Boompa
Regular
- Name
- Steve
Although much of this has been hashed to death, I'm feeling philosophical so here are my first observations just 30 minutes after the big, brown truck left!
Feel/Quality- AWESOME! The camera *FEELS* even more solid and impressive than I anticipated; lovely to hold and lovely to look at.
Manual- Magnificently UNimpressive! I've seen FAR more impressive manuals with a $39 electronic Chinese gizmo. At the price of an RX1R w/ELV they OUGHT to give you a mini-tablet with the owners manual and about 40 hours of instructional video onboard! LOL! I've noticed some car manufacturers doing this now and I'm GUESSING Sony could build or procure their own for <$100 per tablet. Just a thought. Somebody's going to (or perhaps already has) made a killing writing a top-quality "missing manual" for this camera! I'll be their first customer.
Fotodiox Pro Grip: Nice quality for the price and feels comfortable, and the "access cutout" works fine for the battery but my fat fingers fumbled for at least 45 seconds trying to grasp the SD card and get it out. It needs to be a few 1/1000ths wider slot! Or maybe I'll develop new SKILLZ!
Sony EVF- LOVE/HATE relationship in the first 3 minutes. LOVE the quality of the view but *HATE* the fact that it seems cheap and sits precariously atop the camera ruining the esthetics completely and looking and feeling as if it's going to be knocked off with the slightest glancing blow. I'm going to evaluate it but it's tempting to send it back immediately. It's hard to imagine EVER carrying the camera with the EVF attached and of course it wouldn't fit in the never-ready case with the EVF attached, though I haven't bought a case yet and may not. Keeping it in it's little mouse-house carrying case seems like a prescription for losing a $450 accessory and will be damned inconvenient to take out and install and remove and put away every time you want to take a photo. I'm not sure what Sony was thinking- other than a way to soak the buyer for another $450. We'll see. I was skeptical about it before ordering but it's actually far worse-looking, cheaper and more precarious than I could possibly have imagined. As impressive as the build/quality of the camera is, the EVF is equally UNimpressive in terms of quality, integration, fit and integrity. It looks like a cheap aftermarket product or at best a last-minute afterthought on Sony's part.
Some quick test images ARE impressive and I'm looking forward to exploring more- but as predicted the autofocus leaves a LOT to be desired compared to several other cameras I own or have owned. Hmmmm....
OK... that's it initial impressions. NOW I have to figure out how this little gizmo WORKS since the owners manual is obviously going to be of little to no help.
Whew! I'm through now,
Steve
Feel/Quality- AWESOME! The camera *FEELS* even more solid and impressive than I anticipated; lovely to hold and lovely to look at.
Manual- Magnificently UNimpressive! I've seen FAR more impressive manuals with a $39 electronic Chinese gizmo. At the price of an RX1R w/ELV they OUGHT to give you a mini-tablet with the owners manual and about 40 hours of instructional video onboard! LOL! I've noticed some car manufacturers doing this now and I'm GUESSING Sony could build or procure their own for <$100 per tablet. Just a thought. Somebody's going to (or perhaps already has) made a killing writing a top-quality "missing manual" for this camera! I'll be their first customer.
Fotodiox Pro Grip: Nice quality for the price and feels comfortable, and the "access cutout" works fine for the battery but my fat fingers fumbled for at least 45 seconds trying to grasp the SD card and get it out. It needs to be a few 1/1000ths wider slot! Or maybe I'll develop new SKILLZ!
Sony EVF- LOVE/HATE relationship in the first 3 minutes. LOVE the quality of the view but *HATE* the fact that it seems cheap and sits precariously atop the camera ruining the esthetics completely and looking and feeling as if it's going to be knocked off with the slightest glancing blow. I'm going to evaluate it but it's tempting to send it back immediately. It's hard to imagine EVER carrying the camera with the EVF attached and of course it wouldn't fit in the never-ready case with the EVF attached, though I haven't bought a case yet and may not. Keeping it in it's little mouse-house carrying case seems like a prescription for losing a $450 accessory and will be damned inconvenient to take out and install and remove and put away every time you want to take a photo. I'm not sure what Sony was thinking- other than a way to soak the buyer for another $450. We'll see. I was skeptical about it before ordering but it's actually far worse-looking, cheaper and more precarious than I could possibly have imagined. As impressive as the build/quality of the camera is, the EVF is equally UNimpressive in terms of quality, integration, fit and integrity. It looks like a cheap aftermarket product or at best a last-minute afterthought on Sony's part.
Some quick test images ARE impressive and I'm looking forward to exploring more- but as predicted the autofocus leaves a LOT to be desired compared to several other cameras I own or have owned. Hmmmm....
OK... that's it initial impressions. NOW I have to figure out how this little gizmo WORKS since the owners manual is obviously going to be of little to no help.
Whew! I'm through now,
Steve