Sony A7 and A7r and camera lust
Camera lust
Lust for a camera is not normal for a normal human being but then again photographers are not normal human beings we become abscessed with little technical details of this or that improvement to our tools or toys that we use. I was for years prior to the advent of digital cameras, obsessed with how different films gave different grain structures and colour renderings to my images, to the point where I was more concerned with this than the actual subject, something that was not healthy for my photographic career. I am over that now and dIgital has been liberating for me on this, as I no longer obsess about the capture medium i.e. what film to use. Cameras were always the tool some worked better than others for ergonomics or ease of handling, which is still the case. For me it was the look of the images that mattered I agonised for a long time over whether I could use 800iso film or needed to use something much slower as I did/ did not like the grain structure of these fast films. The faster films let me make images in different light situations, which I am now loving with digital cameras, as we no longer have this issue once a camera is clean up to 3200 ISO I am happy. Now we tend to as photographers look at the tool i.e. the camera the photographer is using to make their images as being important and the camera companies want you to think that as well so they can sell you new cameras. While the subject and your approach to it is important, the camera technology that you use is no longer so important (it was more so in the early days of digital cameras, with each new change being a significant improvement on the last one). These new cameras from Sony look very interesting, I can’t wait to get my hands on one to find out if it behaves the way I think it should. I know that shooting with it is not going to be silent, for that I would need the Sony RX1, with its leaf shutter lens which makes the RX1 nearly silent. Yet the idea of having a small camera with interchangeable lenses and an adapter that, would allow me to use all my other lenses on it does have some appeal. My question becomes, will this camera enable me to do things that I can’t do with my existing cameras, if that is the case then these cameras become extremely interesting for me.
A small rugged camera with a zoom lens, the 24-70mm f4, a fixed 35mm lens (both announced) and a portrait lens a 85mm f1.8 or f2 would be fine, that performs great up to 6400iso will be something that really works for me. If Sony gets the lens out relatively quickly then this camera has got my attention for the work that I intent to do over the next few years.
