Jerome Marot
Well-known member
The second version of the high-pixel count Sony A7 series was presented in summer 2015. It replaced and improved the A7R. It has recently been superseded by the A7RIII. Sony enjoys predictable camera names, apparently. You probably already read the reviews of the A7RII at the time, so I will concentrate on some aspects that do not always appear in the web reviews.
The camera stayed quite expensive for most of its life. Sony, apparently, is able to control the price for their high-end line to maximise profit. Since I was in no hurry, I simply waited till the price dropped, as it did for the A7R near the end of its life.
The A7R is a great camera: small, high resolution, full frame, electronic viewfinder, but the following A7RII improvements were essential for my needs:
-in body stabilisation
-on-sensor phase AF
-silent shooting
-much improved video
It also improved resolution a bit (It does not make much difference in practice) and bumped continuous shooting speed to 5 fps (I don’t need that). The new version is also a bit heavier and minimally bigger.
Frankly, from the specifications alone, I could not dream a better camera. It has all I need from a digital camera. Of course, other people have other needs. For example sports photographer may benefit from the blazing speed of the A9, but I never need that kind of speed.
Why did I feel that the 4 improvements above are essential?
I have come to appreciate in body stabilisation in the Sony A900. Compared to optical stabilisation it is faster. Optical stabilisation, at least in the Nikon D800 I have tried, needs a fraction of a second to stabilise, if you simply raise the camera to your eye and shoot, the picture may be unsharp. You need to raise the camera, press the trigger half-way, wait a fraction of a second and then shoot. I found that distracting.
In body stabilisation works on f/1.4 lenses. That gives me an enormous advantage at night, even in the era of absurdly high iso values.
Stabilisation of any kind is necessary if you do not want to use a tripod with the absurdly high resolution of these cameras, even at day. The tests I have made with the D800 showed that, without stabilisation and hand-held, pictures are rarely perfectly sharp. It is minimal, but it shows. If one really want to benefit from the high resolution: tripod or stabilisation are necessary. Tripods are heavy and cumbersome.
On sensor phase AF is essential if one wants to use lenses not designed for contrast AF. I tried with some of the lenses I had for the Sony A900 and they focus instantly on the A7RII. On a camera with contrast AF only, they take 1-2 seconds to focus, which is unusable.
On sensor phase AF is essential if one wants to use third party lenses, for example Canon mount lenses. In the end, however, I found that I did not do that, I’ll explain why in the section about lenses.
Silent shooting is very useful. I cannot count the occasions were the noise of the A900 prevented me from taking pictures in concerts. For portraits, it is not about people not knowing that you photograph them, it is about them not realising the moment that the picture is taken and change their expression. With the A7RII, you have the choice: sometimes you want the camera to make a noise and sometimes not. You can chose. This is very useful for me.
Much improved video was nice to have. The A7RII is actually a very competent 4K camcorder.
There are a few unexpected bonuses of the A7RII that I discovered during use:
-you can charge the battery in camera with USB. I only need to pack one charger, one with 6 USB outputs, and can charge everything I packed (cell phone, tablet…) with spare outputs for my wife or kids on one power outlet only. Hotels rarely have several spare power outlets. I also found that I never used the spare battery if I charged the camera overnight, so battery life is adequate for my needs.
-the back screen has a setting which makes it readable in bright sunlight.
-the new series of lenses is fantastic (more about these on the section about lenses)
There are a few functions which may be useful but which I have not tried yet:
-the A7RII can connect via wifi
-you can install apps (very few apps from Sony are of any use, but apparently hackers have found a way to write their own apps, so maybe that will change)
-the flash shoe also supports video accessories like better microphone systems (there is a built-in mic mini-jack).
The A7RII has also quite a few frustrating points, which I will detail in a next post.
The camera stayed quite expensive for most of its life. Sony, apparently, is able to control the price for their high-end line to maximise profit. Since I was in no hurry, I simply waited till the price dropped, as it did for the A7R near the end of its life.
The A7R is a great camera: small, high resolution, full frame, electronic viewfinder, but the following A7RII improvements were essential for my needs:
-in body stabilisation
-on-sensor phase AF
-silent shooting
-much improved video
It also improved resolution a bit (It does not make much difference in practice) and bumped continuous shooting speed to 5 fps (I don’t need that). The new version is also a bit heavier and minimally bigger.
Frankly, from the specifications alone, I could not dream a better camera. It has all I need from a digital camera. Of course, other people have other needs. For example sports photographer may benefit from the blazing speed of the A9, but I never need that kind of speed.
Why did I feel that the 4 improvements above are essential?
I have come to appreciate in body stabilisation in the Sony A900. Compared to optical stabilisation it is faster. Optical stabilisation, at least in the Nikon D800 I have tried, needs a fraction of a second to stabilise, if you simply raise the camera to your eye and shoot, the picture may be unsharp. You need to raise the camera, press the trigger half-way, wait a fraction of a second and then shoot. I found that distracting.
In body stabilisation works on f/1.4 lenses. That gives me an enormous advantage at night, even in the era of absurdly high iso values.
Stabilisation of any kind is necessary if you do not want to use a tripod with the absurdly high resolution of these cameras, even at day. The tests I have made with the D800 showed that, without stabilisation and hand-held, pictures are rarely perfectly sharp. It is minimal, but it shows. If one really want to benefit from the high resolution: tripod or stabilisation are necessary. Tripods are heavy and cumbersome.
On sensor phase AF is essential if one wants to use lenses not designed for contrast AF. I tried with some of the lenses I had for the Sony A900 and they focus instantly on the A7RII. On a camera with contrast AF only, they take 1-2 seconds to focus, which is unusable.
On sensor phase AF is essential if one wants to use third party lenses, for example Canon mount lenses. In the end, however, I found that I did not do that, I’ll explain why in the section about lenses.
Silent shooting is very useful. I cannot count the occasions were the noise of the A900 prevented me from taking pictures in concerts. For portraits, it is not about people not knowing that you photograph them, it is about them not realising the moment that the picture is taken and change their expression. With the A7RII, you have the choice: sometimes you want the camera to make a noise and sometimes not. You can chose. This is very useful for me.
Much improved video was nice to have. The A7RII is actually a very competent 4K camcorder.
There are a few unexpected bonuses of the A7RII that I discovered during use:
-you can charge the battery in camera with USB. I only need to pack one charger, one with 6 USB outputs, and can charge everything I packed (cell phone, tablet…) with spare outputs for my wife or kids on one power outlet only. Hotels rarely have several spare power outlets. I also found that I never used the spare battery if I charged the camera overnight, so battery life is adequate for my needs.
-the back screen has a setting which makes it readable in bright sunlight.
-the new series of lenses is fantastic (more about these on the section about lenses)
There are a few functions which may be useful but which I have not tried yet:
-the A7RII can connect via wifi
-you can install apps (very few apps from Sony are of any use, but apparently hackers have found a way to write their own apps, so maybe that will change)
-the flash shoe also supports video accessories like better microphone systems (there is a built-in mic mini-jack).
The A7RII has also quite a few frustrating points, which I will detail in a next post.