Which sony nex to get

One thing that hit me after I picked up the Nex7, is how comfortable the camera was, that grip is a wonderful thing! Everything is well placed like the shutter release button, the dial on the back is accessible by your thumb, the front dials are also dealt with with your thumb. Plus I found the shutter release small and too tall. Both cameras share the same look, the A7 being a larger NEX7 with a viewfinder on top. The A7 removes the possible questioning and you can just go through the menus really fast.

The SLR form factor is a deal breaker for some, the argument being that it hinders your other eye from looking at the scene. The Nex7 has two dials on the top and the rolling dial in the back. Sweet and simple. I really cannot tell you which one is the best system because they both are comfortable, but the most important thing stays the same: You always have your controls right under your finger. The Nex7 has pretty much an empty top part, but the A7 has a dial that is not on the Nex7: An exposure compensation dial.

If you like shooting in automatic or semi automatic mode, this dial still gives you some form of overall control over the image. If you shoot Manual, it would be cool if you could transform this dial into something like an ISO control, but no such luck. As a camera manufacturer, if you make a very good camera, the pressure is on you to top that.

The larger sensor really gives images, especially portraits have a sort of 3D pop when you are at higher apertures. Superb tonal range, contrast and extremely maleable files in Post Processing. I was underwhelmed with the A7 when I just took some snaps, but when I started to really shoot with it…. Look, the NEX7, is an amazing camera, arguably one of the best ones out there. Sony really outdid themselves with this fullframe camera. While I was at a wedding ,there was gorgeous, gorgeous light. The best any photographer would have asked for.

The A7…. And things were still not falling apart. The image above is the A7…the colors are still holding strong, perfectly usable image. This is good news for available light photographers like me, who want the maximum juice they can get out of the available light. Get a lens for Sony A7 with a 1. Other Considerations Besides the head to head comparison, there are a few factors that must be taken into account, I find them minor but others might find them major.

The Sony A7, like the Nex6 has a standard hotshoe adapter. So one flash cannot go on both cameras without one having an adapter. The NEX7 has a pop-up flash built-in, you can even hold it with your index finger and bounce vertically. But the Sony A7 has no pop-up flash at all. You can also transfer images to PC, etc. Basically these are apps that enhance the capabilities of the camera software side.

So you can have a new multiple exposure feature, etc. Some apps are paid, some are free. The A7 has an optional double battery grip that, well, extends your battery life in addition to bulk! This whole article is about telling you which one you should get…. And the short answer is…. The Sony A7. I was proven wrong. You get lots of camera for your money in both cases. Actually I think the A7 should be more expensive for the amount of camera you get, likewise for the Nex7.

Both of the are worth every penny. If you have the Nex7, the A7 is well worth the upgrade. Let me explain. You can use fullframe lenses on crop sensors like the Nex7 without an issue You cannot use crop sensor lenses on fullframe sensors like the A7 because the image circle is too small.

On the left we have the lens making a circle. Now on the left we have a crop sensor lens most NEX E mount lenses are crop. This is called vignetting. If you buy both Sony Mirrorless Cameras and have fullframe lenses like the Sony Zeiss lenses or the flabergastingly small and amazing Voigtlander lenses , you can have one lens but have TWO focal lenghts at your disposal!

For example a 35mm on the A7 gives me a 35mm field of view. Putting it on the Nex7 gives me a Granted you could always shoot the A7 in crop mode but you loose 10 megapixels for doing so 15 megapixels if you have the A7r. With the A7 and Nex7 side by side, you get to keep your megapixel power while getting two focal lengths with two lenses.

I tried both cameras and they are a match made in heaven. As a camera reviewer, you review cameras and then they go back. But while using the Sony A7 and making photographs, I was gulping my own spit. Be yourself, stay focused and keep on shooting. If you like the way the images are processed, they were made with these presets. Excellent review! I have one question: Does the Voigtlander lens you got work with autofocus on the A7, or is it only manual?

Need to get FF lenses. Olivier… This article makes me wanna go back to Sony. A7 is the same. For some reason I have a problem with EVF viewfinders that activate by eye sensor. I need it on from the moment I turn on the camera. Olympus, Fuji and some Panasonics, allow you to switch the sensor off. Are you aware of any work-around that issue on Sonys, other than physically blocking the sensor? I see what you mean. You can completely turn off the LCD on the A7, the viewfinder will be where you do everything.

A7 is a Top Cam.. If i wear the A7 with neckstrap, the A7 cant go in standby, because the eye sensor waked up the cam. If you forget switching off, the battery is quick empty. Olympus shows the right way, disabling the eye sensor. I hope Sony add this feature in next FW update. The look is totally different. Thanks Olivier! Could you please confirm? I love 40mm or equivalent field of view and this look may get me back to Sony.

Pingback: Sony A7 and A7r test roundup…. Great review. Beautiful photos. Can you indicate which lens you used for each shot? Did you get a chance to test the on the NEX vs the on the A7?

If you have those lenses, can you comment on each of those. The images are with a Voigtlander Nokton 35mm 1. I have a nex 7 which I use with metabobes speedbooster. Considering the 1stop advantage of full frame is offset by the speed booster, do still recommend an upgrade?

Ah yes it gives you the actual full frame focal lenght and makes it faster. I loved this comparison and the photos! I wanted a great camera I could handle and read thousands of reviews prior to choosing the Nex-7 in I have small hands and a right hand joint replacement so I needed a camera I could hold and manipulate with that hand. I tried the Nex-7 and found it was the only camera that felt comfortable for me. Naturally, I bought a number of lenses and accessories and have been waiting for longer telephotos.

Now your review convinces me that my Nex-7 was a great choice for me. I still want to take a look at the A7 and see if it is something I should switch to. I understand from your review that the A7 is better yet, but I wonder if you have any suggestions for me. I mostly take nature shots and birds in particular.

Thank you! Great write up. I did buy the 55 1. My CL is jealous. PS the CV 40 1. Fortunately, third parties have come to the rescue. Not only does it take care of the problem, but it's small and fits the style of the camera nicely.

I give Sony full marks for rethinking cameras here. They didn't build a "bigger compact with changeable lenses" I'm looking at you Nikon , nor did they just build a smaller DSLR yes, I mean you Panasonic. They actually looked at the size and goal of an intermediary camera and tried to build something that fit into that space.

How's it Handle? The Sony NEX-5 is going to be a camera you love the handling on or for which you hate the handling. With the updated software you can customize what those buttons do in some useful ways that bring key controls closer to front-line duty. Here's the rub: if you're a nervous shooter that bounces around amongst exposure modes and camera settings, you're probably not going to like the Sony interface. At least not initially.

Exposure compensation, ISO, White Balance, and a host of other things are buried a couple of levels down in the menu system though it does remember which area you were in, so you're really only one level away most of the time.

Even the Version 3 software update, which allows you to customize the "soft" buttons, doesn't fully solve the problem, as it moves Mode down into the menus to get other things to the main button. On the plus side, there's a clear hierarchy and the language used is clear. But this is mostly a menu-driven camera, even with the recent firmware change. The Shooting Tips aspect of the camera shows that Sony was aiming this camera at the compact consumer moving up, not the DSLR user moving down, so I'm not going to ding them on it, especially since we can now program that button for something else.

Personally, I'm not a shooter that's always tweaking anything other than exposure and sometimes ISO, so I'm not put off by the design much. Indeed, the more I use it, the more I like it, as those three buttons are very conveniently located.

So well located that I was shooting comfortably from a horse with the camera. I get what Sony was trying to do with the interface, but it's not the interface most serious shooters would have chosen. I received a lot of emails about my "pan" of the NEX-5 when I first wrote this, particularly on my handling comments.

I'm not sure I'd label my comments a "pan. This is what I'd call the "nervous shooter. It's in this "need to make a number of major settings" condition that the Sony's UI starts to be a bit cumbersome. Yet, if you take out one of those things exposure mode change , the version 3 firmware allows you to set the camera up as fast as the others.

One other handling comment I didn't make in the first version of this review but influenced my comments on handling: power on delay. The Sony has a significant one.

In fact, if the color LCD has gone black into power save , there's still a tangible delay in taking a picture even with the camera turned on. The purpose of a camera is to take pictures.

Picture opportunities can be so spontaneous that they require near instant response. That's one of the reasons why we pros talk about shutter lag, and debate about the differences between a few nanoseconds. Unfortunately, the Sony's power-on lag is more like a half second, which is enough to miss photos. In this, it is very consumer compact camera-ish. Since mirrorless cameras are bigger than compact cameras though the Sony body comes close to compact sized , there's the issue of "grip.

Left-handers aren't going to like it. Still, this small Sony has one of the most solid one-hand grip positions you'll find. Too bad about the only control you can reach is the top button when you're in one-hand mode, which may not be useful to what you want to set. How's it Perform? The Sony NEX-5 has it's pluses and minuses when it comes to focus.

With the 16mm pancake lens it is remarkably fast less so with the kit lens unless it hits broad expanses of low contrast areas. Interesting, low contrast just slows the Sony down, it doesn't keep it from finding focus eventually as with some compact cameras. Continuous AF is interesting. It's so jittery that sometimes the LCD view is nauseating things seem to pulse ever so slightly, especially at the edges of the frame for some reason.

Yet the jitter is so small in size that the camera is actually doing a reasonable job of following focus. But here's the rub. Let's change to manual focus. That's correct, and that's probably due to something else I didn't mention: the page instruction manual is terrible. But DMF does indeed get the Sony up to same level for manual focus as the others, you just have to find it in the menus.

Manual focus itself should have been a slam dunk with the highest resolution LCD in the bunch, but it really only gets to the same levels as some of the lesser mirrorless cameras. That's to be expected, as it's using the same sensor as some DSLRs. ISO images clean up with very little effort and keep their edge acuity, too.