Holidays 2015 – Part 2b – Sony Photography Roof Top Event with Dani Diamond

Sometimes we get lucky. A week before flying to the USA, we found out about a free event in Brooklyn about the Sony A7 lineup hosted by Focus with Dani Diamond and Tony Gale talking about some stuff. We signed up for it straight away! We are huge fans of Dani’s work and we were very happy to be able to attend and meet him. Tony was a good surprise, very nice guy and super talented photographer.

There we also had a change to play with either the Sony A7R II or the Sony A7S II. I picked up a A7R II and started to fight my way through its incredibly complicated menu. Some good minutes later I started to shoot, in the very low light room where the event was taking place. Unfortunately Sony still lacks fast lenses so I was given a 24-70mm f4. I wanted to take some shots with it and later with my Canon 5D Mark III to make some comparisons, but because of the lens choices and super complicated menu, the comparisons will not be fair. More on this at the end of this post.

They hired some models to walk around the place and pose for photos outside, so people had subjects to photograph while testing the cameras.

The event was happening on a rooftop in Brooklyn, with amazing views of Manhattan.

And then it was finally the time to listen to the talented people we all went to see: Tony and Dani. Tony was up first, to talk about street night photography. He is a Sony Ambassador so it made sense for him to be there talking about A7’s low light capabilities.

And after Tony, Dani. We had a chance to talk to Dani before he started his quick workshop about his culling workflow to choose the best pictures from a shoot. Dani shoots Nikon, not Sony. He’s very famous these days within the photographic and fashion community so we didn’t know how to approach him and what to expect, but when we finally did he was amazing! He actually talked to us for a few minutes while preparing the equipment for his presentation, and even set down for a minute or two. Great guy, and what an amazing photographer!

And now, my thoughts about the Sony A7R II.

The camera was given to me with all the default settings, and about 49% battery left. This is a camera known for its poor battery life and complicated menu systems, and I had less than half battery and a full menu to go through before even start shooting.

Quite a few minutes later I thought I was ready to shoot with it, but I couldn’t find how to change the focus from the “whole sensor” to one spot. Pretty much all of my photos inside where really bad. The camera kept focusing wherever there was more light. When trying to photograph the models, the camera would focus on and meter for the tree full of fairy lights behind them. A real nightmare. So I went outside and because the light on the models was like 1 stop brighter and the background was a far away Manhattan skyline (across the river), I was able to get something, but I eventually gave up because of the f4 lens and pull out my Canon 5D Mark III with the 85mm so I could should f1.2. The light was still bad even for f1.2, but I felt more comfortable shooting this way with ISO 800 instead of 6400.

Now, the main reason the comparison is not fair is not the ISO, since Sony claims amazing performance in high ISO settings, but because the menu is so complicated, I only later realised I’ve been shooting JPEGs the whole time!! So I couldn’t even fix the photos later in post.

Here are two photos with the Sony (taken in JPEG) and two with the Canon (taken in RAW):

The light on the rooftop was terrible so the Canon photos are also not great, but because they where taken in RAW I had something to work with. I realised I was shooting JPEG right before handing the Sony back so I took one shot that might give us a better comparison (Sony A7RII, 24-70mm f4 @ 24mm, 1/200 shutter speed, 6400 ISO, cropped VS Canon 5D Mark III, 85mm f1.2, 1/160 shutter speed, 800 ISO):

Anyway, considering the overheating problems people are reporting about the Sony, the complicated menu, the battery life and the fact that the range of lenses is not there yet (like the Canon system – yes I know about the Metabones Mark IV), I decided the Sony A7 series is not ready yet to replace full frame DSLRs (this is my opinion). That been said, after this experience and traveling with my whole DSLR kit, I decided to buy a smaller camera to travel and carry around, and I will talk later about why I bought the Sony A6000!