The new Sony A7R

VictorChen

Finally the new Sony A7R arrived in my hands, I believe today is the first launching day to our general public for this camera. I have been a Nikon user since day one, but I must admit I had been buying a lot of Sony photographic items for the past few years, more so than any Nikons. The biggest attraction to the Sony A7R is its mirrorless system which allows me to attach just about anything to everything, and I simply don't care much about auto focusing or so n' so frame per second nonsense.





The camera has only been in my hands for less than an hour, the first impression of this camera is "it is ugly". Its appearance is somewhere between a RX1 and a Nex7, its size is bigger due to its grip. It shares the same battery with the Nex7, so that's good as I don't have to waste more money getting new batteries. I find the camera to be ugly, but that's relative to the Nikon DF. Let's face it, a pretty camera wont' beautify a dorky photographer.

I had been aching to try the SLR Magic HyperPrime 50mm f0.95 on a full frame, it's a huge and heavy lens. The Sony A7R with the Hyperprime would make a wonderful test drive combination. The images were taken by this setup, all shots were set at factory default setting, aperture @f2, auto whitebalance, -.03 EV.




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First impression: the A7R's grip balances the heavy lens very nicely, so in my opinion this is the best possible compact size camera for large heavy lenses. The body feels solid, the overall control layout is similar to the NEX7 and the RX1. I will need to explore more on this camera with various lenses.

charles2