First paid work with the Sony A7. Red Bull Sound Select

I've been itching to take the A7 out and shoot a show and got the chance last night at Empire Control Room in Austin TX for the December Red Bull Sound Select show featuring The Clouds are Ghosts, Ishi and the Ton Tons. All three bands were amazing and Red Bull pulled off another killer SoundSelect show supporting emerging artists. So stoked to be working with this team.

I committed to using the Minolta M-Rokkor 40/2 lens on the A7 to test how difficult it would be to manual focus a show in both extreme low light and with supplemental strobes that I set up on each side of the stage. Additionally I used the Minolta AF 35/2 and the Zeiss 85/1.4 on my A900 body.

It was a tough shoot, with multiple projector screens flooding the stage as opposed to traditional stage lighting so my strobes had trouble balancing with ambient. Some mild shutter drag helped on occasion but I mostly ended up shooting with available light or full strobe.

Enough tech, on to the photos.


Sony A7 with M-Rokkor 40/2 and Minolta AF 35/2

Sony A7 Hands On Review

Christmas came early yesterday when the FedEx man delivered the hotly anticipated Sony A7 to my front door, direct from DigitalRev in Hong Kong. Much has been written about the 24 megapixel full frame A7 and its big brother, the 36 megapixel A7r so I will assume you are mostly up to speed on what these cameras are about and we will treat this piece as a hands on.

Sony A7 - they crammed a full frame sensor in there

A little background: I previously owned the highly regarded Sony RX1, as well as several NEX cameras and still shoot with a trusty Sony A900 SLR so the A7 was a must buy when I first heard it announced. Because the A7 looks to be so versatile, my intention is to use it as both a compact, everyday/travel cam fitted with the relatively small new full frame lenses (FE) and rangefinder legacy lenses, as well as a second body to the A900, fitted with the very cool Sony battery grip and LA-EA4 adapter for Alpha SLR lenses.