A7C 1 year review – Is it worth it? – Photography, videography or both?

I’ve been using the a7c for over six months 
now i’ve learned what works and what doesn’t  
so i thought i’d make a video about it 
because i think it’s quite interesting  
especially if you’re thinking of upgrading 
or switching across from the a7 iii
now i’ve owned the a7iii since it first came out 
early in 2018 and i’m actually filming on it now  
and when the a7c came out last year in 2020 i 
was wondering what it would be like compared to  
the a7 3. now if you’re a video shooter there is 
a massive advantage with it over the a7 3 and i’ll  
talk about that a bit later in the video there’s 
no denying that the a7c is a great little camera  
and if you’re used to using the a73 it feels 
quite similar not so much in the size of it  
but how it shoots and how it feels i do have a 
few annoyances with it as well as a few pleasant  
surprises now a lot of people were saying that 
this has been designed for videography only but  
it is a great stills camera as well it takes 24 
megapixel images this gives them a resolution  
of six thousand by four thousand and i’ve

been 
comfortable in taking it out and leaving the a7  
iii at home the main upgrade compared with the 
a7 3 is the focusing system it follows the basic  
principles of the a7 3 but then the live focus 
tracking is so sticky that it just doesn’t want to  
come unstuck from the thing that you selected and 
the focusing is surprisingly good when you do this  
so you touch something on the screen on the back 
and it’ll pretty much track it wherever it goes as  
long as it stays in your frame and sometimes i’ve 
had a few things that have come out of the frame  
then they come back in the frame that focusing 
system just locks back on it exactly where i  
touched it it doesn’t happen all the time but it 
happens every now and then and i absolutely love  
this focusing system it works both in photography 
and videography and this really is a game changer  
i can’t wait for the a74 to come out as i’m pretty 
sure it will have that on it as well and with any  
luck it’ll be an even better version in that newer 
camera now i was surprised that they missed that  
third dial just below the shutter button here but 
i haven’t actually missed it as much as i thought  
i would i shoot in aperture priority or shutter 
priority a lot of the time and so i only really  
change the aperture or shutter speed depending on 
which i’m prioritizing and then i change iso so  
this wasn’t too much of a problem the only time it 
was annoying was when shooting in manual mode but  
i did get used to this after a while now the flip 
out screen has its pros and cons and there’s a lot  
of you that love it but there’s also a lot of you 
that hate it but it’s amazing how nice that old  
tilt screen actually is now i actually like both 
systems i like the flip out screen for shooting  
in that low position or the high up position but 
i also like the old screen that just tilts out  
because of the compactness of that screen now as 
for that one card slot this doesn’t bother me too  
much either i’ve never had a card fail on me in 
camera kind of dutch word i actually did a poll  
on this a while back and out of almost 900 of you 
81 have never had a card fail at all and i know  
a lot of you have been shooting for quite a while 
and i do have a confession to make i only ever use  
one of the two card slots in the a7 iii 99 of the 
time i shoot on so many shoots as well i’ve not  
had one card fail either now i’m sure there are 
of those of you that have had a card fail and that  
would absolutely suck and if this had happened to 
me i probably would think differently about this  
camera now for the things that annoy me a little 
bit more some of these seem to have been made to  
make it a more budget-friendly option compared 
to the a7 iii but some seem like an intentional  
crippling of the camera to make it a little bit 
more different to the a73 than it really has to be  
now the first one is a little bit unavoidable but 
you can’t really use an l bracket with this if you  
are using it for photography because the l bracket 
go along the bottom and up the side and that would  
get in the way of this flippy screen i’ve done a 
video on this in the past and there is a way of  
pulling out or sliding it forward slightly but 
the small rig one that i had really got in the  
way and it was a compromise with either not being 
able to use the flippy screen or not being able to  
get at your sd cards or the other ports so it was 
pretty useless and i actually threw it away now  
onto that evf this is absolutely rubbish as soon 
as you’re out and about and trying to use it in a  
real world environment it absolutely sucks and i 
don’t actually use it when i’m shooting with the  
a7c anymore i just use the monitor on the back and 
i crank it up to its brightest level if the sun’s  
out but the evf might as well be removed as it’s 
just taking up space now with the shutter it is  
a different mechanism than the a7 iii and it only 
goes up to a maximum speed of one four thousandth  
of a second instead of one eight thousandth of 
a second in the a7 iii it doesn’t sound much but  
it’s a stop of light and when you’re shooting 
in the midday sun or it’s really bright and  
you want the shallow depth of field look it feels 
limiting a couple of times out on the street i’ve  
had the aperture at f 1.8 the iso at 100 and 
the shutter speed at 1 4 000 of a second and  
it’s been a little bit overexposed so more speed 
would have helped but thinking about it if you  
have picture profiles turned off you can drop the 
iso to 50 which gives you back that stop of light  
now if you use a flash with this camera the sync 
speed is a lot lower than the a7 iii in the a7 iii  
it’s 1 250th of a second whereas in the a7c it’s 
at 1 160th of a second now this isn’t too much of  
a problem if you have a flash with high-speed sync 
but if you’re trying to control the ambient light  
and the flashlight this could cause a problem and 
you could get that ambient light creeping into  
your shot now with the lack of those customizable 
buttons this was quite annoying and could have  
been avoided especially when you see how many are 
on the a6600 just a few more on this camera would  
have come in really handy another big annoyance 
for me was the lack of a multi-port in this little  
flap down here i’ve got a usbc the hdmi and a 
headphone port but no multi-port so this means i  
can no longer use any of my remote wired triggers 
with it i ended up getting this bluetooth trigger  
which is also a tripod i did actually want just 
the remote but every single shot that i went to  
seemed to be sold out of it but it was another 
thing i had to buy even though i’ve already got  
remotes for it now for those of you that shoot a 
lot of video the one thing i have found to be a  
huge advantage and one reason why i would get this 
over the a7 iii is that stabilization data that  
can be used in catalyst brows to get gimbal-like 
shots without a gimbal i’ve been using this a lot  
and all of the b-roll shots in my first street 
photography video were stabilized with this even  
though my wife was just using the camera with the 
bluetooth handle that i’ve just shown you and not  
worrying too much about keeping the camera stable 
i just stabilized it with that gyro data that  
staved in those files and it did a surprisingly 
good job now i just wish the guys over adobe  
would start to incorporate this into premiere 
pro as an option instead of warp stabilizer this  
would really make it a game changer instead of 
having to round trip to catalyst browse and back  
now apart from these few issues i really like 
the camera it is a bit smaller and i keep it  
in this handy cage which kind of protects it i 
haven’t dropped it yet but if i was to drop it  
this would protect those corners it kind of beeps 
it up as well i’ve got quite big hands and on this  
bottom bit i can kind of catch my little finger 
there it does make it feel like a nicer a better  
sized camera for my hands as for changing it if 
you have the a7 ii or the original a7 it would  
definitely be worth an upgrade to this camera if 
you’re a photographer and already have the a7 3  
stick with the a7iii but if you’re a videographer 
i’d say it’s a really good option to give you  
a better focusing system that flippy screen 
and that stabilization now what do you think  
are you waiting for the a74 are you happy with 
your a7iii or you upgrading from a completely  
different camera let me know in the comments below 
it’ll be great to hear your thoughts and if you  
want to see that b-roll from this camera click 
on this video next and if you haven’t already be  
sure to subscribe for weekly videos and tutorials 
in everything photography i’ll see you next time