Keep a6300 or A7S2?

J

jb.

Veteran
So, I ended up picking up both the a6300 and and a7s2 intending on keeping one of the two. Having a hard time deciding.

A6300's AF is amazing for gimbal work, but the IBIS on the a7s2 is pretty handy often as well.

Love be the full frame look from the a7s2, but lenses are smaller, cheaper, lighter for the APS-C body.

Low light seems far closer than I'd have guessed.

These are backing up my FS5 and shooting stills.

My lens kit is entirely e-mount native at this point.
 
If the a7S is any guide, the a7SII will lose more of its value in the next year. If you want to keep it for much more than that, this is not a problem at all, but if you usually upgrade to the newest and greatest, it can be.

(personally, I don't see myself shooting with either of them in two years: 4K60 would be a big thing *for me* and I would definitely want to upgrade when it's available)

Going in the opposite direction: one of the biggest advantages of the a7SII wrt the a7S was the improved color. Does the a6300 have the same color of the a7SII? (even if both have sgamut3.cine, in practice it can look different)
 
Samuel H said:
Going in the opposite direction: one of the biggest advantages of the a7SII wrt the a7S was the improved color. Does the a6300 have the same color of the a7SII? (even if both have sgamut3.cine, in practice it can look different)
Click to expand...

I just have the A7s1 and the A6300 and the color has improved drastically. From what I read there is a difference between the A7s2, but this should be much smaller. If there's enought light, I'd rather pick up the A6300 then my A7s :D
 
^ OK that means it has the new color, and even if it's not as good as the a7S II it shouldn't be a deciding factor. Thanks!
 
I think you'd have a hard time finding anyone who would suggest you keep the A6300 over the A7sII. The overheating alone is enough to answer the question.

If the lenses are a big concern, you can use all your APS-C glass in crop mode anyway. The A7s kit lens is pretty much on par with the APS-C zooms price/quality wise, too.
 
I sold my a7s and a7s II. Gave my son my a6000 and I bought the a6300. It's a great camera for the price. I want the AF system in a new a7 camera. If Sony can tweak the overheating sensor a little it sure would be nice. We will have a new a7 camera soon. Sony doesn't wait around. I think they will have a redesign of the body and a new battery. It's time. If you look at the G Master lenses you can tell they are willing to go bigger now. In a lot of ways the a7s, a7r cameras have outgrown the original design and would benefit in a larger body. Not 5D big I hope. We shall see....
 
Did you try A7RII ? because it is my choice for gimbal works with good AF. i tried A7SII and A7RII and choose A7RII for better AF and good color, possibility of APS-c and Full Frame in 4k.
The low light of A7SII is not too important to me as we always need minimum of light for quality.
 
What about A7RII or a6300? That's an even harder decision for me, is the a6300 af much better than the A7RII? Not sure which would be a better gimbal camera, considering the IBIS on the A7RII
 
For a7R II vs a6300, I have a clear preference: I would get the a6300. Because it's A LOT cheaper, and the image is pretty similar (both are APS-C, internal super-sharp 4K, with good AF but bad RS). Of course, this only works because I don't care about overheating (I think my longest take so far this year is a couple of minutes) and I don't take a lot of stills. The only things the a7R II would give me would be IBIS and the possibility to go FF if a shot really requires it.

The a7S II is different because it's a FF camera and my glass is designed for FF (the a7R II can go FF but with an impact on image quality, so both the a6300 and the a7R II would have my speedbooster almost-permanently attached; corners are softer with my speedbooster instead of an actual FF sensor, though).
 
jbregar said:
So, I ended up picking up both the a6300 and and a7s2 intending on keeping one of the two. Having a hard time deciding.

A6300's AF is amazing for gimbal work, but the IBIS on the a7s2 is pretty handy often as well.

Love be the full frame look from the a7s2, but lenses are smaller, cheaper, lighter for the APS-C body.

Low light seems far closer than I'd have guessed.

These are backing up my FS5 and shooting stills.

My lens kit is entirely e-mount native at this point.
Click to expand...

Dump both and get the A7rII - PADF is awesome, amazing stills, IBIS and the best video is in s35 mode with less RS than the a6300 - so you can keep your kit small/light. FF video is still really good to about 1600 if you want the FF look. I have a mix of E-mount FF and APS-c lenses, the 10-18 and 28/2 are my gimbal lenses.

I know that's not what you asked, but you're getting the best of both cameras in one body. Used prices are around $2500.

Until the A7r3 drops with 4k60p, the A7rII is tough to beat.
 
Other than insanely large stills and PDAF, the A7RII doesn't really get me much over the A7SII and loses one of the primary benefits of going FF with the A7SII... extreme low-light performance.

The A6300 has surprisingly good low-light capability, but it's still a little ways behind the A7SII. The A6300 also has BETTER PDAF than the A7RII and if I'm going to shoot in APS-C anyway, why not carry the smaller camera? It also has really detailed 4K since it's taking a 6K image and downsampling it on the fly (at least in 24p).
 
I wouldn't buy a a7 camera today. Wait. The a6300 is a great low priced camera that I would keep if I bought the next a7 camera. It's compact and comes in handy at a very low price.
 
jbregar said:
Other than insanely large stills and PDAF, the A7RII doesn't really get me much over the A7SII and loses one of the primary benefits of going FF with the A7SII... extreme low-light performance.

The A6300 has surprisingly good low-light capability, but it's still a little ways behind the A7SII. The A6300 also has BETTER PDAF than the A7RII and if I'm going to shoot in APS-C anyway, why not carry the smaller camera? It also has really detailed 4K since it's taking a 6K image and downsampling it on the fly (at least in 24p).
Click to expand...

Depends on your needs, PADF is a big deal for me, as is IBIS and any reduction in rolling shutter. The A7rII doesn't overheat either. I briefly had a copy of the a6300, but the overheating was just too much. I live in Florida and I'm constantly shooting in hot conditions, even a few short takes of just a minute or two brought about shutdowns. I mostly shoot at 30p and it didn't look as good, plus IIRC there was a slight crop. 1080p was worse. I got the overheating warning shooting exterior building photos on a tripod. Back it went. 24p was stunning, but the camera is utterly unreliable. YMMV.

When Sony adds PADF to the A7s3 or 4 or 7, I'll be selling my original A7s for one. Until then the A7rII is my workhorse. Both of your choices are great, but vastly different cameras. I'm personally never buying another camera without a decent PADF array, but I shoot a lot of stills so I'm always on the hunt for better AF performance.

Cheers
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top