Below is what I wrote in another thread about getting to know my A7Cr after having it for a few days. I have now had it for about six weeks, taken it Japan for 3 weeks, and my initial impressions have held up. The greatest weakness of the camera, for me, is that it is not a stacked sensor and so is kludgy (same as A7RV) in handling the problem of banding with LED lights. But the only Sony cameras that have stacked sensors at the moment are the A1 and the A9xx.
"I now have had my A7Cr for a couple of days and I am still in the process of getting to know it. One reviewer has described it as "a slightly stripped-back A7RV in a body that is very similar to the A6700," another wrote that "it packs some of the best features of the a7RV into a smaller body that’s suitable for travel," and a third said that the A7Rc was "well suited to travel or documentary photographers who want the best possible quality while traveling light. But the A7R V has handling, controls and features more likely to tempt professional photographers." I think these reviewers have it just about exactly right.
"I don't think the camera is designed for professional photographers, who will want two card slots and a heavier body to hold large lenses and to sustain continuous shooting for hours at a time and who will soon spin out hundreds of thousands of exposures on a full mechanical shutter setting. If that is who you are, this is not your work camera. Nor is it the right camera for BIF people for whom the difference between 8 FPS and 30 FPS may be important and who want to mount huge lenses.
"It is however an ideal camera for travelers and documentary photographers and people who try to have a camera with them in everyday life, whether they are doing street shooting or photographing their family and friends and the ordinary environments of their lives. It also works very well for landscapes, architecture, and for still-lifes. I think it is a camera that is designed for the kind of photographer the Leica originally attracted many years ago.
"It is light, significantly lighter than the A7RV, and very easy to take along without feeling like a pack horse. It is about the same size as but smaller than the original Sony full-frame mirrorless cameras like the A7R and the A7II, and is thus a return to what originally made Sony special and appealing for many DSLR users. It is less likely than other cameras to make your subjects nervous about the big camera pointed at them.
"It is comfortable to hold and easy to pack. It is at its nifty best with more compact lenses, though it feels fine with my 24-70 GM II mounted. If you have high quality small lenses, then the working unit of the A7Cr + lens will be much smaller and lighter than other body + lens combinations. You can build a very high-quality system that is both light and compact. The image quality and the IBIS of the camera are excellent and the AF is surpassing (though I haven't had any problem with focusing or getting sharp shots since the A9's Real-Time Tracking came into being four or five years ago).
"The A7Cr does require some transitioning in terms of handling. The Sony interface is evolving. There is a new menu system (Sony's third I think) that one has to learn. The camera has more features to set than anything other than the A7RV, so there is some learning to be done about which different settings one wants to use. Accessing features that you may want to change while shooting will use some custom buttons but also the enhanced and accessible (by swiping) touchscreen, which to my taste works nicely but still takes getting used to. I will probably also access the Fn Menu a bit more than before. But more of the settings are designed to change directly rather than by taking you to a sub-menu of settings, so it feels fast to make changes even though some are made in a different way.
"The additional front wheel is a big deal for me since I shoot in manual and want two wheels to easily change both aperture and shutter speed. The new EVF and the LCD are both fine for me (when I use a manual lens, I have always used Magnify focus-assist, and it works perfectly well with this EVF and LCD).
"Overall, I have been very pleased with the A7Cr, and I am about to take it on a three-week trip to Japan. But I do have the sense of learning a new camera that is similar to the A7RV in capacities and in what needs to be set but still different in terms of handling. It is also different in both its handling and its features from the A7C. So it seems like a very new iteration of a Sony full-frame mirrorless camera. It calls for new muscle memory. It does feel like there is a learning curve, which no doubt will frustrate some users but which also no doubt will fade with experience."
This is what I wrote in another thread about getting to know my A7Cr. I have now had it for about six weeks, taken it Japan for 3 weeks, and my initial impressions have held up. The greatest weakness of the camera, for me, is that it is not a stacked sensor and so is kludgy (same as A7RV) in handling the problem of banding with LED lights. But the only Sony cameras that have stacked sensors at the moment are the A1 and the A9xx.
"I now have had my A7Cr for a couple of days and I am still in the process of getting to know it. One reviewer has described it as "a slightly stripped-back A7RV in a body that is very similar to the A6700," another wrote that "it packs some of the best features of the a7RV into a smaller body that’s suitable for travel," and a third said that the A7Rc was "well suited to travel or documentary photographers who want the best possible quality while traveling light. But the A7R V has handling, controls and features more likely to tempt professional photographers." I think these reviewers have it just about exactly right.
"I don't think the camera is designed for professional photographers, who will want two card slots and a heavier body to hold large lenses and to sustain continuous shooting for hours at a time and who will soon spin out hundreds of thousands of exposures on a full mechanical shutter setting. If that is who you are, this is not your work camera. Nor is it the right camera for BIF people for whom the difference between 8 FPS and 30 FPS may be important and who want to mount huge lenses.
"It is however an ideal camera for travelers and documentary photographers and people who try to have a camera with them in everyday life, whether they are doing street shooting or photographing their family and friends and the ordinary environments of their lives. It also works very well for landscapes, architecture, and for still-lifes. I think it is a camera that is designed for the kind of photographer the Leica originally attracted many years ago.
"It is light, significantly lighter than the A7RV, and very easy to take along without feeling like a pack horse. It is about the same size as but smaller than the original Sony full-frame mirrorless cameras like the A7R and the A7II, and is thus a return to what originally made Sony special and appealing for many DSLR users. It is less likely than other cameras to make your subjects nervous about the big camera pointed at them.
"It is comfortable to hold and easy to pack. It is at its nifty best with more compact lenses, though it feels fine with my 24-70 GM II mounted. If you have high quality small lenses, then the working unit of the A7Cr + lens will be much smaller and lighter than other body + lens combinations. You can build a very high-quality system that is both light and compact. The image quality and the IBIS of the camera are excellent and the AF is surpassing (though I haven't had any problem with focusing or getting sharp shots since the A9's Real-Time Tracking came into being four or five years ago).
"The A7Cr does require some transitioning in terms of handling. The Sony interface is evolving. There is a new menu system (Sony's third I think) that one has to learn. The camera has more features to set than anything other than the A7RV, so there is some learning to be done about which different settings one wants to use. Accessing features that you may want to change while shooting will use some custom buttons but also the enhanced and accessible (by swiping) touchscreen, which to my taste works nicely but still takes getting used to. I will probably also access the Fn Menu a bit more than before. But more of the settings are designed to change directly rather than by taking you to a sub-menu of settings, so it feels fast to make changes even though some are made in a different way.
"The additional front wheel is a big deal for me since I shoot in manual and want two wheels to easily change both aperture and shutter speed. The new EVF and the LCD are both fine for me (when I use a manual lens, I have always used Magnify focus-assist, and it works perfectly well with this EVF and LCD).
"Overall, I have been very pleased with the A7Cr, and I am about to take it on a three-week trip to Japan. But I do have the sense of learning a new camera that is similar to the A7RV in capacities and in what needs to be set but still different in terms of handling. It is also different in both its handling and its features from the A7C. So it seems like a very new iteration of a Sony full-frame mirrorless camera. It calls for new muscle memory. It does feel like there is a learning curve, which no doubt will frustrate some users but which also no doubt will fade with experience."
This is what I wrote in another thread about getting to know my A7Cr. I have now had it for about six weeks, taken it Japan for 3 weeks, and my initial impressions have held up. The greatest weakness of the camera, for me, is that it is not a stacked sensor and so is kludgy (same as A7RV) in handling the problem of banding with LED lights. But the only Sony cameras that have stacked sensors at the moment are the A1 and the A9xx.
I now have had my A7Cr for a couple of days and I am still in the process of getting to know it. One reviewer has described it as "a slightly stripped-back A7RV in a body that is very similar to the A6700," another wrote that "it packs some of the best features of the a7RV into a smaller body that’s suitable for travel," and a third said that the A7Rc was "well suited to travel or documentary photographers who want the best possible quality while traveling light. But the A7R V has handling, controls and features more likely to tempt professional photographers." I think these reviewers have it just about exactly right.
I don't think the camera is designed for professional photographers, who will want two card slots and a heavier body to hold large lenses and to sustain continuous shooting for hours at a time and who will soon spin out hundreds of thousands of exposures on a full mechanical shutter setting. If that is who you are, this is not your work camera. Nor is it the right camera for BIF people for whom the difference between 8 FPS and 30 FPS may be important and who want to mount huge lenses.
It is however an ideal camera for travelers and documentary photographers and people who try to have a camera with them in everyday life, whether they are doing street shooting or photographing their family and friends and the ordinary environments of their lives. It also works very well for landscapes, architecture, and for still-lifes. I think it is a camera that is designed for the kind of photographer the Leica originally attracted many years ago.
It is light, significantly lighter than the A7RV, and very easy to take along without feeling like a pack horse. It is about the same size as but smaller than the original Sony full-frame mirrorless cameras like the A7R and the A7II, and is thus a return to what originally made Sony special and appealing for many DSLR users. It is less likely than other cameras to make your subjects nervous about the big camera pointed at them.
It is comfortable to hold and easy to pack. It is at its nifty best with more compact lenses, though it feels fine with my 24-70 GM II mounted. If you have high quality small lenses, then the working unit of the A7Cr + lens will be much smaller and lighter than other body + lens combinations. You can build a very high-quality system that is both light and compact. The image quality and the IBIS of the camera are excellent and the AF is surpassing (though I haven't had any problem with focusing or getting sharp shots since the A9's Real-Time Tracking came into being four or five years ago).
The A7Cr does require some transitioning in terms of handling. The Sony interface is evolving. There is a new menu system (Sony's third I think) that one has to learn. The camera has more features to set than anything other than the A7RV, so there is some learning to be done about which different settings one wants to use. Accessing features that you may want to change while shooting will use some custom buttons but also the enhanced and accessible (by swiping) touchscreen, which to my taste works nicely but still takes getting used to. I will probably also access the Fn Menu a bit more than before. But more of the settings are designed to change directly rather than by taking you to a sub-menu of settings, so it feels fast to make changes even though some are made in a different way.
The additional front wheel is a big deal for me since I shoot in manual and want two wheels to easily change both aperture and shutter speed. The new EVF and the LCD are both fine for me (when I use a manual lens, I have always used Magnify focus-assist, and it works perfectly well with this EVF and LCD).
Overall, I have been very pleased with the A7Cr, and I am about to take it on a three-week trip to Japan. But I do have the sense of learning a new camera that is similar to the A7RV in capacities and in what needs to be set but still different in terms of handling. It is also different in both its handling and its features from the A7C. So it seems like a very new iteration of a Sony full-frame mirrorless camera. It calls for new muscle memory. It does feel like there is a learning curve, which no doubt will frustrate some users but which also no doubt will fade with experience.
Nov 25, 2023 at 11:45 AM
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