A7sII for photography

C

ChadN

Well-known member
Hello, i'm looking at buying an A7sII mostly for video use. However, i do hope to take photographs with it. Nothing super pro. Just some modeling shots of our subject while out on a video shoot.

I only have Sony E-Mount APS-C lenses, which i bought for the FS700. No full frame lenses. So, i'm thinking photos in crop mode on the A7sII won't work. What's that going to be, 6mp? However, i've never tried it so i have no idea. Anyone take photos in crop mode with the A7sII? If so, what is the size of the photos and do they have a decent amount of detail? Enough to print an 8x10, say?

If that won't work, i guess i have a couple options.
1. Buy an E-Mount Full Frame lens for the A7sII (which i'd probably want anyway.)
2. Buy the A7rII instead. Have less video options, but better photos and maybe even better video auto-focus (for gimbal shots.)

What do you all think?
 
IIRC APS-c images are only 5mp, crop any image down to that size and see if it works for you. Enough detail is an individual thing, for anything beyond the web I find the FF images from the A7s lacking detail, but that's me. If you have crop lenses you can always get something like the A5100/6000 and shoot 24mp stills. I picked up a mint a5100 for a couple hundred dollars to use as a spare/backup.
 
A6000 and a5100 are best bang for a buck cameras right now. You cannot go wrong with either one, I would listen what Chris says.
 
As others have said in crop mode resolution is a bit lacking. But in fullframe mode I find the photos with the A7s II fantastic. 12MP is way enough resolution (for my needs)and the images have a certain depth and tonality which I find fantastic, as well as night time shooting. And the compressed raw photos just take up 12MB on my harddisk which is nice as well. I personally would not know what to do with the added resolution of the A7r. And fullframe video shooting is great on the A7s II, whereas with the A7r II it can get noisy pretty quick.
 
I forgot to talk about the A7rII, in s35 mode there's very little difference noise-wise between it and the A7s to 12,800. If you're inclined to go above that, then the A7s really pulls away. FF 4k on the A7rII is not as good - less detail in really busy shots and noise gets pretty ugly above 3200, but up to about 3200 its fine and if you're not shooting things like landscapes it looks great. You can get the shallower DOF from FF back with a speedbooster on the A7rII if you want the sharpest 4k from the A7rII. The A7rII also allows you to get really good AF on many Canon lenses with an adapter. I have the $100 Fotodiox Pro and aside from needing a little flocking to cut flare, its awesome.

AF on the A7rII is much better in good light, and the tracking/eye AF is amazing - something you will not have with the A7s. I have eye AF assigned to a custom button and whenever I'm shooting people or my dog I just hit the button and it locks onto the eye and follows it across the PADF pixels on the sensor, its really cool. In low light the A7s hunts less - though with low contrast subjects they both struggle like any mirrorless.

I really like shooting stills with the A7rII, even in crop mode you get 18mp raws. Now with the uncompressed options you can choose your file size and go nuts. If you use the DPreview comparison tool and resize the images from the A7rII to match the A7s, noise is a wash and detail favors the A7rII. 42mp gives you tons of room to crop. Its a really versatile camera.

As GMC said, FF images from the A7s have a really nice look to them, those fat pixels have a little magic that tough to quantify. The big letdown for me is the AF because I shoot a lot of stills, I never even considered the A7sII after getting the RII simply because they stuck with the same AF as the original, and I have a few aps-c lenses that I use between the A7rII s35 4k and the a5100.
 
Thanks for all the replies, everyone. Lots to consider. Such a tough choice between the a7SII and a7RII!
 
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