Sony Alpha-7r impressions

Today Sony introduced the Alpha-7 and Alpha-7r cameras, the smallest and lightest full frame cameras with interchangeable lenses in the world according to Sony. The A-7r is a 36.4 Mpixel camera without low pass filter, especially suited for landscape photography, so that’s the one that is most interesting for me. These new cameras are unique, because they are not based on the Alpha-mount, but on the mount of the NEX cameras. Being full frame, it does mean that you cannot use normal NEX-lenses on these cameras, at least not without having to crop to APS-C format. Sony also announced new full frame lenses, some available when the camera is in the shops next month, some a little later. The most interesting part of using this mount is that the mount-to-sensor distance is smaller than for DSLR cameras, and so there is room for an adapter to fit DSLR lenses. Sony themselves make an adapter for their Alpha-lenses, but Metabones already has an adapter to fit Canon lenses on a NEX-mount camera. The lenses even retain autofocus and auto aperture. That means that Canon users (like me) could buy a Sony Alpha-7r and a Metabones adapter and use all their existing Canon lenses with this camera. That makes it a compelling option and something I would be interested in, because Canon still does not have such a high megapixel model.

Sony gave me a chance to try the Alpha-7r in the Amsterdam harbor today, and although I only shot in JPEG and the camera was still a sample, I can only say that I’m impressed by the results. I only used low ISO settings (because that is what I would use in landscape shots as well), and the image quality is really good. I’m looking forward to a real test sample and the possibility to shoot in RAW as well, but right now it looks like Sony has introduced a real winner, and quite possibly my next landscape camera. Below a sample picture (above) with a 100% crop (below).