So I recently did something a little out of a character for me. I bought myself a new digital camera. In this case a Sony A7c mirrorless camera.
Now, to address the first question that I’m sure I’m going to get asked… No, I am not stopping working with film. Not by a long shot. I’ve always worked with digital on occasion and I was in desperate need of an upgrade in equipment on that front. For the last three years I’ve been using a Canon 6D for my digital needs and I’ve never really connected with it. I’ve just never liked a large SLR type body and the Canon has always felt too bulky for my taste.
Also, as I’ve mentioned on this blog a few times, film is starting to get very expensive. So while I am not going to quit working with film any time soon, I might have to work with digital a little more often. Typing that out on this blog bums me out, but the act of making images is more important than the medium.
So why the Sony A7c? There are a couple reasons…
First, the camera is rather small for a digital body with a full frame sensor. This is important to me as my camera bag is already pretty heavy with medium format film gear taking up space. The Sony A7c fits nice and neat in the top section of my camera bag and doesn’t add too much weight.
Second, quite a number of years ago I owned a Sony A7. I liked that camera a lot actually, mostly because I found that it was easy to adapt vintage lenses to the body. Unfortunately my A7 was stolen out of my car while on a road trip. The Sony A7c seems just as easy to adapt vintage glass, only now the body is more closely aligned to the size and shape of a small 35mm rangefinder. I don’t have any plans or desire to buy a whole bunch of modern lenses and I like that with the Sony A7c I can mount my old Leica lenses, Minolta lenses, and more. The electronic viewfinder is high enough in resolution that manual focusing is a non issue for me.
That’s about it quite honestly! Those two reasons right there. I suppose I could talk about the sensor quality, the processing speed, all the various feature like video capture, face recognition focus, etc. etc. but all of those things take a back seat to my two most important criteria in a digital camera right now. Size and the ability to adapt vintage glass. So far the Sony A7c checks both of those boxes for me so going forward it is going to be a part of my camera kit.