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DPreview gives A7 Silver Award

biglouis

Well-known member
Clearly these people are on something - or another planet.

Some highlights that form their 'silver' award conclusion.

"JPEG quality disappointing compared to peers – crude sharpening, over-aggressive processing, and occasional posterization."

I don't believe in these lower-class formats, it's RAW only if you are a real photographer!

"Charging via USB can be convenient"

Yes, I am sure a busy professional can wait 360 minutes for his/her battery to be charged in the camera one at a time. Very convenient indeed.

"Solid Wi-Fi system allows for remote shooting, easy photo sharing; NFC a plus"

Absolutely essential feature, you will never improve as a photographer without a WiFi enabled camera. Well done, DPreview for spotting that.

Optional battery grip

See! That's what makes it a professional camera!

"No in-camera Raw conversion"

Oh, so you do know what RAW is? But clearly do not understand that post-processing RAW on your camera is a total waste of time.

"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"

We are talking about the same camera, here, right? The A7? The Sony A7?


I'll let you form your own conclusions if my judgement is a tad harsh.

LouisB
 

Thomas Fallon

New member
Not the first time I have been taken aback by one of their reviews. This is the best camera for manual focusing ever. The rest of those comments I could care less. Clueless. It's not a perfect camera, I admit. It only beats Canon and Nikon.
 

Godfrey

Well-known member
LOL! DPReview reviews are infotainment more than anything else. I read them for the pretty pictures and the (usually mostly correct) spec sheets. ;-)

I bought the A7 for the specific desire to use with my Leica R and Nikkor lenses, maybe a couple of M-mount lenses. Don't have any E or FE lenses, won't buy any.

The mount adapters for Leica R arrived yesterday, the Nikon F mount adapter today. Only had time to just fit the Summicron-R 90mm last night ... felt good. I may have to buy the grip for the larger, heavier lenses for the camera to balance nicely.

It seems a mite clunky to look at and the control ergonomics are nowhere near the level of the Olympus E-M1, but overall it should be a fine performer for my purposes. My lovely old Leicaflex SL lenses have a digital home ... :)

G
 

nostatic

New member
I'm a profoundly lazy shooter. In just a few days the A7 has made me actually happy to manually focus. Nice big EVF + focus peaking = easy.
 

jaree

Member
Good points by OP. I actually like imaging-resource.com better for camera reviews, especially their opinion (even if subjective) on IQ based on actual print quality at various sizes.

-- Eeraj
 

losta

New member
It does seem DPReview is a bit extra harsh on Sony. One always needs to take these reviews with a grain of salt but hopefully some of these issues can be addressed with a firmware update. I think it is appropriate to take digs at Sony for not including a battery charger.

All I know is I've had many, many cameras and this and the a7r hit more spots than any camera ever.
 

pozzello

Member
The review isn't THAT far off :)

Focus peaking and magnification are wonderful when using a tripod but hand held - not so good. Start up time and autofocus - nothing to write home about. RAW is really good but lossy compression ?! JPG quality is abysmal. Third party adapters are hit and miss (mostly miss); I got the A7R to use with my Canon TS-E 24 and the Metabones is junk, and battery life is dreadful as are the controls.

Yes it's a technical feat to have a full frame mirrorless this small but the camera feels rushed and feels more like a toy - lots of room for improvement !

Rant over :angel:
 

W.Utsch

Member
My Metabones Smart III with the 24TSE II works wonderful!

Can you blame Sony when adaptors are bad?

JPEG, what's that??

Auto ISO??? With M Mode: Perfect!

Focus peaking, magnification: I love it! (Has anyone (the reviewer) tried to focus a Noctilux wide open on a Leica M in a low contrast scene with the eye to be sharp not in the middle??)
Can a firmware update make it even better? Yes!

What kind of photographer has this review in mind?
 

turtle

New member
JPEGs, who cares? Such a camera is not about Jpegs. If you want fast and convenient, get an EM-1, or D610/6D or.... If you want massive technical image quality in a tiny package, the A7/A7R is special.

Lossy compression maybe, but my files, even when heavily worked look spectacular quite frankly. There's all this talk about lossy compression being a problem and I agree Sony should give us lossless as an option, but I do not see the actual problem in use.

I think DP Review has failed to recognise the areas where the A7/R break new ground.

Manual focus implementation is superb, the lens options are endless and while not every lens in the universe works perfectly, who else allows you to use a 17 TS-E and a 90 Elmarit-M, an 85 1.2 L II, a CV 35 II, a 24 Summilux etc on the same body? Oh, and a super lightweight 35 FE sonnar if you fancy AF?

And yes, Auto ISO with M mode is superb. Use it all the time.
 

pozzello

Member
Maybe it's the brutal cold - or I'm just a kurmudgeon :) but I'm really starting to dislike the A7R. I'll give you a pass on not using JPG but the metabones is CRAP. The adapter to camera mount has rotational play, the lens to adapter mount is way too tight, and the lens doesn't line up square on the adapter and makes stitching a real pain in the ***. The fresh battery dies on me every day - but I'm not buying a spare because I resort to shooting my MF film camera and get better shots ;)

I do like the manual focus feature - it's brilliant - but only on a tripod.

Maybe I should just come out of the closet and say I hate digital ;)
 

Ben Rubinstein

Active member
I think the DPReview is exactly what you would expect from the auto everything generation. Ditto the article there about using manual lenses on the camera. I agree with a lot he says but where I see a challenge and an opportunity, the review there is just one non stop winge. No peaking isn't as good as it might be. Neither is magnification or the position of the C2 button. Yes this is stuff that could really do with firmware updates however I wonder why they dump the winge on the sony but were so excited about the first and equally as flawed first iterations of the Fuji X cameras.
 

turtle

New member
Well pozzello, it seems your objections are mainly with the Metabones adaptor and digital....

As for batteries, you can get perfect third party clones for about $15, so I'm not sure its a show stopper.

I agree that a CRF is better for manual focus much of the time, except on one occassion: when your lens/aperture combo has shallow DOF and the focus target is off centre. Here, the Sony is rather handy... and you can achieve far more critical focus than with a manual screen on any DSLR without using live view. The Sony's MF aint perfect, but it scores heavily ove most other systems in a number of key areas, but as always, it depends on usage and YMMV.
 

nostatic

New member
Everyone has their factors that are placed most important, and no product is perfect. Product design is an exercise in compromise, so the user has to find the best "fit" and go from there. One can either get a tool and learn to live with it, or fight it and then get a different tool. This analogy is apt in a number of areas (as a musician, this is common with instruments).

The DP reviews are designed to be all things to all people, so no camera will fare especially well. It really comes down to bias on the part of the reviewer wrt which shortcomings are emphasized and which are downplayed. And often, for an endeavor such as photography which has art and science mixed in, the art and ergonomics don't really have good metrics so a review can't speak to that. We're left with science which doesn't really tell a very good story from a user perspective. But it does allow people to argue ad nauseum on the inter webs :D

My wife shot the A7 back to back with her 6D and she liked the size and weight of the A7 but preferred the look of the 6D files. So for shooting her art work, 6D stays. Case closed. I am struggling a bit with the A7 but that is due to my habits and shortcomings. I briefly had an EM1 which is almost universally praised but shooting it didn't really thrill me. Yes, it was fast, idiot-proof (important for me), and IBIS enables shots that really shouldn't be possible. But I wasn't moved by the resulting files, and for whatever reason it wasn't fun.

Contrast that to the A7. No IBIS with the 55/1.8 lens, comparatively loud shutter, some blur in images at 1/60 handheld, silly battery system, etc. I probably have less "hits", but the ones that are right look really good. And for whatever reason (maybe because it is the newest/shiniest toy), it is fun to use. Frankly my GH3 produces images that are often on par depending on the conditions. The AF is quick, the 12-35/2.8 and 35-100/2.8 combo covers a lot. And it is indeed a great workhorse. I can shoot 2 hours of video non-stop and really don't have to pay much attention shooting stills. But maybe that is part of what I'm liking about the A7. I actually have to pay more attention to what I'm doing, and I end up engage the process more instead of, "oh look, a cool angle - click".

Well, until the next shiny object :D
 

biglouis

Well-known member
I guess my original intention of this thread was to lampoon DPreview for not giving the A7 the obvious accolade of a 'gold' level product. If the A7 (80%) is only silver it is on a par with the Panasonic GX7 (79%) but actually below the Olympus OMD-EM1 (84%).

I rest my case.

LouisB
 

jonoslack

Active member
I guess my original intention of this thread was to lampoon DPreview for not giving the A7 the obvious accolade of a 'gold' level product. If the A7 (80%) is only silver it is on a par with the Panasonic GX7 (79%) but actually below the Olympus OMD-EM1 (84%).

I rest my case.

LouisB
Hi Louis
I don't often find myself in agreement with dPreview (and I don't agree with comments about chargers and Jpg files.
But they do say very clearly that they rate cameras for what they are.

I've not owned a GX7, so I can't comment, but I have owned an A7r, I Do own an A7 and I have an E-M1. The point is that FOR WHAT IT IS the EM1 is nearly perfect, it's fast, excellent AF, better EVF than the Sony, fantastic IBIS lots of excellent native lenses .
The A7 on the other hand has a clunky shutter, is compromised badly with wide angle third party lenses, has dreadful battery life, only 3 native lenses and the build quality is not a patch on the Olympus. Sure, the files are bigger and it's full frame. . . . And it offers lots of hope for the future.

The gold award is supposed to be for all-round perfection, which the Olympus has, and the A7 doesn't, really it's as simple as that-sure you might think the A7 is much better for you, but that's not the point

Incidentally, with respect to jpg files, I never use them, but nowadays I realise that camera manufacturers don't include them to give us something to sound off about, they include them because LOTS of people use them, and that does include professionals too. So it might not be relevant to you, but it IS relevant.

All the best
 

Amin

Active member
I think DPR writes for the middle. They aren't going to give a Gold Award to a camera which is a brilliant choice for a small number of people. They're looking for the best choices for most people. Hence Sigma DP and Ricoh GR cameras have a long history of low marks.
 

Jorgen Udvang

Subscriber Member
What Jono said.

At the current state of affairs, this is a niche camera for enthusiasts who mostly buy it because it's cheaper than a Leica.
 

Annna T

Active member
I guess my original intention of this thread was to lampoon DPreview for not giving the A7 the obvious accolade of a 'gold' level product. If the A7 (80%) is only silver it is on a par with the Panasonic GX7 (79%) but actually below the Olympus OMD-EM1 (84%).

I rest my case.

LouisB
May be that they are keeping the gold award for the A7r which they have'nt reviewed yet.

Also the reviewer by his own account likes the E-M1 ergonomic a lot. The VF while very similar seems to be nicer on the E-M1 (may be because the MFT sensor having less pixels can extract information faster).

The A7 has to be compared to other hybrid cameras when it comes to AF EVF etc. Olympus has really achieved something with its last generation of MFT cameras. Probably that the smaller size of the MFT sensor gives it an edge when it comes down to AF and EVF : processing large chunk of data is a challenge.

Still the A7/7r are very desirable cameras.. Let's wait for their take on the A7r : the preview made no mysteries about that : they said that while they wanted to prefer the A7, they were in fact prefering the A7r.
 
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