Sony A99II 4k Video Sample (Toyota iM)

[rdouthit]

I haven't had a chance to film a proper test, but here's a short clip showing a variety of settings as I rushed to get B-roll on this car done before it was too dark.
Contains various shots from the A99II using full-frame and Super35 modes (you may not be able to tell the difference -- which is good), ISO from 800 to 2500. Some shots with stabilization on. Focusing all done manually. You can see over-eager video stabilization by the camera at 0:18 as I quickly move the camera to the hand pushing the button. 

Lenses Used:
Sony Zeiss 24mm f/2
Sony Zeiss 50mm f/1.4
Sony Zeiss 135mm f/1.8

 

 

 

[Shield3]

I think the big downside to that and all SLT cameras is the "stuck at F/3.5 in AF mode" issue.  You've proven you can work around it, and man does it look better than the original a99 I had (which looked "VHS-like").  Shot well and nice use of the slider or panning in post.  Not sure most cameras today with a large (s35 or larger) couldn't have done this however, and I know based on the cost of the body and those 3 lenses you probably had $6k in just camera/body gear.

[webrunner5]

So was it all OOC, with nothing applied, in Post? Looked damn clean, and damn sterile.  But that is a good thing if you are doing say a ...Car Commercial. But you can make sterile grungy a hell of a lot easier than the other way around!

I guess it is hard to beat for a all around camera. Probably not on my Radar though unless I had a bag full of A lenses laying around.

[rdouthit]

13 hours ago, webrunner5 said:

So was it all OOC, with nothing applied, in Post? Looked damn clean, and damn sterile.  But that is a good thing if you are doing say a ...Car Commercial. But you can make sterile grungy a hell of a lot easier than the other way around!

Correct. Zero post. That was straight from camera. If I wanted to get some more analog looks I could always shoot in Slog3. 

Quote

I guess it is hard to beat for a all around camera. Probably not on my Radar though unless I had a bag full of A lenses laying around.

The A lenses are still the best hybrid glass for the Sony FS7 imho, (which is my primary camera) since they have such great manual focus rings. And with AF they're good for stills work too. 

19 hours ago, Shield3 said:

I think the big downside to that and all SLT cameras is the "stuck at F/3.5 in AF mode" issue.  You've proven you can work around it, and man does it look better than the original a99 I had (which looked "VHS-like").  Shot well and nice use of the slider or panning in post.  Not sure most cameras today with a large (s35 or larger) couldn't have done this however, and I know based on the cost of the body and those 3 lenses you probably had $6k in just camera/body gear.

I just recently shot this in Spain with the A7S. So yeah, you're completely right. (Do your best to not look for the rolling shutter in this one.)

I don't think there's a better high-megapixel, clean 4k hybrid camera than the A99II right now. (Giving it a tip of the hat since the A7RII doesn't have Slog3 and it's batteries are way too small.)

[Dustin]

Well that looks pretty good to me! I certainly like the look and I feel like the overcast conditions actually aide with the look/color of the car here.

---EDIT---

After re-reading the specs on BH that looks like a pretty impressive camera for the specs! Besides A-Mount what are the cons of this camera again? No 10 Bit out/raw? How is the rolling shutter/aliasing?

[rdouthit]

8 minutes ago, Dustin said:

Well that looks pretty good to me! I certainly like the look and I feel like the overcast conditions actually aide with the look/color of the car here.

---EDIT---

After re-reading the specs on BH that looks like a pretty impressive camera for the specs! Besides A-Mount what are the cons of this camera again? No 10 Bit out/raw? How is the rolling shutter/aliasing?

If you're a slacker and use auto-focus, it's stuck at f/3.5 when in that mode. It also overheats more often than I like when shooting 4k 100mb/s. For "mission critical" time where getting the shot trumps all else, and I'm not sure how long I'll have to roll, I can turn it down to 60mb/s and it removes that issue. 

Oh, added bonus, the multi-function shoe supports dual-channel wireless mics directly into the camera without cables. 

It's basically an A7RII with different mount, better weather sealing, better grip (for me), longer batteries, Slog3 and more programmable buttons on the body.

[webrunner5]

Hard to believe a full sized DSLR body overheats. Pretty crazy. Other than that, looks nice.

[Shield3]

32 minutes ago, rdouthit said:

If you're a slacker and use auto-focus, it's stuck at f/3.5 when in that mode. It also overheats more often than I like when shooting 4k 100mb/s. For "mission critical" time where getting the shot trumps all else, and I'm not sure how long I'll have to roll, I can turn it down to 60mb/s and it removes that issue. 

Oh, added bonus, the multi-function shoe supports dual-channel wireless mics directly into the camera without cables. 

It's basically an A7RII with different mount, better weather sealing, better grip (for me), longer batteries, Slog3 and more programmable buttons on the body.

Well using AF in video mode isn't for slackers; sometimes you just need to.  Especially if you want to shoot things that move.  I might want to be at F/8...or F/1.4.  Don't know if it's changed, but the biggest problem is you can't even "PUSH" focus in Manual exposure mode - you have to toggle back to the damn Program Auto settings (i.e.F/3.5).  Even the 5d3 that wouldn't AF in video really at all I could "Push AF" to my actual "in use" exposure settings and begin rolling.  It's a problem, period.  With my A99 I I had the 24/2 lens and was able to put a piece of tape and hold the aperture wide open - it would AF all day in live view / video mode.  It's a self-imposed limitation that makes this one, for me, simply out of the question.

Not everyone is shooting controlled shots with their gear.  People rock back and forth with interviews, and you can forget tracking a bride down the aisle unless you're sure you want F/3.5.  P mode AF only SUCKETH, period.  But 11 FPS @ 42MP is pretty damn impressive.

9 minutes ago, webrunner5 said:

Hard to believe a full sized DSLR body overheats. Pretty crazy. Other than that, looks nice.

Yeah it's a disgrace that it overheats.  Just unacceptable.

[rdouthit]

6 minutes ago, Shield3 said:

Don't know if it's changed, but the biggest problem is you can't even "PUSH" focus in Manual exposure mode - you have to toggle back to the damn Program Auto settings (i.e.F/3.5).  Even the 5d3 that wouldn't AF in video really at all I could "Push AF" to my actual "in use" exposure settings and begin rolling.  It's a problem, period. 

I agree it's a problem. But it's not a problem for me. I shoot action sports all the time with MF, no problem. In fact, smoke from rally cars and drift quite often messes up AF tracking. That's why I initially had to learn the "hard way." Outside of the Canon 1DXM2 (we use as a second camera on a show I DP for on the Motor Trend Channel), I have yet to see any useful implementation of AF that I would bank on... and even with the Canon it messes up more often than I would like. 

 

[Shield3]

Watching that Subaru video makes me very angry.  Angry because the a99 ver 1 looked about 1/1000th as good in video mode.  This camera looks spectacular, and Sony pissed me off with the version 1's video.  Still bitter 5 years later.  I am going to knock my a6500 off the end table now.  Oh wait, I won't, it'll break and I'll have to wait a month for Precision Camera to fix it. 

3 minutes ago, rdouthit said:

I agree it's a problem. But it's not a problem for me. I shoot action sports all the time with MF, no problem. In fact, smoke from rally cars and drift quite often messes up AF tracking. That's why I initially had to learn the "hard way." Outside of the Canon 1DXM2 (we use as a second camera on a show I DP for on the Motor Trend Channel), I have yet to see any useful implementation of AF that I would bank on... and even with the Canon it messes up more often than I would like. 

 

C100 Mk2 gets it pretty good - I assigned a button to quickly toggle AF on and off - I can track my son's baseball players running down the first base line and it'll track all the way.  Of course there is, of course, no perfect camera, and I am limited to that damn center box for AF.  The 1dxII I thought was worse in AF mode - but it could have been the extra anchor point of the EVF stuck on my face vs. holding the camera (1dxII) at arm's length.

[rdouthit]

4 minutes ago, Shield3 said:

Watching that Subaru video makes me very angry.  Angry because the a99 ver 1 looked about 1/1000th as good in video mode.  This camera looks spectacular, and Sony pissed me off with the version 1's video.  Still bitter 5 years later.  I am going to knock my a6500 off the end table now.  Oh wait, I won't, it'll break and I'll have to wait a month for Precision Camera to fix it. 

Give some credit to the light in Granada versus one hour before sunset in Connecticut. Spain can be quite lovely. (Also, there is some minor color work done on the Subaru vid.) I had intended on selling my A7S... but man, it's just such a good camera. The cover shot for the Subaru video was done with the Sony/Zeiss A-Mount 135mm f/1.8... by far my favorite lens anywhere. 

[Shield3]

Just now, rdouthit said:

Give some credit to the light in Granada versus one hour before sunset in Connecticut. Spain can be quite lovely. I had intended on selling my A7S... but man, it's just such a good camera. 

Not to argue with myself, but IMO that looks better than the a7s footage I shot.  You ever really look at a99 original footage?  It's the softest pile of horseshit ever.

[rdouthit]

1 minute ago, Shield3 said:

Not to argue with myself, but IMO that looks better than the a7s footage I shot.  You ever really look at a99 original footage?  It's the softest pile of horseshit ever.

I did. Tested the A99 and the VG900 at a Sony Store when they came out. Both were so clearly behind the curve it was painful.

[Shield3]

That VG900 was a sales disaster IIRC.  When released there were no FF E-Mount (FE) lenses, so it had to be shot in crop mode with native glass.  Or you could use the LA-EA3 (MF only) or the LA-EA4 which would AF your A-mount glass, but limited the AF points and stuck at F/3.5 (as usual).  Had Sony made that a 12 MP sensor with a 4k readout with 1080p oversampling it'd have sold in droves.  It tried to be too many things -  a 24MP E-Mount camera and a FF video camera.

Does the a99 II have the silent shutter mode a la the A7x series?

Also there is no better camera (for stills) IMO from an ergonomic perspective than the Sony a77/a99 series.  Just perfect in that regard.

[jonpais]

I admire anybody who can shoot automobiles. I worked for a photo studio after finishing college, and those car shoots were demanding as hell, grueling hours, and we were shooting stills. 

[Shield3]

2 minutes ago, jonpais said:

I admire anybody who can shoot automobiles. I worked for a photo studio after finishing college, and those car shoots were demanding as hell, grueling hours, and we were shooting stills. 

Wedding videos are still worse. 

[webrunner5]

8 hours ago, Shield3 said:

Not to argue with myself, but IMO that looks better than the a7s footage I shot.  You ever really look at a99 original footage?  It's the softest pile of horseshit ever.

LMAO!

[tomekk]

On 02/03/2017 at 4:49 PM, webrunner5 said:

Hard to believe a full sized DSLR body overheats. Pretty crazy. Other than that, looks nice.

Maybe it just shows Sony isn't at all superior to much hated Canon and there is logic behind what Canon does? With current technology you get either reliability or features it seems. Small CPU intensive codec = overheating, beefy old one, crop = reliability. 

[webrunner5]

3 hours ago, tomekk said:

Maybe it just shows Sony isn't at all superior to much hated Canon and there is logic behind what Canon does? With current technology you get either reliability or features it seems. Small CPU intensive codec = overheating, beefy old one, crop = reliability. 

Oh don't get me started about Canon. They only do shit because they HAVE to, not because it would be nice for us to have. And they are only updating every 3 or 4 years like Nikon does. Well technology is changing way fast than that to sit on your ass and wait for everyone to piss a bitch before you add that to you New, 2 year late product.

I have owned a lot of Canon top end stuff, they have great lenses. But they have sucked hind tit in the last 6 to 8 years. It is not until the 80D came out that they entered the real world with DR low light ability. I have to admit the DPAF is a great thing they came up with, but if you are looking to be on the edge of technology Canon ain't the company you want to be with.

[tomekk]

Calm down, just asking ;). Sony is doing what it's doing because they have to in order to compete, not because they're nice to us. Even then it's worse quality for better features so they're not ahead in all aspects of the game, yet.