Sony A7R (IV) experience

[dinovandoorn]

Hi,

I do hear more and more good news on the Sony camera's... but i am currently a huge Canon fan !
is here somebody with experience on this camera and the Sony lenses as well ?
100-400G is a very good lens I uderstood but also the 200-600 from sony...
and if you ve experience are you able to share some aviation pictures wth me ?!

looking forward.

Dino van Doorn

[Maurice]

Hi Dino,

I was also very interested in this combo (A7R4 with 200-600) so I rented it recently and took it to the UK for a few days. I don't have the time to write a full review here now but a few comments that might help.

- Impressive body with insane resolution (61MP).
- Due to this many pixels on the FF sensor, the noise level was not as good as I expected from a Sony. But no show-stopper here
- The show-stopper is here: the EVF. I could not get used to this. Of course it is not as bright as looking through a mirror (far from it actually). But the main setback for me, is the 'black out' after taking a picture. There is a build in simulation as if the mirror flips. Which is not the case, so why? You loose visibility on the target and when the screen comes back again, it is a split second slow. This makes it very difficult to track your target. My results: chopped off noses and tails and many unsharp pictures. I was hoping this functionality could be switched off but that is not the case. This is however possible on the A9. I haven't tried the A9 but this could be a lot better, even though it is for me still a challenge to get used to this EVF anyway. It made me decide that it is not yet the time to turn in my DSLR and continue with mirrorless.
- Did I already mention the enormous sensor? There is also an APS-C mode, with still 28MP, making your 600mm even 900mm
- The lens in simply marvelous, despite its slow aperture upto f/6.3. Could well be compensated with ISO and Steady Shot. Just realize that 200mm as starting point is quite high, perhaps 100-400 is in many cases the better range to go with.
- Speaking about Steady Shot, it is build in in the camera but also in the lens. I missed several easy photo opportunities which I never would have missed with my Canon. Unsharp results. Maybe that could have been due to lack of experience with the Sony. I wonder if the both Steady Shot systems were working against each other.

All in all I can say it is a great combination but... not for action photography. Though I am curious what this lens would do on the A9, I gave up mirrorless for the time being and continue shooting DSLR. Hope this helps!

Regards, Maurice

[Tom Tiger]

Thanks, I was wondering about that lens.

A few added remarks,
- there is a adapter Canon Lens to Sony Body so if you want Sony you don't have to part with your canon glas. Is it good, try a search on youtube. They say it is but haven't seen anyone use it on airshows.
- Have you considered the size of your fotos, esspecially in Raw format, this is going really really fast, Raws on my 80D are between 25 and 40 mb. Soooo at one point you will need to invest in more harddrives or more online storage.

I've looked at sony, but at this time I'm kinda saving up to either buy a used 60D mkII or just got for one of the R's (kinda want full frame) but that's just me and I got a way different set of conditions and criteria on which to buy