So I took my A7RVI on a short weekend trip with me last week and did some of my usual bird photography. Most of the time I was using it the same way as I use my A1II's and A9III--with the 600GM and 2x TC mounted. Here's my thoughts:
If you are mostly doing perched birds/birds and wildlife in habitat, it's great. You get 90% of the A1 benefits in a higher-resolution body that costs a lot less. Is the higher resolution vs the A1/A1II very noticeable? Not most of the time; only in edge cases with more extreme cropping. If you are not taking a lot of action shots like BIF or sports or fast-moving wildlife it's a great camera. Really flexible for moving between macro, wildlife and landscape. The black-out free shooting is amazing as it has been for years now with the A9/A1 lines--if you've never experienced it, you'll never want to go back once you do. The high-resolution EVF is great but IMO not terribly noticeably better than the A1II. Of course the flippable screen is highly welcome.
A big plus is the new batteries--I really wish Sony had rolled these out with the A1II/A9III. They last soooooo long and charge up very quickly. One pair in a grip easily lasted through an entire day of shooting with capacity to spare. Huge improvement. Yes, a PITA to get new batteries, but it had to happen at some point. The included double charger is a great bonus.
One thing I did notice is that there were more slightly soft shots vs. my A9III/A1II with the 600GM 2x combo. I think that's the result of a few things: First, the lower number of AF calculations and adjustments per second mean it's just not going to be as accurate as those cameras. Second, the higher pixel count makes even slight misses much more noticeable due to the different circle of confusion. Finally, the tiny pixels are just more prone to showing diffraction issues with that combination. Overall not a deal breaker, but worth noting. On a related note, and for the same reasons, tiny softening from heat distortion is more readily apparent if you pixel peep.
The AI AF is great, but IMO not a huge improvement over the version in the previous A7RV, which was very good. Not better than the A1II either, but very similar which is great. The AWB is now very good, again similar to what I am used to from my A1II's, maybe a tad better in some lighting situations. The high-ISO noise is very manageable with Lightroom's AI DeNoise.
Overall this is great evolution of the A7RV into a much more capable all-around camera. If you don't want to spend the A1II kind of money, this is a great choice as long as you accept the minor limitations. I personally would also take one of these over the original A1, as the AI autofocus really is a huge improvement. Speaking of which...it still doesn't rapidly find a small bird in the frame when you are shooting in wide or zone; this has persisted so long with Sony I feel its a choice they've made, although it would be nice to have them explain why. The simple solution I've used for years still works the best--just have a smaller zone set up and it works great. With the new custom AF zones you can set up, this really works well. I have one of the back buttons programmed to rapidly flip between two focus zones.
I like it enough that I think I'll take it with me on my next jungle trip vs. two A1II's but first I want to spend a few more shorter trips with it. I'd post some photos here but I always find the interface here frustrating so....if anyone wants to see any shots I'll fiddle around I guess.
jhapeman wrote:
So I took my A7RVI on a short weekend trip with me last week and did some of my usual bird photography. Most of the time I was using it the same way as I use my A1II's and A9III--with the 600GM and 2x TC mounted. Here's my thoughts:
If you are mostly doing perched birds/birds and wildlife in habitat, it's great. You get 90% of the A1 benefits in a higher-resolution body that costs a lot less. Is the higher resolution vs the A1/A1II very noticeable? Not most of the time; only in edge cases with more extreme cropping. If you are not taking a lot of action shots like BIF or sports or fast-moving wildlife it's a great camera. Really flexible for moving between macro, wildlife and landscape. The black-out free shooting is amazing as it has been for years now with the A9/A1 lines--if you've never experienced it, you'll never want to go back once you do. The high-resolution EVF is great but IMO not terribly noticeably better than the A1II. Of course the flippable screen is highly welcome.
A big plus is the new batteries--I really wish Sony had rolled these out with the A1II/A9III. They last soooooo long and charge up very quickly. One pair in a grip easily lasted through an entire day of shooting with capacity to spare. Huge improvement. Yes, a PITA to get new batteries, but it had to happen at some point. The included double charger is a great bonus.
One thing I did notice is that there were more slightly soft shots vs. my A9III/A1II with the 600GM 2x combo. I think that's the result of a few things: First, the lower number of AF calculations and adjustments per second mean it's just not going to be as accurate as those cameras. Second, the higher pixel count makes even slight misses much more noticeable due to the different circle of confusion. Finally, the tiny pixels are just more prone to showing diffraction issues with that combination. Overall not a deal breaker, but worth noting. On a related note, and for the same reasons, tiny softening from heat distortion is more readily apparent if you pixel peep.
The AI AF is great, but IMO not a huge improvement over the version in the previous A7RV, which was very good. Not better than the A1II either, but very similar which is great. The AWB is now very good, again similar to what I am used to from my A1II's, maybe a tad better in some lighting situations. The high-ISO noise is very manageable with Lightroom's AI DeNoise.
Overall this is great evolution of the A7RV into a much more capable all-around camera. If you don't want to spend the A1II kind of money, this is a great choice as long as you accept the minor limitations. I personally would also take one of these over the original A1, as the AI autofocus really is a huge improvement. Speaking of which...it still doesn't rapidly find a small bird in the frame when you are shooting in wide or zone; this has persisted so long with Sony I feel its a choice they've made, although it would be nice to have them explain why. The simple solution I've used for years still works the best--just have a smaller zone set up and it works great. With the new custom AF zones you can set up, this really works well. I have one of the back buttons programmed to rapidly flip between two focus zones.
I like it enough that I think I'll take it with me on my next jungle trip vs. two A1II's but first I want to spend a few more shorter trips with it. I'd post some photos here but I always find the interface here frustrating so....if anyone wants to see any shots I'll fiddle around I guess. ...Show more →
Thanks for the report.
Can you post some photos to your Flickr site?
