Some of my thoughts as I had the Sony A7 for along with the Ziess 2.8-35mm lens for about a week. Easy to setup and use. My main interests were: A) image quality B) focus speed and accuracy C) usability and inspiration. There have been conflicting reports on which focuses faster, the A7 or the A7r. The A7 has a hybrid focusing system which, in theory, makes it a faster focusing camera than it’s brother the 36Mpix A7r. In general the A7 focused on what I wanted it to.

The camera is very small and light. I’m sure Sony’s goal was to create the smallest full frame camera – and they did. I wouldn’t mind if it was a little bigger. Lenses will be kept small and that means slower apertures for the most part.

Focus was fair. Pretty good for a mirrorless but certainly not the the snap focus found on a DSLR

The Ziess lens produces nice colours and good contrast. This was on a gloomy overcast day.

This group of people were moving and the Sony did a pretty good job with focus. This would have been very difficult for the Fuji X-Pro 1 or X-E1

 I did some shooting for our street style blog. You can find that here.

A crop but as you can see the lens is sharp. Nice natural colours which I boosted a little in post.

Battery life is horrible. Not too surprised there. The LCD screen is very nice as is the EVF.

This should have been a great street camera but a drawback is the loud shutter. More so on the A7r.

Since the camera is small and non-pro looking, people are less intimated by it. I could never do this as a candid due to the loud shutter.

Pros:

Nice image quality

Small and lightweight

Body is well priced

Great EVF

Reliable focus even in low light

With adapters you can use just about any lens made for 35mm

Cons:

Terrible battery life – bring a few extras

No battery charger – must charge in camera

2.8-35mm is a slow aperture for a wide prime and at $800 it is expensive for what it is

ISO 6400 raw files are pretty noisy – a disappointment

Zooms will be f/4 but you really should stick to primes

Upcoming 1.8-55mm will be $1000 – that’s a lot of money

No real flash system

Will Sony support this system over the long haul?

Conclusion: In the end the Sony A7 was not ideal for me and didn’t inspire me very much. When I looked at the upcoming 55mm for a grand, I just can’t see the value for the money. It’s a decent little camera and I will probably revisit the Sony’s once the system matures in the next few years.  8 out of 10.