hi welcome to frame lines this is josh and i'm shane and yeah this is a weird one
because we're back together after 12 months we haven't really recorded a video together
because of the pandemic so in this video we're going to talk about the differences between
mirrorless and dslrs our channel sponsor mpb have been kind enough to send us a sony a7r iii
and we thought it'd be interesting to compare this with your nikon d850 yes so we're really
excited to be partnering with mpb for this video we thought we'd have kind of two similarly priced
options these cameras both came out around four years ago um picking them up used from mpb you can
save around 1500 pounds versus their original launch price they're both just packed full of
features they've got high resolution sensors loads of lens options they really hold their own against
any kind of contemporary cameras out today so we thought they'd be a great kind of option a
great comparison similar specs and really the main difference is ovf versus evf so we're going
to talk about all that in this video and to get started josh is going to talk about the nikon d850
so dslrs why am i using a dslr as my main camera system
there are a few features of dslrs that i really like there are a few slight disadvantages i guess
the main thing i love about dslrs is being able to look through the optical viewfinder
and just see straight through the lens i love the simplicity of that of course evfs
are brilliant it's nice being able to see your exposure in real time but i really just love the
overall simplicity and ease of an optical viewfinder but that's just my personal preference
the image quality from the nikon d850 has really blown me away just the amount of detail from that
high resolution sensor is just crazy there's a huge scope to be able to crop retrospectively
also the dynamic range from this sensor is 100% the closest thing i've seen to like a a film like
experience in a digital body i understand that is also the case in the kind of nikon d700 d750 the
d810 the other kind of full-frame dslr options they have available i'm just really impressed
by the image quality from this i think it is definitely like future-proofed for many years
to come even though it is an older body another great advantage of dslr systems is that they've
been around for so long there are loads of lens options you can get a cheap set of primes a zoom
lens yeah there's just so many options the nikon f mount has been around for 50 60 years there
are just hundreds of lenses you can buy used and they all work fantastically on any nikon dslr body
there are a few slight disadvantages the big one as you can probably see from me holding this is
the size and weight this sigma lens in particular is i mean it's notoriously large and heavy
combined with this big chunky nikon d850 body it is a substantial package to be carrying around
all day there have definitely been some warmer days where i have thought to myself
i really wish i didn't have this gigantic camera around my neck and i had a more compact
lightweight mirrorless option that is a bit of a trade-off i guess because i've been able
to take advantage of the cheaper lenses for example but yeah that is a slight disadvantage
for some people i guess it doesn't bother me too much except on the really warm days
the video from the d850 is okay but i have had a few slight issues with it autofocus while
shooting video seems pretty much non-existent if you're fine with manual focusing when you're
recording video then i think that's no issue at all there is also no stabilization in the body so
lots of mirrorless cameras have that as standard so that's definitely something to consider
so those are my main thoughts on the nikon d850 and dslrs in general
so over to shane to talk about mirrorless and this sony a7r iii thanks josh so i've used the sony a7r
iii when we first started frame lines i needed a workhorse camera that i could use to film videos
and also take stills and this seemed like a really good option at the time and i was really really
impressed by it i used it for a couple of months and i've taken thousands of street photos with it
and it's a camera that i recommend to people as just a great workhorse camera right now i think
it's one of the best bargains you can get in photography because it's a four year old camera
so the price has dropped considerably but the specs are still incredible so let's break it down
what's so great about this camera why do i think you should buy one how does it compare to the
nikon d850 and more modern cameras so what's so good about the a7r iii well first of all i think
image quality from this is incredible it's got a 42 megapixel cmos sensor and the image quality
is very on par with the nikon d850 and both of those sensors are at the very top tier of image
quality for any kind of full-frame digital sensor available right now the evf in this camera so when
josh was talking about the d850 he mentioned how he liked the simplified optical viewfinder
and that's something we've both talked about in previous videos and i think an optical viewfinder
is my personal preference too but there are some major benefits in having a high quality evf like
the one in the a7r iii with an evf you can see exposure you can see white balance jpeg settings
all of that as you take the photo this is immediate feedback which you can then correct
and adjust and play around with and experiment with my first real camera had an evf it was the
fujifilm xt2 and i think it helped me learn to get adjustments right in camera without guessing
so much because i could see the adjustments so i could just make them right there in the camera
and that can be a huge benefit it can save you a lot of time and i think it can even help you
to be a bit more creative with adjustments like exposure because it's not as intimidating if you
can actually see it and make the adjustments there and then so sometimes you know we're a bit hard on
evfs we've mentioned a couple of times in previous episodes how we prefer optical viewfinders but
there are some very definite bonuses to having an evf in a camera for what this camera can do i
think it's a miracle just how small the body is it's 300 grams lighter than the nikon d850 and
if you pair it with a smaller lens like the zeiss 35 f2 you've got a very small package
lenses so josh mentioned previously that one of the reasons he was drawn to the nikon d850 and the
nikon system is that the availability of lenses was huge and lenses were quite cheap and it was
really easy to get access to a quite good lens setup and i think that's a really great reason
to switch systems because sometimes the lens is even more important than the sensor behind it
and when it comes to the lens choices sony have a really great selection of lenses including some
really great lenses from zeiss like the 35 f2 and the 5518 which i have on here right now and this
was the lens that i used for the couple of months that i did street photography with this camera
and on top of that because it's a mirrorless camera that means you can adapt manual lenses
so you can in fact take all of the nikon lenses that josh had access to with the nikon d850
you can adapt them to this camera so i think with all that in mind there's no argument really this
is a really great camera and there are some cons but i think they're pretty minor like
poor ergonomics and the menu ui is pretty terrible but you can buy grips now and extensions which
make the grip a bit more usable and i think if you customize it you can get around having to dip
into the menu that much so why would you buy this instead of the newer sony a7r iv well i think this
is at a sweet spot right now where it's four years old so the price has dipped considerably when this
launched it was about three thousand pounds in the uk right now you can get one for just under two
thousand i see them going in really good condition for about 1900 pounds and for what this camera
offers i think that's a really great price so how does this compare to the nikon d850 well the image
quality from both cameras is almost identical so it comes down to your preferences you know do you
would you prefer having a smaller camera and a lighter kit would you prefer having an evf over
optical viewfinder do you want to adapt manual lenses but you want really good autofocus for
video so in summary these are both really good cameras and they're both available now for under
2000 pounds there are some very practical reasons for choosing one over the other and
it really comes down to personal preference over which you prefer so thanks for watching along and
a big thanks again to mpb for sending us the sony a7r iii to try out for this video let us know in
the comments you know what do you prefer do you prefer mirrorless or dslr maybe you've got a few
reasons that we haven't really mentioned here or maybe you'd recommend completely different
cameras entirely so yeah that's it um like and subscribe and we'll see you in the next episode