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.