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.

Switching Gears - Fuji 55mm-200mm walkabout

Taking a break from all this Austin City Limits concert coverage, Fuji recently sent me the newish Fujinon 55mm-200mm OIS Zoom to play with on the X-E1. I'll admit that this is not exactly the type of lens that I usually invest in, but I was still anxious to take it out for a spin.

With a 35mm equivalent range of roughly 82mm-300mm, this optic covers a lot of useful territory. in typical Fuji fashion, the construction is impressive and the optical quality outstanding. Metal, plastic, rubber and glass combine to form a substantial lens that feels good in the hand and on the camera. The OIS (Optical Image Stabilization) function helps keep your shot steady and is critical on the long-end when the speed slows down to f/4.8 (still much faster than your typical kit or super zoom). I won't bore you with technical evaluations but take a look at some samples from my walk around Town Lake / Zilker Park, here in Austin TX.

Depending on the FOV and distance from your subject, the bokeh (out of focus areas) can be either smooth or a tad nervous, but I found both to be attractive.

Color rendition is typical Fuji-tastic with greens and blues that pop.

Detail can be stunning. Claims that this lens is soft are way off-base. I found the detail to be almost overwhelming in some images.

What about operational speed? Focus varied from very fast in good light, to some occasional hunting. I wouldn't buy this lens to primarily cover fast action, but with some smart pre-focusing you can certainly come away with your share of keepers. I took the lens to my son's baseball game and was very pleased with the results.

I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised with the 55mm-200mm. Coming from a background of fixed, fast aperture zooms with shallow DOF and creamy bokeh, I was expecting to be disappointed, but that was not the result. The 55mm-200mm Fuji is priced competitively for what it offers and as an all-purpose zoom, it is absolutely capable in almost every regard.

Thank you very much to Fuji for sending the lens so I could spend some time with it and share my thoughts. Please feel free to post comments below and thanks to Thomas Menk for the Scoop It.