SAR reader John Wilhelm sent me this picture he posted on facebook happily sleeping with his new Sony A7rII toy! While the picture is certainly nicely photoshopped I am pretty sure some of the new A7rII owners will keep the camera close to their bed the first night :)

If I sound critical is this brief description it’s because $3k cameras are not allowed to make excuses  :-)

-It’s massive, I really don’t like how big these cameras have become. I knew the weight had gone up hugely too and expected that to make it feel like a dense, top quality item. It doesn’t – it merely feels just like any other good DSLR.

-Packaging/presentation is standard fare, no more premium than any of their other cameras.

-Included: 2 batteries, USB cable, strap, nicely compact 11W USB charger.

-It accepted my non-Sony battery and happily charged from all my USB battery packs as well as an iPhone wall charger while in use.

-Viewfinder: nicer than I expected though flicker is very noticable, resolution adequate but pixels visible

-Speed of operation: Responsive, some extra (but still not all) functions can be used while it’s still writing to card

-Software: Many small improvements, eg more customisation, can add copyright, zooms into AF area chosen instead of the centre every time, AutoISO limits 

-Shutter: I’m going to love silent shutter and might leave it that way perminantly: I couldn’t make any rolling shutter-like artefacts appear when I tried

-Buffer: A sometimes-limiting 21 shots (RAW+JPG), and only 44 shots/min thereafter using a 280MB/sec card. RAWs are 43.5MB each.

 

Overall – When you say “Oh my God” loudly after viewing the very first shot, you know you have something special…makes me want to go reshoot everything I’ve had success with before and more :-D

SAR reader Jonathan wanted to buy the A77II at Sony Australia. But he got the following answer: “this model is already discontinued and is no longer in production”

UPDATE: I got an official correct answer from Sony Australia saying: “The A77 II is still in production globally, however, it is no longer ranged locally in Australia.”

The A7rII Stock image from Bojan Glamocak

As reported earlier the very first Stock of A7rII cameras shipped in Europe and Asia. Check the status at:
In USA: at Amazon, BHphoto, Adorama, SonyStore US, 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.

And here is a roundup of images and info I got from our readers:

1) Davide Roveri: “Yesterday, like some other of your readers, I’ve been lucky enough it pickup my α7R II here in London! I’m going to do a evolving hands-on/review of the camera in the next few days and i thought you may be interested! If you want to have a look, here’s the link to the blog page on my website: http://www.drlapse.com/sony-α7r-ii-review/“. Here is Davides unboxing video:

2) Richard Banton sent me the link to his first Flickr image samples.

3) Gwen: “Here is the first full set of raw files from the A7rII. https://www.dropbox.com/sh/q0bkmi8s65fow0d/AAD-rSqA6krq5MCODn6UxPcua?dl=0”

4) Ed Cheong also got that special A7rII cleaning kit. It has been given as a present by Sony Singapore on a special A7rII launch event. Sadly you cannot buy that :(

Reminder: A7rII RAW support at Adobe: blogs.adobe.com/lightroomjournal/2015/07/lightroom-6-1-1-is-now-available.html.

A7rII preorder list:
In USA: at Amazon, BHphoto, Adorama, SonyStore US, 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.

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.