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 p.8 #8 · Jared - one year in on Z6 / Z7 | |
1bwana1 wrote:
I think those who have not used the latest generation from Sony may be just unaware of the progress that has been made in this area. You are minimizing the differences in most of your thread posts. It is still very big.
I was surprised to tell you the truth. Yes, it can be used to capture sharp images even in some action scenarios. I have seen images that prove this. But AF-C is still just not competitive from what I saw in the demo. Hopefully, more firmware updates are coming to address this.
Since I have both Z7 and A7r IV and use them side by side regularly, I think unlike majority of people here, I can confirm with personal experience that while A7r IV AF is better, 95% of the time, at least for my use, it is irrerevant.
In the past one year, I think I was only annoyed by Z7 AF quirks once where I think A7r IV could do better.
Yeah in a AF stress test like a person running side way or back and forward like crazy, A7r IV AF-C AF is clearly better but I am not in a habit of taking pictures like that and I doubt most people would need that kind of capability. Yes, A7r IV will focus on an eye of a person way across the room while Z7 will only focus on the face. But at that distance, does it really matter? If you get the face, the eye will be in focus. I don't know exactly where face detection vs eye focus will make a difference but I would guess a full body shot where the person fill most of the frame's height or closer would be my guess and Z7 does not fail there.
Eye focus in all AF modes sound nice but in practice, I don't think it is that significant an advantage. Z7 make it so much easier to switch between face and eyes than A7r IV. If I want to change face on A7r IV, I need to recompose and get the subject I want in the center first and hope that Sony will pick the right face. Sometimes, it will still pick on face to the left or right instead of center and you have to recompose and pray again. The only sure way you can pick the right person in the crowd is with moveable focus point where you move focus point to the person that you want. In that case, might as well use single point focus and focus on the eye of teh person yourself. This is more of an ergonomic/interface issue rather than AF ability itself and Nikon is miles ahead of Sony here. Enough to say that if I am shooting portrait, especially with more than one person, Z7 is my preferred camera over A7r IV because of the ergonomic. Eye AF on Z7 while not as good in stress test is perfectly fine in real world usage.
In the past, I use D810/D850 along side A7r i/ii/iii. Sony is mainly used with manual focus lens. I do have Sony 50/1.4, 85/1.4 lenses which are excellent but just get too little use as they are way too big for the body and is not really as comfortable to use. Sony has been slowly making incremental improvement in that direction and with A7r IV, it is much much more comfortable than A7r i/ii with bigger lens but in comparison, Nikon hit it out of the park with 1st gen body where Sony is still lagged behind somewhat in its 4th generation. Of course with the arrival of Noct Nikkor, the argument about big lens etc etc go out the window immediately 
Also in good light, A7r IV EVF/LCD is very good but I was shooting firework side by side with Z7 the other day and EVF/LCD screen is way behind Z7. In low light, it became much noisier and with focus magnifier, it is quite a bit more difficult to manual focus A7r IV in comparison. ( I prefocus in MF mode and left it there, ready to fire my shutter release as soon as firework started).
Now, you might ask if Z7 is so great, why am I bother with A7r IV. A few reasons,
1) 12-24/4. Yeah, Nikon has 14-30/4 which I think image quality wise is neck and neck but can't compete at 12-13.9mm 
Technically I can use 12-24 on Z7 but technically because of different sensor cover thickness, e mount lens still seems to have better IQ on Sony body than Z body so I keep Sony body for E mount lenses still.
2) 100-400GM is so good. I had a lot of fun using A7r iii with 100-400 alongside D850+ 500/4e FL although a few times, A7r iii was not quite up to the task in Kenya. A7r IV should fare better. I will be in Botswana in June and I think d850+500/4e FL and A7r IV+100-400 again will be ideal combination. Z7 can be a back up to both if neccessary (I would not trust Z7 with 100-400GM unless the animal is stationary or at crawling speed at the moment). Until Nikon releases 100-400 that is comparable to Sony, I don't think my Sony setup will go away anytime soon as I do plan some wildlife trips every year. For stationary and slow moving wildlife, I don't see any reason why Z7 could not handle that already. Just need the right lens.
3) Techart adapter for M lenses. some work just so so but with A7r IV and Leica 50/2 apo, AF is so good and reliable that shooting street with camera at chest or waist height is just so easy with excellent keeper's rate.
In the end, it is not only about the best only as there is no one best camera at everything. But there is also such thing as good enough and I think Z7 passes the good enough point in many but not all criteria while excels at many other things.
If you think that Z7/Z6 AF is bad, try GFX100 or GFX50s/r /X1D i/ii, Leica S . They are all capable of producing amazing image with much inferior AF. You could say GFX100 and Leica S is not in the same market but GFX50s/r, X1D ii price is low enough to attract some people from high end FF crowd for sure and there are plenty of people who are happily using those cameras with inferior AF. I have GFX100 now and 50s in the past and I have access to X1di/ii and Leica S so I base all of these on personal experience.
Ps I dont shoot sports so requirement there may be different. I shot free style kite surf competition once for a friend with D810 and 200-500 years ago and it was not all that challenging. Z7 with 500pf should be perfect for that.
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