Originally posted by btnapa Hi texandrews,
Since you own the Z and did own the A7R, I am curious about dynamic range of the A7R. I know the Z has perhaps one of the best in the business. I own the K1 and I am amazed every time I shoot high contrast situations that how much shadow detail I can pull out of the images in post. I shoot as if I were shooting film era transparency film. I make sure I do not blow the highlights knowing that K1 will allow me to recover almost all of the shadow information without the noise or artifacting penalty. Again I was wondering if the A7R has similar capability as the K1 or the Z.
Thanks,
Boris
Hi, Boris. Sorry to take a while to respond.
The A7R had exceptional DR. I loved the camera. I cursed loud and long when Pentax announced the Z only 2 or 3 months after I bought my A7R. I almost didn't buy the Z, and had no business doing so financially in so many ways, yet I did it in the early summer of 2014, one of the first buyers in the U.S. Trade-ins from a very decent sort of local store made the purchase possible. It was excruciatingly painful financially----yet I am so very glad I did it. One thing that made the whole purchase make sense was that I already had a 645N and some lenses, and had been actively snapping up some used lens deals.
That spring I had been shooting a continued series of trees in bloom, which i do in the dark or near dark using flash. So what I get are images that have intense darks and intense lights both, but also some important subtle transitions between them. The A7R handled these startlingly well.
But the Z was so, so much better. There is a "suave-ness" to the tonalities that was very clear to me when I was able to compare images made under similar circumstances (and sometimes exactly the same trees, just a year later...). The DR of the A7R, therefore, is excellent---and I expect the K1 single shots to be the same or just slightly better, raw wise. I'm not a fan of Pentax jpgs from what I have seen (although I haven't bothered to tweak them...). Sony's are better by a lot out of the box....but still not as good as Oly, the jpg king imo.
But note that this is not something the average person (not especially interested or trained in photography or the visual arts) would ever see, and not something that could be seen in any print below 24"/60cm on the
short side. Current screen/projection technology also struggles to show the difference today, but of course that will change.
I don't want to post images here, and am starting to get a little paranoid about my own website. But I could do a Dropbox with you if you were interested, with unprocessed raws. Let me know. But you'll have to be a little patient---I am slammed at work ( a good thing, because I need the money...)and have a daily commute of 4 hours or more, leaving me little time for much else. But I am willing to share with you.
BTW: The A7R made me a fan of EV's. The Z's optical VF is fantastic, but in the dark? Give me an EV!