The year is ending and it’s time to let choose the SAR community what’s the best gear of 2016. Let’s see who gets the first place!

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Imaging Resource posted the first part of their A99II review. Of course they like the camera a lot, particularly the image quality. The only real downside is that:

Overall, the biggest issue with the A99 II’s performance is its buffer clearing performance. The occasional slowdowns in the field, such as when the camera is writing files, can be frustrating as well. It is puzzling why Sony opted not to include UHS-II support in the A99 II as it would have surely helped accelerate buffer clearing. With all that said, the A99 II still offers very impressive overall performance. Being able to capture 42-megapixel uncompressed RAW images at over 11 fps, while just shy of the advertised burst rate, is excellent.

Also the German site Photoscala. tested the camera and writes that it’s impressed by the fact that the semitransparent mirror seems to not deteriorate the image quality. For them it is as good as the A7rII and the superb A99II autofocus makes it more useable than the A7rII.

One more A99II review by Francesco Carucci.

Sony A99II preorders at BHphoto, Adorama. Amazon. PhotoPorst, Calumet Germany, Amazon UK and WexUK.

Sony A99ii outperforms Nikon D5 at high ISO

If you care about the High ISO performance of the new Sony A99II check out those new videos.

Chuck also sent me this: “Here’s some High ISO images from both the A99II and the A7RII, with a link to download the RAW files from both.
https://twotwentystudios.smugmug.com/High-ISO-Testing”

Sony A99II and A7RII High ISO Image Sampling

Sony A99ii ISO Test

Sony A99II preorders at BHphoto, Adorama. Amazon. PhotoPorst, Calumet Germany, Amazon UK and WexUK.

More A99II tests:

Sony A99II Continuous AF Testing of an oncoming model train….

Sony A99II & A7RII Cityscape Photos:

In a horrible statement the well-known US wedding magazine Brides.com said that wedding photographers should use  “either Cannon or Nikon, which are the most readily available professional cameras available”

Brides.com now removed that part but still the shitstorm is all over the web. On the video above Jason Lanier explains in crystalline simple way what’s the problem with Brides statement and interest conflict.

Personal note: In my opinion every camera manufacturer nowadays makes excellent gear. Just pick up what suites best for you. And at the end your photography talent is what really matters!

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via Petapixel

And thanks Jason for this video!

Amazon updated the shipment info on two highly requested Sony items: Both the A99II (Clich here) and the 70-200mm GM (Click here) are set to ship out in 1-2 months if you order them today. And both got reviewed by ThePhoblographer:

A99II review conclusion:

All in all, very little is really terrible about the a99 II. In fact, I’d say nothing is terrible per se. It just still sort of perplexes me. Why? I thought Sony was done with the Alpha system, but if they aren’t this makes me genuinely very excited to know that they’re going to continue with the system. Perhaps that also means both the E mount and A mount systems will receive more love accordingly.

70-200mm GM review conclusion:

The Editor’s Choice award is being given for the fact that Sony cranked this lens out pretty quickly mixed in with the fact that it’s actually a solid lens. But Sony needs to improve their AF with the mirrorless system to truly make this lens rock for photojournalists and wedding photographers.

That’s the bext gear of the year according to Dpreview:

Best compact camera: 2nd pace for the Sony Cyber-shot DSC-RX100 V ([shopcountry 54358]).
Best consumer stills/video camera of the year: Winner is the Sony Cyber-shot RX10 III ([shopcountry 54359]).
Best mid-range ILC: 2nd pace for the Sony a6300 ([shopcountry 54360]).
DPReview innovation award: 2nd pace for the Sony Cyber-shot RX100 V

SAR reader Philip sent us this:

Firmware Manual Focus Improvements That Are Easy To Implement – Sony a7II, Sony a7sII and Sony a7rII

I would like to be able to compose the shot and magnify focus at the same time. At the moment, you can only do one of those at any given time.

There are multiple ways to achieve this:

1. Create a small magnified square (like a loupe) around the point the user has selected to focus on and magnify said square when the focus ring is turned
2. Create a small magnified square (like a loupe) in the centre of the frame that magnifies the point the user has selected, this method is similar to the first except the square remains in the centre of the frame at all times
3. Split the screen into two halves and use the left half for composition and the right half for 100% magnification or vice versa

I have a few other ideas to improve the manual focus experience as well:

1. User selectable magnification amount upon the lens being turned i.e. the user no longer has to press a button after turning the focus ring, to magnify the shot further, as it can go straight to 14x magnification when the lens is turned
2. Facial recognition such that the selected focus area goes towards the subjects eye when the manual focus ring is turned and an eye is detected
3. The same focus options available to autofocus should be available to manual focus (where applicable) e.g. if the user wants to have only a few different focus areas to select from, to speed up the process of selecting a focus point, this should be available
4. The manual focus button (usually used for autofocus lenses) should act as a lock and will prevent magnification while the lens ring is turned–this would be particularly useful for video usage when the user simply wants to rely on focus peaking

Also posted on Sony Community