The Camera Body
Toby asked, ‘Not that I care, but since you are putting words in my mouth, what kind of camera do you have?’
‘I shoot Sony,’ I told him. I’d had a Sony point and shoot but when I started thinking about buying an interchangeable lens camera I was drawn to Sony for the small size of it’s mirrorless cameras.
Right on cue, Toby asked, ‘Why would a camera have a mirror?’ ‘Well,’ I said that the film SLR (Single Lens Reflex) camera was designed so light would come in through the lens, hit a mirror set a 45 degree angle so as to bounce up then hit another mirror also at a 45 degree angle set to bounce the image through the back of the camera so you could see what you were taking a picture of. When you pushed the shutter button the first mirror would flip out of the way and the film would be exposed by the light coming in through the lens. When camera companies first started making DLSRs (Digital Single Lens Reflex) camera they removed the film and put in a sensor in it’s place. Later, Sony decided they could do away with the mirrors and put a small video screen in place of the viewfinder that read directly from the sensor. It made the camera smaller and allowed you to see in real time what your picture would look like with all of the settings you had selected. ‘Isn’t that cheating,’ he asked? ‘What about the Sunny 16 rule and light meters and all of that stuff?’
Continuing on, I told him that the first interchangeable lens camera I bought was the Sony NEX-6. It was an APSC camera. It was a small body and small lenses and a good place to start learning the basics. A couple of years later I decided to move up to a full frame camera and bought the Sony A7Rii, which was the second generation full frame camera. Once I started buying full frame lenses for the Sony system I was pretty much committed. I’ve been told you date a camera body but you marry your lenses - unless you are very rich that’s pretty much true.
A few years later I bought a used A9 for its autofocus, tracking and higher frames per second capability. It’s generally considered a sports camera as it has a little lower dynamic range and lower resolution than the A7R series cameras.
The A7Rii camera was well used and starting to have mechanical issues so I purchased an A7Riv to replace it. That camera upped the resolution from 42MP to 61MP. As much as I like to crop into my photos the extra megapixels really help. It tracks better than the older A7R generations but not as well as the A9 and still doesn’t have the higher frame rates to be able to pick out the perfect shot during action.
When the A1 was announced I placed an order and sold the A9. It basically combines the high frame rate, tracking and electronic shutter from the A9 with the high resolution of the A7R series and brings in the high quality video capabilities of the A7S series. Once it arrives I’ll sell the A7Riv. Being a hobbyist, I prefer to have one camera body so I don’t have to go back and forth between generations, button placement, menu settings and customization as I was doing previously. Someone who shot for a living, on the other hand, might prefer multiple bodies for redundancy.