I haven't noticed any shutter vibration issues when using the camera on a tripod with the 35mm f/2.8 Sony lens, but I sure did with the 70-400mm zoom (shot via the alpha to e-mount adapter). I returned the zoom.
I wonder if an image stabilized lens like the forthcoming 70-200mm f/4 Sony-E-mount IS lens would mitigate the vibration issue or not.
It amazes me that Sony would put such technological creativity and skill into a key product and not test some basic factors, like, hey Sony, how about shooting with a long lens at various shutter speeds and then looking at the results carefully?
The shutter of the A7r is different from that of the A7 and that would seem to be a reason to focus some testing attention on the shutter, including the effects of vibration. I wonder if they did do this and either didn’t test carefully or even worse, that they thought the results (of a long lens shot at speeds near 1/125) were acceptable. Then again, how about the pro photographers doing the beta testing on camera prototypes?
Come to think of it, I wonder if Sony has been asked by any of the news media (camera magazines and other) camera reviewers why the shutter is different on the two cameras and what the relative advantages and disadvantages might be. Well, I’m sure many companies wouldn’t speak to disadvantages, but surely someone has tried to ask the question. Perhaps no useful answer were forthcoming.
With slightly long lenses - those that don’t require a tripod foot, perhaps using my old Pentax 6x7 shutter vibration mitigation technique might help in some of the time. It only worked with a tripod and was not totally consistent, but it did make a significant difference. For shutter speeds from 1/4 to 1/60 of a second (the biggest problem area). I used to use mirror lock up and then put both hands on top of the camera body and push down with steady pressure, and using a finger on my right hand push the shutter button. After the exposure was over I would then release the pressure. It’s not really a good solution however, and I hope that Sony comes up with a firmware change that will reduce or eliminate the issue.
I am suffering a little bit of buyer’s remorse because of this issue, and it is compounded (although to a minor extent) by the possibility that the raw files are cooked via compression (or factors that results in various minor artifacts, such as circular bands of color shifts that can be sometimes seen when cranking up the contrast and saturation to a very large non-practical degree). I’ve personally seen a little bit of these artifacts however I haven’t found them to be of any significance at all (yet, at any rate). But, if the files are truly lossy compressed, then what on earth was Sony thinking? The a7r is a 36mp camera, without an anti-aliasing filter, with contrast detection focus only (therefore moderate to slow focus speed only should be expected; surely this is not meant to be a camera for sports shooting), therefore the main objective of the camera would be to obtain the highest image quality possible, right? And therefore, while a high frame rates would be nice, it shouldn't get in the way of allowing the highest image quality to be obtained. So, then why bother compressing the raw files?
This stuff just makes no sense.
As I write this I am getting myself more and more ticked, and probably losing perspective. But, combined with the fact that, as good and wonderfully functional as the EVF is, I much prefer looking through a good optical viewfinder of a DSLR, and I have the urge to tank the Sony and go back to a full frame DSLR. But if I switch back then there’s the problem with having to deal with large and heavy lenses that are difficult to manually focus accurately, having to fine tune the micro focus of each AF lens; the lousy live view of the Nikon D800E, or the lower resolution and poorer dynamic range of the Canons. Hey, it’s no wonder more and more people are using just camera phones. No spending mega bucks and toting separate cameras around, no worries about exact focus or depth of field, sharpness optional, general image quality an esoteric subject, speed of shooting not important, no complicated processing of files, no prints to be made, no nothing :-)