Trying to decide between the A7SII or A7RII

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EverythingBagel

New member
I’d like to use either an A7RII or the A7SII as a B-Cam to my FS7. I’ll only be using this camera for interviews and for the occasional gimbal/ steadicam shot. My biggest worry is overheating, but I’m hoping I can mitigate that worry by recording externally to my PIX-E5. Will either of these overheat with an external recorder? The best I’ve been able to gather from reading every forum post on the subject is that CAN overheat but it probably won’t. I’ve read some posts that say the A7RII will overheat even with an external recorder, but the A7SII will not. 90% of my shoots are indoors, but I do want something that can record outside if needed. Since I only have experience shooting SLOG2, I don’t know what I’ll be missing if I end up getting an A7RII. I know the A7RII will give me better photos. Any additional clarity would be appreciated.
 
For me, it came down to Auto Focus. The a7RII is, for me, better on a gimbal due to the faster AF in video. Second only to the a6300.

Another thing to consider is whether you want 4K or 1080p. a7RII seems to have a better image in 1080p, while the a7SII is best in 4K. The 4K would require full frame lenses, while i had aps-c e-mount lenses already.

Typically, i'd say the a7SII is more for video makers, who traditionally use manual focus. But as a one man band, gimbal user, i like the video Auto Focus of the RII.

I thought they fixed the overheating in the a7RII, but i haven't read much on it recently.
 
^ That. Plus the fact that the best-quality option on the a7R II is APS-C, while the best-quality option on the a7S II is FF. And the fact that if you take stills with AF then the a7R II is A LOT better.
 
I’m told that the consensus is that the S is about 1.5 stops faster than the R. If you use a speed booster (with a full frame lens) on the R, you get part of that back (1 stop). R would be my choice unless you have a specific reason to get the S.
 
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I went with the a7rii.

Same as others stated.

AF in video is very good.
Stills are amazing and AF is very good.
Low light is good enough and better than a GH4 or most hybrids out. I don't need to shoot in pitch darkness lighting scene with an iPhone.
S35 matches with my FS7 for lensing.
APS-C lenses are smaller and lighter for gimbal work.
Current firmware fixed overheating.
If you really want 4K full frame you can still use it just don't go with high ISO.
Get a SpeedBooster if you want to shoot with full frame lenses in S35 mode.
 
---everytime i use my A7SII i am aware that it shoots amazing in low light....better than everything else out there.

---everytime i use my A7SII i am aware that its AF is just "ok" and the "R" would be much better.

---everytime i use my A7SII i am reminded that no one camera satisfies all my desires. argh!

my bias is to have the best low light shooting camera for video but i am constantly aware that its AF is not very usable much of the time.

i have not experienced overheating in the A7SII.

david
 
Some questions for the A7rII owners:

Eric mentions a Speedbooster for FF lesnes in S35 mode. I own some Canon FF lenses which I would want to use for FF stills as well as video use. A Speedbooster would be nice for S35 mode and adapt my lenses but if I want to shoot stills, I am in no man's land. Is there a way to turn off the speedboosting aspect and just use the Metabones as a 1:1 adapter?

With the A7rII, do Sony native lenses like the new "G" series work better in video mode?

I am waiting until after Photokina in the fall to make a decision on a large sensor camera which might also replace my 5DMKIII for stills work. So far, the A7rII seems to be the best choice but the show might bring some goodies.

Thanks
 
Bassman2003 said:
Some questions for the A7rII owners:

Erik mentions a Speedbooster for FF lesnes in S35 mode. I own some Canon FF lenses which I would want to use for FF stills as well as video use. A Speedbooster would be nice for S35 mode and adapt my lenses but if I want to shoot stills, I am in no man's land. Is there a way to turn off the speedboosting aspect and just use the Metabones as a 1:1 adapter?
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Nope. The SpeedBooster is optical so you cant "turn it off".
 
Without speedbooster, you get a 1.5x crop. With speedbooster, there's no crop, FoV is just as if you were on FF. The corners are softer with a speedbooster than with an actual FF sensor, though. And electronic adapters are always problematic (I love my speedbooster but it's for vintage manual Leica-R lenses).
 
Samuel H said:
Without speedbooster, you get a 1.5x crop. With speedbooster, there's no crop, FoV is just as if you were on FF. The corners are softer with a speedbooster than with an actual FF sensor, though. And electronic adapters are always problematic (I love my speedbooster but it's for vintage manual Leica-R lenses).
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Are there any downsides when you attach speedbooster? Like slower AF?

I want to upgrade my A7s to something better, I thought it's no brainer that I should get A7sII but then I started reading about a7rII that it has way better autofocus which should be really useful if I decide to use it with my gimbal (I use only manual focus on my a7s for video as AF-C works pretty badly), more megapixels for stills and you get a similar quality in cropped mode up to certain pretty high ISO. Additionally, after extensive usage Dave Dugdale picked A7rII over A7sII as better overall camera. I would have picked a7rII but I own a few full frame lenses Sony FE2.8 35mm and Sony FE 24-70mm f/4 with OSS which doesn't make the choice easier. I do 30% stills and 70% video...

What would you recommend to pick?
 
You can't use E glass with a speedbooster: only Canon, Nikon, Leica-R, etc (you need to put extra glass between the lens and the sensor, in the space that's used by the mirror on a DSLR).

Using a speedbooster on an APS-C sensor (or on a FF sensor cropped 1.5x, which is exactly the same), you get the same FoV and DoF you'd get shooting on an uncropped FF sensor, and one stop more light (which counteracts the usual 1-stop ISO advantage of FF), but the corners are softer with a speedbooster than with an actual FF sensor, and using an adapter ALWAYS means you're going to have trouble with AF, be it a speedbooster or a regular electronic adapter. My speedbooster is E-to-LeicaR and has no electronics, I only use it with vintage manual glass.

If you're going to use Canon glass in any case, then this is not an issue, you're only going to have the softer-corners thing. But if you want to use AF then I'd suggest sticking to native E glass, which means a speedbooster is not an option.

Then, the upside: if you're going for crop+speedbooster with the a7R II, you might as well save $1700 and get the a6500 instead. The video side -including AF- is just as good or even better, at least in 4k, and for stills it's not as great as an a7R II but it's better than a low-Mpix a7S or a7S II.
 
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EverythingBagel said:
I’d like to use either an A7RII or the A7SII as a B-Cam to my FS7. I’ll only be using this camera for interviews and for the occasional gimbal/ steadicam shot. My biggest worry is overheating, but I’m hoping I can mitigate that worry by recording externally to my PIX-E5. Will either of these overheat with an external recorder? The best I’ve been able to gather from reading every forum post on the subject is that CAN overheat but it probably won’t. I’ve read some posts that say the A7RII will overheat even with an external recorder, but the A7SII will not. 90% of my shoots are indoors, but I do want something that can record outside if needed. Since I only have experience shooting SLOG2, I don’t know what I’ll be missing if I end up getting an A7RII. I know the A7RII will give me better photos. Any additional clarity would be appreciated.
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Ever thought of trying the new Fujifilm X-T2? It's incredible for being their first go at 4k. The built in film simulations are beautiful (fuji knows their colors and lenses :) ). Rent one for a week and try it out. The skin tones are wonderful. All these were shot with film simulation modes

https://vimeo.com/193491943 (i love the shot @2:14-2:17)

https://vimeo.com/190411050 (example low light)

https://vimeo.com/188848216 (some shots looks Alexa like :) ).
 
strancali said:
Ever thought of trying the new Fujifilm X-T2? It's incredible for being their first go at 4k. The built in film simulations are beautiful (fuji knows their colors and lenses :) ). Rent one for a week and try it out. The skin tones are wonderful. All these were shot with film simulation modes

https://vimeo.com/193491943 (i love the shot @2:14-2:17)

https://vimeo.com/190411050 (example low light)

https://vimeo.com/188848216 (some shots looks Alexa like :) ).
Click to expand...

The footage looks amazing indeed. If you need an external recorder to achieve a good dynamic range, it would be a big no for me. I like to be as lightweight as possible. Are there any other alternatives which are available or going to be announced soon? I'm not attached to Sony, 2 years ago a7s was the best camera on the market (5d mark IV was too big, gh4 was struggling in low light).
 
If your priority is dynamic range (as it is in my case) and your budget is <$5k then the options are Sony, Blackmagic (avoiding the CMOSIS 4k sensor), and X-T2-with-external-recorder.
 
visata said:
The footage looks amazing indeed. If you need an external recorder to achieve a good dynamic range, it would be a big no for me. I like to be as lightweight as possible. Are there any other alternatives which are available or going to be announced soon? I'm not attached to Sony, 2 years ago a7s was the best camera on the market (5d mark IV was too big, gh4 was struggling in low light).
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These videos are shot straight out of the camera (internal 4k). I think the dynamic range is spectacular for being internal codec. :)
 
I will add one factor in favor of the a7sii - the 120fps on the a7s, despite the heavy crop factor, is pretty damn good if you dont shoot slog. The 120fps on the a7rii is compressed 720p that i consider unusable in general.
 
The only reason I went with FF due to the sensor size. To my mind it was the bigger the sensor, the more light it can absorb and in the end it would mean the better quality. Surely there are other factors like DoF, FoV which is what people are used to seeing in movies.

I owned aps-c consumer cameras like Canon T550D (also dedicated video cameras) and couldn't bare the noise which you get if I recall correctly anything over like 800 ISO? I checked reviews and was suprised what people achieved with other cameras like Canon 5d mark III. a7s was the solution to have one compact device which could do video, stills at a very good qood quality.

Anyway, if I pick a7rII and would end up shooting videos in super 35mm mode with my full frame lenses, so I'm loosing one benefit for sure, it's DoF, FoV which people are used to. I can live with that. Would there be less noise compared with a6500 let's say if I need to record video at 3200 or 6400 ISO?

My shooting style is run and gun. I store everything in 1080p. I don't mind doing some post for example to go 2 stops down on slog2 footage, adding some contrast, white balance etc It could be done very promptly and not intensive CPU task at all compared let's say with stabilizing the footage (IBIS is one of the reasons why I want to upgrade). So in the end I prefer to get almost ready footage out of the camera and it's very difficult to pick :)

One big benefit which I read on a7rII that you don't need to play around with ND filters since it allows to use slog-2 at 800 ISO. Currently I'm using a variable ND filter on my sony a7s and I believe it degrades the overall iq...

A really well working AF-C is also a good feature. In my shooting style sometimes I need to rely on other people and ask them to hold the camera. Basically with good AF-C as reviews claim, you just press the record button and you should be able to get a well focused footage. No need to play around with manual focus in such situations. Additionally, overall footage could be more dynamic. You can walk around from one subject to another and it should autofocus correctly. When I do the same with manual focus, my footage becomes a bit boring because I have to keep the same distance. I don't use any follow focus tools.

I'm ready to sacrifice 120fps too :)
 
visata said:
The only reason I went with FF due to the sensor size. To my mind it was the bigger the sensor, the more light it can absorb and in the end it would mean the better quality. Surely there are other factors like DoF, FoV which is what people are used to seeing in movies.

I owned aps-c consumer cameras like Canon T550D (also dedicated video cameras) and couldn't bare the noise which you get if I recall correctly anything over like 800 ISO? I checked reviews and was suprised what people achieved with other cameras like Canon 5d mark III. a7s was the solution to have one compact device which could do video, stills at a very good qood quality.

Anyway, if I pick a7rII and would end up shooting videos in super 35mm mode with my full frame lenses, so I'm loosing one benefit for sure, it's DoF, FoV which people are used to. I can live with that. Would there be less noise compared with a6500 let's say if I need to record video at 3200 or 6400 ISO?

My shooting style is run and gun. I store everything in 1080p. I don't mind doing some post for example to go 2 stops down on slog2 footage, adding some contrast, white balance etc It could be done very promptly and not intensive CPU task at all compared let's say with stabilizing the footage (IBIS is one of the reasons why I want to upgrade). So in the end I prefer to get almost ready footage out of the camera and it's very difficult to pick :)

One big benefit which I read on a7rII that you don't need to play around with ND filters since it allows to use slog-2 at 800 ISO. Currently I'm using a variable ND filter on my sony a7s and I believe it degrades the overall iq...

A really well working AF-C is also a good feature. In my shooting style sometimes I need to rely on other people and ask them to hold the camera. Basically with good AF-C as reviews claim, you just press the record button and you should be able to get a well focused footage. No need to play around with manual focus in such situations. Additionally, overall footage could be more dynamic. You can walk around from one subject to another and it should autofocus correctly. When I do the same with manual focus, my footage becomes a bit boring because I have to keep the same distance. I don't use any follow focus tools.

I'm ready to sacrifice 120fps too :)
Click to expand...

A7rII is still great in Full Frame mode. In fact I prefer it, the Rolling Shutter is much better than in AF-C mode. It's slightly softer but there's no terrible moire as some people think. The Full Frame 1080p mode is better in all ways compared to the crop mode 1080p.

If your using any sort of AF go with the A7r2, it's much better than the A7s2.

Full Frame mode with my custom profile.

armsup_1.11.1.jpg
 
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