Sony A7r with Leica R glass

As many of you asked me about 3rd party glass on the Sony I’ve decided to do some testing this weekend with different convertors and glass.
Many thanks to our friends at CameraNU.nl for lending us the convertors.
Before you look at the samples do remember that the samples (and crops) are not straight out of the camera… well almost, the only thing I do with retouching is change the color and retouch the skin, so there is no “freaky” stuff going on, all retouching I do is always done within a few minutes per shot, for the crops it doesn’t matter but I did want to mention it.

 

Now the first thing I REALLY like about the A7r is the compatibility with so many different lenses out there, with the Kipon convertors I already can mount M42, Leica M and Leica R glass but with the Metabones convertors you can even mount Nikon and Canon glass (including the AF on some lenses from Canon, but VERY slow) which makes this system I think the best camera out there for compatibility, I know a lot of Leica shooters out there are drooling over the option to use their glass on a 36MP camera with the dynamic range of the Sony.

 

The first test is with a Kipon convertor for Leica R glass.
Here you see the two cameras next to each other.

Leica en Sony-1 On the Sony you see the 50mm f2.0 with Kipon and on the R4 a 135mm lens.
As you can see the Kipon does add some “body” to the A7r but it’s still a nicely balanced combination, and even with the 135mm I never actually felt that it was unstable or “too” long.

 

So how does this all work.
Of course there is no AutoFocus on these lenses, of course there is no aperture setting on these lenses, it’s ALL manual.
But this is where the EVF comes in.
You can set the EVF of the Sony cameras in 2 different modes which Sony calls “setting effect”, on the “ON” setting you will actually see a “What You See Is What You Get” effect, in other words if you overexpose a scene you will see an overexposed scene in the viewfinder, same for underexposure. If you put the effect on “OFF” you will always see a “certain” brightness in the viewfinder and it mimics (sort off) and OVF (Optical Viewfinder).

 

Now at first a lot of people don’t “get” this.
Why would one go for an EVF over the well know OVF, and yeah guys I was one of those people. About a year ago however I sold all my Canon gear and switched to the A99 from Sony, some people told me I was going crazy and I understand, the reason I switched was double, first of course the dynamic range of the images (which is awesome) but also the EVF, and although you have to get used to it it’s something that REALLY grows on you. I sometimes call it the “Wacom effect” everyone I speak to hated their Wacom tablet the first 1-2 days and now can’t life without it. I won’t go as far as to say that I can’t life without an EVF but man does it make life easier.

 

Ok so why the long introduction about the EVF, well…. this is where the fun comes in boys and girls.
With the EVF you can put your lens on F16 and still have a very bright viewfinder, it’s the same brightness as if you were shooting wide open, this is a HUGE advantage when you want to use manual lenses. On a Canon/Nikon camera the viewfinder will be so dark on F16 that focussing and even in some darker scenes composition gets very very difficult. With the EVF there is no such problem. But that’s not where the fun stops….. how about focussing ?

 

With an OVF and if you really are into manual focus lenses (which I love) you can get a different glass in the viewfinder that makes manual focussing a bit easier, but as always these “helper areas” are all centered, so if you shoot wide open with a longer lens it’s always a matter of hoping, in most cases it works but in some cases it can be tricky. Also here the EVF makes it almost “child play”, with the Peaking option engaged and the color RED on HIGH it’s easy to get your focus perfectly. In the viewfinder you see your model and all the areas that are bright red are in focus…. yep it’s that easy. In some cases (with extreme backlighting) this works very well and even wins it from some autofocus lenses, it’s actually an option I have engaged all the time so when I switch to manual it’s always on.

 

So how does the lenses perform, well see for yourself.

Nadine November 8 2013 48

Nadine November 8 2013 72

Nadine November 8 2013 77These are some natural light shots with the 135mm lens.
Now according to “most” it’s not the best lens in the Leica range, and I agree I would label the lens as just good/nice/great (closed down) but even then on the 36MP sensor I think it does pretty well.
See a 100% crop, and I have to add that I have the feeling I’m a bit off with the focus, but for wide open 135mm from a lens that is labeled as soft wide open on a film camera I have to be honest that I was more than surprised how it worked out on a 36mp sensor.

crop2

 

Because these were shot during a workshop I can’t take as much time as I want to get everything exactly the way I want it but it was also nice to see how the rendering of the lenses was.
Now this is always a bit of a strange thing and something that is often not understood.
When I talked to my parents and grandparents when I was young they always talked about the “Minolta look” at that time I did not really understand what they meant, but when I grew up and started to really delve into lenses it was very quickly clear that every lens had it’s own look. When I switched to Sony I decided to build up my lens collection with Minolta glass, at first because it was just a lot cheaper than the newer Zeiss/sony versions but very soon simply because I just loved the look. It’s hard to explain but it’s a certain color and rendering of materials that I really like. Now don’t get me wrong some of these lenses are far from perfect, there can be some chromatic aberration, some distortion but somehow… well they just look awesome.

 

Now as soon as I started using the Leica R lenses on the FujiFilm X-E1 I was very impressed by the 3D pop the lenses showed, and also on the A7r that 3D look is there, of course a lot of the 3D look has to do with lighting, but it’s also something where the lens can be very important. Both the 135mm and 50mm have a nice pop to them. But for the next shots it’s still the 135mm.

Nadine November 8 2013 124

Nadine November 8 2013 133As you can see these were shot with natural light, in this case a very overcast sky (the big soft box in the sky).
The following shot was in the same location but now with one strobe hitting Nadine from the side.

Nadine November 8 2013 95 And I hope you see the same thing as me, it looks like Nadine really pops out of the background, again a lot of this has to do with the lighting, but on a lot of systems this image will still look “flat” in the way that the model doesn’t really move in a sort of 3D “world” (told you it was hard to explain) with the 135mm on the A7r however I really like the sense of “realness” in the image, this is something that really get’s me enthusiastic about a system. (and the reason I love Medium Format so much).

 

On the way back from the location we decided to stop along the road to do one more set, in this case with the 50mm lens.
The first image looks a bit weird because Nadine is still wearing her bathrobe, normally I would never use this shot, but somehow I loved it.

Nadine November 8 2013 218After this of course she took of the bathrobe and did the setup the way intended.
For the lighting here we used the Elinchrom Ranger with a Maxilight and grid set approximatily 3 stops above the ambient light.

Nadine November 8 2013 220-EditFor the next set I used a green gel in front of the strobe and balanced on this to get a nice colored background.

Nadine November 8 2013 253-Edit

Nadine November 8 2013 287-Edit

 

and a 100% crop

crop3

 

 

 

 

 

14 replies
  1. KB
    KB says:

    thanks for all these snippets of the new A7r, from someone about to jump from canon to sony and that was going to be the A99 would you say the new A7 and A7r will make your A99 stay back at home and retired or is the A99 still better in some way and make a good companion to the A7r….

    • Frank Doorhof
      Frank Doorhof says:

      Don’t know yet.
      The A99 is a beast of a camera, great handling, fast fps etc.
      The A7r has a great image quality, is very light etc.
      I think if the A99 would have 36mp I would still use the A99 in the studio but on ALL travels would take the A7r.
      For now I even use the A7r in the studio.

      I’m not really a person that says “I need extra pixels” if I want that I will use the Leaf Credo60 but if I have the same possibilities and use in a camera and have to choose between 24 or 36 well of course I choose the 36.

      I have to add I still have to test the A7r with a grip, I think that will make a difference for me, in the studio I slightly miss the better grip and portrait shutter.

  2. Charlie
    Charlie says:

    Cool Post but your otherwise nice shooting marred by heinous product shot at top. Don’t those beauties warrant some nice lights etc too? TY very much though for the fine samples.

    • Frank Doorhof
      Frank Doorhof says:

      I know, it’s a shot I took with my iPhone very quickly, at the moment we are so stressed for time that I just did not have the time to set it all up the way I would want to, so I just took a quick iPhone shot I took the day before.

  3. Carlo
    Carlo says:

    It would be very interesting an I comparison between the a7 and the xe1 with vintage glass. I am a leica r fan too, used before on Canon 5d then on fuji x… Maybe in future on Sony?

    • Frank Doorhof
      Frank Doorhof says:

      Difference :
      Full frame vs crop no need to explain

      Non AA vs x-trans both give very high resolution but 36mp wins.

      Noise a7r wins but both are very good

      Handling both are very good

      Lens options a7r has more options with for example AF A mount.

      Strobe options, also A7r

      You know what I’ll write a post on it soon 🙂

  4. Tan
    Tan says:

    Ok, some people are quick to dismiss the A7r for studio use cause of the 1/160 flash sync, what’s your take on this and what do you do to overcome this “limitation”

    Also since you’ve ample time with the A7r, I wonder if the eye detect AF (where it autofocus to the eye), works with the focus peaking magnifier? As in when I press the button to magnify, it’ll enlarge the eye area, cause in my opinion, I think it’ll make manual focusing even faster.

    Thanks

    • Frank Doorhof
      Frank Doorhof says:

      People who are dismissing the A7r for studio work because of the “limit” of 1/160 don’t have clue about what they are talking about.
      Most DSLRs (read 90%) top out at 1/125 – 1/250.
      For studio however this is absolutely irrelevant.
      There is no (or hardly) any ambient light in the studio so even shutterspeeds of 1/30 will give you perfectly sharp images.
      The freezing of the “action” is not done with the shutterspeed in the studio but with the flashduration of your strobes.

      Now on location the story gets different.
      But even then the difference between for example 1/125 and 1/250 is just ONE stop of light, if you really want to hit the ambient light you will need a lot more, for example a MF system with leaf shutter lenses (1/1600 and 1/1000 without loss of strobe light) or certain mirror less cameras like the X100(s) where you can sync much higher, in theory up to max shutterspeed, HOWEVER that being said you always have to take into account the flashduration of your strobes, if you shoot on 1/2000 with a strobe that has a flashduration of 1/800 you will cut A LOT of power from the strobe for the simple reason that you sync faster than the strobe.

      On small flash there is no limitation, it just functions on HSS just like the A99.
      So tell them to first learn what shutterspeed and ambiant and X-sync are and then make their conclusion 😀

    • Frank Doorhof
      Frank Doorhof says:

      I will write a piece on the 1/160 very soon (this week).
      Eye focus I tried a few times and it seems to work but I’m faster with just focussing and recomposing, I will also post something on that.

      The main “problem” is that you can eye focus but after that you also have to press the shutter, it would be ideal if you could do it by double tapping for example eye focus.

    • Tan
      Tan says:

      Looking forward to the article.

      Oh and does eye focus works with manual lenses as well? Cause would be great if toggling the focus magnifier would automatically magnify the eye area.

  5. Kit
    Kit says:

    Thank you Frank for the review. I have many Leica R lenses and did not know if they will work on the A7R especially on viewing through the EVF with the small apertures. I don’t live close to a camera store that has an A7R in stock. After reading your review I purchased the A7R online.

Comments are closed.