Home Photography Sony a7S II Preview: The Best Low-Light Camera Ever?

Sony a7S II Preview: The Best Low-Light Camera Ever?

By
Fito Centore
-
11
44
Advertisement canpers.com

Sony’s new a7S II (on Amazon http://help.tc/a7s2) fixes the biggest problems with the original a7S. Is it worth the extra cost, or should you buy an a7R II instead?

source

Facebook Comments
Advertisement canpers.com

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

44 COMMENTS

  2. I disagree when he says it's a better deal to get the original Sony A7s with the Ninja Assassin/Shogun because of the external monitor. You can still add the external monitor to the A7S II, and for a lot cheaper. Unless battery life is particularly poor, I would honest focus on getting the A7S ii, because the more I think about it, the more it's improvements go beyond just 4K.

  5. Tony, I wish I didn't come across your wonderfully put together A7s II review, because now I want to buy it! The stabilization, touch screen, 120 fps and S-Log3 all made me rethink getting the original a7s. My main purpose is to video shoot the stars/meteors/satellites at night. Along with this new A7S II, I want to get the F 1.4 35mm lens and use the android app for remote control. Do you know who would offer this combo for me, and what accessories do I need to buy in order to make my purchase a total package astronomical dream come true?

  6. Another rushed product, brought out much too early by Sony. Why won't they just support their current products further with firmware updates and such? I'm an a7S owner and I won't be upgrading. I have even had thoughts cross my mind of jumping ship, especially if Sony expects its users to simply spend $3K every year just to upgrade the small features that we could've had in the first place, had the product stalled release for a few more months. Internal 4K and IBIS is nice, but these are the things that cause the a7Rii to overheat, and the reality is that internal 4K on any of these smaller prosumer/consumer cameras are done at fairly crippled data rates (100mbps, where as a professional recorder/camcorder will use around a 400mbps bitrate), so for many serious projects, personally, I would be hooking up to an external Prores recorder anyway. But I can't lie about it, it would still be nice to have available, it's just, with the speed at which the a7Rii and now a7Sii has been announced, you can't help but wonder: could we have had this in the first place, had we slowed down and waited just a tad bit longer?

    Some of my opinion could be swayed by jealousy (G.A.S.) of a new camera body release, but you have to admit, there's an eerie possibility of truth to my opinion; does Sony not believe in support?

  8. Tony, Is there a video cam you can suggest that will take high resolution videos of the night sky for the purpose I have already described? In other words, what would be my other alternative if I chose I video cam instead of the a7s II with a night super sensitive chip?

  11. never mind the useless USB power feature.  any time you have access to an electrical outlet you should be using a full fledged AC adapter to power your camera.  saves a lot of headaches!

  12. I don't see any point for picking up a DSLR for the main purpose of video recording. The form factor is so bad for it, it's only going to appeal to people who have never used an actual prosumer video camera. For an additional $1,000 you can get a brand new JVC LS-300, which has actual video capabilities. I can't see any reason for buying the Sony at that price, it's outrageous.

  16. wow, i feel like this is actually quite a big step up from the a7s, even while considering the $500 mark up. do we know if it can send 4k out micro HDMI while recording 1080p at 120 internally? or any other internal record while sending out 4k, for that matter?

  18. There are great benefit to the fact that the controls are the same across the entire line. That is one of the things that I hate about Canon that every camera has a different layout and one thing I love about Nikon that no matter which camera I hold in my hands the controls are familiar. I fully use the A7II and A6000 and the wheel is just fine.

    As far as the A7SII, I am disappointed. One of the main reason I switched from Nikon to Sony was the low light performance from the A7s and the huge savings from not having to get the D4s. But I am a photographer and not a videographer so when I saw that the new A7SII only had contrast point AF and not Phase detection . That is a bummer and made the A7SII useless for me. The irony is that what I have already spent on the Sony system I could have bought the D4s. 🙁

    That said. I am happy with the A7II and the A7RII spite of it weaknesses over DSLRs. Just wish the A7SII would have been a photography camera.

  19. Nothing at all to do with this review but when is sony going to come out with a proper 1/2inch xdcam that is 4k, great in lowlight and has a good dedicated ENG lens? because the pmw 300 is a pathetic upgrade to the ex3. hardly any improvement in low light shooting and no 4k. A proper upgrade should have come out time ago. I was thinking of getting the panasonic dvx 200 but the lens isn't at a constant 2.8 which is a big pain in the a**

  27. Thanks for the intro to the camera and the review. The original A7S is now discounted to being just a couple of hundred pounds more than a GH4 in some UK retailers. Since I cannot easily distribute or edit 4K at the moment – would you recommend a cheaper, original A7S shooting HD for now and, perhaps, adding an external recorder when 4K really takes a hold in a year or two and I can make more use of it?

  36. The only advatange I see with Sony over competitors is the insane ISO performance and FF sensor. But if I'm to be honest, I actually prefer using my NX1 more. It's just a better overall experience.

  39. Hi,Great information, I want to buy a7s2 for featur film making so that i want to know about lenses which lenses for suitable for this camera i mean to say whats kind of block lenses use for it.please guide me

Leave a Reply