Sony Z7?

LastChancey

LastChancey

Today, I'm going out with a Nairobi rap artist who is co-financing my upcoming shoot, "Pockets," to look at higher-end camera rentals to use for the music video I'm shooting for him this week. I'm also considering finding a higher-quality setup for my own project, but I'd like to experiment with shooting his first.

We're looking at the Sony Z7, hopefully with the idea of getting a prime, a zoom, and a wide angle lens.

FIRST QUESTION: Do you think the Z7 produces a good, quality image using cheap-to-rent lenses? We will be shooting on top of one of the largest skyscrapers in Nairobi on Thursday, so if the sensor/lens combinations would require lots of outdoor lighting, I'd want to steer away from that. I'll probably only have reflectors on that day.

SECOND QUESTION: How easy is the Z7 to use in terms of file capture? I have a MacBook and Final Cut, so what I usually do (with my AVCHD Handycam) involves cables, conversions (go Toast for Mac!), and I'm pretty well accustomed to that. However, if I'm renting the camera, I may not have access to it for much longer after the shoot... so I'm thinking of using a few 10GB SD cards for the shoot, and taking them home. Anyone experienced problems with this, or have a better solution?

Anyone else with good/bad experience or advice?
 
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I use the Z5, which has the same image sensors as the Z7, but with a fixed Zeiss zoom. Can't speak for other lens, but I get great results in low-light with the Z5's lens. It's so good, I typically set my low gain to -3db to reduce the noise even further. I'd get the largest aperture you can (f/1.8 or faster).

Capture from the Z7 should be the same as the Z5. It's VERY easy with FCP if shooting on tape. Plug it in via Firewire and Log and Capture. Couldn't be easier. I don't have the MRC1 SD recorder option, so I haven't tried tapeless transfer yet. However, Sony does make a plugin for FCP6+ that let's you import the files directly to FCP without any transcoding.

See this info on Sony's site.

Hope that helps.
 
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Thanks for the replies. I had a chance to try out the Z7, and was impressed by the quality of the default lenses and the versatility of the camera. I only had about 1 1/2 hours to mess around with it, but it gave me a good sense of what I can do with it. I'm glad to hear that capture is a piece of cake, since I am actually planning to shoot with tape rather than cards - in Nairobi, tape is not only much cheaper, but MUCH easier to find. The only cards you can rent out here are around 10 GB, so for efficiency, I'm opting for tape to prevent having to whip out my computer and hard drive every 20 minutes to offload from rented cards.

@Soggy - I also read some reviews that said that, and from what I could tell, there are a plethora of other great, in-depth features to take advantage of... but the basics (for me: smooth zoom and focus, accessible shutter and exposure controls) are simple and intuitive, and the camera feels great in-hand. The simple fact that I'm used to shooting with old-school SLR lenses attached to a Sony Handycam makes the Z7 a pretty damned sweet upgrade.
 
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