In January of 2025 I finally really and truly jumped from the Fuji cameras I had been using for the past 12 years to the Sony ecosystem. I had tried a few other brands, always trying to make them work, but always found they were not a fit for my style and the way I want to work. (I've probably been trying to find a film experience with a digital camera as many others have as well, and I guess I finally gave up or surrendered...) Anyway, whatever the reason (and having a little bit of extra cash burning a hole in my scorched wallet didn't hurt any) the Sony's finally gelled with me.
I had tried Sony before, so I kinda knew exactly what I wanted:
​
Sony A7RV - The Rii had abysmal battery life and a very clunky interface with a lot of features missing that a Fuji XT1 had. The Riii added a few things like a vastly improved battery but was still missing features the Fuji XT1 had. The A7Riv added a few things but was still missing features that a Fuji XT1 had... (See a pattern here?) And finally the A7RV added enough features to catch up to a 2020's era camera. Actually for my needs and purposes, the A7RV isn't missing anything I could articulate. There's a few things that other cameras have that would be nice to have, but nothing major. And there's things that the A7RV has that other cameras don't, so we are kind of at parity now. I crop a lot of images square and the 60mp's helps a lot with that, making a 40mp square raw or jpeg. When I crop square with my 33 mp A7Cii I'm down to 22mp's which is still more than enough, but 40 is better. And the video capabilities are fine for my needs as well.
​
Sony A7CII - I originally bought this camera as my main video camera for Youtube solo content creation, and it's superb for that purpose. (Recently I bought a DJI Action 5 Pro and I finally have a small video camera that does 95% of what I need with superb results.) So the A7CII is now an everyday Carry Camera with my prime lens kit. It's the camera I take with me when I'm not doing photography, but might. Paired with the lovely Zeiss 35mm f2.8, it's a wonderful package to shoot with.
​​
​
Zoom Lenses
Sigma 16-28mm f2.8 - I replaced the wonderful Sigma 14-24mm f2.8 with this lens. It's smaller and lighter and takes 72mm filters. I only got this about a month ago and have not shot much with it yet. The few images I've made looked great. I will update this review when I have more experience with the lens. But size and weight are winners so far.
Zeiss 24-70mm f4 - This is a great lens. It may not be the sharpest overall, but the way the Zeiss lenses handle contrast and color (which affects B&W rendering as well) is on another level. If you can see those kinds of attributes then you will love this lens.
Tamron 70-300mm - The price and the weight, size and image quality are all great. The build quality is decent, but this isn't a tank and probably won't do well with any kind of abusive treatment. But a very high value option capable of professional results!