When photographing small birds you frequently need to crop in to the equivalent of an 800mm field of view or so when using a shorter lens. You can crop the file in post but this means that you are filling up the memory cards and computer hard disk with large RAW files that contain lots of redundant information. Also, the subject appears small in the viewfinder before taking the shot making it harder to identify.
This also applies in general when using all prime lenses where the subject is frequently not framed exactly as required so time is wasted in post-processing cropping the image. It would be nice to be able to get it right 1st time in the camera.
One obvious option is to use APS-C S35 Crop Mode. However, depending on the lens and shooting situation, 1.5x is often too much of a crop.
My request is for Sony to add one or more new crop modes to enable cropping to 1.25x and 1.5x OR 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 1.4 and 1.5x. You would then customise a button which would then cycle through the crop modes: 1.0x > 1.25x > 1.5x > 1.0x OR 1.0x > 1.1x > 1.2x > 1.3 x> 1.4x > 1.5x > 1.0x instead of just toggling between 1.0x and 1.5x (APS-C). The image would appear cropped in the viewfinder AND the RAW file would also be cropped reducing the file size.
Alternatively assign the crop modes to the front control wheel to enable rapid scrolling through them whilst they are visible in real time in the viewfinder.
This gives 4 advantages:
- For bird and wildlife photography zoom in/out is enabled (even when using a prime lens such as the new 600mm f/6.3). You can already do this with the APSC S35 crop mode but 1.5x is not always appropriate.
- You can immediately see in the viewfinder how you want to frame your subject to get it just right.
- Time is saved in post-processing.
- There is a significant reduction in RAW file size for the cropped files as redundant information is discarded from the outset.
The A7R VI has a fantastic new high resolution sensor so it is common sense to have a digital zoom facility on it that also crops the RAW files.
