Sony a7RII Hands-on Review: Four Big Surprises!

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Dan Chung on NewsShooter posted his first Sony a7RII mirrorless camera hands-on review. He found four big surpises when testing the new a7RII. The only downside of Sony a7RII camera so far is the a7R II eats batteries when set for 4K video.

From Dan Chung:

So how is the image? In short what I saw looked surprisingly good. The S35 4K image really is free of any obvious errors – fine detail was incredibly well resolved and there was virtually no evidence of aliasing and moire at base ISO. S-Log2 is available for internal and external recording, along with a range of standard and cine profiles.

The second big surprise is that the full-frame 4K mode also looks remarkably good. The 4K full-frame output of the a7R II is really excellent. There are some traces of aliasing visible on lines of high contrast, but you really have to look for them.

Low light performance was the third big surprise. The camera acquits itself very well even at 6400 ISO. Noise is present but the image was still usable. What surprised me is that the a7R II 4K S35 image was less noisy than the a7S APS-C 4K image (which I believe is upscaled to 4K internally from 2.7K). I can only assume that the new BSI rear sensor illumination technology of the a7R II sensor is making this possible.

The fourth big surprise came when I panned the camera from side to side looking for evidence of rolling shutter. In 4K S35 mode the camera had obvious rolling shutter which looked similar to what I am used to with the a7S. It may be slightly better but without proper measurement tools it is impossible to say.

Dan Chung also tested the PDAF on a7R II for video when using Sony A-mount lenses & Canon EF lenses and adapters, it seems not as good as in still mode:

I attached several Canon lenses via a Metabones Smart Adapter IV only to discover that the continuous AF simply didn’t work and the only way to make it focus was to semi-press the shutter button. The speed and accuracy of this autofocus was nothing like the performance in stills mode and had a tendency to hunt.

Read full review at NewsShooter.com

Read More: Sony Alpha Rumors

Store links:
In USA:
Sony a7RII: $3,198 at Amazon, BHphoto, Adorama.

Sony RX10 II: $1,298 at Amazon, BHphoto, Adorama.

Sony RX100 IV: $948 at Amazon, BHphoto, Adorama.

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