Full Frame and Every Day Carry - A Persistent Conundrum

 

Nikon Z7, 7Artisans 75mm f1.25 @f1.4

If you're going all-in on Full Frame, finding an Every Day Carry camera that isn't fixed lens and matches your system becomes a real issue.

Out of the 4 systems, Nikon struggles the most here, lacking entirely in an actually compact body. The Zf is actually larger than the Z5/6/7 series in 2 dimensions, and heavier too. It does pack down smallish with no lens or a particularly compact pancake due to the lack of grip though. Otherwise for current new bodies, the Z5 is the smallest (the original Z6 and Z7 are the same exact size as the Z5). But none of these are small and Nikon has exactly 4 compact lenses, the 24-50 and the 26, 28 and 40's. That does not make for a really flexible system and the rest of the glass tends huge (although the Tamron rebadge trio is pretty compact for f2.8 zooms). The most viable option really is going to be pairing the Z5 or Zf with the 26, 40 & 7Artisans 75mm f2 (which is quite compact) and maybe adding the 7Artisans 18/5.6 fixed aperture pancake as a decent cheap wide. That's a nice small & inexpensive lens set on a kinda chonky body.  

Canon's Rp and R8 are quite compact and Canon offers 4 truly compact lenses in the 24-50, 16/2.8, 28/2.8 and 50/1.8. Note that's a range which makes buying all 3 primes more viable since they actually gap well, unlike Nikon which clustered up the two wider ones since apparently Nikon is allergic to wide primes these days. Downside is mostly lack of IBIS, but Canon's 24/1.8, 35/1.8 and 85/2 primes are all 1:2 macro and IS, which makes for another good trio of smaller primes. Canon also offers a fairly small zoom trio in the 15-30, 240195STM and 100-400, all IS, compact, 67mm filter and inexpensive. The 24-105 is mediocre, but the other two are decent (15-30) to excellent (100-400) optically. No IS here actually helps for adapting, since it eliminates the worst part of the experience for Canon users (setting IS focal length). The viewfinder is a very consumer 2.36MP unit at 0.7x magnification. Pricing is very reasonable here, with the older and more limited Rp being the cheapest FF body most of the time (unless the Z5 is on sale) and the R8 also coming in at aggressive pricing. The Rp is also available new for some reason, but be aware it's a very limited body in capability unlike the R8 which is straight up an R6II electronically, in an RP body. Canon has essentially no 3rd party AF lens support though, so if Canon's offerings don't meet your needs, you'll be adapting or looking elsewhere. The R8 however is probably the least compromised as a do-everything body in this class due to the minimal handling compromises, it feels like a small SLR body.

Sony offers a lot of options in this space. On the used market the original A7 and A7R are tiny, but have a lot of compromises from being 10+ year old designs. However the A7R can be quite workable if you are using manual lenses only and can live with the minimal battery life. Don't expect usable AF from the A7R, it's CDAF-only. The A7 has pretty bad AF, but it's mostly usable unlike the A7R's AF.

Sony of course also offers their current A7C series. There's 3 bodies here, the OG A7C, which is fundamentally a A7III stuffed into an A6600 body. No front dial and the worst viewfinder ever in a FF body (2.36MP panel at a ludicrously bad 0.59x magnification). These are reasonably cheap these days, coming in at $200CAD more than an R8 or S9 for MSRP. They also offer the A7CII, which is an A7IV in an A6700 body, and features a now competitive for the segment 2.36MP 0.7x EVF and a front dial. But it's barely cheaper than the A7IV, which itself is overpriced for the performance compared to the competition at this pricepoint. Finally Sony has the A7CR, which is an A7CII with A7RV internals. It's easily the most expensive A7C variant, but is the best actual value since it's significantly cheaper than the A7RV. This is the lightweight hiking/landscape body and if that's what you are going for, the only competition is not much cheaper but has way more limitations (Sigma Fp L + EVF).

Sony also has by far the best selection of small glass between Sony's G series compact lenses, the Sigma 'i' series primes and a myriad of offerings from other manufacturers, especially including Samyang. 

In L mount there's options from Panasonic & Sigma. These are unique in not offering mechanical shutters on any of them, which can be an issue, but they're also by far the smallest options available.

Sigma offers the new Bf, the original (and discontinued) Fp and the current Fp L. The Bf is your choice if you are looking for looks over performance, it's a very good looking camera, but compromises handling for looks (sharpish corners) and basically has no accessories possible other than lenses and spare batteries (not even cards, it comes with 230GB of internal storage and a USB-C port). The Fp is not great unless you want the smallest possible camera and don't care about AF. It's CDAF only so AF performance is lousy. The FP L adds PDAF and a 61MP sensor, and without EVF is the cheapest high-res body on the market and also the smallest by a long shot. All these are VERY situational cameras, you will love them or despise them. No IBIS either on any of the Sigmas. Note the Bf has no EVF option where the Fp's both have an add-on EVF/

The Panasonic S9 rivals the Canon R8 for being the cheapest option with good performance, is the smallest option with IBIS, but lacks an EVF entirely. It's got all the S5II toys as well, so it's actually a very capable camera if you can live without an EVF and a mechanical shutter. This is by far the best video body of the lot and is marketed as a Creators Camera, selling up the video and the stills+social media workflow using the Lumix Lab app on your cellphone. NB - There's no hotshoe on this camera, only a cold shoe for an optical viewfinder or video accessory. 

L mount is second in terms of lens offerings, with Sigma's i series flashes and a decent selection of other lenses. Note Panasonic's 1.8 prime series (which includes the 100/2.8 Macro) are all identical in size and very close in weight, these are mid-size for the 24-50mm range, but the 18, 85 & 100 macro are compact for the specs, especially the 100 Macro which is by far the smallest such AF macro ever made (and it's good optically too). The 18-40 is also unique, a pancake type UWA zoom. 

Decision Done

 

Sony A7IV, Tamron 17-28mm f2.8

Well, as it happened I did run into a screaming deal, but it was on an A7IV, so that's the way I went. I also added 3 lenses to the kit, the Tamron 17-28/2.8, the Sigma 100-400 and the Viltrox 40/2.5. Both zooms are reasonably compact and perform well, at a cost well below what I'd pay for Z mount equivalents, and they share the 67mm filter thread (which I already have a good filter kit for as it happens). As I got the 17-28 used as well, I ended up paying right around the current on-sale A7IV new price for the body & 17-28 pair. 

I've been playing around and so far I'm pretty happy with the A7IV. The grip is slightly less comfortable than the Z7's, which is acceptable in a body that's just slightly smaller than & lighter than the Z7. That's notable since the A7IV is nowhere near the smallest E mount full frame body, will the Z7 is in fact the smallest & lightest Z mount full frame body currently on the market (tied with the Z5 & Z6, all of which are dimensionally identical and 675g). The EVF is also worse, as Sony's implementations are worst in class for the specs, while Nikon's are generally bets in class if matching specs. But the A7IV's EVF is very much usable.

Getting the flip-twist screen back is definitely making me happy, the above shot was using it to get an easy low-angle shot in lousy conditions, no way I could have frames that on the Z7 without getting down on the  very wet ground. Plus the AF system is simply better, with the only complaint being that Sony still doesn't offer an AF-C+MF mode (DMF does that for AF-S, but there's no AF-C equivalent). The flip side is that I have so many more control points (4 dials, 6 custom buttons+AF-ON vs 2 dials and 3 custom buttons+AF-On, note I treat Record as a custom button on both cameras) and the Sony buttons are with one exception (C3) also easier to reach as they are either back right or top plate, vs 2 of the 3 Nikon buttons being on the front and more awkward to reach. And the Sony buttons are wildly more configurable with one caveat, as Bracketing is a Drive Mode on Sony, I can't assign it directly to a button, but since Continuous Bracket is in the Drive Mode menu, I don't need to dedicate 2 buttons to bracketing. I do have one button assigned to AF/MF toggle so it's under the thumb when I need it, 

The result is the Sony is pretty wildly more configurable and the items I adjust regularly can mostly be added to a wheel directly, so they don't eat buttons. Plus there's the 3 assignable D-pad buttons that I just leave as defaults (but which also can be customized). So I have a control setup I'm a fair bit happier with than on the Z7. I'm oddly happier with the A7IV so far than I'd expected to be, I hope that continues to be the case. We'll see how things play out in the long run, especially once I've got some real usage on the A7IV, but I suspect I might just have the body that meets my current set of compromises the best out of the options I had on the table. 

Tomorrow I'll get out and hopefully do some real shooting on the A7IV, looking forward to seeing how it goes. 

A Decision (Mostly) Made

Sony A7RIV, Tamron 70-300 FE

Well, I made my decision, for the most part.

After hemming & hawing a lot over the last week I went back to first principles and worked through what I actually wanted in a system. 

The first decision point was 'why not just double-down on the Z7, which I enjoy shooting'. That's an easy answer. The Z7 has a rated shutter life of 200,000 shots. My Z7 has over 316,000 on the clock. It's why it was so cheap and why I simply cannot rely on it as my hiking/landscape camera. It's fine as an Everyday Carry camera aside from size because if it fails, I'm not losing a large time or effort investment. 

The second was really 'what do I want in a system'. The answer is 3-fold. I want decent same-format options for EDC, a viable do-everything camera right now, an available high-pixel camera with decent performance and not too large a size and a good selection of lenses from the mundane to the downright weird, without the interesting lenses all being expensive (over $1500 CAD) or telephotos.

This disqualified Nikon (no EDC FX body, limited wide angle options, it only offers a lot of interesting glass from 35mm onwards, also nothing interesting in the gap between 105mm and 400mm for primes) and Canon (limited interesting lenses of any sort outside of some expensive weird 1st party lenses and a tiny handful of fully manual lenses, plus bad at adapting M lenses). But this also put Sony back on the table as it hits on all of them.

Next is simple, what exactly do I want in a do-everything body. And frankly, my ideal is the new Panasonic S1RII. Namely good ergonomics & viewfinder, ~45MP so I have usable crop and a nice to work with FF pixel count and a decent amount of speed (6-7fps is fine for general use, but I'd like to have over 10fps in my pocket for occasional use, especially with pre-capture). It would just barely be possible to do this, but unlike the S5II option, I couldn't add any extra glass or adapters until a later date. Plus it won't ship until next month. 

So do I compromise more on speed or on pixels. This really comes down to S5II vs A7IV here. S5II is more of a compromise on pixels, A7IV on speed. The other options in the pricerange all have single-axis tilt screens which is a real issue in the field for me (these are the Z7II, A7RIII and A7RIV). I could also stretch a bunch and get an A7RV, which has internally downsampled 26MP and 15MP modes, so it's both a very usable 26MP body and a crazy high resolution 61MP body, but that would very limiting on my lens budget (I can buy both of my planned hiking lenses for the cost difference between the two bodies). The A7RV has most of the same set of cost issues as the S1RII, but I do have access to a couple lenses plus the full set of adapters I'd want (at least in the case of borrowing them), but it's also a bit more money than the S1RII and I don't already have CFEa cards for it and unlike SD and CFEb, CFEa is still stupid money

So things just keep falling on 'get an A7IV' barring either tripping over a screaming deal on an A7RV or something else coming out of left field.