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Is anyone getting a Sony A7R for your Canon lenses?

dchew

Well-known member
I have the several EOS lenses: Zeiss 21 f/2.8, Zeiss 35 f/2, 70-200 f/4 IS, 90 TS, 135 f/2 and 180macro.

I bought an a7r about 1 week ago because these lenses were just sitting around; I haven't really used my 5DII since moving to a tech camera. I do miss the more spontaneous shooting sometimes, and also could use a backup in a pinch. The a7r serves both purposes, and could be added to the bag with a relatively small increase in weight.

Using the lenses is going to be a bit tougher than I originally thought. The 35 f/2 works well in some cases, but can exhibit some strong CA with the a7r. I've ordered the FE 35 f/2.8 to use instead. The 90 ts 135 f/2 and 70-200 all look great so far.

I sold off the Zeiss 21 in the hopes of replacing it with the Zeiss 25, but we will see how that one stacks up. I have a rental coming to test. I might just go for a small Oly 24 f/2.8 or something. The wides seem to be tricky.

Dave
 

turtle

New member
Knowing it was compatible with the Eos lenses was the clincher for me. I now have a solution to the poor dynamic range of the Canon. That was not a problem until I moved to London and started shooting a lot of night urbanscapes.

In some respects, I now have the best of both worlds just around the corner (yet to get my EOS-E adaptor): the slick ultra responsive 5D III for weddings and dynamic work and the A7R for static shots and lightweight travel. I'm also looking forward to finding out how the Tokina 16-28 does on the A7R, because it is very, very good on the 5D III.
 

miska

Member
So it's been a bit now since the A7 / A7R came out.
What do you Canon users think about it as a Canon body replacement ?
- How do you like the AF using a Metabones adapter ?
- What do you think about the quality of the adapter (i.e. have you encountered asymmetric images, possibly due to the skewness of the adapter). Have you preferred to get another adapter, losing AF but gaining image quality ?
- Handling with a big lens (like a 24-70 f/2.8 II or even a 70-200 f/2.8 IS) and a small body, connected by the adapter ?

Any other comments from the point of view of treating the Sony as a Canon mount camera ?
 

dchew

Well-known member
So it's been a bit now since the A7 / A7R came out.
What do you Canon users think about it as a Canon body replacement ?
- How do you like the AF using a Metabones adapter ?
- What do you think about the quality of the adapter (i.e. have you encountered asymmetric images, possibly due to the skewness of the adapter). Have you preferred to get another adapter, losing AF but gaining image quality ?
- Handling with a big lens (like a 24-70 f/2.8 II or even a 70-200 f/2.8 IS) and a small body, connected by the adapter ?

Any other comments from the point of view of treating the Sony as a Canon mount camera ?
My thoughts are this camera is not a replacement, but it depends. If all you care about is image quality, then maybe. I have the a7r and the Metabones III adapter. The original thought was to simply bolt on my Canon mount lenses and be done. But once you start using this camera, you realize how great it is to have this kind of quality in such a small package. But then you mount a big lens and that small package benefit diminishes and/or completely disappears, along with any reasonably quick autofocus. As far as I know, the only fast and accurate autofocus adapter/lens combo is a Sony A lens / LAEA4 adapter.

Personally I don't value autofocus much, so that part doesn't bother me. Manually focusing almost any lens on this camera is great w/ the zoom and focus peaking features, and in my opinion more precise than any autofocus system (especially with wide angle lenses). The only Canon autofocus lens I use much is the 70-200 f/4 IS, and that is incredibly slow to focus with the Metabones adapter. My Canon lenses are: Zeiss 25 f/2, Zeiss 35 f/2, Canon 90 ts, and the 70-200. It may be that a faster lens, say f/2 or 2.8 would do better, but I haven't heard that. AF gets close then hunts back and forth in small increments for 1/2-1 second before it locks green.

The lens size really got to me though; in my opinion it ruins the "gestalt" or whatever of this camera. And so far Sony has come out with some very good primes in the 35 f/2.8 and 55 f/1.8. These are quite small compared to what I have available in my Canon glass. I actually went out and got a Leica 90 f/2. So my standard kit is now the Sony 35 and 55 plus the Leica 90. I did a comparison in one of the Sony threads; Zeiss 100 f/2 vs. Leica. I just couldn't get past the huge benefit in size of the Leica (with Novoflex adapter):



In order to get the full quality out of this system you need to be quite careful and meticulous (and this is coming from a technical camera user). I really love the a7r, but it is because I am using very good quality lenses that are also very small.

My Metabones adapter seems fine, i.e. no built-in tilt feature :) but again, AF is pretty much unusable in all but the best lighting situations.

So here is "my" conclusion:
If you have (and regularly use) relatively small Canon lenses (like the 35 f/2, 85 f/1.8, 24-105 f/4), AND you are in situations where you can slow focus / manual focus, then I think it is a reasonable replacement that will give you great quality.

Other than that situation above, you will not be gaining much as a replacement body. Big lenses make the kit still kinda big so the size advantage goes away. Hand holding and autofocusing will not only be frustrating, but will rarely give you a noticeably better file. When I use the 70-200 the AF is off.

Dave
 
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malmac

Member
Dave

Thank you for your report.

When Sony brings out a few more FE lenses to choose from this will be a very nice camera system.



Mal
 

Thomas Fallon

New member
Been sick of Canon lagging behind Nikon for years and tired of hearing the endless rumors about huge MP cameras. I am using an A7r with Zeiss lenses in Canon mount. Love the evf on the Sony. Love the focus peaking. Love the image quality. Canon needs a kick in the ***.
 

NomadMark

New member
I am using this combo.

For landscape, I don't believe there to be any better combo.
More resolution, more robust files that can be pushed far beyond Canons own, without all the noise and banding. More dynamic range.

what is not to like?

And you can mate it up with a native lens for travel and have a small rig that will go anywhere to boot.
 

timn420

New member
I really want to get a a7r, but wouldn't mind a Nikon at this point. I was wanting to upgrade my 5d2 for wedding/event work as well as for portraiture. I really want more DR which these other companies seem to be pushing out. I just can't get excited about getting a 5d3.
 
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