A7rII bloggers and readers reaction: Four “Hidden” cool features and a list of cons.
Sony A7RII: Interview With Sony Alpha Product Manager Kenta Honjo
Small A7rII deal teaser: I have a good news coming soon for our SAR readers. I am preparing a special A7rII discount for some of you. Stay tuned ;)
We had busy days with the Sony A7rII announcement. Now let’s cool down and read some bloggers opinions about the new camera:
Luminous Landscape writes:
In other words.. the whole nine yards. Everything but the kitchen sink. You asked for it, – you got it. Think of a cliche.
This stands in stark contrast with the rest of the industry that doles our new features slowly, an upgrade here, a tweak there, a new feature once a year or so. This is the norm for some companies… keep the development costs low, and keep selling new cameras with a bit of extra chrome and shiny wheels now and then to keep the faithful happy.
But with the A7rII, following quickly on the heals of the A7, A7r, A7s and A7II, Sony has wrapped all of the goodies (and then some) into one package. Available in August for US $3200, it isn’t even priced as outrageously as one might think a new flagship camera might.
Buyingcamera listed the negatives of the new A7rII camera on SonyAlphaForum post:
Weight on the breaking point of being too heavy
Battery (old fashioned lithium-ion, they could at least design a new 2,000mah battery in the same size case)
No true 14bit uncompressed raw (I’m sure they’d have advertised it if it existed). If bandwidth is an issue, they could give you the option of a 1FPS instead of 5FPS mode. This would be great for landscapes.
No dual card slots or the option for redundancy (even if it used the USB port to write to a separate card reader, that’d be something)
Bigger. Both cameras are uncomfortable to me (I have large hands) and I found the previous model slightly more comfortable.
Price. Sony does what it always does and it’s upsetting to know that it’ll be nearly half the price in a years time. I know digital cameras are destined to be this way but sony pricing scheme has always been more annoying than other companies.
Lenses. FE lenses are sealed, no gasket. Some zeiss lenses either have a gasket and no sealing, or sealing and no gasket. I’d rather they just had sealing and a gasket, like canon lenses.
Sealing. Sony sealing usually always sucks and I doubt this is going to be different.
Sonymirrorlesspro writes:
The a7RII has a better autofocus system than the a7II—a much better system in fact, with hundreds of more phase detection points. It’s so fast that Sony even mentioned in their press conference that the a7RII will be able to focus competitor lenses (e.g., Nikon and Canon) at native speeds.
A7r vs A7rII at CameraSize.
Mirrorlessons writes:
First of all, the native sensitivity of the camera is 100-25600 ISO but can also be extended to 102400 ISO. In video mode, the maximum is 25600. The question is: how good is the A7rII at the highest sensitivities? Because if the gap with the A7s has been reduced, the latter might not look as unique as it did a few months ago. Moreover, many users have complained about not having internal 4K recording on the A7s: you need an external recorder, which means a bigger investment. The A7rII can do everything on its own and since the HDMI output is still valid, the external recorder becomes an option for better quality (4:2:2 8bit) and is not a constraint anymore if you want 4K video.
Merlin Ulrich writes:
Soundimagesplus likes the new camera but not the marketing:
Sony get a serious rasberry for one of the most ridiculous advertising BS slogans of all time. ‘Imaging beyond our eyes’ !!! Surely one of the most ridiculous examples of meaningless ad agency speak ever committed to print. A shame since Sony have addressed most of the missing features of the A7r.
Photoclubalpha writes:
If you really think 42.4 megapixels is going to take you to realms far beyond your 36 megapixel sensor, think again. It is the same step up as from 18 megapixels to 21 megapixels, a move Canon made without absolutely transforming the images created, or about the same as from 10mp to 12mp. There’s one big difference – it does not make the jump to any larger common print or repro size. Remember going from 6 to 8? That was from sub-full-page to a decent full page resolution, for US or A-size documents at a touch under 300dpi. 24 megapixels took us to a really sharp A2, 36 megapixels takes us to a acceptable A1, and all that 42 does is to make a slightly better A1 but not 300dpi.
ePhotozine posted a short A7rII hands-on:
The camera is weather sealed, and has a newly developed shutter unit which is designed for vibration suppression, plus silent shooting, and is rated for 500,000 shutter releases! There are currently 13 FE lenses, with Sony planning on having 20 lenses available by early 2016.
More A7rII tidbits:
Evaluated: “Sony, Fix These Things and Win” aka How Does the Sony A7R II Stack Up? (Diglloyd).
A7rII full breakdown at SonyAlphaLab.
Top 7 Game Changing Features of the Sony A7RII by Ilovehatephoto.
Forget 42MP, 5 Axis IS, Silent Shutter: Why PDAF Is So Important To Mention About the Sony A7RII (Patrick Murphy).
A7Rii is actually cheaper than the A7ii (Medium).
Sony confirma que la A7R II llegará en verano por 3.500 euros (Quesabesde).
Some fun: There is really a SAR reader trying to get money to buy the A7rIi through Indiegogo (Click here). Good Luck!
Store links:
In USA:
A7rII at Amazon, BHphoto, Adorama, Uniquephoto.
RX10m2 at Amazon, BHphoto, Adorama, Uniquephoto.
RX100m4 at Amazon, BHphoto, Adorama, Uniquephoto.
In Europe at:
A7rII at Sony DE, FR, IT, ES, NL, BE, CH, AT, SE, FI, NO, PT. Wex UK.
RX100m4 at DE, FR, IT, ES, NL, BE, CH, AT, SE, FI, NO, PT. Wex UK.
RX100m2 at DE, FR, IT, ES, NL, BE, CH, AT, SE, FI, NO, PT. Wex UK.
In Asia at:
A7rII at Digitalrev, CameraPro.
RX10m2 at Digitalrev, CameraPro.
RX100m4 at Digitalrev, CameraPro.
Preorders will be available from June 17 only at 11am New York Time!!! A7rII will ship in August. The RX10m2 and the RX100m4 will be available in July. Full press coverage here at SonyAlphaRumors.