This is really a blog post for me. It’s going to get updated as and when I feel like it. Read, and comment as you please. I suspect it will get picked up in Google searches on this theme…
I’ve made the leap, and possibly into interminable darkness. After many years of being a loyal Canon dSLR photographer (ignoring the ubiquitous iPhones) I have slipped into the Sony mirrorless dream.
My digital photography began with an Olympus C900Z 1.3Mpx compact, but translated quite quickly into a Canon 450D, then a 7D and finally a 5DmkIII which I currently shoot with.
Finding the size and weight of a full camera kit bag a little wearing, I thought I’d try going mirrorless, but the Canon offering didn’t seem quite there yet, nor likely to be for another couple of years. Sony, on the other hand, had lead from the start.
So I’ve got hold of a Sony A7RIV and (for now) a FE 2.8 70-200 GM OSS. It arrived yesterday, and today is day one of a new adventure, or an expensive nightmare, we’ll see.
Good
- Really like the feel of the body. It’s much like my old 450D and sits well in my admittedly not large hands. And even with the 70-200 f2.8 on the front it doesn’t feel too heavy.
- Love, love, love the electronic viewfinder. Didn’t expect to, but the facility to view the shot once taken in the eye piece is unexpectedly welcome, as is the pre-shot spirit level overlay.
- Both the jpegs and the raw ARW pictures are very fine, and although the first shots I did indoors were very high ISO the quality and detail was excellent. In fact the jpegs are so good they cause me to wonder if I should only shoot raw when it is justified…
- The start-up of the camera is very quick, faster than I would have expected and there’s no disadvantage compared with dSLR except – you do have to remember to turn it on! No viewfinder until you do. That’s new.
- The Canon 5D3 didn’t have wifi, and being able to send images to the computer (as long as it’s not asleep) over the home network is useful.
- The eye capture and the autofocus overall is exceptionally good, and while I can still get an out of focus shot the hit rate is very high.
- The Sigma MC-11 lens adaptor means all my existing Canon EF lenses work – and work well – with this camera.
Not Good
- Oh gods, those review sites weren’t joking when they ranted about the complexity of the menu structure! However, the MyMenu screen is rapidly evolving into a useful home.
- The front wheel and the top wheel are out of the box reversed in comparison with Canon. In manual mode, the front wheel does aperture, and the top wheel the shutter speed. I’m sure somewhere in the menu structure there’s a fix for this…
- It was a bit worrying to find the app for connecting the camera over wifi to the computer “PlayMemories” is due to be culled for Mac in March next year! I hope that means there’s a 64bit version in build test right now…
- Obviously the larger files are taxing my eight year old iMac, and processing operations are a little slower than I am accustomed to. There’s a fix for that of course, but not today! Or this year!
- There seems no easy way to delete all photographs, except to format the card. Not perhaps that this is a problem (can you over-format a card?) but a ‘delete all except protected’ would have been expected.
- The battery door latch is not very secure and has a tendency to slip, allowing the door to drop open. One of these days I’ll inadvertently rip the damned thing off. Really annoying.
Of course there will be photo’s on Flickr, should you wish to see if I’ve managed to make any use of the new kid on the block. Will there be more Sony shots or yet more Canon… Time will tell. Maybe.
Rosher.Net 
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