We are officially on Christmas break at the Wadsworth house so it was time for some well deserved R&R. Yesterday we grabbed grandpa and headed out to Top Golf for some fun at this very cool driving range. Lately I've been using the new Sony A7 almost exclusively with a manual focus m-rokkor lens, but this time I wanted some speedy autofocus. Lucky, the A7 can be mated with the Sony LAEA-4 adapter featuring translucent mirror technology, otherwise known as SLT. The translucent mirror allows for fast phase detection autofocus with Sony and Minolta A-mount lenses, effectively turning the A7 into a mini A99. For the handful of us that shoot professionally with A-mount lenses, this opens up some really great lens options in addition to the new FE lenses made specifically for the camera. No other platform can boast autofocus Zeiss lenses such as the 85/1.4 or 135/1.8 and the Minolta lenses from the 80s and 90s are just as good if not better than their Canikon equivalents, at a fraction of the cost.
Mated with a Minolta AF 50/1.4, the combo I used at Top Golf was plenty fast, deadly accurate and handled both the motion and hard shadows really well. The little Minolta was tack sharp at f/2 and dreamy wide open. Comparatively, I took the RX1 to Top Golf earlier in the year and other than winter vs. late summer light, and the difference in FOV, I would be hard pressed to tell between the cameras. That's high praise for the A7/Minolta, given how well regarded the 35mm Zeiss on the RX1 is.
Grandpa put the high score up on the board but the jrs. made an impressive run. The A7 continued to impress as well, earning it my top camera award of 2013 (watch out DPReview). From my seat, no other camera offers what the A7(r) can - top of the class full frame sensors, compact form, great build quality and the flexibility to shoot almost every lens made, combine to obliterate our expectation of what a small camera can do in 2013.
Happy holidays to all and happy shooting. Hope to see you back here in 2014.
The next photo was shot at f/7 and sharp, sharp, sharp edge to edge.
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