The Sony mirrorless camera review….within a review…within a review…

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Finally. After 2 months of work on it my Sony A7, A7R and RX10 video review is complete. It’s been a bit of a journey to get to today where it’s finally done, at least a shorter journey than my 3 part Blackmagic Pocket Camera review!!

This was done in the very little free time I had (in fact it took most of my free time!) and was 2 months of work to get it done! Any contributions to the TIPJAR on the vimeo page are very gratefully accepted, as they make future reviews possible due to their non sponsored and self funded nature. Thank you!

So this two months of work condensed into a rather hefty 39 minutes. It’s all self-explanatory what the title means, once you watch the first couple of minutes. Hopefully it’s not too confusing and does make sense!

On-camera shots of me shot on the Canon C100 and C300. Product shots on the 1DC. The rest is of course the Sony cameras.

Lit with Gekko lights. Voice over done on the RODE Classic II valve microphone.

Graded with Colorista II. 10% off with code bloom10 at gopb.co/redgiant
and FilmConvert 10% off with code bloom at gopb.co/filmconvert

Non classical music courtesy of The Music Bed gopb.co/musicbed

The America Dollar – Anything you synthesize
A New Normal – Stones & Shadows
& Sacr Cur
Benj Heard – Why That’s Delightful & Uke
Brooke Annibale – By Your Side & Tryin’
The Echelon Effect – Recalling Winters Casualties
Sprit of Spain – They Made Oceans Rise
& You Never Had Much Faith in Me
Evolv – Elolv Alluring
Holley Maher – Perfect Day

Beethoven 7th Symphony Movement 2
Peer Gynt Suite – Morning by Grieg
and Strauss Blue Danube
from Royalty-Free-Classical-Music.ORG

Tiny form factor to shoot with discretely. All A7R stuff was shot like this with no rig. This is "lens whacking" on the NY subway
Tiny form factor to shoot with discretely. All A7R stuff was shot like this with no rig. This is “lens whacking” on the NY subway


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Using the Atomos Ninja to test out the clean output recording

 

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Photo taken on the A7R of Harry and Buddy

 

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Photo taken on the A7R or Harry and Buddy

 

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Photo taken of James Miller and Michelle Miller on the A7R

 

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Photo taken on the A7R of Harry Miller

 

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Photo taken on the A7R of Michael Gomes in Austin at Masters In Motion

 

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Photo taken on the A7R

 

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Photo taken on the A7R of Cristina Valdivieso in Austin at Masters In Motion

 

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This camera is CHILD’S PLAY!!! 🙂

 

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With the Metabones V3 and the wonderful Canon 35mm F2 IS

 

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Photo taken on the A7R “lens whacked” of Lauren Lev

 

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Photo taken on the A7R of Lauren Lev

 

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My “lens whacking” set up of Metabones V3 Canon EF adaptor and Nikon 50mm F1.8 E series lens

 

 

 

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The Sony A7, A7R and RX10 camera review, within a review, within a review…. from Philip Bloom Reviews & Tutorials on Vimeo.

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27 degrees – Sony A7R from Philip Bloom on Vimeo.

 

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25 times 5: Shot on the Sony A7R from Philip Bloom on Vimeo.

 

So there we go…if you skipped past the video to see my thoughts, then shame on you! 🙂

I won’t be going into any in-depth stuff here as it’s all covered in the video. I think I was a bit harsh on the RX10 really! Maybe if I had more time with it….All I can say is Sony, with the A7R, have made a really special camera that comes close to being utterly brilliant. Well three things let it down. The stills are amazing, but I’m not doing a review of the stills function, even though I have used it extensively for stills and the images are just gorgeous and HUGELY detailed. The three things are all do with the video function.

This goes for all three of them really, but especially the A7 and A7R. Fix the image issues that are still plaguing far too many “DSLR” type video camera. The moire, aliasing and rolling shutter. Give us a more detailed image, after all, the stills are incredible and very importantly PLEASE give us a better codec than AVCHD. Canon and Panasonic have given us iFrame codecs in consumer cameras so now it’s YOUR turn!!

If you are interested in buying any of the cameras, below are links to my affiliate B&H PHOTO. Any purchases through them doesn’t cost you a penny more, and like Vimeo TipJar it all goes to help fund future epic reviews like this!!

THANK YOU!!

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9 comments

  1. Maybe it’s me but tried 3 browsers (FF, Chrome, Safari) and neither indicate where the video review is… just blank space after the last still where I assume the vimeo player window would be :-\

  2. Mr Bloom, great review as always! Enjoy watching it very much.

    Just fyi, I tried going into the Royalty-Free-Classical-Music.ORG where you got some of your music and my computer popped up a virus alert from that website when I tried to register.

  3. Yeah, seems the review file got lost somewhere. Anyways, thanks for the great effort for making this.

    I guess you maybe answer this in the review itself but if you are currently on the Mark II and don’t really feel you can afford the Mark III (despite having a not so much bigger price tag), is this the camera to get? I know the still photo side is already covered but in terms of video I am a bit….for lack of a better word….scared.

    Good work again.

  4. That rx10 looks interesting, I reckon a good use for it would be as an action camera to shoot skating, bmx, snowboarding etc, where servo zooms are practicaly a requirement. Also the smaller sensor and makes sense, as pulling focus on full frame or super 35 whilst someone shreds round a bowl at 20mph is pretty much impossible. There’s definately a niche here, seriously eyeing one
    up to shoot bmx with, seems to be a good compromise between the image quality of a dslr and the practicality of the Panasonic 3rd inch cams that are pretty much still the standard in bmx and skate videography.

  5. Hi Philip, not the type of guy that comment your blog posts (postes for plural? Don’t know, sorry) and don’t even interested in purchasing anyone of that Sony cameras, but… Let me tell you: THANK YOU! Due to my poor english I cannot find the right words to how I like your work, and is so inspiring to me to try to improve in my skill!! Thanks Thank thanks!! This piece was outstanding beautiful!!

  6. Thanks, Phillip! I thought the “review…within the review…within the review” was brilliant! I wish more reviewers would review equipment like you do…make an initial assessment, use the equipment in real world applications over a period of weeks and then reflect on the validity of their initial thoughts. I find it honest and refreshing. Thanks, again!

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