Sony A7 and A7r Hands On at PhotoPlus Expo

Sony A7r with a Voigtlander 12mm Lens and Viewfinder

It was a very crowded Sony booth at PhotoPlus. The great thing was the Sony representatives were very accommodating to anyone who wanted to play with the new Sony A7 and A7r. We had our bag of lenses and was able to mount them all on the A7 and A7r - check out the 12mm viewfinder on the A7r above. The lenses include the following:

• Voigtlander 12mm f/5.6 Leica Thread Mount on a helicoid adapter.
• Voigtlander 35mm f/1.7 Ultron LTM.
• Minolta 24mm f/2.8 Rokkor MD.
• Contax G 28mm f/2.8 Biogon.
• Contax Zeiss 85mm f/1.4 Planar with the Metabones Speedbooster and the standard C/Y adapter.
• Zeiss 12mm f/2.8 Touit Distagon.

The cameras were pre-production and the use of memory cards to record the images was prohibited. We wanted to see if I could see immediate problems on the rear tilting lcd but none were glaring.  The only noticeable issue was color shift with the Contax G 28mm Biogon.  We're hoping that this can be remedied with the production models.

Sony A7r and a Contax G Lens

Below is the Contax 85mm Planar on a Metabones Speedbooster. As you can see it cannot cover the whole sensor but with APS-C mode on the A7 cameras the Speedbooster is still useable.

Sony A7r and a Contax 85mm Planar Lens via Speedbooster

The Voigtlander 35mm Ultron LTM was a nice surprise.  This lens gives the NEX-7 some problems with color shift but on the A7 this was not the case.  The few snaps that we took looked great on the rear lcd.

Sony A7r and a Voigtlander 35mm Ultron

The Minolta 24mm f/2.8 MD provide a nice wide angle image on the Sony A7.  It felt nice and balance on the slightly larger frame of the Sony A7.

Sony A7r and a Contax 85mm Planar Lens via Speedbooster

We were very excited to mount the Zeiss 12mm f/2.8 Touit on the new Sony A7.  We had the A7's APS-C lens detection off to see how much the Touit can cover the full frame sensor.  The lens has a plastic shroud to protect the rear element and this showed up in the shot below.  The Touit works perfectly fine in APS-C mode.

Sony A7r and a Zeiss 12mm Distagon Touit

The images above were from a smartphone.