 I've got a new camera. Let's check it out. My name is David Patton. When I started photography, I wanted to make art. But with bills to pay and a family to feed, I decided it would be better to be a working photographer than a starving artist. So I took a job as a photojournalist. 25 years and thousands of assignments later, it was time to go back to my first love. Come along as I follow my passion trying to create art that shows the essence of nature in a photograph. I'll be sharing my successes and my failures in hopes to inspire and educate. This is my journey. This is Riding the Edge. Today I'm trying out a new to me camera. This is the Sony A7R II. Now this camera came to me as a donation, as a gift. It was gifted to me by a generous woman named Louise. And I'm going to take this out. It's got a 28-70mm variable aperture lens. Very small, compact. And over a period of a few days, maybe even more, I'm going to exclusively use just this camera and lens. I really see this as a handy walk-around setup. Kind of a general-purpose lens. It's super small. From what I can tell from what I've heard and what I've read, it sounds to be a very capable camera. So I'm going to have to figure out how to use it. And I'm taking you along. Well, the light's not that great today. So I'm not expecting a whole lot. I know that sounds negative. That's why I'm going to need more than one day to get an idea what this camera can do. But you've got to start somewhere. And I'm just itching to take this camera out. So I really don't care that the light is really harsh right now. We're going to try to make some photos. I'd rather test out a camera with these kind of conditions anyway if things are really cool and kicking off. I wouldn't want to... Someone's using a saw over there. I wouldn't want to take out a new camera. Especially when I've never actually used. If you're familiar with my channel, my photography, you know that I use Nikon or Nikon. Everyone wants to see it. Cameras. And I have pretty much my whole professional career. Never really felt the need to try other brands. The big part of that time, my gear was provided. So, you know, why buy something different than you're using at work. Never considered using a Sony camera. Although what I'm shooting this video with in most of my videos is on a Sony action camera. So it's not that I haven't had to experience with Sony. Just not in a camera like this. Another first for me is I've never... I know it's going to sound kind of weird, but I've never used a mirrorless camera. What I'm most interested in is how well the sensor does. How well does it convert to black and white? Am I going to be able to get the images I want taking this camera out? I feel like I'm playing with the light. It's kind of filtering through the trees. And because it's kind of on an angle, I'm getting some beautiful texture in these leaves. The veins are really brought out by the light kind of scraping across the top of me. Something that's made this combination so appealing to me is I've been thinking about trying to use my bike as a way to get out on days that I don't have a car or just want to get some exercise. I need the fitness. And since I've lived where I am here, I've not really ridden my bikes. I've got a couple of them. I used to ride quite a bit. So I've been thinking I should probably try to incorporate bikes back into my life, if not just for the fitness. I thought, well, while I'm at it, maybe I should take along a camera. And Louise was so generous to donate this camera. I thought, well, that's perfect. I've worked perfectly for that kind of activity. And even just walking around like this, I see this as being quite a valuable tool, no matter what brand it is. I just need to learn how to use it. It's a different language. Every brand has a different menu system, different ways to get the most out of the camera. Whereas on my OVF cameras, I'm almost always manual focus. I'm finding that on this, I think I'll probably use it mostly in autofocus. And it works pretty well. So that's not really a big deal. It's just an adjustment that I have to make. No matter what you do when you switch cameras or even brands, there is going to be an adjustment, a learning curve. I have a feeling that learning curve is going to be pretty steep for me. Because I'm switching brands, and it's also mirrorless. But it's also exciting. It's a lot of fun. I still have on my Nikon gear, so it's, you know, we're not here to see if this is going to replace my Nikon gear. It possibly could in the future, but what we're here to do is just see how I can incorporate this lens and camera into my photography now. And I'm also not reviewing this camera. I mean, this camera's been out for a while and there's plenty of people that do that. This is just me trying to learn something new. And why not make a video while you're doing it, you know? I'm really surprised by how close this lens focuses. Quite a bonus, actually. It's not a macro lens, but I'm getting some pretty close-up shots with this lens. Now how I've got this camera set up is I've turned off all noise production. I've turned off steady shot. It's just the barret bones. I don't want to be influenced by any of that. I actually don't have any that turned on on my other cameras. I want to see what this lens is capable of. I want to see what this camera's capable of without any of these aids. Plus there's a bit of a breeze, so having steady shot, turned on really isn't that beneficial. The subject you can most likely be moving if I'm doing close-ups. Spring is in full swing here in the Pacific Northwest. Finally, got lots of new growth. I'm enjoying it. Gives me a lot of new subjects to make images of along my pathway that I like to walk on. Oh, I like the looks of this new growth right here. Maybe I'll make a photo. It's kind of dark in here, so I'm shooting this at 3,200, and I even went up to 6,400. I figured out, well, I need to see what it can do at higher ISOs. Probably... the aperture's probably around f8, f8, f10, f11, something that range. I'm trying to separate it from the background, but f11, when you're close, there's a background quite a bit, surprisingly. I'm just looking for separation. The background's pretty dark, and it's quite a distance away. You can see it moving around, so I'm at a shutter speed around 2.50 of a second. Well, I've made a few compositions. What I think I'm going to do is take these home, get them on the computer, and kind of study them. See if there's anything I should be changing or doing different. I think I've been doing something a little different. I think I've got enough to kind of study so I can have a better idea what I should be doing next time I go out. We've got a lot more work to do with this. This is just step one. So I've had a chance to look at a few of the shots I made the other day on the computer, and you've seen them as well. YouTube's not going to show all that much information. I'm just going to get a general idea of what I got. But by looking at these images on the computer, I have to say I'm pretty impressed with the quality of the files. They edit really really well on my editing program. I use Affinity Photo, but these files looked really good. Something else I was impressed with was I didn't expect this lens to form as well as it has so far. It's kind of hard for me to get my head around this little zoom lens that's 28 to 70 is fairly slow lens, but yet I'm getting decent close-ups, nice sharp images, all in this little package. I'm so impressed with the size of this camera. It's being a full-frame camera. It's the same size as my crop sensor cameras on my Nikon. Right now I'm photographing this dogwood bloom. It's really at the end of its life, I guess. It's not going to be here much longer. There's a lot of discoloration and stuff. But in black and white that might actually add something a little more toothy image. It doesn't really matter. I'm just trying to get a few shots this morning to kind of support the ideas I'm developing in my head about this camera. Nora and I are at the lake. We're in the middle of a heat wave. It was 90-something yesterday. So that probably is going to make springtime blooms like this. That looks so good. I was trying to get over far enough that as you can see, I'm shooting this looks like an old stump that was growing in the top of this rock. And I was trying to get some kind of contrast. Where the light is, it's just shining flat on it. Front light is pretty boring. But when I get further over this way, this cracks show some let me see it. These cracks begin to show some detail, some contrast because of the shadows in the cracks. And I'm using that to kind of take your eye up to a little piece of wood on top. I don't know if that's a good photograph, but maybe a different light. I'll have to come back here. Maybe if the light was at a different angle, either earlier in the morning or maybe from this direction. Because from this angle the light's pretty flat. But I do like the way that rock and stump come together. It's pretty cool. Every time I walk by this bunch of grasses, I think there's got to be a photograph here. I've tried to like isolate just a section of it and just kind of get this chaos, this mass of lines going different directions. Something abstract. I know this is probably not that exciting of a video series topic. I don't talk good that much, but this is my journey. This is my photography journey. So introducing something new into my way of making photos that's part of my journey. And taking something out of my equipment is also part of my journey. I've got decisions to make now. What Louise has done is and I don't think she's I know she wasn't her purpose. She's given me a pathway into another system. Already having a camera body in a lens. I could add another lens to this or a couple lenses. And I could cover quite a few focal lengths in just another zoom lens. And I could use just this camera. It does everything that my other stuff does. Now if I was going to go mirrorless with my Nikon gear, I don't have anything to sell. So basically I'll have to save up a lot of money and then go slowly into the mirrorless. If I went with Sony I have equipment I can sell to go into Sony's mirrorless. It's actually the most straightforward pathway from now for me to go to a mirrorless system if I want to go that way. So I think I'm going to head back to the car. I'm going to get these last couple compositions. There's just a couple on here from this morning. I'll get those on the computer and see what I got. And as I've said earlier, I've got a lot of thinking to do on how I'm going to use this camera. Is it what roles are going to fit with my photography. I've already decided it's very good camera. It's images I think are, if I don't get a good image it's not because I was using this camera. It changes hard for someone like me. I was telling my wife if I was going to sell my Nikon gear and go 100% Sony it'll be the last time I change camera gear at my age. So I want to make sure that that's what I want to do. If you like coming along on my photography journey and would like to help keep me out making photos and videos consider picking up one of my zines. Or visit my PayPal donation page at my website Most of all don't forget to like and subscribe. And why not leave a comment introducing yourself. I'm always interested in who stopped by my channel to say hello. So until next time thanks for coming along for the ride.