Until the summer, I had a Sony A7 III for almost six years. Then it suffered water damage during the summer vacation and I quickly bought a Sony A7C as a replacement.
Unfortunately, the Sony A7c no longer has a fully mechanical shutter. But only a mechanical shutter with a first shutter curtain and an electronic shutter.
Mechanical shutter first curtain problems:
- Exposure only up to 1/4000s
- Bokeh looks worse at an exposure time of around 1/800s than with the electronic shutter. Since I only have f/1.4 lenses and shoot 99% of the time with the aperture open, I often take photos (especially in the sun) at very fast shutter speeds
Problems electronic safe closure:
- the image is often distorted, especially when I photograph my children playing, I often have long drawn faces, arms or legs
- Problems indoors with artificial light (streaking)
Now I have a bit of an A7c shutter problem. Do you have an idea what I should do best?
a) live with the disadvantages of the A7c or with bad bokeh? But somehow it's stupid if you only have f/1.4 GM lenses
b) buy a Sony A7 III / A7 IV etc., with a fully mechanical shutter. But is that actually recommended? A fully mechanical shutter quickly causes camera shake (faster with high megapixels) and, as far as I know, the releases are not 10 frames per second or are rather sluggish
c) buy a Sony A9 II / A1 with a usable full electronic shutter?
If you are shooting wide open in bright lights a majority of the time, you could get some magnetic ND filters. (Or one of the clip ins that goes in the camera.) The surefire solution, if you want to shoot a lot of motion at high shutter speeds would be the a9/a1 stacked sensor cameras or the a camera that has full mechanical shutter (as you note.)
I have the A7C as well and went through the same thing. I also take photos of my kids. With electronic shutter I don't get distorted images. If you shoot in 12 bit compressed the scan speed of the sensor is fast enough. The trick is to not move the camera. I have photos of my kids running and jumping with no problem.
And yes once you see the EFCS bokeh problem you will notice it every time. And the new A7CII has even worse scan speed :/
Mzrk wrote:
I have the A7C as well and went through the same thing. I also take photos of my kids. With electronic shutter I don't get distorted images. If you shoot in 12 bit compressed the scan speed of the sensor is fast enough. The trick is to not move the camera. I have photos of my kids running and jumping with no problem.
And yes once you see the EFCS bokeh problem you will notice it every time. And the new A7CII is has even worse scan speed :/
Exactly, I already take compressed photos with 12 bits. I've heard of keeping the camera still, but it's not easy when you're doing AF tracking of running children doing sports. Unfortunately, the camera often moves and changes focus.
Yes, this is an unsolvable problem in majority of Sony land (except for A9/A1 as you noted).
Sony should just introduce an auto-shutter mode (change shutter type above certain SS) in cameras which have full mech shutter, so you could also use A7(r) series without worries.
The easy solution is to sell the A7C and buy a used A9 camera. You are already used to the 24mp so there's no downgrade there and your shutter problem would be solved because you could use silent all the time.
Sony hasn't had notable shutter shock issues since the original a7r. With the vII designs and addition of IBIS, the conditions that impacted that camera no longer exist. I can use my rII and rV with full mechanical shutters at any speed without introducing the effects of shutter shock.
Both the a7III and IV are capable of 10fps so long as, like with the rest of Sony's cameras in achieving the maximum advertised frame-rate, you're willing to accept 12-bit compressed RAWs or JPEGs. If the small buffers on the 7III and 7c were slowing you down, the 7IV is a massive upgrade in that department.
All I know about you from your post is that you like to use fast lenses wide open in bright light and you don't like EFCS bokeh effects in that use. Any other e-mount camera outside of the C series has a solution for that problem. What the "best" solution is for you needs to be determined by budget and priorities for the camera beyond the problem you're trying to solve.
This means that I can safely use the fully mechanical shutter on all cameras that have an integrated IBIS.
Which is better, a fully mechanical shutter (compressed to 12 bits) or an electronic shutter on the A9 II?
I'm unsure whether I should still go for a fully mechanical shutter today and then buy the camera or whether I should go for an electronic shutter on the A9 II or A1 (A9 is out of the question as it can no longer be bought new).
I was and am more than satisfied with the buffer of the A7 III and now with the A7C.
Otherwise I am very satisfied with the A7C. It's all about the closure.
I also like the smaller and lighter body of the A7C the best. I actually don't feel like having a big body (A7 III, A7 IV, A9 II, A1).
But I would like to take pictures of my children without compromise and without having to pay attention to the shutter. The situation and movement of the children is stressful enough that I don't want to pay attention to the camera settings.
freaklikeme wrote:
Sony hasn't had notable shutter shock issues since the original a7r. With the vII designs and addition of IBIS, the conditions that impacted that camera no longer exist. I can use my rII and rV with full mechanical shutters at any speed without introducing the effects of shutter shock.
I've experienced mechanical shutter shock issues with some of the newer bodies (a7r III and a1) under certain conditions, specifically longer lens (100-400) and modest shutter speeds. Took me a while to figure out that it was shutter shock causing slight image softness/blur for all but the first image in a continuous bracket sequence. Switching to full electronic shutter on the a1 solved the problem. I'm not sure these conditions will be relevant to the OP's use case, but still think the mechanical shutter can cause some vibration effects.
Wouldn't it would be far easier and cheaper just to stop down slightly or use a magentic ND filter? Doesn't the cut bokeh go away very quickly, by f1.6/f.17/f1.8? I've found the difference with shooting kids outdoors with a fast lens actually is is pretty minimal if you stop down a little bit - you can still blitz the background by moving a bit closer to the subject where possible and the bokeh/blur on the GMs or Sigma ARTs is still very nice stopped down a little and you get the benefit of increased sharpness and easier focusing.
I get your conundrum though, I love shooting wide open on an A7c but most of my photography has been indoors for now. I suspect this year when my tornado of a kid turns 3 we'll be outdoors a lot more come the summer!
So it's not entirely clear whether the fully mechanical shutter causes camera shake or not.
Sure, I can use ND filters. Then I have a longer exposure time, perhaps. below 1/1000s and the effect of the worse bokeh is limited. Because if you take photos outside at 1/1000s or shorter, you will quickly see the unsightly bokeh. And the EV is not an option in the A7c, the images are always distorted and it's impossible to keep still, I'm tracking the children.
So either buy the A7 III again (approx. 1,000 EUR currently) or an A7 IV (approx. 2,000 EUR currently) and therefore fully rely on the mechanical shutter. But the shutter sound of a fully mechanical shutter isn't the nicest sound either. Very long and quite a long stroke.
It would probably be best to buy an A9 II for my situation. You could get it for just under 4,000 EUR, a hefty surcharge coming from the A7c....
In the scenario of wanting to shoot 1.4 lenses at high shutter speeds to stop action, the a7c would be a poor choice, beyond EFCS bokeh issues you'll be stopping down to deal with the 1/4000 SS. Get the a9, first version is much smaller than the second. Goes for about $1400 used these days. Or be happy shooting at 2.8 in these scenarios on the a7c and you won't notice any bokeh issues even at 1/4000.
Yes, I notice. The Sony A7c is the worst camera for my purpose. I like the form factor (size and weight) so much. But I should probably distance myself from the camera and buy a better, more suitable camera.
The Sony A9 I would be good, but I don't want to buy a used camera.
In this respect, it will either be the A7 III, A7 IV (although I don't like the folding display of the A7 IV) or the A9 II.
Well to be honest, why shoot everything at full aperture? I mean will anyone really care compared to shooting at f2 or 2.8? A lot of the time the light will be lower allowing you to use f1.4 anyway. Are you shooting at 50 ISO? That helps. You risk throwing away the reason you got a compact body in the first place. Another way to look at it is that the lens (tail) is wagging the camera (dog). No need to let it.
I agree though about the slow e shutters except for the flagships.
I've been taking photos at aperture 1.4 for years. This is my style of photography and I really like it. Other people wouldn't notice or you wouldn't care. But why would I change my entire way of photography when another camera would fix the problem.
With aperture 2 or 2.8 you don't have the problem of bad bokeh?
I haven't done ISO 50 yet. But I'm happy to try. And the hope is longer exposure time? But I also like to need 1/1000s for fast children doing sports.
Unfortunately, ISO50 is not native on (at least current) Sony cameras. This means that you can overexpose an ISO100 shot by 1 stop and then bring the exposure down in post to get the same outcome.
It's still good for jpeg though .
From start the whole discussion has circulated around the fact that the A7C series is wrong for your style.
So, the only way to become happy when bringing the camera is to switch model. Stop thinking about all the workarounds - they are after all not what you want. I say that as an A7CR user.
"That's it and that's all."
I agree with jwpstl and maestrofilms who are pointing at the A9. Like them i would recommend buying a used camera. Perhaps from somebody with good feedback at the B&S forum? I know I would do. You need equipment you like to enjoy the hobby, no?
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