Mike Sandman
Leading Member
I have an A7Riii, and I also owned an NEX 6 that was sitting on the shelf. I bought an a7C as a replacement for the NEX 6 because it's a small, fairly light full-frame camera. With the kit lens, it fits in a jacket pocket. That lens's range is 28-60 mm, and I would have given up some of the weight and size advantage for slightly wider and/or slightly longer focal length. The lens feels plastic-y, but image quality is a lot better than the kit lens that came with the NEX 6 and is still offered by Sony for its APS-C cameras.
The most important advantage is that the a7C is small and light enough so that I take it with me much more often than I would have taken the larger, heavier 7Riii. OK, i's "only" 24 megapixels, but that works in most situations where the image doesn't need tone aggressively cropped, and Adobe's recent addition of an AI-based way to increase apparent resolution arrived in time to make the pixel count less important.
The camera is missing the focus point joystick of Sony's other full frame bodies, and it has only one control wheel instead of two, but it's surprisingly functional even without those controls. Press the center button on the four-way controller and then use the four directional buttons on the controller to move the focus point, or tap the LCD to set the focus. It's actually better than using the joystick on the a7Riii. The viewfinder image is small, but its high pixel count and fast refresh rate help make up for that. I wear glasses and thought there might be a problem seeing the whole frame, but that's not the case, at least for me.
The menu system is the same as my 7Riii, so it's the second generation of Sony's menus -- slightly better than horrible. Setting up a "My Menu" list helps with these cameras, as does the Fn button, which can control the options for 12 functions (such as focus type; silent shooting on/off, etc.)
Overall, the camera is a very serviceable compromise for someone who wants a full-frame camera they won't hesitate to take along when they go out, even for a casual walk.
I also wanted a camera for infrared photography, so I had it converted to "full spectrum" by LifePixel. By putting on th right filter, it's possible to use it for various wavelengths of infrared, or for plain old visible light.
The most important advantage is that the a7C is small and light enough so that I take it with me much more often than I would have taken the larger, heavier 7Riii. OK, i's "only" 24 megapixels, but that works in most situations where the image doesn't need tone aggressively cropped, and Adobe's recent addition of an AI-based way to increase apparent resolution arrived in time to make the pixel count less important.
The camera is missing the focus point joystick of Sony's other full frame bodies, and it has only one control wheel instead of two, but it's surprisingly functional even without those controls. Press the center button on the four-way controller and then use the four directional buttons on the controller to move the focus point, or tap the LCD to set the focus. It's actually better than using the joystick on the a7Riii. The viewfinder image is small, but its high pixel count and fast refresh rate help make up for that. I wear glasses and thought there might be a problem seeing the whole frame, but that's not the case, at least for me.
The menu system is the same as my 7Riii, so it's the second generation of Sony's menus -- slightly better than horrible. Setting up a "My Menu" list helps with these cameras, as does the Fn button, which can control the options for 12 functions (such as focus type; silent shooting on/off, etc.)
Overall, the camera is a very serviceable compromise for someone who wants a full-frame camera they won't hesitate to take along when they go out, even for a casual walk.
I also wanted a camera for infrared photography, so I had it converted to "full spectrum" by LifePixel. By putting on th right filter, it's possible to use it for various wavelengths of infrared, or for plain old visible light.