The A7V has been out for a while, so people have experience in real world situation. I'm torn between getting a used A1 original and a new A7v, mostly for birds in flight and other wildlife, and some landscape, and as a backup to my A7RV, which I use for landscapes and nigh photography. I like the speed and resolution of the A1, and the focus system, pre-capture and floppy screen of the A7V. Those of you who have used both the A7V and the A1, what do you think? Is the A7V really a mini A1? Does the original A1 hold up against the A7V?
If you like 50MP and a fairly deep buffer then you should go for the A1.
If you want precapture and are okay with some leaning lines in the backgrounds during panning BIF and some wing distortion with very fast/erratic BIF then go A7V.
Also note that Adobe still doesn't support the Compressed RAW format that makes the A7V's buffer somewhat useable. I've never seen them take this long to support a Sony camera. They even removed the asterisk saying it only supports Lossless Compressed from the Camera Raw supported camera list and yet it still doesn't open Compressed or Uncompressed RAW files.
Being a LR user I would never buy this camera if I was after fast action until I see Adobe add support for Compressed RAW.
I have owned the A7RV for about two years and love it but recently just bought a used first gen A1. While I shoot mostly portraits and mostly in a studio I am now using the A1 about 85% of the time as I just prefer to shoot with it. I use a lot of LED/RGB lights rather than strobes and the A1 is flawless with electronic shutter.
I have an A7V and absolutely love it!! But if I were a wildlife/bird photographer I’ll look into a used A1 too because of its cropping power. Going back to the A7V the new WB system is fantastic—-I’m getting terrific skin tones in all lighting conditions. The AF speed is awesome! Also I use ES a lot. Basically I only use MS when I’m using the Godox V100S flash.
I recently had to make the same kind of decision. I have an A7R III and wanted to upgrade the AF and general speed, mostly for wildlife.
I evaluated the A9, A7R V, A1, A1 II, A7 V and even the A6700.
In the end, I chose a lightly used A1.
First, why I did not choose any of the others:
- A9, too low resolution (we're always cropping in Wildlife photography), also older AF system.
- A7R V, it has everything except speed. Blackout during burst is a no-go for Wildlife action.
- A6700. Interesting case. It is cheap, the resolution is great (I'm often in APS-C mode on the A7R III anyway), and the AF is better than the RIII, but still has blackouts, fewer controls and worse EVF (important for me).
- A1 II, the best, but simply too expensive.
Now, the last contender was the A7 V. It was a hard decision to make since it's similar in price to a used A1.
The strong points of the A7 V against the A1 are the pre-capture, the articulated screen and the improved AF AI. Pre-capture, in particular, is the feature I really want.
But in the end, I took the A1 over the A7V:
1) The EVF. I like the one on the A7R III. My friend's A7R IV is even better. The A1 EVF is much superior to the one on the A7V.
2) It's a fully stacked sensor. No more needing a mechanical shutter in most cases. The A7V is only half there.
3) Buffer is much deeper
4) AF is probably faster during tracking (120 fps calculations vs 60).
5) More physical controls, I like more buttons and dials. The dial on the left side will be useful for me.
6) More resolution (again, cropping in bird photography)
The only thing I will really miss is the pre-capture. To compensate, I'll buy memory cards with more capacity... Not ideal, but one can't have everything. The A1, even used, is already quite expensive for an amateur like me. This will be my most expensive piece of gear ever bought.
I had two a1 bodies (now just one a1 II) when I traded them in, both had under 50 shutter actuation count. Not 5000, not 500... UNDER 50! Because I never once activated the mech shutter. I had no need to. Yet, there were days I'd go biriding and come home after taking 1000+ pics... (or MORE!).
So, anyway... the point of bringing this up is... there are probably a lot of other people out there that sold or traded theirs in and have super low click counts. It's like finding a great 2021 car with practically no mileage on the odometer.
But THAT being said... if you think you'll want pre-capture (and as an obsessed birder photographer, it IS very useful IMHO), AND you think you're going to get into video... the a7V might be a better option. Because one of the reasons for me to upgrade to the a1II was because I started doing birding videos and the a1 doesn't have Birds Eye-AF in video, the a7V does, it's VERY useful with birds-in-flight captures.
Imagemaster wrote:
And how will that compensate not having pre-capture?
Well, I have 2 options:
1) keep bursting for more than a few seconds on a fast CFexpress card...
2) Try to shoot 8K video and extract the shot I want...
I reckon none of these "solutions" are not ideal compared to pre-capture... but I'll have to make do with that. Or I will have to convince myself I don't need it
It's too bad that Sony didn't add it to the latest A1 firmware. It may be more of a marketing decision than a technical hurdle, who knows?
Obviously going to need more storage if you keep having to shoot when you *think* something’s going to happen, rather than waiting till it’s actually happening ;-).
Imagemaster wrote:
And how will that compensate not having pre-capture?
ronno wrote:
Obviously going to need more storage if you keep having to shoot when you *think* something’s going to happen, rather than waiting till it’s actually happening ;-).
Well shoot the same subject side-by-side with a photographer that uses pre-capture and he will get 100 times more useable take-off shots than the one not using pre-capture.
On top of that, with pre-capture you set the maximum number of images the camera keeps in the buffer after you fully depress the shutter, so you don't need more buffer capacity.
My comment was merely about overshooting due to not having pre-capture (and thus guessing)…Rather than waiting till the actual event to start shooting.
No reason to get defensive about the merits of pre-capture ;-).
Imagemaster wrote:
Well shoot the same subject side-by-side with a photographer that uses pre-capture and he will get 100 times more useable take-off shots than the one not using pre-capture.
On top of that, with pre-capture you set the maximum number of images the camera keeps in the buffer after you fully depress the shutter, so you don't need more buffer capacity.
Both are superb cameras and you cannot go wrong with either. Compare the features of both with what and how you shoot most of the time. See what features and specs align with your type of shooting needs and the answer should reveal itself...
ronno wrote:
My comment was merely about overshooting due to not having pre-capture (and thus guessing)…Rather than waiting till the actual event to start shooting.
No reason to get defensive about the merits of pre-capture ;-).
No need to get your panties in a knot. The merits of pre-capture are a fact and nothing to do with me being defensive about it.
Filling a buffer with a thousand useless images is hardly equivalent to what pre-capture accomplishes. You may as well tell the OP just to shoot in video mode.
I've used my A1 around the world since 2022 and it continues to deliver. I sometimes wish I had precapture but not a make or break for me. If the A7V had the same grip as the A1ii & A9iii I would have bought it for that reason.
I've seen A1's as low as $2950 which is unreal for what the camera is. I personally would grab a used A1.
That's what I just did. Used A1. I had a canon R6ii which has a similar read out speed to the A7v, and the rolling shutter was too limiting for my tastes (in E shutter).
