Sony Alpha 7R

The world’s lightest full frame camera yet with interchangeable lenses

The latest launch from Sony, Alpha 7R, is now the world’s lightest full frame camera with interchangeable lenses. It can record at 36.4 megapixels, features a fast and intelligent auto focus, has WiFi and NFC on board, charges itself using a USB power adapter, and is portable enough to go everywhere.

The number of control dials is impressive, but the camera still reminds me of Sony’s point-and-shoot RX100-II. The specs said ‘near-to-life 2.4 million dot OLED viewfinder’, and I agree it is one sharp viewfinder, but you do miss an optical viewfinder. Sony has built a great interface that appears both on its tilt screen as well as inside the viewfinder; the displays are rich and all the information is visible.

I love its fast and intelligent auto focus and new engine inside the camera that makes processing faster. The 7R can shoot full HD videos with stereo sound. The camera can deliver an uncompressed 1920×1080 HD stream directly to your TV set over HDMI. With WiFi and NFC on board, you can use Sony’s Android and iOS apps to remote control the camera or upload a picture that you just shot with it on social media.

Sony has thought of giving all controls to the user, but at times I feel that it has gone overboard, especially with the ISO control dial that shifts at the touch of a finger. You often end up changing the settings unintentionally while shooting. I also hate the fact that if you change your exposure compensation, the camera overrides your shutter and aperture settings. And I miss not having two memory card slots, as with a professional camera.

Overall, if you have been itching to buy a great camera that manages an auto mode beautifully as well as gives you full control of what you are doing, the 7R fits the bill.

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