The Sony A7 review on Dpreview

[dan_]

Dpreview have completed their Sony A7 review and their conclusions are not very positive:
http://www.dpreview.com/news/2014/01/22/sony-alpha-7-review-full-frame-mirrorless-is-here?utm_campaign=internal-link&utm_source=news-list&utm_medium=text&ref=title_0_7
Only the silver award for A7.

Conclusion - Cons
-JPEG quality disappointing compared to peers – crude sharpening, over-aggressive processing and occasional posterization
-Autofocus can be hesitant, especially in low light; AF improves when assist lamp is turned off
-Auto ISO tends to keep shutter speed at 1/60 sec, often resulting in blurry photos
-Limited selection of FE lenses, which are expensive compared to competition
-Tools for shooting with third party lenses need improvement
-Longer-than-average startup times
-Camera 'locks up' while buffer is clearing after continuous shooting
-Overly sensitive eye sensor (also stays active when screen is tilted)
-Lacks a built-in flash
-Limited battery life
-Exposure compensation and rear scroll wheel too easy to accidentally bumped
-Menu arrangement poor and navigation a bit clunky (requires a lot of button-pressing)
-No in-camera Raw conversion
-No external charger included for rapid charging or keeping a spare battery topped-up
-Included remote capture software lacks live preview

And about using third-party lenses with A7:
"With so many adapters available, the A7 is a very attractive option for owners of third-party lenses (which is discussed in more depth in this article). While Sony has provided tools for focusing these old lenses - such as magnified view and focus peaking - they don't work as well as we'd hoped."

This review is the most critical review of A7 I read and seems to be in opposition with what I read about A7 on this and other forums.
Should we, potential buyers, reconsider our option of buying this camera if we intend to use it with LF lenses?
What do you, owners of A7/A7r, think about it?

[kuuan]

A potential buyer should ask her/himself if any points listed as Cons have relevance for her/him, and if so how much.

[Nordentro]

A7(R) have wonderful EVF. There is zero problem hitting focus IMHO and it is easy and "fast" to use. These coments from dpreview testify very little experience in the topic, adapting lenses.

[dan_]

I own a NEX-7 and I find it very well suited for use with MF lenses. I expected A7 to be even better.
That's why Dpreview's conclusions about using third-party lenses with A7 baffles me.

[calvin83]

They give my 5N gold award but the A7... I would trade my 5N for a A7 if they do not mind.

[rbelyell]

that is some laundry list of negatives. and from what i have experienced from my rx1, every one is right on. frankly, some may not be so significant, but just take in the sheer number of them! and some go to the heart of the sony experience: the refusal to properly implement 'auto iso'; simply god awful jpeg quality; simply inadequate buffering; horrid battery life and cheaply not including a charger. these faults can no longer be forgiven in even consumer level cameras, but they are an indictment for tools marketed as pro level. just inexcusable. and they can only continue to get away with it because because we the buyers excuse it, and because the thing sony gets very right is RAW IQ. my rx1 yields raw results better than any equipment ive ever used, and i havent actually seen noticeably better out there except maybe digital medium format. doesnt excuse this parade of inadequacies though.

[ForenSeil]

-JPEG quality disappointing compared to peers – crude sharpening, over-aggressive processing and occasional posterization -I haven't had any issues so far
-Autofocus can be hesitant, especially in low light - yes, at ISO6400+1/40s@F1.8 the AF sometimes starts pumping... what a crap camera
-Auto ISO tends to keep shutter speed at 1/60 sec, often resulting in blurry photos -yes that really sucks me aswell! 1/60s is not enough for an 24MP sensor, even with wide angles lenses.
-Limited selection of FE lenses, which are expensive compared to competition -wait two years! It's a brand new system!
-Tools for shooting with third party lenses need improvement -??? WTF. I don't get it.
-Longer-than-average startup times -Yes. Around 3s. But wait for first firmware upgrade - NEX-3 and NEX-5 had the same issue until first FW updgrade and later they became "average".
-Overly sensitive eye sensor (also stays active when screen is tilted) - True but it only happened once or twice here accidentially. Not a serious problem.
-Limited battery life - Not and issue if you buy a few inexpensive chinese batteries or an battery grip
-Exposure compensation and rear scroll wheel too easy to accidentally bumped -I don't see this at all. For me they are feeling perfect. If they had more resistance it would take quite some force which would lead to shaking the camera.
-Menu arrangement poor and navigation a bit clunky (requires a lot of button-pressing) - I think it's menue is quite logical and nice. Not "poor" or "clunky" at all.
-No in-camera Raw conversion - I think you can do that with the "Photo Retouch" App, I'm not sure though.
-No external charger included for rapid charging or keeping a spare battery topped-up - Yes but luckily an good externeal charger does only cost 10 bucks on Ebay
-Included remote capture software lacks live preview - yes that can suck, but seriously how often are you using tethering on PC? On Android and Iphone it works btw...

We are not the only people complaining about the review:
http://www.sonyalpharumors.com/soundimagesplus-criticises-the-dpreview-a7-test-conclusions/

I also don't see why MF lenses are not supported that well. Focus peaking works better than with every other camera I've tried (depends on lens, aperture and light condition of course) and MF-check lens could be tad faster and could be improved slightly for sure but it's already very good.

I also don't agree with their JPEG engine issue. At low and normal ISOs JPEGs came out PERFECTLY clear and clean (I have FW 1.01). No artifacts or whatsever. Actually I would say that the A7 has a quite decent JPEG engine.

Only at high ISOs, especially above ISO 4000 noise reduction is a little agressive, so crops often look grizzly but at normal ISO values everything is decent if image is well exposed and focused! Btw you can change JPEG noise reduction value in camera from "normal" to "low" or you can shoot RAW of course.

These are "FINE" JPEGs (not even "Extra Fine" JPEGs which is also an option) and internal noise reduction set to "normal"
ISO 3200:




ISO4000:




Here you can see some artifacts (partially also caused be slight sharpening in Lightroom, especially in the first pic to be honest), BUT it's ISO3200/ISO4000 and 24 megapixels. Think about what it would look like on your modern APS-C or non-current FF camera when scaled to 24MP and viewed in 100%. There are are only a very few cameras which do the job better here and none at this price level.

[rbelyell]

i can only speak for my rx1, whose sensor is either identical to or extremely similar to, the a7: in situations where the lighting is 'easy', jpegs are fine. in situations with the least bit of lighting difficulty or scenes with lots of DR, the jpegs stink and are far inferior to their raw counterparts. i have always been a confirmed jpeg shooter. i never shot raw before the rx1 except in the most extreme situations because i never saw a meaningful difference for my purposes. but with the rx1 the almost constant posterization or banding in bright sky or highlight clouds led me to experiment. i shot raw plus jpeg alot just to compare. in the majority of instances the difference was actually striking. obviously im not making this up, unless im in conspiracy with DPReview. but i have never seen this kind of raw/jpeg disparity with any other camera ive ever used. as with any other 'issue', one can always find exceptions; but if you spend some time comparing raw and jpeg side by side in a variety of situations, i think you will be amazed.

[sichko]

[rbelyell]

one of the things i personally experienced, as described above. the more you compare sony raw vs jpeg the more you see meaningful differences.

[Attila]

I never follow any review sites, include dpreview... to well known and master a camera need several thousand shoots and several weeks or month or more, certainly none of the review sites can afford it, I rather follow some people who shoot with camera long time ago and usually no matter what camera they have I see many wonderful shoot for example from Nordentro, no matter really OM-D or A7 or other previous camera before OM-D . Grape is sour to many camera maker now , Sony did launch an 'affordable' full frame camera poor Nikon , Canon .. and this damn camera compatible with most lenses so harder to sell $$$ slr+$$$ lens collection, A7 + some old glass and most smart people are set.

[ManualFocus-G]

I think the review is very fair. There is a lot of fanboyism (is that a word?!) going on with these two cameras. They are revolutionary in the sense of delivering a full frame sensor in such a beautiful small body, but it does feel like Sony rushed them out.

The handling (button placing) is odd at times, auto ISO is really frustrating coming from a recent Canon, focus peaking simply doesn't work if you want critical focusing, EVF isn't high quality enough to guarantee focusing unless you zoom in (which I don't like as it causes framing issues IMO). The battery is weak, but OK if you have a couple. Charging takes ages as well. One thing that isn't mentioned is the noise at high ISO, in particular the noise pattern which for some reason is always horrible on Sonys.

Now don't get me wrong, the a7/a7r are still gamechangers (full frame Konica, Minolta...wow), but I think there are a lot of people moving up to them from other mirrorless cameras and raving, without having seen what a recent DSLR can do. Sony is definitely on the right track, and I doubt I'll sell mine yet, but there's still a way to go to make this camera as good as a decent DSLR. Hopefully some of the fixes can be made in firmware

[poilu]

[Nordentro]

I would like to thank Attila for mentioning me in this context, although it might well have been Uhu, Omar or somebody else from the forum.

A7 (R) is NOT the perfect camera, but it is the first EVIL camera with FF! Only you know if this means anything to you. We can call it a small step or a big leap, but the good news is that we will hopefully see many FF EVIL cameras in the following years.

Maybe silver medal is correct on dpreview for the majority? For my usage, I have no doubt, this is gold to something more interesting pops up.

[ManualFocus-G]

[rbelyell]

the fact, and i agree it is a fact, that these are groundbreaking cameras in certain respects does not mean that any or all of the specific criticisms are not, and i agree they are, warranted. those are entirely separate issues. part of this forum is to discuss and educate, good and bad, so that other members dont run out spending lots of money on a product that they do not fully understand.

no one, including dp review, does not admit the revolutionary nature of these sonys, nor does anyone claim that they will not yield excellent results. but i personally have experienced every single 'criticism' they made. those issues actually exist. they are not important enough to me personally to discard the camera, but not knowing them going in, it was a great disappointment to find them out a couple of grand later. and others may not be like me and they may indeed think these very real issues significant enough to keep their money in their pocket.

[memetph]

It looks like most of those problems are true.
Personnaly I bought a charger for 5 euros and an additional battery for 10 euros as all owners did, I supposed.
I like very much the focus peaking.

After trying this camera, my present concern is that the camera proposes always 1/60th shutter speed on A mode. It is too slow for such a camera . I hope this issue will be solved with a new firmware.
I agree also about the sensor of the EVF which switches on when you are aiming with the tilted screen. I shall use manual switch in the future.

But what should do the potential buyer ? Read DPreview every day because the A7 is not perfect or take pictures ?
I like my A7 . More or less it is the camera I have been expecting for a long time . Sony made it.

[pinholecam]

Most of the criticism in the DPR A7 review is correct and most of it reflect my experience with the camera from a MF lens user POV.

JPG quality is as they described (very overcooked; probably the worst I've ever seen)

Lens selection, is as they said.
The widest and longest native lens will be a 24mm+70mm from the 24-70, for a while.......
Its placing quite a bit on faith imo. (even more so if one buys in with A7r+FE35+FE55)
That siad, 35mm and 55mm are most used FL for a majority of shooters.
I am interested to see if native UWA/WA will face similar issues as RF UWAs/WA if they want to make them small (and fast); Else it will be SLR sized UWA/WA


Lossy RAW, so far ok, except that I just saw banding in the highlights in a few of my shots so may warrant investigation.
It may be that the OOF highlight was a light source that was shaped this way or my filter was dirty from smoke due to the event, so nothing conclusive.
I have not seen the same issue on my landscapes shot towards the light, so I won't worry about it for now.


Interface quirks are as they described in the article on using MF lenses, though I strongly disagree with the poor quality they got and lousy hit rates.
I get very good hit rates and I've been shooting kids, night events, landscapes, streets which is a wide enough spread of genres to gauge if this camera can 'cut it' for most situations (with manual focus)


Overall, like all cameras its not perfect.
There are issues that can be addressed in firmware and hopefully Sony will do it.
So long as the user is willing to learn and work around the small issues, its a nice FF camera at a good size and price to me.
The closest thing to a digital ME Super or digital OM
Those expecting the a issue free camera that is auto everything and native lens selection from UWA to tele will have to weigh the pros and cons of the camera themselves.



I don't care for the AF and native lenses.
The MF lens guys (like everyone here) benefits the most with either a full MF setup or a mixture.
The guys who need AF may well end up disappointed after the initial hype.

Edit :
BTW, this thread is the first one I've seen on many forums over the review that is very unbiased.
The rest all degenerate to fanboism.

[ManualFocus-G]

The other issue I found recently is that the camera can take up to 3 seconds to be usable from switch on...doesn't sound a major problem but it is when you are trying to get a snapshot

That said, I'm still using this camera the most at the moment

[rbelyell]

wow, i havent yet gotten the banding in raw. i find that inexcusable, and if it does turn up i will sell my camera, period.

my impression is sony is not that great when it comes to firmware. now that absolutely could be my sony bias, so i ask sony users, do they correct problems like this? do they do systemic updates?

[ManualFocus-G]

I'm withdrawing my comment about banding for the mo as it *may* be a feature of the lens used. I'm not 100% convinced but I will keep an eye out!

[memetph]

I withdraw my negative comment about the A mode. I read the article of DPreview about their shooting experience with legacy lenses and the solution is there.
This camera allows to shoot using the S mode with non native manual lenses. The exposure is regulated by the iso. That's what I wanted.

Is there a good forum to share experiences and ask questions about this camera?
Thanks

[blende8]

[sichko]

[rbelyell]

sichko: gosh that is awful! what is the problem?

graham: what do you mean by it could be a 'character of the lens'? could you expand on that please? ive heard CA being a lens property, but not 'banding' or 'posterization'. i would really like your insight on this!