I've just bought the mk V. I haven't used it underwater as yet. (Will be thinking about a housing soon.)
As you've seen from my previous posts I agonised a bit about the purchase (It's damn expensive for a compact). From using it on land for the past couple of weeks I'm really impressed so far. I've had the mk II and this one is far better (in my opinion). Focus is fab and low light performance is great. The noise feels more like my full frame A7r than previous compacts - its that fine grain which isn't at all offensive. The RAW files seem to have tons of latitude (dynamic range?) for adjustment. One thing that has surprised me is just how good the tiny little flash is for fill light on backlit subjects. The little pop up finder works really well and I would loathe to be without one on a compact now.
Battery life isn't great particularly when you test it (I managed an hour of 1080 video in 10 min bursts) but so far with real world family stuff its OK. I'm finding with 4K with say a 32gb card I'm filling up the card as the battery runs out anyway, so it's not the disaster I anticipated. Overheating does seem to be a bit of an issue so I'm seriously considering a metal housing now. The camera got very hot on some tests but once again when using on a daily basis it seems less of an issue as I tend to shoot shortish bursts of video - generally a minute or two max. The video quality is stunning - even with its limitations its the best video camera I've owned.
The omissions from the camera like mic input etc are well documented but one thing that I think it could really do with is a filter thread - its a serious camera and cries out for filter occasionally. (I think there's some sort of adaptor available but I think you have to stick it on (!) or something.)
All in all its a great camera and even with all its foibles and irritations I think I'd be disappointed with any other compact if I had to swop it to something else (of a similar size) after now owning it for a couple of weeks.
As you've seen from my previous posts I agonised a bit about the purchase (It's damn expensive for a compact). From using it on land for the past couple of weeks I'm really impressed so far. I've had the mk II and this one is far better (in my opinion). Focus is fab and low light performance is great. The noise feels more like my full frame A7r than previous compacts - its that fine grain which isn't at all offensive. The RAW files seem to have tons of latitude (dynamic range?) for adjustment. One thing that has surprised me is just how good the tiny little flash is for fill light on backlit subjects. The little pop up finder works really well and I would loathe to be without one on a compact now.
Battery life isn't great particularly when you test it (I managed an hour of 1080 video in 10 min bursts) but so far with real world family stuff its OK. I'm finding with 4K with say a 32gb card I'm filling up the card as the battery runs out anyway, so it's not the disaster I anticipated. Overheating does seem to be a bit of an issue so I'm seriously considering a metal housing now. The camera got very hot on some tests but once again when using on a daily basis it seems less of an issue as I tend to shoot shortish bursts of video - generally a minute or two max. The video quality is stunning - even with its limitations its the best video camera I've owned.
The omissions from the camera like mic input etc are well documented but one thing that I think it could really do with is a filter thread - its a serious camera and cries out for filter occasionally. (I think there's some sort of adaptor available but I think you have to stick it on (!) or something.)
All in all its a great camera and even with all its foibles and irritations I think I'd be disappointed with any other compact if I had to swop it to something else (of a similar size) after now owning it for a couple of weeks.