Recently I bit the bullet and proceeded to get a new camera to supplement my ageing (and also apparently somewhat ailing though still trustworthy) 7D DSLR. After sticking with one camera for over a decade, switching to anything else was always going to come with a learning curve. What I didn't expect though was what some of those learnings would be!
Short Summary of Key Points
Pros:
* Between a nice new higher-quality standard lens, and new sensor tech (and being FF this time too), images are a lot sharper in general. Especially when shooting landscape stuff (e.g. treelines against sunsets in particular, but also tiny text on small labels on things in frame) are now often very sharp + clear with this setup, whereas it used to be somewhat hit and miss whether the same applied before with my old standard lens setup
* There are now 3 dials on the body that can be used to adjust various things, along with an additional mappable control-ring on the new-generation lenses. As you'd expect, in Full Manual Mode, these dials have been mapped so that the two that used to be present still control shutter speed + aperture as before, with the new one handling ISO - exactly as I'd been wishing for many years.
* New sensor == Higher ISO levels you can use (and with less obvious grain when that happens)
* Auto-focus available during video recording
* Can use EVF for "through the lens" live-view preview of what you're recording during video recording - which is better for situations where holding at arms length to see the LCD was problematic
* Can also choose to use the LCD screen in "pop out" mode out the side, with some angling support available
* A whole bunch of new + more advanced autofocus modes + settings to choose from, along with a wider array of focus points that can be used
Cons: (At this point, they seem a bit more numerous / irritating than I'd like, for my particular ways of using cameras)
[Major Con 1] - Transferring Images off the Camera - More Options, More Complexity, But Worse Overall
One of the first big hurdles was trying to figure out how to transfer my first batch of test images off the camera. With my old one, directly hooking the camera up to my computers with the provided USB cable always "just worked" (apart from the fact that nearing the 8-9 year mark, the soft rubber flap to the affected port suddenly snapped off, and then proceeded to start disintegrating - one crumbly nugget at a time)
However, with this new camera, trying to figure out how to do this was an exercise in frustration + confusion!
Approach 1 (Manufacturer recommended): Transfer over wifi
Ugh... that whole private-network pairing, push/pull tagging stuff takes quite a few clunky + ugly steps to get working, but was then still missing the critical "Transfer" button!
Ultimate problem was that it needed version 3 of their PC software installed, and I only had versions 1 + 2. Needed to use the Europe (not NZ) version of their site to get it!
Approach 2 - "Let's use the... USB-C cable?"
Err... hmm.... what's this clunky metal hooky-contraption that fell out of the bag?!
Checking internet - "Oh... I'm supposed to always attach that honking cable guard to the ports before connecting to prevent possible board damage from physical wear and tear?! 😱😬
Oh gawd! No... don't think I want to go that route... am just migrating from 10+ yo flaps breaking down. This looks sketchy!
Approach 3 - Maybe it's time to get a card reader for real this time 🙄
At least this time, if I wear out the mechanisms on one card slot, I'll hopefully still be able to the secondary for a while instead... which should be easier than wrestling with the problems caused by the other two alternatives
[Major Con 2] - Many frequently-performed operations during shooting are a LOT more cumbersome to do now
Compared to the other ones I tried briefly in store, this model had the fewest weird issues on this front - as it still had the two dials + joystick found in my old camera, but still... the following things do break / hinder my workflow quite a bit:
1) Cannot adjust autofocus point by just nudging the joystick. Have to press the autofocus-mode button first, then when in that mode, can adjust that focus region's position on screen using either the joystick or all the dials).
EDIT: Needed to go into Customize Buttons -> Multi-Controllers, and change to "Direct AF point selection"
2) Due to the above, switching auto-focus region modes is also a bit of a pain, as since all the dials are taken up with moving the region, you're left to frantically mash the tiny M-Fn key to switch focus modes - but that can only go in one direction - meaning switching between two most frequent ones are a pain)
EDIT: Looked into the menus again, and found I can swap this one to be triggered via one of the dials. Phew! That's a lot nicer now.
3) No longer have a dedicated white-balanced mode button. Instead, there are multiple ways to get into multilayer menus that can do that (with each dial jumping between elements in different ways).
(EDIT: I have currently settled on keeping the M-Fn button one focussed on white-balance then using one of the dials to switch between modes, but it's bad if I accidentally hit the wrong button)
4) Multiple things can be accessed from multiple menus - Great to have the flexibility, but would really prefer having physical button to just access the menu / sub-mode for cycling between options instead
[Major Con 3] - EVF vs LCD shooting, EVF On/Off, Battery Life, and Powersaving Tricks vs Implications for Shooting
At least initially, it often really feels like this camera is geared towards getting you to get into the habit of just using the LCD touchscreen for doing all your preview + interaction needs, while the EVF is a reluctant concession to all "old timers" who insist on holding cameras up to their eyes + using various dials without looking much at the UI.
But, since we're running two screens instead of only 1 (that can be made to not be used), we naturally do have a much faster battery drain on mirrorless cameras. So of course you'll end up taking measures to try to extend your battery life (to avoid needing to carry a bazillion batteries, and change them out like used ammo belts with a semi-automatic machine guns)
So far, I've found the following downsides to the initial setup I'm trialling:
1) This whole setup is *really bad* for one of my usual modes of shooting - quick snaps of things of interest from a moving vehicle, in short bursts, over the course of several hours. (Could be even worse on a roadtrip / long travel day type scenario)
This doesn't work well for the following reasons:
- To conserve battery (so you can prolong your overall shoot session duration, covering the multiple short bursts), is that you need to get it to auto power-down as many sensors / processes as possible to avoid power-drain while in the "idle" state. However, this means that when something interesting does pop up, you now have to pay a ~1 second tax for booting up the sensor from sleep, then not being able to preview your framing at all until the screen comes on.
In contrast, with DSLR, I can focus at the typical depth-range of what I'm shooting, then raise to eye, confirm that item of interest is in frame (or adjust zoom to fit, then tweak exposure compensation for amount of dark vs light in the scene, and also moving the AF focal point into place). Then Snap! I can just trigger than camera to shoot right then and there now that I'm happy, and it wouldn't have wasted battery life until I was satisfied with the basic framing first.
But here, I must remember to first wake it up being trying to point it, to then preview my framing. And oh, it seems there might be slight AF delay before it actually captures? (TBC with more testing)
In short - lots more missed shots.
2) EVF annoyingly cuts out just when viewing non-quite-square-on the viewfinder. This happens mostly when trying to check if I shouldv'e framed something that is about to shift out of frame - In the past, I could just angle my head slightly more to see a bit more around the edges of the frame. Is caused by sensor thinking you moved away
3) I sure hope nothing bad comes from having that infrared proximity sensor effectively firing beams at your face (near your eye) constantly to check if you are looking into the EVF. (From what I remember working with the eye tracker, which had an array of such sensor/emitter things under the screen to do similar things, this can cause a little bit of eye strain after a long session). Shots taken via phone have shown it to be quite a bright purple-ish spot...
4) The LCD flipping direction rotates the wrong way (for < 360 degree coverage)! As a result, to go from snapped into body to having it out the side + angled (for low-down shots), I often find myself almost snapping it off trying to go the "short way round" but ended up having to going via the long rotation direction instead. It feels like one of these days I will end up breaking that thing off clean when in a hurry.
[Major Con 4] - White Balance, Brightness, and Calibration
Unlike with my old camera, I've been having a hard time trusting the calibration of the various displays and/or the sensor.
Frankly, it's hard to know + trust whether what I see on the EVF vs LCD vs what is captured + presented for review on camera will correspond to what I saw when taking the shot and/or what the final result looks like back on the monitor where I'm used to seeing photos from my other camera(s) + phone(s).
From what I've deduced so far:
- 1) The EVF is definitely out of whack. Is too bright in dim indoor rooms / night shooting, and slightly too dark when outside (after configuring it for those situations).
- 2) The EVF contrast / colour calibration also seems suspect. For example, seems way too "blue" (but cannot really decouple that from the main LCD colour cast)
- 3) EVF contrast is also more amplified, so blacks blacker faster, whites brighter still, but never quite giving either accurate representation of current live view (in same calibration as the LCD - which is generally quite close)
- 4) Auto / preset white balance settings may be slightly different from what you're used to seeing
Other Cons
* Has a confusing / clunky "mode button" + dial actions to change modes. (Is probably going to be better for preventing bumping in camera bag leading to wrong mode being selected though).
What's weirder though is what's going on with the "still vs video" recording mode stuff. Still have to look up the manual on all that!
* Camera straps are still the spawn of the devil to try to attack / thread through
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