Is it just me or is the A7sii Stills pretty sweet?

[Mattias Burling]

Like most Ive read about 1000 comments saying "a7rii if you also want to shoot stills and a7sii for video only".
Since I mostly use medium format film for stills I couldn't care less, but ultimately went for the S because I wanted minimum moire.

But I do use Instagram and take some photos around the family and for that I could use any camera really. So I have taken a few with the a7sii.  
And I must say... wow.

I think they look stellar. I cant really put my finger on it exactly but they have an "organic feel" (lack of better word) that's very pleasing imo.

My theory is that its the low 15mega pixels on a large sensor. I guess it takes away the "digital" sharpness in the same way as the HD vs 4K thing. And also how a full sensor read often is more pleasing than a binned down sample. I see the same in the NX500 4k crop vs the NX1 6K down sample.

Here is an example compared to the D750 which has a very high megapixel. Bot are nice but I think the less sharp a7sii is nicer.

A7sii

D750

The pic above as well as the once bellow are almost straight from the camera. Standard jpegs. I might have added a vignette or so but no "Insta filters".
Im not claiming to be a good photographer or anything, but what I like is how there is tons of detail without the "digital sharpness".

On this I added some sharpening.

So anyone else seen the same thing?
Anyone have any stills to share?
(Could be my mind playing a trick on me to justify the quite hefty price on the a7sii, even though I got a 10% discount )

 

At the end of the day I think it will serve me well for most pics and when I need something "richer" I use good old Kodak

 

 

[Nikkor]

Unless you make a side by side comparison it's hard to tell from those tiny pics  Old CCD sensors with few megapixels and without olfp filter (like 22mp MF digital backs) give a very sharp image, large pixels ,sharp lenses,no pixelblur. Maybe it's something like that.

What really interests me about the a7sii is the fullwell capacity. I wonder if you could do a comparison between the d750 and the a7sii where you have a blown cloudy sky in the background and then recover it, maybe the a7sii gives some surprise.

[Mattias Burling]

(You can click for higher res.)

It gives to surprices, great DR and loads of banding

[Nikkor]

27 minutes ago, Mattias Burling said:

(You can click for higher res.)

It gives to surprices, great DR and loads of banding

When I click it takes me to a 1300pixel version.

[Mattias Burling]

That's higher than here

[Nikkor]

3 minutes ago, Mattias Burling said:

That's higher than here

But it's kind of strange to talk about the sharpness of cameras and then compare linear 1300pixel reductions from 4000-6000 pixels

[Mattias Burling]

20 minutes ago, araucaria said:

But it's kind of strange to talk about the sharpness of cameras and then compare linear 1300pixel reductions from 4000-6000 pixels

I see it. That was my question, Im I alone in doing so.
The answer seems to be yes, since at least you don't see it.
I also asked  for other users of the A7sii opinion regarding their stills. So my stills don't need to be full res for the discussion.

[agolex]

Well, the S II stills are nice, the R II ones are much better, though. :D

[Mattias Burling]

8 minutes ago, agolex said:

Well, the S II stills are nice, the R II ones are much better, though. :D

Its the word "better" that Im wondering about. If they are better in that they are sharper and more digital, it would mean that they to my eye are worse.

I've used the D800, D750, A7, A7ii alot. All with high resolution. But Im not so sure I can call them better.

Would be sweet if someone that has both the A7sii/rii could to a stills side by side.

Not of charts, couldnt care less, but of people and objects. Also with wide open lens, soft lens, etc.

Want to see the "feel" if that makes sence.

[Nikkor]

I can do some comparison shots of the D3 and D800, maybe you can see it in the D3/d700 Files too  Should I give it a shot?

[Mattias Burling]

31 minutes ago, araucaria said:

I can do some comparison shots of the D3 and D800, maybe you can see it in the D3/d700 Files too  Should I give it a shot?

I guess that should show if its the few but large pixels on a full frame that gives the look. So if its not to much trouble...

[agolex]

Didn't get the focus and framing identical, but here goes. :p It's just that with the R I often notice the better resolution, especially at night with long exposures. But it's hard to really pick what's better, there's always the variance of settings/framing and shit involved, as well. In the examples I just shot I found the colors of the S better, it picked the White Balance differently, as well (readjusted that for the R in Lightroom). All in all, I don't know, I'd rather not spend too much time with stuff like this, because there's so much variables involved and I like both cameras. For stills I usually go with the R, just because of the better AF and the plus in resolution and for video I prefer the S for full frame 4K and for lower light scenarios, because it's always so clean.

Image 1 + 2 f8 (both 1600 ISO, 1/160, standard, no PP, matched WB), first a7sii, second a7rii.

Image 3 + 4 f1.8 (both 1/160, standard, no PP, matched WB), first a7sii 125 ISO, second a7rii 100 ISO. Lens: Zeiss 55 1.8, S uncompressed raw, R compressed raw (should have matched that but forgot). Edit: Tried both uncompressed and compressed and there's no visible difference.

 

[agolex]

On my calibrated LG 99 % AdobeRGB screen the S colors actually look more accurate (before the jpeg fuckup). Nothing major, though. And apparently WB values work differently between the cameras, because in the screengrab below I didn't match the WB and it's more similar.

 

[Mattias Burling]

Great, thanks.

On the images 1 and 2 the difference that is somewhat explaining what I saw for in example my pick of the Nx500 on the slider.
In image 2 there is a grainy/noisy texture on his legs and arms where as it on image 1 is smooth.

EDIT: I asked a graphic designer, a copy writer and a fellow producer to have a look. We watched full size.
I asked them to ignore WB and composition and focus on which camera they wanted to own.

Image 1 won.

Now what that survey shows.... is of course absolutely nothing.

[agolex]

7 minutes ago, Mattias Burling said:

Great, thanks.

On the images 1 and 2 the difference that is somewhat explaining what I saw for in example my pick of the Nx500 on the slider.
In image 2 there is a grainy/noisy texture on his this where as it on image 1 is smooth.

Yw. Can't see anything of the sort on either the jpegs or the raws. I can send you the raws if you'd like me to, just don't want to post Dropbox links in public. You might wanna work on that sentence, though, as I'm not sure if I understood correctly. :D

[Mattias Burling]

3 minutes ago, agolex said:

Yw. Can't see anything of the sort on either the jpegs or the raws. I can send you the raws if you'd like me to, just don't want to post Dropbox links in public. You might wanna work on that sentence, though, as I'm not sure if I understood correctly. :D

What I ment was: Image 1 = Smooth. Image 2 = Noise

[agolex]

Ah, rechecked and I think I see what you mean now. On Vader the noise patterns are different. Thing is that the focus is different as well. I'll do it again with better matched focus. And of course the S is supposed to be better in lower light, it's 1600 ISO after all.

[Nikkor]

Upload is taking forever, what I can see is that the d800 are much sharper (just open one D3 file in Photoshop, then drag and drop the d800 on top with matched WB)

[Mattias Burling]

9 minutes ago, agolex said:

Ah, rechecked and I think I see what you mean now. On Vader the noise patterns are different. Thing is that the focus is different as well. I'll do it again with better matched focus. And of course the S is supposed to be better in lower light, it's 1600 ISO after all.

Could also be as simple as wider DR beeing more "real" to my brains interpretation of the image.

In the same way high DR have been voted sharper than high resolution in focus groups. Thats why TV stations here are more into bit depth and DR than 4K.

[agolex]

Focus not 100 % identical again, but it should do. Shot at f4 and 500 ISO to be fair to the R. I don't really see a difference noise-wise.