Hi Asher,
...At this point in your shooting with this wonderful new camera, how do you feel your experience is changing from the Canon and Nikons you've had, if you can imagine that you just only ever had the same 28-70 mm lens for each...
A very good question indeed. One which needs some contemplation. I will try to provide some answers now, but the experience is on-going of course. My conclusions may change some months/years later so please keep that in mind.
Which cameras I could compare the A7 with is the first question which comes to my mind. Obviously the Canon 5DII which I've used for almost 5 years and the Nikon D800 which was with me for almost a year. Let me limit the comparison to those two for the time being.
Now the part in which I compare the cameras and the shooting experience with them and not the specific lens. Hence your question about imagining that I used the same lens on all other other cameras. This is not very difficult as I have shot with the 24-70mm on the D800 and I have used the 24-105 on my Canon 5D (the original body) for some while. I still remember how the cameras behaved with similar lenses with similar focal lengths.
And the final question before I start: what aspects to compare? I think the following will be a good start:
1) Usability and features: i.e. how practical are the cameras in daily shooting, travels, special projects, etc.
2) Ergonomics: i.e. how do the cameras handle, are the buttons and functions logically placed, can one shoot blindly, etc.
3) Image quality: speaks for itself, or does it? IQ is also related to how one uses the resulting images: i.e. print them (small/large), view them on the monitor, share them on the web, etc.
4) Shooting pleasure and inspiration: this is purely subjective, which camera gives the most satisfaction to shoot with? And. how cameras have inspired me as a photographer to shoot better pictures.
5) Overall: this is the dreaded part where one chucks everything into a single bin and comes up with a magical answer.
So without further ado, let's get started.
1) Usability and features
If I might adopt the famous expression, the most usable camera is the one which you have with you at the moment. In practical terms, that would be the camera on my smart phone. Do I use it then the most? No, actually not. That is because the usability in itself is not a reason to use the camera. Other aspects come into play, such as the shooting pleasure, ergonomics, IQ, etc. Assuming that these other aspects are comparable between the A7, 5DII and D800, the most usable one is the A7 since it is the smallest and the lightest of the three. Accordingly, I find myself lugging it around whenever I go somewhere. Which wasn't the case with the 5DII and the D800. So for spontaneous shooting, walking around and traveling, A7 wins the contest since it is with me more often than the others.
For project shooting and assignments, the situation is not so clear cut. If I were to slow shoot some urban site with a tripod, the A7 would not have a specific advantage in terms of weight/size. If the project involved (air) traveling, then the A7 has some advantage over the others since it fits neatly into a small cabin bag and doesn't add as much weight.
If I could take any camera with me on a day of street photography, I would still have a preference for the A7. It is unobtrusive and inconspicuous enough so that the people around you do not get alerted by it. When I used the D800 or the 5DII (especially with a white lens on it), I was immediately a threat to some and they have reacted accordingly. I have been in some nasty situations where I was threatened verbally and even physically. Believe me, it is no fun at all.
Features to me are relevant as far as they support the usability of the camera for a certain goal. Fast and accurate auto focus is, for example, relevant to street shooting or sports/action shooting. The first one can also be dealt with some smaller aperture and manual zone focusing. But the sports/action require accurate and fast focusing. The A7 is definitely not a camera for that kind of photography. The D800 would be the winner, followed by the 5DII in this comparison.
Another feature which has been of importance to me when I had the 5DII was the exposure bracketing. Especially for tripod shooting in high dynamic range situations, which is what most of my project shooting is about. The reason why it was important was that I regularly needed to shoot some 5-7 brackets and the 5DII was limited to 3 brackets. I could deal with it by combining it with the exposure compensation which then gave me 6 brackets in total. But I had to touch the camera to shift the exposure compensation in the middle of shooting, which was less than ideal. So I have wished for a camera which could do more brackets. I was then very happy with the D800 that it could go up to 9 brackets. However, the irony of the situation was that since the dynamic range and the noise characteristics of the D800 were so much better, I rarely needed to shoot brackets or when I did, 3 was usually more than enough.
So In terms of usability, what other specific features need to be highlighted which make the cameras fit for certain purposes? We have mentioned the exposure bracketing and fast AF already. Well, some of the things which come to my mind are mirror lock-up, shutter noise, continuous shooting speed, remote controlling, shutter lag, viewfinder, etc.
MLU is an important aspect of the IQ, when shooting on a tripod and using either long exposures or longer lenses, because of the shake the slapping mirror can cause. Obviously, the A7 has no issues with this since it doesn't have a mirror. I have found the MLU implementation of the Canon to be most practical in use. The D800 version of it has a totally different approach which makes it necessary to change the shooting mode, rather than switch it on/off for a give shooting mode. Especially with bracket shooting using MLU, it was a real pita. The winner in my eyes was then the 5DII.
Shutter noise is about being able to shoot without attracting undue attention to yourself, especially during street shooting and/or event/performance shooting (as Asher has been quite busy with). Unfortunately, the A7 is not a winner in this area. The D800 had the quitest shutter of the three cameras. But being so large and visible, the advantage of the less noisy shutter is then not a big one in street shooting.
Continuous shooting speed is mainly important for action/sports shooting. Which I wasn't so keen about. Suffice it to say that the A7 and the D800 pulled ahead of the 5DII in this area.
Remote controlling is an important aspect when one is shooting on a tripod and using bracketing. Sometimes the camera is in an awkward position that we cannot use the VF to compose. And also, we want to touch the camera as little as possible to avoid shifting of it's position. Both the D800 and the 5DII could be controlled using a smart phone or a tablet with specific apps such as the DSLR controller or the Helicon Focus remote. The A7 is not compatible with those apps. Sony has an own app, which allows the control of the camera using NFC Wi-fi. It works but it doesn't have the functionality offered by the aforementioned apps. To my mind, no real winners in this area, nor losers.
Shutter lag is of great importance, of course. We press the shutter and we want the camera to react at that very moment. Well, both the 5DII and the D800 were great cameras in this area, whereas the A7 has a tiny little bit of a shutter lag which can be irritating if one starts paying attention to it. So I ignore it, basically. Also, I try to anticipate the changes in the composition so that I can press the shutter a few milliseconds earlier if necessary.
And finally, the viewfinder. The D800 and the 5DII had beautiful and bright optical VFs, whereas the A7 has an electronic VF, which is also large and nice. I used to have a super precision focusing screen on my 5DII, which made manual focusing much easier. On the D800, I did not have a comparable screen, but then again I did not shoot with manual focus lenses. The optical VF was not very helpful when I was shooting in near dark situations though. I had to revert to using the live view on the LCD, whenever possible. Whereas the EVF of the A7 is still usable in near dark. What I don't like about it is the lag it introduces, albeit a very short one. When shooting action, I use my left eye to look at the scene and anticipate the moment to press the shutter. At the same time, my right eye is looking at the EVF and keeping the composition right. A definitive advantage of the EVF is the possibility to use focus peaking and/or the automatic zoom assist for manual focusing. So which one do I prefer? This is a tough one to answer really. Many advantages and disadvantages to each and every one of them. I guess that I would vote for 55% for the optical VFs and for 45% for the EVF on the A7. But is is very close. I can perfectly live with the EVF on the A7. It is not a show stopper for me.
To be continued in the next post....