The Official Head-Case Photography Thread.

[crappyjones123]

What do you normally shoot, Nate? Keep in mind that Lightroom/Photoshop still doesn't have full RAW support for the camera, which is quite annoying - I have about 5 days of images from winter break that I can't edit. I only found out about the one RAW format that Lightroom has beta support for. Not enough of a reason to avoid the camera - just mentioning it so you aren't similarly annoyed. 

I went from a not-very-good AF system (by today's standards) in the D810 to one of the best in the A7V. I nearly pulled the trigger on a Z6III around Thanksgiving so I could use the couple of Nikon lenses I already had, but the 30 fps and better AF pulled me over to the Sony side. I missed a lot of shots with the D810 when trying to capture my fast-moving niece. She just turned 4 a month ago, and the A7V was fantastic, keeping up with her fast-twitch movements. The pre-capture feature was great and certainly made up for my lack of skill. The D810 remains exceptionally capable in decent light for landscapes or scenes where AF speed/tracking isn't a priority, but with two more babies expected to join the family this year, I figured an upgrade would make my life easier in the coming years. The A7V also seems to do much better in low-light situations - I find I can push to higher ISOs before noise becomes an issue. Depending on what you intend to capture and how, the A7V might not be as much of an upgrade over the A7IV. For me, the upgrade was much more pronounced, and I am quite pleased with the purchase. I don't do much with video, so I didn't care as much for the hoopla around closed/open gate sensors. 

Last December, the D810 said Zara's left eye was in focus here, but obviously, it wasn't.  

Also with the D810, got lucky. 

And OOF again. 

Definitely pushing the limits of the D800 in difficult light. The noise/grain is obvious when pixel-peeping. I actually don't mind it as much in this image, but there were times when I did. 

Another one where I don't mind the grain. 

Here are some more where I feel like better AF, dynamic range, and noise performance would have helped capture what I wanted to. 

 

Some more from the Illumina Lantern Festival taken with the A7V. Exceptionally clean images. Some with the Batis 85mm (AF) and others with the Voigtlander 35mm (MF). It's no Leica, but Sony really does a fantastic job of working with manual lenses. I love their implementation of focus peaking. 

[blessingx]

William Eggleston’s Lonely South 

https://archive.ph/2026.01.24-204543/https://www.newyorker.com/culture/photo-booth/william-egglestons-lonely-south

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/photo-booth/william-egglestons-lonely-south

[n_maher]

@crappyjones123 - For the longest time I've been shooting landscapes for work, where the A7IV is honestly way more than enough and I also managed to pick up an A7RV for work last year as well.  But with both topping out at 10FPS as I've started to shoot more sports it's been a little limiting.  Which is to say my skill is limiting and some of the improvements the A7V offers would certainly be helpful.  I am tracking the lack of RAW support but I've had really good luck tweaking settings and shooting SOOC jpgs and doctoring a little in Lightroom after the fact.  Fine art is not on my menu.  Those lantern festival shots are fantastic by the way.

RE: Nikon focus issues - I consistently had back-focus issues with the various bodies that I owned over the years.  Some less so than others but shooting wide would often produce results like you posted above.  The camera would think it was nailing focus but the results showed otherwise.  I have not had this issue with either Sony body.