A7R2 Silent Shutter

[stevedexteruk]

Just picked up my A7R2 and was disappointed to discover the 'Silent Shutter' mode is not as useful as it is on my Panasonic Lumix GX7. I love the electronic silent shutter on my GX7 and use it all the time but can't see the Sony version being of much use to me. Some reviewers have made a big deal of 'Silent Shutter' on the Sony, but failed to mention that it can only be used in single shot mode. You can not enable 'Continuous Shooting' in 'Silent Shutter' mode on the Sony but, with my GX7 I can shoot several exposures in total silence and in rapid succession by just holding down the shutter release button. I am really going to miss that function and will have to rethink how I shoot.

 

I appreciate that it is much more difficult to design an electronic shutter in a  high megapixel, full frame camera and I made a false assumption about its functionality. The A7R2 is a truly lovely camera and I am going to enjoy using it, so I don't want this to sound like a shout against the camera -  but I wanted to alert others to this fact. 

 

Cheers Steve

 

[bplet]

Yeah.   The GX7 is a 16MP sensor, so probably a bit easier/quicker to reset the photosites.

 

But that aside... There are a couple features like that where I wish Sony would have simply let us use the feature, and deal with the limitations...  Biggest example of course, being the whole (over-dramatized) 14bit lossless files.  If the compression is to keep speed up, fine - give us the ability to opt for lossless files, and if we have to wait for files to write, that's OK, we'll wait.  Same with little things like continuous silent shutter.  If it's a bit slower, no problem, but at least let it be an option.  My biggest "Invalid" complaint is Eye-AF with adapted lenses.  Seems to me the intelligence that determines where that eyeball is, doesn't have anything to do with the lens - the camera determines that.  It can see a face with my Canon lenses, but it can't figure out where the eye is?  Come on

[KimBrunStudio]

I did a test with my Canon 400mm f5.6L with EFCS and Silent shutter with Remote trigger from a smartphone and cable release with my A7rII.  The EFCS was better in both scenarios than anything I had been able to accomplish to date with any combination.  However, the Silent shutter absolutely amazed me.  I have never consider this to be a "sharp" lens.  OK but not "sharp".  I was/am "Wrong".  Turns out,  years of lousy technique was to blame not the lens.  This lens is capable of incredibly sharp images.  The test shot taken was on a tripond at f8 at 1/30.  So even though Silent shutter is only "single" shot and that the RAW file is only 12 bits per channel, I am extremely happy and can not wait to put this new found toy to use.

[Aonko]

I agree the Eye AF limitation seems to be arbitrarily imposed by Sony, to get you to switch to native lenses.

[alastc]

I'm pretty sure I saw a video before the release that showed eye af with a canon lens, perhaps it wasn't reliable enough across lenses and they took it out?

 

Also, the A7S does continuous in silent mode, so maybe it is the megapixels.

[Aonko]

I would like to watch that video if you can find it.

[stevedexteruk]

Thanks for the interesting comments everyone...Yes I can see that the silent shutter - even as only single shot, will be a wonderful tool for many - eg the long lens scenario where you completely remove any shutter vibration. Yes - I was aware that it worked in continuous mode on the A7S, which was part of the reason why I assumed this would be the case with the A7R2. And the reviews I saw did not mention this important  limitation.  In fact I did consider the A7S partly for its silent shutter.

I do think  having it as single shot only is probably down to the large mega-pixel count but I wonder if Sony could have offered continuous shooting with silent/electronic shutter in the crop mode - where the camera only uses about half the sensor. That way you would only be dealing with a similar amount of data as on the crop frame camera's that are able to offer this function. I wouldn't have thought that would be a difficult thing to have built in? But I don't really know much about the electronics and engineering involved. 

Anyway, once again, thanks for the responses and I really do love this camera even though I haven't had the chance to test it out properly yet..