I get friendly emails from readers all the time. Often, these include basic questions on photography, choosing the right lens and camera, and other miscellaneous quips easily answered in a sentence or two. Every now and then, though, I get emails that make me think, and provide an answer that may help a large part of my pool of readers. If you have any pressing questions, feel free to email me and I’ll get back to you soon!

Today’s question comes from Nestor Rodriguez on deciding between sticking with the old NEX series cameras or jumping on the A7/A7r full-frame bandwagon:

Hey Matthew,

First of all, I gotta say I enjoy the content you put up on your site — it’s well-written and very informative, so thanks a lot for that, man.

Here’s my case now: I have a friend selling me a used (but “like new”) NEX-7 with the Sony 1.8/50 + two additional batteries and a couple of other accessories for $650 dollars. He’s also selling me the Zeiss Sonnar 1.8/24 for $650 as well. I currently own two lenses: the Sony 55-210mm and a brand new Sony 1.8/50. If I took my friend’s offer, I’d end up with the NEX-7 and this nice line-up of three good lenses (and I’d be able to sell one of the 50mm ones).

However, I’ve been looking at the newly released a7/a7r full-frame cameras from Sony and Zeiss lenses available for them (especially the 1.8/55 one). And it got me thinking and running down some numbers — with all the money that would go into purchasing the NEX-7, the Zeiss, the money I could get from selling my two lenses, plus a $500 dollar gift card I have on my Amazon account, I’d only be around $300 dollars short of what costs to buy the a7 + Zeiss 1.8/55.

This being the case then, if you were in my shoes, which route would you go and why? Depending on the type of photography work you do, would you mind ending up with just one prime lens + a7 camera as opposed to the three lenses and the NEX-7? This would probably be a simple decision for you, but I’m not that seasoned in photography and the major advantages of the full-frame a7 vs the NEX-7 aren’t that clear to me yet.

Would really appreciate it if you told me what your thoughts are on this. Thanks a lot.

~ Nestor

http://500px.com/visionpoint

Oh man, oh man. This is a really good question. Let me start out by saying that I almost jumped on the A7/A7r bandwagon. As you know, my work with manual focus (and full-frame) Nikkors would have, in theory, gotten a great benefit from the “full-frame advantage”. This is namely about a 2-stop increase in high ISO performance, as well as getting to take advantage of ALL the depth-of-field control my Nikkors could provide on the larger sensor.

I preordered both, and waited for some early reviews to come out. Making a long story short(er), I cancelled everything for these main reasons (in order of most to least importance): Continue Reading