Hands On With The Sony A7 And A7R Full Frame Mirrorless Cameras

Earlier today Sony announced several new products (including 3 new cameras, 5 lenses along with Zeiss and 2 adapters). On this post we are going to concentrate on the two full frame cameras announced by Sony – the A7 and the A7R. These are both brand new FE mount cameras (basically full frame E-mount and you can attach existing e-maount lenses to them). Both are mirrorless and look basically identical externally (except for the Magnesium metal of the A7R).

The Sony A7

The A7 and the A7R are pretty similar with a few important differences – here are some main specifications:

A 24 megapixel full-frame CMOS sensor with OLPF (for the A7) and a 36 megapixel full-frame CMOS sensor with no OLPF (for the A7R).
A new FE mount which support both the new FE and existing E-mount lenses as well as A-mount lenses with one of the two new adapters Sony came up with (LA-EA4 with AF and the LA-EA3 without AF).
A new Bionz X image processor with support for Diffraction Reduction (good for when you are stopping down your lens – f/16, f/22 and so on).
Hybrid AF on the sensor with 25 contrast-areas and 117 phase-detect points( for the A7, the A7R only uses contrast based focus).
Weather-sealed magnesium alloy body (A7R, the A7 is more plasticy).
A 3″ tilting LCD with 1.23M dots.
Central digital viewfinder – 2.4 M dots.
Shutter: 30-1:8000 sec.
Shooting speed: 5 fps (A7) or 4 fps (A7R).
Video: 1080p/60p &24p with uncompressed HDMI output (microphone jack and headphone jack).
WiFi and NFC (Sony also announced it is opening its apps for developers with a new API).
Price: the A7 will be available next month for $1700 body only (pre-order at B&H) or $2000 with the 28-70mm Sony kit lens (see here). The A7R will go for $2300 – body only (see here).

Above is a video shot by Chris Niccolls from the Camera Store in Canada who got a pre production model of the A7 and A7R for testing and got back with some interesting notes.

Below is an official Sony SGNL video showing the A7/A7R cameras and some of their features

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXDqAiGpj28[/youtube]

Iddo Genuth

Iddo Genuth is the founder and chief editor of LensVid.com. He has been a technology reporter working for international publications since the late 1990's and covering photography since 2009. Iddo is also a co-founder of a production company specializing in commercial food and product visual content.