Sony A7R II Review - Part 1 - Summoning the devil

[Andrew Reid]

In part 1 of the Sony A7R II review we will look at the A7R II not as a consumer camera but as a professional cinema camera.

The benchmark for this camera is going to be the Canon 1D C.

Read the full article

[Goose]

Good honest review Andrew - thanks.  looking forward to part 2.  Interested to know if the heat issue could be mitigated by swapping batteries or using an external power source.  

[Luke Mason]

Please do a colour rendering comparison like you did with 1D C and NX1, thanks1

[OliKMIA]

Great Review. Thanks Andrew for being one of the few truly impartial reviewer on internet. I couldn't care less about other advertorials review and article found on many website. They are a nothing compared to your unbiased work. Cheers

[jlev23]

Thank you for quickly publishing this honest review, it's obviously much of a relief for us canon users that we dont have to go out and buy a whole new system. i was seriously considering it when i saw that beautiful sony power zoom with IS in another review… now we have to just wait for canon to put out a lens like that or a 1dc/5d1V with a nice evf and id be happy!

one question about the 1dc, ive read all the reviews and one thing still confuses me, so are these are the video options; 4k full frame, 4k 35mm crop or 1080 full frame or 1080mm 35 crop? and if those all are available which is the most recommended?

thanks again!

[etidona]

Thank you Andrew for one of the best articles I've seen so far about the a7rii! 

I think you are underestimating the heat issues that makes this camera useless as "the one camera to do the job".  Your voice can push Sony to be more honest about telling what their products can actually do and not do. Canon is slow but at least is sincere about the hardware limitations involved in 4k internal recording.

[Nicholas Natteau]

Thanks very much for this great review Andrew. I made the biggest mistake of my life when I sold my 1DC last year and I've been regretting it ever since. I never had overheating issues with it and the color it produced was stellar right out of the gate. I'll wait a month or two to see what Canon has to offer in terms of 4K in the DSLR range and may well end up going back to the 1DC. I was hoping for an improved codec that would give the same wonderful skin tones but at less than 500 Mbps. But if that's what it takes, I'll just have to buy more CF cards. 

Ever since, I've had terrible trouble getting good skin tones out of my A7s (even with LUTs). If I had the choice now to shoot a talking head interview, I would always choose with the 1DC over the A7s just for the skin tone aspect alone, for all the reasons you mentioned. 

[Xavier Plagaro Mussard]

Nice honest review as always!!!

[The Chris]

The A7RII is a powerhouse, but like all cameras its not without faults. Looking forward to comparisons with the other cameras mentioned in the article.

[Liam]

one question about the 1dc, ive read all the reviews and one thing still confuses me, so are these are the video options; 4k full frame, 4k 35mm crop or 1080 full frame or 1080mm 35 crop? and if those all are available which is the most recommended?

1080p full frame, 4k 1.3x crop (between full frame and super35), 1080p super35 crop are the options. they're all decent, maybe super35 is better than full frame, but the 4k is easily the best

[cls105]

I just sold my a7s.

I'm skipping this one and waiting for the a7sII.

[jlev23]

1080p full frame, 4k 1.3x crop (between full frame and super35), 1080p super35 crop are the options. they're all decent, maybe super35 is better than full frame, but the 4k is easily the best

oh great, thank you for the clarification, so there is no full frame 4k, it all makes sense now!

oh, except for formats, mpeg?mjpeg? h264? whats going on with these?

[OzNimbus]

Skin tones looked great on this!   Was it any easier to grade than the a7s in SLOG?

[Oliver Daniel]

I always enjoy a review with a sense of humour. 

You do have to respect Canon for actually making products that always work. That's why they are slow. They are not a joke like some people make out. (although it is a joke you don't get basic video features like peaking on a 1DC. That's just a very silly joke indeed!)

[Husah]

What an incoherent rambling, constantly comparing  (even ergonomics) to much larger and heavier 1DC, which would be much larger even by DSLR standard, let alone mirrorless standard where small size is important. 

Really pretty silly rambling. 

[3dit0r]

Andrew,

Thanks for the review.

When you mention overheating after 30mins/45mins, are you talking about continuous shooting?

If I were to use this camera it would be in a single camera drama setting where each take would usually only last a minute or so, on average, if that - would you experience the same overheating issues if the camera were only used for short takes like that with breaks in between?

Also, does gradual overheating cause any sensor noise issues?

Thanks.

[austinchimp]

Thanks very much for this great review Andrew. I made the biggest mistake of my life when I sold my 1DC last year and I've been regretting it ever since. I never had overheating issues with it and the color it produced was stellar right out of the gate. I'll wait a month or two to see what Canon has to offer in terms of 4K in the DSLR range and may well end up going back to the 1DC. I was hoping for an improved codec that would give the same wonderful skin tones but at less than 500 Mbps. But if that's what it takes, I'll just have to buy more CF cards. 

Ever since, I've had terrible trouble getting good skin tones out of my A7s (even with LUTs). If I had the choice now to shoot a talking head interview, I would always choose with the 1DC over the A7s just for the skin tone aspect alone, for all the reasons you mentioned. 

As someone who recently bought a 1DC purely for the time it saves me in grading skin, I'm seeing some real improvement so far in the samples from the A7RII over my A7s.

One of the footage samples from the A7rII even had a custom profile of cine 4 and S-Gamut and ungraded the footage looked great. You'd never get good looking footage out of the A7s with S-gamut without some significant grading.

I wonder if we'll get any confirmation if they've tweaked the colour science, or if it's to do with the different sensor.

[maxmizer]

Nice review and agree in full, the price is still high, because there are good offers to 3000 Euros for FS700 ...the color is bad (less than A7S which is horrible), and too hot

[Sekhar]

I always enjoy a review with a sense of humour. 

You do have to respect Canon for actually making products that always work. That's why they are slow. They are not a joke like some people make out. (although it is a joke you don't get basic video features like peaking on a 1DC. That's just a very silly joke indeed!)

The sad part is nobody seems to be truly objective anymore, you can spin things any way you want. Canon (especially the hallowed, beyond-any-reproach-of-any-kind 1Dc) can have any number of flaws, but you can always take refuge with two words: "color science" (whatever that is). And be sure to ignore what you can do in post, it don't matter. Kind of like the $8K Leica M Monochrom buyer ignoring all objective comparisons and calling it worth the price because it's just "magical" (whatever that is).

And it's not just with cameras. Last night we had a Republican debates with 10 candidates, want to know who the winner was? Any of them, depends on who you ask. Heck, we don't know anything for sure anymore, from if there is a multiverse to if OJ was guilty to if a7RII or NX1 can render color as well as 1Dc. Reminds me of what Jack Nicholsen tells Diane Keaton in Something's Gotta Give: "I've never lied to you. I've always told you some version of the truth."

[AndersM]

Does anyone happen to have the A7R II and the SMAD-P3 wireless RX adapter? If so do you know if it is possible to use this adapter with the 3.5mm input as channel 2? 

I don't expect it to be possible since it hasn't with any of the previous cameras. It would be super nice though since it would make a really compact two ch. setup.

 

Thanks!