Sony a7s ISO 12800
I originally ordered this camera, from Ted’s in Canberra, for a trip to Vietnam. It has been a bit of delay and because of the lack of stock, they had to request a courier from the stock interstates.
Unfortunately, the camera didn’t show up before I left.. It would have been awesome to test drive this baby as a travel small package travel camera. However, the awesome people at Ted’s gave me an a7 as a loaner while waiting for the a7s to show up. More on that camera later.
So during the trip, I got a text message saying that the camera is waiting for me at the shop. I could not wait to be back and get my hands on it for a drive.
Three days after taking possession of the camera, I had an event to shoot for the 104.7 Canberra FM radio. It was an event hosted by Scotty and Nige, with the presence of the delicious Kate Halfpenny, who is the executive editor of Who Magazine.
A “selection” of listeners who won an on air competition were invited to the party as well. The party was at the Burbury hotel, in Barton.
It was the first time I went there and the place is really cool. The event was on the 7th floor, overlooking the Parliament House.
For events (and most of my gigs) I normally pack two bodies and a couple of zooms and prime lens. This time, I only pack a Canon 5D Mark III and the Sony a7s with a Leica M 50mm Summilux ASPH lens on it. (I forgot to mentioned that I did not buy a Sony lens for the camera..)
It turned out that I used the Sony a7s more than the Canon..
A couple years back, when manufacturers released camera with a huge amount of pixels, I remember ranting about one that would create a camera, with not too many pixels, but one that can be used in almost any situation. Is this the one?
Some of the first impressions:
Battery life.
It is said (including Sony) that the battery life is around 300 to 400 shots. I got a bit more of 1000 shots* out of one charge.
I did pack 4 spare batteries with me but at the end of the event, I went home with the original battery gauge at 38%.
May be the way I set the camera has an incidence on the battery life?
Here are my settings:
– Auto review OFF
– Auto ISO
– M mode
– The lens is manual focus only
– RAW + L JPEG (set in Black & White)
*1000 shots = 504 RAW images + 504 L JPEG images.
I was pleasantly surprise with the battery life with this set up.
iPhone photo of the Sony a7s and the Leica M mount 50mm Summilux ASPH lens. Click on the image to enlarge.
I can guess you are burning to know how the camera do its things at ISO 12800 and what the images look like.
Before we get down to the pixels, here are a couple things to consider:
– Manual focus:
Because I used the Leica M mount 50mm Summilux ASPH lens only for this event, it is a manual focus lens, I set it wide open for most of the time.
Manual focusing using contrast detection can be tricky and I must admit I haven’t spent an enormous amount of time perfecting this technique. However. I found that I could get the focus right most of the time.
Plus, because the killer always shoots twice, I almost always double trigger each (important) shot.
– Exposure:
Over the years, I trained myself to have steady hands and could handhold a Canon EF 70-200 mm f/2.8 L II IS at a shutter speed of 1/8th of a second at 200mm, and still get no camera shake.
However, for this kind of event, people don;t stand still for you to get the shot. I chose to set the shutter at a constant speed of 1/125th of a second.
As mention above, my aperture is f/1.4
The ISO has been set to Auto and the selection of images below are those with an ISO value of 12800.
Click on the images to enlarge.
PS: as mentioned above, these images were shot in RAW and edited with ACR. I will be posting the ones shot in L JPEG (set to Black & White) in an upcoming post.
