A7S II or A7R II?

1

1027Films

Well-known member
Hey guys!

I am in the market for a new A7 camera (currently have the original A7s), and I had a quick question(s). For a couple weeks I had my mind set on just the A7S II, and was getting ready to sell off my camera in order to get it. However, today I just realized that I had totally ignored the A7R II - which along with video would give me amazing photo quality. I then started thinking about which one would really be the best camera to get. On one hand I am heavily video based, so I've heard that the A7S II is the way to go for video, but then I started Vimeo searching and found that in videos the A7R II looks equal to, if not better (except in low-light), than the A7S II - which I didn't think would be the case.

So my question to you guys is, which camera would you guys choose and why? I'm torn between having a great video camera with amazing photo quality, or the supposedly better video camera with amazing low-light for the occasional event work I shoot. Also, is it true the a7s II 5-axis IS is worse than the A7R II - that is not what I thought, but I've seen a couple posts about it which I found strange.

Thanks fellas!
 
Can someone also chime in. I was under the impression one is better in aps-c mode and the other better in full frame. Can someone remind me which is which.
 
A7RII oversamples its 4K from a 15 MPX APS-C center crop. Gorgeous video, horrible rolling shutter. (great photography, with a full frame 42 MPX sensor)

A7SII, to me, looks pretty much just as good for video (especially if externally recorded). I am not sure anyone buys it for photo, which it can do as an emergency fill-in, I s'ppose.

Both are 8-bit out and limited to 100 Mbps internally, thus somewhat limiting the A7RII sensor advantage in video.

RII has a superior auto-focus with the native Sony glass, more so for stills.
 
It's been a while, but I believe you can do 4K on the A7RII in FF and APS-C, while 4K on the A7SII is only FF.

A7RII does 120fps in 720p as opposed to A7SII 120fps in 1080p.

A7SII has S-Log3 and the "Display Assist" function to help with exposing the log.
 
NorBro said:
It's been a while, but I believe you can do 4K on the A7RII in FF and APS-C, while 4K on the A7SII is only FF...
Click to expand...
That's correct. RII line-skips in FF, at a resolution loss but with less rolling shutter than in the APS-C crop. SII doesn't have enough pixels to produce 4K with a crop.
 
I had both for awhile, wish I could have justified owning both. Since I don't do stills photography it was an easy choice for me. The low light capabilities plus the FF video of the A7SII won me over. While technically the A7SII does not have a cropped mode, you can just engage the "clear zoom" at around 1.5x zoom to get an equivalent crop with little to no loss of IQ. The autofocus was a don't care for me, so one less advantage for the a7rii. What the A7SIi brought to the table for me was the ability to shoot ultra shallow DOF with full frame lenses which none of my S35 cameras can do (Without speed booster which wouldn't work with any of my PL glass). It's always nice to have more options.

if you do stills also, the A7RIi is one hell of a camera.
 
Thank you so much for your insight! Yeah, like I said, I've made my living so far off of video, but I love taking photographs when I'm not working - so I'm in one hell of a struggle right now, haha.
 
I cannot speak for the A7RII. But I will say the A7SII is a very good stills camera as well, unless you really need the resolution for large poster size prints. IMHO I think 12Meg is good size for most everything except that - large prints. I just recently purchased a A7SII after fighting the urge for more than a year. Several years ago I owned several Sony cameras including the NEX7 and the A99 and a set of A mount lenses. I swore I would never go back to Sony after the poor video performance, rolling shutter, overheating mess. I most recently have been using a Gh4 and various Canon cameras. I have the standard Canon L series 2.8 lenses and some nice Leica lenses for the Gh4. But after selling my 5DIII body a while back, I have missed the full frame aesthetic a lot. I love the Gh4 and honestly there are a lot of things I like more than the Sony, well honestly most everything (functionality, less rolling shutter, no overheating, no time limits, menu structure ease, etc.) But I love the FF look and the amazing low light of the A7SII which opens lots of shots. So here I am using a A7SII and two Batis lenses and I love the images and video I am getting. It did overheat once in the sun at a track meet, the battery life is pitiful, and the rolling shutter is a pain, but the image is worth some hassle.
 
Awesome, thanks so much. I was in a very similar boat as you, sold my Mark III and got the GH4 for a while as well. I LOVED the image I was getting out of the camera, but the micro 4/3 sensor just doesn't appeal to me. So overall it seems that the A7s II is definitely the way to go for video - but the struggle with both cameras is still real, haha.
 
i went the A7RII route because I shoot stills as well. I am cutting video now shot with both the SII and RII, and they are both equal. I find the FF video on the RII to have a nice, organic film look to it. It grades nicely. For stills, it's like cheating. the camera simply performs. If you have any
thought of doing photo, the RII is the camera to go with.
 
FF is highly underrated on the A7 R II.

Yes it's slightly soft (~3.5K) and worse in low light but it has significantly better RS performance than the A7s II (20 ms vs 30 ms), which for me makes a huge difference in the "feel" of the footage. You can still shoot S-Log and cine profiles with it, the only thing I miss is the S-log exposure preview.

Using the better cropped Super 35 works great with the 18-105 f4 zoom and is a great secondary option for PL glass and cropped lenses.
 
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