A7RII as a B Camera with A7SII

[manraj]

Hi All,

 

Currently in dilemma and need advice from your experience.

 

Recently sold my canon gears (5dmiii etc.) and switched to Sony for videos.

I am an occasional photographer (20%) and will be using a6300 for that.

 

Currently, I own an a7sii for my videos and want to buy another camera (B) for videos.

Since I have given away my 5dmiii, I was thinking of buying a second camera which is equally good or little bit good in photography as well (though I have a6300 for photographs but that is not full frame camera)

 

So the question is should I go for

1.       A7sii to keep the video things simple not good with photographs

2.       A7RII with video quality close to a7sii but a very decent photography camera

 

Please advise

[aldolega]

I would most definitely go for the a7RII. And probably sell off your a6300 as it won't give you anything the SII or RII don't have.

FYI, at lowish ISOs the RII's video quality is overall just as good as the SII's, better in some ways (s35 mode is suuuper sharp, better than the SII's 4K, 1080p is a bit sharper and has less rolling shutter) and worse in others (FF 4K mode is binned so a little softer and can moire).

[manraj]

Thanks, Aldolega,

But please advise at s35 , won't I compromise on the focal length?

What if I stick to 1080p at FF on A7RII, is the quality is fine?

How bad is A7Sii with photographs? I know we need more than 12mp for large prints.

 

[jonpais]

@aldolega I admire you, because I can't make heads or tails of the OP's questions.

[EthanAlexander]

1 hour ago, manraj said:

Thanks, Aldolega,

But please advise at s35 , won't I compromise on the focal length?

What if I stick to 1080p at FF on A7RII, is the quality is fine?

How bad is A7Sii with photographs? I know we need more than 12mp for large prints.

 

You can work around the S35 crop factor by using a speed booster on the A7RII when you're shooting video and you'll get super detailed 4K with only a 1.07 crop factor. When you switch to stills, use a regular adaptor to get the full frame 42MP stills.

The A7SII has lovely stills, but like you said, you want more than 12MP. Plus, if you ever get any native E mount lenses, you can use the nice phase detection autofocus on the A7RII if you ever need it. 

And, yeah, like @aldolega said, if you go this route there's no point holding on to the a6300. Sell it to pay for the speedbooster

[aldolega]

It's not a "compromise", it's another, useful, option to have. s35 is actually the standard for film/cinema production, not full-frame. All of your favorite movies were shot on s35 or even smaller sensors/film.

The RII's FF 4K mode being softer than the s35 mode's 4K is never going to be noticeable if you're not delivering at 4K. If you're finishing/viewing at 1080p it is a perfectly viable option that will give you superb 1080p after being downscaled.

The SII is great for photos if you don't need super fast autofocus, or high resolution. The RII gives you great AF with native lenses, decent AF with adapted Canon-mount lenses, and of course way more megapixels than most people ever need.

 

[Trek of Joy]

To the OP, I would sell the a6300 get the R2 over another S2. Stills are much, much better at 42mp, and AF will be better in all but the darkest situations. Noise, DR and detail are better on the R2 compared to the a6300 when shooting stills. Heck, even in crop mode you still have 18mp images, giving you better IQ than any S2 image. I've always felt 24mp is enough, but when looking at the incredible detail 42mp resolves and the flexibility to crop or correct perspective with UWA lenses in post, I'm fast becoming a resolution junkie.

Video-wise, the R2 4k is awesome in s35 mode, its softer in FF and much noisier when you get above 1600. I wouldn't use FF in anything but good light. Unless you need an ultrawide FOV, you aren't losing anything shooting the R2 in s35 mode, and in fact its a little more detailed IMO than the S2 because its an oversampled image. And since you have the S2, you still have an amazing FF 4k image.

Then there's the small things, you can set them up with the same custom button settings and Fn menus so moving between cameras is easy. I've gotten to the point where I hate using different cameras together simply because of the muscle memory involved with finding/adjusting settings. With the R2/S2 you have two very different cameras that can be setup to mirror each other, unlike shooting with many other brands.