I collected my A7r this morning, having pre-ordered the first one in Melbourne, and immediately put it to the test with a TS-E 17L and TS-E 24L, with 1.4x and 2x teleconverters, via a Metabones adapter.
No sample pics yet, since I don't have a RAW converter for it yet and there was nothing worth shooting. But the out-of-camera JPEGs show great detail, akin to what I'd normally see in a medium-format frame and definitely more than what I've been getting from 18-22MP sensors. Also no sign of pattern noise. Without a RAW converter, I can't comment about DR yet, but Exmor sensors have a very good record in that area.
There was no sign of mount-related vignetting even in the far corners of tilted and shifted images. with similar light falloff to that seen when using the same lenses on Canon bodies. Shooting the Melbourne skyline reflected in a river with the TS-E 24L with 2x TC at f/8 (i.e. wide open) on both the A7r and the 5D2, the A7r images still contained significantly more detail than the 5D2 images, demonstrating that, even with the handicap of shooting wide open with a 2x TC and f/8 being slightly past the point at which diffraction starts to kick in with a 36MP full-frame sensor, there is still a benefit to the higher-resolution sensor.
With regards to the body itself, a few things I noticed:
- It's rock-solid. Easily as solid-feeling as any Leica (but weather-sealed when using the right lenses) and considerably more solid than most DSLRs.
- Being a small camera, there are many multifunction dials and buttons, with some settings requiring delving into menus. On a camera of this size, that's forgivable, but I wouldn't have minded a slightly larger camera with more dedicated controls. I particularly miss the row of control buttons on the left of Nikon and Conan bodies as well as the lack of a dedicated multidirectional joystick - tilting the rear control wheel (while rotating it for other settings) just isn't as easy or intuitive, especially in gloves, and picking an AF point (which, given that it's contrast-detection AF, could be any point on the image) is much more laborious than selecting an AF point with a Nikon or Canon SLR.
- The menus are a lot better than the previous NEX menus. That said, they're still menus, and having to delve into them to change simple settings is laborious and annoying.
- The rear panel of the camera protrudes slightly from the rear 'face' of the camera, resulting in an L-shaped notch along the top rear of the camera. Sony decided to stick two buttons (menu and C2 (magnifier)) and a horizontal control wheel (shutter speed) in this notch. The C2 button is particularly hard to reach and is in a very annoying spot. Why they couldn't have made it flush with the rest of the back, instead of in a little notch, is beyond me.
- The hinged plastic covers for the USB (i,e. power) cable and AV cables are fantastic - they open easily and close just as easily and securely, and are a million times better than the rubbery Canon covers, which can be difficult to open at times, and, once opened, never seem to close properly again.
- Only one SD card slot. We knew that from the start, so it's not really an issue as such. But SD cards are small and cheap. There's really no excuse not to have two slots for data backup and redundancy.
- This is easily the best EVF I've seen in a camera so far. It's large, fast and responsive - certainly, the EVF delay is much smaller than the delay caused by an SLR mirror flipping up, and much, much smaller than the hundreds of milliseconds it takes your finger to press the shutter button once your brain has decided to take a shot.
- They put the 'record video' button on the back of the grip... RIGHT WHERE YOUR HAND HOLDS IT! Sure, it's recessed, but it can still be accidentally pressed at the worst moments - when you're setting up a shot and accidentally press it, it can start to record video and completely ruin your setup. Total design fail here. If only there was a way to completely disable this button, so that pressing it wouldn't do anything.
- Exposure bracketing seems to be more difficult. Normally, when you bracket exposures, you put the camera on a self-timer so that you're not touching it (hence, no movement) when the shots go off. From what I've tried, it seems that you can have either bracketed exposures, or a self-timer, but not both. Sure, it's less important here given the Exmor's extraordinary dynamic range, but, when you need it, you really need it. Nothing that can't be fixed with firmware, but still an annoying oversight.
Some issues at the moment which should be rectified in time:
- RRS have yet to produce an L-plate for the A7r. I've attached an old 5D plate onto it for now, but it's hardly an ideal solution - it's big and cumbersome, prevents any tilting of the display and requires me to remove the bracket in order to access the battery. Luckily, the camera also doubles as a charger if you plug in a USB cable. Naturally, one will probably come out in a few months.
- This is a landscape and studio camera, and will be used as such. That means long exposure. Bulb mode is accessible enough, but there's no wired remote you can buy to control it, and the Android-based wireless remote sucks on so many levels:
1. It's platform-specific.
2. It requires you to use your phone to control it. Phones use power, and have a different battery to cameras. Power tends to run out in the cold, or if you're on a shooting expedition in the wilderness. That's why people carry six camera batteries to have enough to last. No-one carries six phone batteries into the wilderness.
3. The program itself is crap and offers only very limited functions.
Basically, bulb mode functionality is abysmal, largely due to lack of accessories. There is also no way to do time lapse photography. This could be easily rectified, but no-one's bothered to do it. Honestly, how hard would it be to include a time lapse function in the camera's firmware, and to allow the shutter speed to be manually slowed to longer than 30 seconds? This goes for all cameras, not just Sony, but at least there are tethered and wireless remotes for Canon and NIkon bodies that offer these options.
The camera has a USB port. It can't be difficult to make something that you can plug into the USB port and have perfect wired remote control of the camera.
- It would be very nice to have some updated 45mm and 90mm tilt-shift lenses, instead of resorting to attaching teleconverters to the TS-E 24L. Naturally, this has nothing to do with Nikon, but I hope Canon follow through with it.
- Software support for the new RAW format seems limited for the moment. That's why I don't have any sample images.
I'm off to South America in two days' time for a shooting expedition - should have plenty of samples come December 26!
