Update: If you watch the shutter speed and use center focus to find same focus plane subject areas, this is a fine shooter. The images are clean, have great dynamic range, and coupled with Sony G or Sony Zeiss lenses, yielding better images that stands up to pixel peeping. Way more resolution than 90% people will need. Not a pro, but this original A7r is still awesome. The Sony system has confounded me. I've had faster, better cameras, so-called better glass, but when you look at the results, this Sony has better looking files as long as you stay with the system. Adapters are fun, but when you can concentrate on shooting, the results are there.
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Ok, I'm a little late to the party. Here is a superfast review.
I chose the A7r not A7r II, because most FE lenses are already OSS and I have not printed 30x40 for almost 3 years.
Updated to 3.10 firmware so I don't know what the previous version were like. Typical Sony NEX style menus slow down handling. Shutter not as loud as people say. I guess nobody remembers film slrs. Sounds like a muted thunk or double thunk. The only Sony FE lens I have is the 24-70 F4, bunch of E lenses, adapters to everything. Before the 24-70 lens arrived, I tried all existing lenses- pretty useless and slow to focus.
Plus, the 36MP unfiltered sensor is extremely unforgiving. Read that again: "the 36MP unfiltered sensor is extremely unforgiving." My Canon EOS to E autofocus adapter is amazing, but very slow and unreliable for pro use. Also, none of my Canon primes nor zooms focus speed comes close to a native FE lens. Not even close- don't do it. Yes, you can manually focus all of them...if you have time. It just doesn't feel good as you are using the newer tech. The color signature for the adapted lenses is a lot cooler than I remember on my Canon or Nikon gear.
With the FE 24-70 F4, the focus is fast, faster than my Fuji XE-1 and just as snappy as my old Sony NEX 5n. I don't see why people complain about it. Startup is also quick. Image review is a little slow. Plus there is no built in flash for daytime fill.
The detail level of this sensor is incredible, easily besting any normal sensor with AA filter. You can crop easily. You may never need this much data.
The only thing that bothers me is that we have returned to the slr weight and size. My old Canon T2i is almost the same size, but it is not full frame. I worry about dings and dents because it is rather heavy, coming from the NEX series. It only makes a 24mp NEX style camera even more a perfect compromise. I will make some large prints and report back.
Mini Update: F4 in full frame has more shallow DOF than any crop sensor lense. So, after returning to full frame (from film and my old 5D), what I need to relearn: Need higher shutter speeds to avoid shake, DOF is very shallow, landscapes/small aperatures/low ISO need tripods, high ISO is available but looks horrible in poor light, the camera + lense has gotten quite heavy, no small fill flash for shadows, and more.
Removing the baffle on Sony E lenses is easy. But they all have serious vignetting, except the Sigma 19 and 30. On initial inspection, using the full frame with 1.5 clearimage zoom with all APS-C designed lenses is better than APS-C crop mode. You still get the 1.5x lens factor, but maybe more megapixels of real no AA filtered data. Extrapolated crop mode images don't look as good as Clearimage 1.5x images. I think Sony purposely degraded APS-C lenses to force you to buy full frame lenses- I don't blame them. Most of the APS-C lenses have much lower resolution. The Sony E 50mm 1.8, Sigma 30 2.8, and Sigma 19mm all have nice crispness to their images. The others do not. I will try the 55-210. If the images with Clearimage at 1.5x look better than the APS-C mode, then I have a complete lens set for the A7r without having to spend anything. All that said, the 2.8 lenses, 30 and 19 have limited appeal because they are neither that fast, nor have great bokeh nor cover an important range like the 50 1.8 (85ish for portraits) or for telephoto use. More to come...the A7r is like the jack of all cameras with the sensor being the focal point.
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This item: Sony a7R Full-Frame Mirrorless Digital Camera - Body Only
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This Item  Sony a7R Full-Frame Mirrorless Digital Camera - Body Only | Recommendations  |  |  |  |  | |
| Price | $999.99 | $849.00 | -24% $1,219.00 New Price: $1,598.00 | $3,898.00 | -8% $3,604.94 New Price: $3,898.00 | -22% $1,949.00 New Price: $2,498.00 |
| Delivery | Get it Apr 16 - 21 | Get it as soon as Wednesday, Apr 9 | — | Get it as soon as Wednesday, Apr 9 | Get it as soon as Tomorrow, Apr 5 | Get it Apr 10 - 16 |
| Customer Ratings | ||||||
| Sold By | Willoughby's Established 1898 | Derby City Renewed | BH 52 Innovations | Amazon.com | 6ave | PIXIBYTES |
| display type | LCD | LCD | LCD | OLED | OLED | LCD |
| display size | 3 inches | 3 inches | 35 millimeters | 8.25 centimeters | 3.2 inches | 3 inches |
| lens type | 1/2-inch (1.3 cm) color electronic viewfinder | Sony E-mount | Zoom | Telephoto | Telephoto | Wide Angle |
| zoom type | Optical Zoom | — | Optical Zoom | Optical Zoom | — | Optical Zoom |
| shooting modes | Aperture Priority, Night Portrait, Sports, Shutter Priority, Automatic, Manual, Portrait, Landscape | Movie | Automatic, Movie, Panorama, Portrait | Movie,Automatic,Shutter Priority,Manual,Sports | Automatic, Movie, Sports | Automatic |
| connectivity tech | NFC, HDMI, USB | HDMI | wireless, wired | x | x | HDMI, USB |
| video resolution | FHD 1080p | 1080p | 2160p | 4K UHD 2160p | 2160p | 2160p |
| optical zoom | 4 multiplier x | — | — | 0 multiplier x | 0 multiplier x | 8 multiplier x |
| real angle of view | 0.59 radians | — | 84 degrees | — | — | 69.9 degrees |
| magnification | 0.71x | — | 0.70x | 0.9x | 0.70x | 0.7x to 0.8x |
| wireless tech | Wi-Fi, NFC, Bluetooth | Wi-Fi | Wi-Fi | Bluetooth, Wi-Fi | Bluetooth | Bluetooth, Wi-Fi |
shutter design defect in SONY A7R
Shutter spontaneously broke apart and crashed into sensor.First photo shows a piece of the shutter assembly that broke off.Second photo shows where the broken shutter scraped sensor glass.This camera was treasured and well taken care of. It was not subject to impact or trauma of any kind. Shutter count is only moderate. Failure occurred in second year. This is clearly a flaw in design or manufacture.Precision Camera Repair in Connecticut (Sony US warranty repair) sent photos to Sony at their request. Sony also requested a sales receipt for the camera (which was supplied) already knowing that this camera was out of warranty. But then the Precision technician stamped those photos "Impact Damage" with no explanation, no visible external damage, and no indication of where Impact might have occurred.Upon my inquiry,"Does the technician mean Impact to the whole camera or Impact to the sensor by the failed shutter?"Precision replied:"The damage is to the shutter." "Unfortunately we're unable to determine how the damage was caused because we didn't have the camera here in our facility to see what it was going through before we received it."SONY National Customer Relations replied:"Sony takes great pride in the workmanship and design of each of our products, thus, a Limited Warranty was provided with your product that warrants against defects in material or workmanship for a designated period. We apologize for the inconvenience this may have caused you. However, due to the fact that your unit is already past the limited warranty, Sony will not be able to able to honor your request."But Sony knew the camera was out of warranty when they shipped the camera to Precision, when they requested photos, and when they requested a sales receipt. Apparently, SONY pride and workmanship only lasts one year. Sony's motto: "Quality goes in before we cram the covers on."Subsequently, the original estimate of $650 to replace shutter and sensor glass was lowered to about $400 by Precision. At that point, I requested return of the camera without repair.
