First purchase of a Sony A7 series camera - A Sony A7s

[Austintatious]

I still have three Maxxum lenses from film days. The 50mm f1.7, the 35-70 f4 and the 70-210 f4 "Beercan". I have looked at the LA-EA4 adapters and wish they were not so expensive. Even used ones cost what a some lenses do. Currently using the kit lens and a couple dozen classic manual focus SLR lenses from Minolta, Olympus, Pentax and Yashica. As well as some Soviet rangefinder lenses. The APS-C Sony lenses from my NEX 6 will also work OK at half resolution. Enough to play with for the moment.I do have GAS for some AF FE glass

 

[peterm1]

I am sorry I have been absent from this thread for a while having started it. Truth is I have been awaiting the opportunity to make some test shots to put up here and record my first impressions. But life has intervened and I have been too busy to do much shooting for various reasons. Never the less I have now had the chance to do that in a limited way.

My early impressions have confirmed that this is a highly competent camera which was my very first thought about it when I initially got it. In particular I like the way it handles contrasty images - no problems with blown highlights here and any over exposure is easy to recover (at least that's my experience to date). This first image gives an idea of that. A bright sunny day with strong light and shadows. The sensor has handled it with aplomb.

I have made a couple of other shots that I have put up on Flickr. In these I have matched it up with Leica glass - a Summicron 90mm f2 (type 2). It performs nicely as might be expected. Some post processing in these images but not too much was needed.

Cafe Study 43 by Life in Shadows, on Flickr

Chef by Life in Shadows, on Flickr

Subsequently I found a Sony 50mm f2.8 macro in FE mount and weakened and bought it so I would have at least one AF lens. From memory the first pic posted above was shot with that. Its a fine lens and one of Sony's cheaper FE mount lenses but quite expensive for all that. This could quickly become expensive.

The camera is my main "carry" at the moment so undoubtedly I will have a few more images over the next week or so. I will post them here as I become available.

 

[peterm1]

I have an LA-EA4 adapter for my A7 II. Highly recommended, it allows you to use old cheaper A-mount Minolta AF lenses on your E mount camera.

The quality of the Minolta lenses is on par with the newer and MUCH more expensive E-mount Sony lenses.

You do lose something like 1/3rd of a stop of light because of the translucent mirror, and it may be just a hair heavier than using the native lenses, but the size should be similar.

Minolta lenses have a slightly "warmer" tone to them which I like, and have the famed "Minolta colors". The lenses are little less "neutral" than the Sony lenses in my opinion.

The Minolta 50mm 1.7 is super cheap, as low as $30 while you can get a 1.4 (!) for $100.

Opens up a wide range to you for an affordable price if you buy 2+ Minolta lenses.

Yes I have considered this. I reflected on the price of Sony FE glass in my thread below because I did buy one of the "cheaper" ones - the 50mm f2.8 macro but still thought it to be rather expensive. I did see one of these adapters at the time I got the FE lens and thought at the time I should consider getting it for exactly the reason you suggest.

But may I ask how it performs in terms of AF response / accuracy etc.? (Specifically how it performs on this camera if possible). That is one thing that did give me reason for pause in relation to that adapter. But it is something I would consider as I like using older lenses anyway.

I also happened to have tried a late model Techart Leica M to Sony AF adapter on this camera when I bought the camera (there happened to be one in the store). But while it would sort of auto focus it was very slow and buggy with lots of "searching" and poorer performance still in poor lighting conditions. The salesperson warned me this would likely be the case but encouraged me to try it in any event, advising that it really requires the next generation of A7 cameras with the latest AF system to work properly. It is also interesting how different lenses perform on different Sony bodies. The 50mm f2.8 macro I have performs pretty well on my A7s - if you remember to set the AF limits on the lens (not up to top grade performance but quick and sure enough for me - though I am aware others have criticized it). When I tried it on my Sony NEX 7 body though it was very poor on that body. Shame, I would have liked to use it on that body as well. As an aside the only slight gripe about the 50mm is not about its focusing but rather is about its bokeh which to my eye looks rather "squirrelly". You can see what I mean in the first image in the post below.

 

[peterm1]

I use the focus peaking on my a6000 and find it works best with the lens wide open and I also magnify the image to check on critical focusing...
I've had mine almost three years and the Menu does get easier to use...

My experience to date is that the focus peaking on the A7s is probably better than the focus peaking I have tried with most other cameras. It seems a little more accurate and responsive but I have to say not completely so - I still tend to use manual focus assist (image enlargement) to confirm and reasonably often need to twiddle the focus ring a tad to refine focus. I tend to shoot at wide apertures so this is necessary.

Also as with almost every camera it depends on the scene (is it high or low contrast) and if using a classic lens, the specific lens I am using (ditto - is it high contrast or low contrast). Sometimes I will note that focus peaking does not show up at all when I have FP sensitivity set to low or moderate with certain lens / scene combinations. But setting FP to high gives false positives. This is not necessarily a criticism of the A7s - its a general problem with FP on every camera I have tried to date, excluding possibly the Leica Q.

All in all I think FP on this camera is a bit better than others I have tried but still could not call it flawless.