Thinking of moving.....

Hi all, I currently have a Canon 5D MkII and use a Canon 24-70 f2.8L, Tamron 70-200 f2.8 and a Canon 50 f1.8.
I do a lot of motorsport photography and a fair bit of street / night photography.

I have been thinking for a while about selling my 5D and buying (or trade for) a Sony A7 body and get an adapter so i can use my existing lenses.

I have 2 main concerns.

1 - How bad is the EVF going to act for night shots / low light
2 - I don't really want burst shooting (as the 5D only does 3.9fps) but is there any downside to using it for motorsport?

Thanks in advance!

I tried out a mirrorless system (OM-D E-M1) for about 1/2 a year and one of the things I couldn't get used to was the lag of the EVF. This is going to affect everyone differently so the strongest advice I can offer is to try before you buy.

so worth seeing if i can borrow one from a friend or rent one for a few days?

urbanfreestyle wrote in post #17491889
I have been thinking for a while about selling my 5D and buying (or trade for) a Sony A7 body and get an adapter so i can use my existing lenses.

so you're going to manual focus?

no, keeping the AF.

you might want to take a close look at the AF capabilities of that combo, especially for moving subjects.

a lot of the lens adapters have image quality issues as well.

I understand the AF speeds could drop but then is it something i could just learn to live with? Maybe i'll be moving away from the motorsports and more into the static shows.

I'm guessing the lenses for the a7 are expensive

a7 are not ideal for sports or quick shots. but the sony a6000 is pretty fast. also if you are to use an adapter, you will have slow af. it's a bad move.

evf is something you have to get used to. problem I have is when I take a shot, the picture will come up on the view and I would miss what's going on while the picture is on display.
pro on evf is you can see what the picture looks like before you take the shot. unlike optical where you have to wait after you take the shot. At first I did not like evf, now I love it. for what I do it works great for me. I casual shoot, parties.. personal randoms..trip. landscapes.. nothing action pack.

If you go sony, you have to get the native mount lens for it to be fast. if $$ isn't an issue, I would recommend the a7II over the first version. A7ii is better on AF and has in body stabilization that even works on 3rd party lens. also the shutter button is at a common spot while the original is on top.

battery life on the a7 is poor. about 250 shots. but the batteries are small so it won't be a burden to have an extra in your pocket.

at night. I find manual focus working best because the af is not great at night, itll hunt very slow. A7 has focus peeking so you can see whats in focus. though it is not 100% accurage. you can get some miss but overall it works great compare to missing shots because it cant focus.

hope that helps some.

Thanks for the replies and advice. I think it is really going to be a tough choice. I love how my 5D works and the only money i would have would be from the sale of my 5D and possibly my lenses so it could be tight!

In summary i guess that the A7 is more of a staged picture camera rather than action camera. I.E landscape, portrait, models etc rather than drifting cars, motorbikes, skateboarders etc?

thats the way i see it, and there are many more who would agree.

EOS has been in development for what, 25+ years. It is extremely evolved. Sony stumbled on one bit of very advanced technology and cobbled together a few cameras and lenses around that tech. They do a great job for a specific market niche and they hope to elbow their way into bigger things. But it's just not there yet.

Thanks for the advice i think i may see if i can try the cam first and take it out around town to see what i can do.

The a7S is a perfect choice for street and low-light photography, but all the a7 cameras are a poor choice for motorsports.

On the other hand, if race cars had faces painted on the hood, maybe you could use the a7 face detection.

I would recommend going native FE lenses for faster auto focus. I have both the a7ii and the a6000 and only shoot w/ native glass. I found a used 24-70Z and 70-200G FE mount lenses that saved me $450 on the pair. I will add some old MD glass w/ adapters for manual focus in the future. I'm quite happy w/ the performance of the two bodies and those lenses. I sold my 5Dmk3 and L glass to make the change. I don't shoot a lot of action and am now focusing on landscape/architecture​/travel photography and these bodies do very well in that regard.