#sample shots

Last weekend, we took the Sony A7r with a handful of lenses around town.  Luckily for us there was plenty to shoot, with Beaches Jazz Fest, Pedestrian Sunday and loads of other events to explore and document.  So how did the camera fare? 

As you can see from the samples, this camera is no slouch.  The full-frame Sony camera with removed anti-aliasing is extremely sharp, especially when using the right lens.  Moire in these conditions can definitely be a detriment, but as long as you keep an eye out for things that will cause it, you can avoid it most instances.  The metering on the camera is highly intuitive, and recognizes how best to expose a shot, and does so effectively on almost every occasion.   As a Canon 5D II user myself, the camera functions similarly, with some performances acting slightly better due to more recent improvements to things like low-light settings.  The major distinction I noticed is the weight of the camera.  The Sony A7r with 35mm f/2.8, 55mm f/1.8 and 70-200mm f/4 comes in at what feels like half the weight of my usual Canon kit, making it a breeze to navigate through thick crowds, or when traveling from one end of the city to the other. 

So with all these positives, what are the downsides?  There are three things that the A7r struggles with: battery life, files size, and autofocus speed.  The camera is a battery hog, and will chew through a Sony W battery in 340 shots.  Luckily for me, I was using the A7r with a battery grip, which was enough for me to shoot regularly during the course of a night, and as such acts as an accessory that I would highly recommend for any users thinking of purchasing the camera.  Next up is file-size.  At 36 megapixels, this camera will eat memory just as quickly as batteries, and without a high speed card, you'll be seeing the buffering screen more often than you'd like.  The A7r RAW files were also enough to turn my otherwise speedy computer into a laggy mess.  This has nothing to do with the camera per se, but you'll want to make sure you have a performance machine if you're going to be processing the photos yourself.  Finally there's autofocus speed.  Although the camera is better than my 5D in this department, it's still no sports camera (not that it advertises itself as one).  Single shot spot focus is where this camera thrives, but luckily for me, my 5D has taught me the value of manually focusing, and I wasn't affected by AF performance too much.