Sony Z7 Event Results

[Bruce G. Cleveland]

Well I did my first real test at an event with the new Sony Z7. Long story short, the results are as I expected. The event was called Just Desserts and was a fund raiser. I agreed to come in and shoot some video for nothing, as my wife is on the board of directors and it was for a very good cause.

I must say that I cheated a bit and left the camera on auto most of the time, so some will say that this review is not the most relative. I really wanted to check out the auto focus issues, especially in low light. Most of the time the auto focus was fairly fast. I did experience the focus hunting we have been hearing about, mostly when I was slow scanning across a crowded room. The lens did not know what to focus on and I still feel a big part of this issue is due to the low light. But I did see shots very similar to Dave williams example. I think my 170s were guilty of this same issue, but maybe not quite as bad. Once it focused, it stayed there. My thoughts before I did this shoot was that I hoped that this would be at least as good as the PD170 for auto focus, and it was. As for low light, it was on the noisy side, but then the lights were very low and I thought quality was as good as the 170. I realize that I should have taken some time to go full manual, and I am kicking myself now for not doing that, as I had plenty of time for that. Also in the auto mode, the picture was on the saturated side. i did not realize until I got home that I could have put it in manual mode and left everything I did not want to control manually in auto. This is what I should have done, but did not. So I apologize that this test is not as thorough as it should have been. All in all I am satisfied with the very low light footage I took and will post a link to that once I get something edited.

Bruce Cleveland

[Marshall Levy]

Have you experienced the manual focus problems with the left-center-right side blurring?

[Bruce G. Cleveland]

Originally Posted by Marshall Levy

Have you experienced the manual focus problems with the left-center-right side blurring?

Marshall I have not been able to see this yet, but I am going to set it up tomorrow and make sure I am setting it up properly. Also the more footage I am looking at the more I am seeing the focus hunting for something to focus on in auto focus. When you think about it, this is probably normal more so when it gets darker in the shooting area. The camera is just trying to find something to focus on when it is moving. I don't see the issue much at all when doing static shots. I remember from doing receptions with the 170s though and during dinner I always had to have the manual focus on because it never really would focus properly in auto. BTW, I have been checking quite often to see if you updated your post and heard something back from Sony on the focus issues. I know you let us know as soon as you hear something.

Bruce

[Steve Mullen]

Originally Posted by Bruce G. Cleveland

The camera is just trying to find something to focus on when it is moving.

With the V1 -- once the camera locked on an object you could pan and it would not change focus until it found another object to lock on.

You could pan from objects at different distances -- although near to far worked better than far to near.

Even in low-light it worked.

Also, once locked, you could walk in front of the camera and it stayed locked.

Amazing AF.

[Bruce G. Cleveland]

Originally Posted by Steve Mullen

With the V1 -- once the camera locked on an object you could pan and it would not change focus until it found another object to lock on.

You could pan from objects at different distances -- although near to far worked better than far to near.

Even in low-light it worked.

Also, once locked, you could walk in front of the camera and it stayed locked.

Amazing AF.

That is amazing. I have not owned any camera that had that good of af.

Bruce