and when canon gets their next top offering going, or maybe not even worry about the next Canon? Great! At $2000 compared to whatever $9000 dollar or so camera body canon is now or will offer is a very nice option. And what a nice hiking and travel lightweight body this would be. Gonna be interesting now. In any case I don't see my self ever spending close to ten thousand dollars on a body. If I'm going to do that I will be going to medium format for pete's sake. I'm with Royce on this one.

Paul