Sony Alpha 7 Body

[Francesca Cruiz]

Ihave an old Minolta Maxxum 7000i AF-SLR camera from early 90s. I have a complete set of lenses, filters, etc., I found out that Sony ultimately ended up buying Minolta, and developing their alpha cameras from Minolta cameras.

The first thing Sony did when acquiring Konica-Minolta's camera division is release DSLRs with the same mount. These were named Alpha which is the same name Minolta used in Japan, they used the Maxxum name in North America and Dynax in Europe. In other words, Sony Alpha mount IS the Minolta Alpha/Maxxum/Dynax mount.

They also have cropped-sensor models such as the A580, A560, etc. With these models the field-of-view is affected by the 1.5 crop-factor. So a 50mm on one of these, will show the same field-of-view as a 75mm on your film camera.

Note that Sony also has non-DSLRs that use the Alpha mount. These are cropped-sensor cameras with a translucent mirror and electronic viewfinder (EVF) which are lighter than DSLRs and have special features like full autofocus during video recording and during 10 FPS continuous shooting. The flagship of these models is the Sony Alpha SLT-A55.

There are only a couple of caveats, which I don't think will affect you. First is that the xi series of lenses will not work completely -- there's no way to connect the zoom and autofocus in the digital SLRs to maintain subject size. The xi lenses will still function as autofocus lenses with a manual zoom.

Second, some third-party lenses will not work properly. It depends how well the maker reverse-engineered the electronics -- the Tamrons and Sigmas all seem to work from what I've heard, but I know there have been problems with some of the cheaper off-brands.

I still have an old 7000i with a kit lens and a Tamron AF 28-300mm zoom. Last year I upgraded to a Sony A57. Both the Tamron and the old Minolta lens work AOK. The A57's image stabilisation works great as well. I have tested the Tamron handheld at its maximum zoom with 4x digital zoom enabled, for an effective focal length of 1800 mm(!) and the resulting shots were usable. Unlike the Canon system, in-body stabilisation does not stabilise the image in the viewfnder though, and at 1800 mm it bounces around A LOT.

Actually I have tried Tamron, Minolta and Sigma, but I just realised that Sigma does not 100 percent work with Sony but other two lenses Minolta and Tamron work even better than some Sony lenses based on my research.

Generally, all Minolta AF (ie Minolta a-mount) lenses from Minolta will work on Sony alpha cameras. This may include the e-mount NEX range, if used with an LA-EA1 or 2 adaptor, although there may be restrictions.

Without a little more info I'm not sure if your lenses are Minolta a-mount. I don't see a 35-110 in the list linked above. However, that doesn't mean you can't use it; you might be able to mount it and manually focus, for example.

furhter to that, looking here for compatibility with the A100 www.sony.co.uk/support/en/product/DSLR-A100/compatibility it seems the 24mm & 35-105 are fully compatible.. though i'm noit sure how to tell if they are exactly my lenses - see notes on kens numbers above

Starting the Sony a7C review with this question may seem strange until the vast similarities between these two models are understood.Size and the features directly related to size aside, these cameras are nearly the same.This sameness includes the imaging sensor and the resulting image quality.While the similarities reflect very positively on the a7C, the differences must be understood.

The Sony a7 III is a very popular camera, and those already familiar with it now have a very good understanding of the a7C.Because of the similarities, the Sony a7C review is going to be very similar to the a7 III review.

Great image quality is the driver for most camera purchases, and with a Sony 24.2 megapixel full-frame (35.6 x 23.8 mm) Exmor R back-illuminated CMOS sensor and BIONZ X image processing engine claiming up to 15-stops of dynamic range, the a7C checks that box.

While the a7C image sensor is among the lower resolution full-frame imaging sensors available, 24.2 MP is adequate for a large percentage of output requirements, and full-frame sensors capture lots of light, resulting in low noise levels at high ISO settings.Lower resolution has benefits that include smaller file sizes, faster processing, lower noise at the pixel level (but not at equivalent output sizes).

We captured most of our usual image quality tests with the a7C, but unfortunately, Capture One is lagging in introducing a7C compatibility.With the a7C having the same imaging sensor as the a7 III, I will substitute a7 III results for the image quality comparisons.

With the Sony a7 III noise test results, much can be discerned.The smoothly-colored Kodak color patches test chart combined with no noise reduction processing (key point) makes noise especially noticeable compared to detailed scenes that better-hide noise levels.As always, noise reduction processing can improve upon the noise level seen in these images, but noise reduction can be applied to images from every camera, reducing its differentiation.So, avoiding noise reduction in the comparison levels the playing field.The Sony RAW-captured noise test images utilized the "Uncompressed" RAW setting and were processed in Capture One with the Natural Clarity Method and the sharpening amount set to 30 (low).

From ISO 100 through ISO 800, noise levels grow, but they remain very low, showing the benefit of a modern, modestly-high-resolution full-frame sensor.At ISO 1600 through ISO 3200, noise levels are noticeable, but images still retain very high quality, and few will hesitate to use these settings.ISO 6400 images begin to show impact from noise, and at ISO 12800, images are looking a bit rough.Consider using ISOs of 25600 and 51200 only as a last resort.ISO 102400 and 204800 are available, and while they sound amazing, if your only option is to use these settings, consider packing up and going home.The signal-to-noise ratio is extremely low at these settings.

Noise reduction is available during post-processing of RAW images or in-camera during JPG capture.Two sets of with-noise-reduction results are included in the noise tool for the a7 III, showing the performance at low and normal settings.The default Standard Creative Style was utilized for these results, and a set of non-noise-reduced JPG images are included for a base comparison.

The first takeaway here is that Sony is applying too much sharpening by default (see the halos?).Also illustrated is that even the JPG image being created with noise reduction turned off appears to have some noise reduction applied.Noise reduction can make a huge difference in the results, but not all of it is positive.Noise reduction is destructive to fine details and must be applied carefully for optimal results.The same applies to sharpening, and a stronger amount of sharpening may be needed when noise reduction strength is increased, which then bodes well for Sony's default over-sharpening.

Sony promises up to 15-stops of dynamic range at low ISO sensitivity for stills, and Sony MILCs, including this one, are highly regarded for their dynamic range.One way to look at a camera's DR capabilities is to over or under-expose images and adjust them to the correct brightness in post-processing.The "Exposed +/-" results were captured between one and three stops brighter or darker than the standard results, then adjusted to the standard brightness in Capture One.These results combine to show how noise levels are influenced by the described processing adjustment, and they also show dynamic range issues.

While it does not have the highest resolution imaging sensor available in full-frame cameras, the a7 III and a7C have remarkable image quality for the price.Both of these cameras consistently produce great-looking images.

Camera shake directly impacts image quality for both still images and movies, and Sony's 5-axis Optical In-Body Image Stabilization (IBIS) is a difference-maker.Many of Sony's lenses, including the Sony FE 70-200mm f/2.8 GM OSS Lens, have image stabilization included, and in-lens stabilization can be better-tuned to the focal length being used, but not all lenses have this feature.Lenses such as the Sony FE 16-35mm f/2.8 GM Lens have greater versatility with IBIS available, and this camera has that.Also, IBIS can work in conjunction with OSS (in-lens Optical Steady Shot) for enhanced overall performance.Sony notes that the a7C has an upgraded 5-axis in-body stabilization system.

Sony offers the "Compressed" and "Uncompressed" 14-bit RAW file format options.Because of the TIFF-like file structure (RAW converters create 16-bit TIFF files from Sony RAW files extremely quickly), Sony RAW files remain consistently-sized throughout the ISO range.Regardless of the ISO setting used, the a7C uncompressed RAW files are 47.1 MB.The compressed a7C RAWs are about 50% smaller.

Why not simply use the Sony compressed RAW file setting?That seems like the logical preference, with the dramatically smaller file sizes being much-preferred.Unfortunately, unlike Canon's RAW file compression, Sony's compression algorithm is a lossy one, meaning that some image detail is not retained during compression.In addition, compressed recording in continuous shooting modes drops the bit depth from 14 to 12.

Is the difference between Sony compressed RAW and uncompressed RAW noticeable?In real life images, expect some difficulty seeing any difference in unprocessed images.I'm very particular about image quality, and my Sony cameras are always set to capture uncompressed RAW images, ensuring no compromise.

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