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.
82 Responses
For the cleaning case design, I wish they just put an embossed metallic orange alpha logo on the bottom right corner, it will look much more classy and premium~
This is great, but ordinary owners’ posts preceding professional reviews? Something very wrong with Sony’s marketing here.
Maybe Sony should rush and send more review units to professionals to get better samples over the internet, with those amateur stuff around will only feed the trolls.
looking at those raw files of iso 25600, considering the ambient light, my rough guess is the high iso performance is slightly better than d810a (channel and high iso tuned ver of d810), despite the usual trend that sony’s camera usually performs slightly worse than nikon’s using the same sensor. the sensor technology really helped a lot here.
Seems like the BSI is working~
if somebody find new reviews or tests, please post them here!
umm :
“Just got the A7 this morning and i have been doing a few quick auto focus tests with the Canon 24-70 F4
First test was with the commlite outside just with single point focus set and it performed really well very quick there was just a very small lag when going from close to far focus, the performance was far better than the sony FE 24-70 on my A7R and it seemed as fast as my nikon d750 with a variety of lenses on.Now i tried it inside with a dimly lit room, the performance went way down lots of hunting and at times you could hear the lens motor ticking away making small changes back and forth not so good.Turning the lights up a bit in the room and it was able to lock focus but again there was a fair bit of hunting.Also the commlite suffered from reflections if the was a strong light source from above like a light.
I then tried the Metabones Mark III outside very fast even a hair quicker than the commlite it felt as quick as the D750 to be honest.Trying it inside and it was definitely better than the commlite it was able to lock focus better although at times it still hunted trying to lock yet other times you could move it around the room at it would lock instantly so from an early quick test indoors i would have to say the auto focus is a bit inconsistent but very usable just after that i tried my A7r with the 24-70 FE and it was about the same in the same dimly lit room.Also the reflection problem isn’t as bad as on the commlite.
Ill have to check to see if i am able to update the firmware on the metabones see if that improves things any, the mark iv version would probably be better still.
Over all very impressed the 24-70 works very well i mainly shoot landscape so auto focus speed isn’t that important to me.”
From the earlier videos on Canon focusing it looked as tho the A7rII focusing would struggle in medium to low light. Its quite a feat that they could get a Canon lens to focus with a Sony camera but I’d wait a generation or two before getting the adapter, I prefer to avoid the earlier adopter problems.
What’s in the cleaning kit? I’d be interested to know what Sony is recommending for sensor cleaning… I tried a Lenspen sensor pen on my a7ii and was worried that it was putting too much pressure on the IBIS mechanism.
Another Sony problem. I am at 6000+ shots on Nikon D810 and haven’t had to clean the sensor once.
I have 14,000 on my A7II and have shot hundreds of hours of video, the sensor is spotless. Idiot.
Please help yourself out~ cheers
6000 frames?!?…So about 3 days worth of actual shooting…Big deal……
There are a series of videos that the Angry Photographer did on cleaning your sensor, he is using a Nikon but it would essentially be the same thing for a Sony. I had some dust on my Sony A7II sensor but I was able to get it off with just a blower, there are some 1 time use Lens wipes that can be used to clean the sensor when a blower is not enough.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vlTblaQzcvU
“he is using a Nikon but it would essentially be the same thing for a Sony.”
I wouldn’t be so sure. The Nikon is fixed sensor, the Sony is not. Olympus especially said that instead of regular sensor cleaning methods, it has to be taken to a service center. Luckily, my OMD’s sensor is still clean after ~15000 shots, frequent lens changes and visiting many countries from the arctic to the tropics.
A rocket blower should take care of 95% of problems. I can’t imagine they do anything more than a standard wet clean at the service centre.
Yea I noticed some dust on a few shots with my A7II like 2 or 3 weeks ago, I got one of the blowers (I think it was the rocket blower) and it cleared it right up. I was nervous to try to lens wipes but that was going to be my next option if the blower didn’t take care of it.
I’ve invested in an Arctic Butterfly, which shouldn’t put much pressure on the sensor when cleaning anything stubborn. I’d be very cautious about using a lens wipe on the sensor though…
At the moment I’m using an Arctic Butterfly for anything that’s too stubborn for my rocket blower. The lenspen got a bit scary when I saw the sensor moving…
I use to care, until I took one of my older DSLR sony’s apart. I beat the ever loving crap out of that sensor and no scratches. Now I just blow in there and reach in with a shirt no problem. 5 years and counting- no issues.
The official cleaning jig part # J6082663A, I have it somewhere but had no chance to use it so far 🙂 The service manual also recommends the old school jig # J6082635A with the cleaning cloth # J6082636A and EE3310 liquid (made by Olympus) for the “tough” spots. Everything except of the liquid can be purchased from Sony parts, the liquid – eBay.
Never knew there was an official jig… Do you think it’s worth picking up or are old skool method likely to be as effective?
I got it “just in case”, never had to use it, the big giotto blower usually is all I need 🙂 but every Sony service manual I saw (nex 5, a7r, a7s) mentioned the jig. The jig itself is a small piece of sticky gel on a stick to pickup dirt from the sensor, quite pricey for what it is, I paid $128 as far as I remember.
Ouch – I think I’ll stick with the Arctic Butterfly and sacrificing chickens to the God of Clean Sensors…
Like X-Mas!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :)))
Hi, does it have any slow motion video mode?
Just train your cat to move slowly
Still 11+7 bit. Sony isn’t serious about 14 bit but they are serious about misrepresenting their cameras.
Sorry sir but this is not the forum for you. STFU.
Ding Dong the Troll is dead~ =D
your info is a really old hat. besides: it’s something you can complain about but no one really cares about.
Still waiting for a RAW file that supposedly shows an issue. Every time I ask… you all run home to momma…hahaha
Actually RAW files from my PhaseOne IQ160 (60mpix) are only around 50mb – never heard anyone complaining about those.
If the camera had a Sony on the front then the same trolls would be here every day complaining about that or some other superfluous issue. Envy drives people to do stupid things and repeatedly.
Lossy compression and low light autofocus are my concerns. We shall see.
The bridge shot from Richard Banton is blurry on far right side… not even corners… shot at f10 at 16mm from FE16-35. It shouldn’t be blurry at f10 and 16mm.
Thanks for the shot Richard. Opens at 120mb on my computer.
What I find creepy is that most customers don’t seem to mind.
Welcome to the new era of ‘Fanboy Marketing.’
My thoughts exactly. I’m not placing an order until at least one well respected review with some kind of objective IQ analysis surfaces.
me too. And it will take a while until a well done review is made.
Anyway, I don’t want to use “review” and “a7RII” as first. you can do more wrong than right. 🙂
They are just taking their time. This isn’t a 1 year product… it will be a market icon for at least 3.
While some of us were busy opening a7rii boxes, Canon just anounced a very compact 4million iso ilc ff Camera , 2.26mp to sell foe $30,000.
It shoots hd video and can shoot low noise color video at nite.
As usual Canon claims high dynamic range, but the seem to have a different definition than Sony.
To get acceptable dynamic range from Canon sensors Canon instructs users to underexpose by 2 f stops, then use some sort of special shadow recovery program in lightroom.
I will pass on that.
To think that the best Canon sensor in the moment lies on a mirrorless body.
Umm yeah no one really cares about that camera considering its $30,000 and probably not for you average consumer.
What is interesting is that all the Canon blogs are posting articles about ” dynamic range is not important” and how to underexpose your photos and perform shadow recovery on your computer. Sounds desperate to me.
What if I want that camera but only want to shoot picture of my black cat at night ?
It’s clearly not important to Canon since their cameras suck at it. Seems the rest of the world disagrees with them.
I can only really see this camera being useful on Reality TV shows like naked and afraid or anything that deals with night recording. I’m really curious how many of these will sell.
I am enjoying just sitting back and watching the shenanigans. I can see the nervous twitch in their eye from here.
The a7rii scares the heck out of Canon , and Canon fans.
I don’t seem to recall ever being instructed by Canon to use lightroom. Got a link?
Also, what is “acceptable dynamic range”?
CanonWatch. ..wedding photoprapher article.
Acording to them..accepable dynamic range is what you get from the 5ds AFTER doing all this recovery stuff…but after using the 5dsr for a week I can tell you that if you shoot a normal exposure the highlight are lost and cannot be recovered, and if you underexpose by 2 stops the pictures are not usable until shadow recpvery is performed.
Surprisingly there is no option for the camera to automatically do the shadow recovery.
Canonwatch = Canon?
AFAIK, if highlights are blown, you can’t recover them on any platform. Pixel saturation is absolute, no?
The “best” you get out of any platform is exposing as far towards saturation as possible, and then backing off in post (maximizing signal to RN). Underexposing by two stops? Odd suggestion. Maybe they mean underexpose by two stops from clipping.
I was really asking what *you* mean by acceptable. It’s a personal call. ~11.5 stops, i.e. what you get from a canon at base ISO, is well above most final mediums (screen or print). ~13.5 stops, i.e. what you get from a sony exmor at base ISO, is also well above what you get from most final mediums. Is 13.5 acceptable? Is 11.5 unacceptable? Is 16 acceptable? Shrug.
CanonWatch will ban you if you say good things about Sony!
heh – that’s funny stuff. What if you say good things about the canon compact cameras which use sony sensors?
I cannot try that myself.
Here’s the kicker…. It’s proposed as a SECURITY camera.
Could it be the extra resolution? My 16-35 has some softness at 16mm F10 in the sides/corners but not like that
Those pictures are terrible.What is with all that awful unnatural and unnecessary processing?
HDR my friend, HDR… this is the new sh*** to end in Flickr Explore ! Love iiiiiiiiit !!
No i’m joking, it sucks…
Highly Disastrous Rendering
There is no accounting for taste is there?
Anyone have a very short video clip 4k or 1080p XAVC-S, I want to see if Lightroom 6.1.1 can import it. I’ve asked at Adobe forum with no reply. What is the XAVC-S file extension? .mov, .mp4 ?
MP4
Try looking for the RX100IV/RX10II they share the same bitrate and codec.
DPreview have some 4k files to download.
http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/sony-cybershot-dsc-rx100-iv/10
The pictures from Gwen have varying file sizes, all round 41MB. Does that mean that Sony has changed to true raw file recording instead of lossy 11+7 bits?
What was an a7r raw size? My 16mpx Panasonic Raws are like 16mb each. I think Nikon D800 Raws are 35mb each.
35-36MB.
All Sony cameras have a roughly 1:1 ratio of mp per mb so, 16mp ~-> 16mb and 24mp~->24mb and so on.
I had NEX 7, 5n and now RX1 and it has been like this even for my friend’s a7r (~36mb) so I imagine this camera should give roughly 42mb per photo, which is a shame Sony still uses the same lossy compression.
Nope, you get slightly varying filesizes from all Alpha cameras due to the embedded JPEG thumbnail. The RAW data is of constant size, and the new A7R II uses the same RAW compression algorithm.
Thanks Matt. That’s disappointing. I had hoped that Sony would see the error in their ways with such a capable camera and offer unprocessed raw. I suspect that their write speeds would fall off, which would be a marketing concern in speed against Canon and Nikon.
The file size is 36MB. Rawdigger did some extensive testing and found posterizing in large prints, which is what I do on a regular basis. Sony advertises 14 bit but they then compress the data to get fast write speeds. I believe that the same 36MB sensor on the Nikon D800 or 810 has a file size around 42MB (actually range +- 2-3MB depending on the amount of info in the scene, especially in the highlight areas) and all Sony files from that same sensor are exactly 36MB.
Call me when DxO does their analysis – I need to check out the Canon forums to witness the wailing and beating of chests.
Ok, we’ll call you. When’s the best time of day? Also, do you prefer we text you first?
Skywriting is preferred – you can use the Jets fans plane when they aren’t bothering Woody here in NJ
What is a Canon 5DR raw size?
65-88MB, depending on ISO.
No wonder it has the worst buffer ever.
Actually I just returned by 5DsR and the file size ranges from about 52-67 MB, depending on the amount of non blown out highlights.
Yuck
Can’t wait for these bad boys to take a dive in resale. Just a few more months- ebay here I come.
From what I have seen today Canon lenses are still having problems working well with this camera. I had previously heard using an adaptor with Canon lenses for video was not recommended for the the A7rii.
How about someone make a useful video showing the low light ability of this camera in 4k and 4k crop mode since the camerastore was not forthcoming with their look at me testing. What would be useful are things like noise at it’s highest ISO setting and considering that Sony did the same as the camera store in regards to low light, Im not so sure how this camera will perform and would rather see these same ground breaking features packed into the A7s with full sensor read out. Im just saying.
It wasn’t made for Canon lenses. Use an FE lens for video.