In Stock status: The A7rII is in Stock at Amazon, BHphoto, Adorama, and Digitalrev!

This is probably the most “philosophical” A7rII review to date. Dearsusans claims that “While my informal and brief testing can’t let me conclude that anything in the quantity department is any better than before (resolution, dynamic range …) quality is a quantum leap ahead in the A7rII.”

And with Quality they mean theA7rII images have a much improved “aesthetics” suggesting that Sony completely changed the way images get produced:

It seems that, through the combination of slightly lower contrast, better white balance and something else…colours show better differentiation. Without being more saturated, they feel bolder and more balanced. Photographs, even when pushed hard, don’t get that slightly cartoonish look that happened on occasion with the previous camera.
Black and White photos: What I’m seeing is not only more clarity, notably in the shadows, but also better, smoother tonality. Even with contrast pushed significantly read way too much, as above ? ), photographs remain rich and smooth. This was not always the case with the A7r which could sometimes become grainy and harsh.

They have done what only film manufacturers bothered to do before them. They have crafted a look.

A7rII (left) vs A7r (right): “Colours and tones are more differentiated, the photo seems brighter and more lively. Resolution is also slightly better and holds sharpening better, too.”

A7rII preorder list:
In USA: at Amazon, BHphoto, Adorama, FocusCamera, Uniquephoto.
In Europe at Sony DE, UK, FR, IT, ES, NL, BE, CH, AT, SE, FI, NO, PT. Wex UK.
In Asia at Digitalrev, CameraPro.

A7rII case:
Gariz leather case in [shoplink 39113 ebay]Black (Click here)[/shoplink], [shoplink 39108 ebay]Camel (Click here)[/shoplink], [shoplink 39110 ebay]Orange (Click here)[/shoplink], [shoplink 39111 ebay]Brown (Click here)[/shoplink] and [shoplink 39112 ebay]Red (Click here)[/shoplink]. Also available on Amazon US (Click here).
Gariz Alcantara case in [shoplink 39094 ebay]Black (Click here)[/shoplink] and [shoplink 39095 ebay]Red (Click here)[/shoplink]. Also available on Amazon US (Click here).
Lim’s case in [shoplink 39107 ebay]Black (Click here)[/shoplink], [shoplink 39102 ebay]Brown (Click here)[/shoplink], [shoplink 39103 ebay]Red (Click here)[/shoplink], [shoplink 39104 ebay]Yellow (Click here)[/shoplink], [shoplink 39105 ebay]Navy Blue (Click here)[/shoplink] and [shoplink 39106 ebay]Khaki (Click here)[/shoplink]. Also available on Amazon US (Click here).

Image courtesy: Gregwatermann.com.

Zeiss Ambassador Greg Watermann sent me this:

I recently tested the new Batis lenses shooting actress Kassandra Kanaar in Hollywood. You can see the photos she approved here: http://www.gregwatermann.com/clients/KKanaar_2015/. All pics were shot handheld and wide open on an a7R. Zeiss made a behind the scenes of our shoot: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azRl6i06BD4. And you can see more info at the bottom of this page: zeiss.com. The optical performance was exceptional. Beautiful skin texture, obviously sharp, no chromatic aberration, and wonderful to focus manually. The Image Stabilization is amazing and the lenses are perfectly balanced on the camera. All images shot handheld and wide open.

There is also a full 85mm Batis review at Admiringlight:

The lens is simply spectacularly sharp, and starts that crazy sharpness right from f/1.8.  Wide open shots display exceptional clarity and gorgeous background blur while providing a flattering contrast profile for portraits.  I simply love the look of the images from this lens. It’s an absolutely top-tier optic and one that I’m already saving my pennies to purchase for myself.

Batis store links:
Zeiss Batis 85mm f/1.8 lens in US at Adorama, Bhphoto. In Eu at Amazon DE, WexUK. In Asia at Digitalrev.
Zeiss Batis 25mm f/2.0 lens at Adorama, Bhphoto. In EU at Amazon DE, WexUK. In Asia at Digitalrev.

While the 55mm FE lens is the best autofocus lens ever tested I noticed on the DxO interactive graph that the new 90mm FE G lens is actually the sharpest lens in their database. Even sharper than the $4,000 Zeiss Otus lens line!

This also means I changed my mind and I will go for the FE 90mm macro and not for the Batis :)

90mm links:
In USA at Amazon, Adorama, BHphoto, [shoplink 37938 ebay]eBay US (Click here)[/shoplink].
In Europe at [shoplink 37991 ebay]Fotomundus[/shoplink], Amazon Germany, Sony Germany, Sony UK, Sony FR, Sony IT, Sony ES, Sony NL, Sony BE, Sony AT, Sony CH, Sony SE, Sony FI, Sony NO, Sony PT.
In Asia at Digitalrev, Sony Australia.

P.S.: Sony FE 90mm f/2.8 Macro OSS G Lens Review by SonyAlphaLab on Youtube.

New 24mm XEEN on the new Sony A7rII (Image courtesy: DSLRmagazine)

As you know recently Samyang/Rokinon launched the new XEEN Cine lens line. Those lenses are much cheaper than other current Cine lenses from Zeiss and Schneider. Full specs and preorder are available at BHphoto:
Rokinon Xeen 24mm T1.5 Lens (Click here).
Rokinon Xeen 50mm T1.5 Lens (Click here).
Rokinon Xeen 85mm T1.5 Lens (Click here).

DSLRmagazine (google translation here) tested the lenses on the A7rII and added an interesting note. He got informed by Samyang that those lenses are not only superb for 4K recording but they are also 6K ready if Sony or other camera manufacturer will launch those kind of cameras in the near future.

Newsshooter tested those lenses on the Sony A7rII to see if they can come close to the Zeiss-Schneider quality:

In the test the XEEN lens appeared to be warmer than the Sony or Zeiss. In 4K the XEEN also appeared to be the sharpest of the three. The Sony had a nice image and bokeh was quite pleasant, but there was a slightly strange rendition of the light on the phone. To my eye the Zeiss did look more cinematic, but you may have a different opinion. The Zeiss was also the only lens to exhibit obvious lens flares.

XEEN 85mm T1.5 vs ZEISS CP.2 85mm T1.5 vs Sony CineAlta 85mm T2.0 with Sony a7R II. Ungraded

There is also a first impression review at BH Explora (Click here):

I found the Rokinon XEEN Cine Lenses to be well made, easy to work with, and overall I enjoyed the image quality. They rendered naturalistic images with good contrast and a pleasing, slightly warm feel. Intercutting between the lenses required no additional color correction beyond applying the same LUT to the footage. It is my preference to shoot more closed down than wide open, and I did feel the lenses performed best starting around T4, but I was still satisfied with footage shot at T1.5. Overall, I was pleased with the XEEN lenses and look forward to working with them again.

Full specs and preorder are available at BHphoto:
Rokinon Xeen 24mm T1.5 Lens (Click here).
Rokinon Xeen 50mm T1.5 Lens (Click here).
Rokinon Xeen 85mm T1.5 Lens (Click here).

A7r (not new A7rII) vs D810 RAW comparison by Photographylife

Dpreview analyzed Sony’s 11-7 bit RAW compression to see if there are any issues with those files:

Overall, the effects of this compression aren’t often visually significant. Their impact should mostly be understood as a reduction in processing latitude, since it tends only to be when you push and pull the Raw files that the missing data becomes visible. The compression curve throws away more shadow data than would be ideal: reducing dynamic range. There’s a further reduction if you shoot in a mode that drops the camera into 12-bit readout mode. Meanwhile, the localized compression of tonal differences only has an impact near high-contrast edges.

I am 100% sure Sony will fix this on future cameras. There is simply too much talk about it to avoid the problem. I just hope it’s really possible to add “real 14 RAW” via firmware update on the current cameras. Hopefully Sony is not using some kind of unavoidable hardware compression on our cameras…

More articles about that matter at Diglloyd, Photographylife, Kasson.