The ultimate camera? Experiences with the A7R

Each of us who has a A7, A7R or A7s knows how time-consuming, difficult and costly it is to find suitable lenses.
Hence my experiences briefly.
By the way, there is currently the SEL2470 Zeiss f / 2.8 as flash range RD. 300 euros cheaper than the cheapest online offering. The lens is on the Sony website in 2189 and as a lightning deal on 1,399.

As WW I use the AE Walimex 14mm f / 2.8. The objective there is currently less than 400 euros. I use the Nikon version with Novoflex Adapter NEX / NIK. The adapter has its own panel and they should be constantly open fully because it dims the lens.
It is light, inexpensive and draws sharp. The distortions keep the focal length is very limited.

As a normal lens I use the Zeiss Sonnar T SEL 55mm f / 1.8. There are currently no sharper lens. It is very bright and focused very quickly, otherwise you can only report good things about them. They are found from RD. 850 Euro.

As tele only the G 70-200mm f / 4.0 comes into question. There is an E-mount and you do not have access to the A-mount version with f / 2.8, saves a lot of money. The zoom there are currently about 1,500 so.

Finally comes what I mentioned above: The 24-70 as SAL and not SEL, ie with f / 2.8 and not f / 4.0. For this purpose the adapter LA-LE4.
A whole lot of people complaints about the SEL 24-70, at least, see the price-performance ratio is not appropriate.
The SAL 24-70 f / 2.4, however reaps nothing but praise. That's why I preferred to go this route.
The part costs on the Sony website rd. 2,200. The cheapest online offering is 1.700.
Now it provides Amazon currently as flash range for 1400, which is why I did not hesitate. ME there is currently nothing better than push for the lower range.
But you have to get to LA-LE4 to him if you have not yet, so that you finally end up with just under 1,700, but the LA-LE4 can be used more often, for example at Tamron, Sigma, Minolta etc.
Good Luck!

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MY LONG WAY TO A7R

After long detours about Nikon, Canon, Pentax, Lumix, Fujifilm and Olympus, I have dared to venture I in the last 2 years carefully Sony,
So that you understand me correctly, there are other cameras like the D7100, EOS-M, GH3, GX7, X-T1, EOM EM1 etc. which are absolutely gorgeous, especially with the right lenses like the Leica 25mm f / 1.4, the Zuiko 12-40mm f / 2.8 or the XF 35mm f / 1.4 and the selection at MFT, Nikon and Fuji is huge and top notch, but for landscape and architecture I look envious at the pictures of Geo and National Geographic and confess that I just addictive am to pixels, more pixels and more pixels.

For almost a year I have been fighting for a purchase decision for 36 MP whether D610 or A7R.
For Nikon talked about. 30 years good experience with a dozen cameras, D5000 and D7100, the last and the ownership of 10 lenses for Sony the good experiences with the RX series.
But I did not have lenses and there were (and are) not even a handful of FE lenses.

The first step was the A6000 with APS-C sensor and 24 MP, given the kits 16-50 and 55-210, the Zeiss Touit 32mm f / 1.8, then the Sony G 18-105 f / 4 and various Tamron (including the 16-300 PZD) via Adapter LA-LE4 and occasionally Metabones.
The A6000 is a premium machine, robust, fast, vielseitg, with a lot of features for very little money and is highly praised by many photografers like Jason Lanier cope.
The kit Sony 55-210 is not particularly bright, but worth the money, but my favorite lens is the Sony 18-105 f / 4 G with the fabulously good working OSS stabilization.

WHY A7R

Were it not for the A7R, it would be stuck with it, but it gave her, and she stood there in the market as the Mt Everest for mountain climbers, a challenge that we must accept, sooner or later, as soon as the bank account permits.

But it's not all that glitters is gold and when A7R there to swallow bitter pills, both in terms of housing and the lenses and have delayed my purchase over almost 1 year.

THE LIMITATIONS OF A7R
I. If the housing or the camera itself

I.1. - The Price:
First, at approx. Located 2,300 euros, now at 1,800 and below. The A7R is by no means a universal camera. For action, sports, children, pets, etc. The A6000 is the better choice.
The price is therefore in these circumstances initially daunting. In addition, adequate FE-lenses are more or less of this 36 MP camera at Euro 1000 and one at least 2 Prime and Zoom 1 needs to cover the entire focal length range (see Section lenses). Power together with auxiliary handle and accessories loose five thousand!

I.2. - The speed in continuous shooting and focusing
The A7rs it is not as slow as evil tongues say it. It is true that it takes 2-3 seconds to get up to operating temperature, but they usually focused around 0.5 s, so retiv fast for normal photography. This is also true for A-mount lenses that are connected to the adapter LA-LE4 because this part has a transparent mirror which passes part of the light to a focus sensor and this directs the information to the processor on.
With RAW + JPEG, the A7R creates in me a little over 2 frames / s, with pre-focus, sufficient light and Transcend SDXC UHS-I U3 Extreme (85MB / s write). That's not enough for the above applications.
If we're on the Focus: In mode M (manual) causes the thumb pressure on the AF / MF button and rotating the lens, the Focus Peaking, which works extremely precise: this shows the camera still a distance beams and enlarges the picture. The magnification can be increased gradually enormously with the C2-button So you can mm-accurate focusing in several meters. Just amazing how much more to this camera!

I.3. - Closure: The A7R has no electronic but a mechanical shutter and he is as discreet as an earthquake in Japan.Er is noisy and shakes the camera when opening and closing (clack ... clack!). Some say that affects the BQ insufficient, others claim the opposite. That depends: For telephoto shots of landscapes already when unexposed fast enough. I got first with the 18-105 just no really sharp pictures until 1/350.
As with my turntables where I placed a 2.5-kg brass plate on the turntable, I have at the A7R the inertia or mass to approx. 2 kg increases: with the auxiliary handle and a heavy Nikon flash, plus a sturdy tripod. Thus, the design advantages of compact A7 go but lost.
To avoid any misunderstanding, I emphasize that I am talking about a border sharpness, which is a premium camera on and 36 MP corresponds, for example, the finest details of a bird plumage .in 15-20 meters.

II In the lenses.:

II.1. Small selection of Native lenses (FE lenses)
Well-known, there is a FE lenses currently, (1 year after the launch of A7R) mur
- A Zeiss 35mm f / 2.8 (price from 800 to 700 fallen)
- A Zeiss 55mm f / (price around 1,000.) 1.8
- The two Zeiss zoom 24-70 or 28-70 (Sony kit zoom is not much)
- The FE 70-200 F4 (. Which is currently around 1,500 costs)

To get to the point, the 55mm and the 70-200 peak performance, which are the A7R worthy and there is little cause for criticism.
The 35mm is currently the only native or FE lens at wide angle. It is in my opinion good but not as sharp as the 55mm.
The Zeiss 35mm f Loxia / 2.0 for the A7-Series with Manual Focus and 0.3 m close range is likely to be available for Christmas. Thus one would be nice well served, only remains the range 18-28mm, for which there are still no really good.

With the FE 28-70 f / 3.5-5.6 there is such a thing: This lens polarized! Some are not very satisfied, other. DxO shows strong barrel or pincushion distortions at both ends of the focal length and the sharpness is below 35mm (see. Photo by Gary Friedmann in his book on the A7, available at Amazon UK) so I restrained myself prefer to purchase. I think it's just too expensive 28-70mm also the face of power.
I help me currently in wide-area temporarily with the Sony 18-105 f / 4.0. Unfortunately, this is an APS-C lens and the camera shows only 15 MP menu. So you can order the A7R not exploit completely.

II.2. A-mount lenses
The adapter LA-LE4 is a fine thing. So you can connect A-mount lenses on the A7R. I've tried so far 2 Tamron, but zurückgeschikt: you irritate not from the capabilities of this exceptional camera. In the cheap, it was impossible to focus.
Minolta can also be connected with the LA-LE4. About Here I have no experience.

II.3. Strangers lenses
With the Novoflex adapter NEX / NIK I can install my Nikon lenses on the A6000 and A7R,
Basically, all you have to manually adjust :, focal length, focus, iris, shutter speed and the VR is obviously not.
The iris is manually adjusted at the blue ring of the adapter. One does not know which is currently set, the display will show only F ---.
But you see, thanks to EVF precisely control the brightness and contrast on the screen and the focus peaking funktionniert absolutely fine. This speaks for the open design and compatibility of A7R.
The results with DX lenses are not great: Dark Corners, little contrast, sharpness as an inexpensive pocket camera .... Since the effort is really worthwhile not!
In full format lenses such as the Walimex Pro AE14mm f / 2.8 for Nikon sees it differently from: Simply go to the greens, this great-value Super-WW-lens (around 400.) Is of good use to the A7R and includes exactly the open gap in its range.
Other lenses such as get the Nikon AF-S 85mm f / 1.8. are to be used, but must be set manually laborious exactly and the images usually be reworked extensively ..
Manual focusing is facilitated when foreign lenses thanks Focus peaking indicator, but on the other hand focus magnifying glass is not. Therefore offer foreign lenses in many respects not the convenience of FE lenses.
If the light is scarce, you just absolutely for all A7 increases the ISO to 3600, not a problem.

Long story short:
There is currently a gap in the FE lenses supply the A7, the wird.wenn closed by other manufacturers you are prepared to manually control and follow-up in the purchase takes. In any case, the A7R offers pretty optimal conditions for some full-frame premium foreign lenses via adapter.

CONCLUSION
The A7R is undoubtedly a fascinating machine and I do not regret the purchase. There are few applications that she has not mastered perfectly. Also available native lenses are an issue. Fortunately, the three A7 are a very open system. However, do not harmonize all foreign lenses with this Body of the absolute top class.