A7RII initial thoughts and images

[BernardLanguillier]

Look on fm. It seems Nikon have historically done better than Sony with NR on Sony's sensors.

I know how good the Nikon's are, I am trying to assess whether the a7rII would be a meaningful investment for my needs or not.

Right now I find it appealing thanks to size, the possibility to use with a Cambo Actus and pitentially AF. It would for sure be an interesting addition, but it doesn't appear to be a potential replacement.

Currently my feeling is that the price is too steep for an addition considering the marginal value that could be gained, but that feeling could still evolve.

Cheers,
Bernard

[eronald]

I know how good the Nikon's are, I am trying to assess whether the a7rII would be a meaningful investment for my needs or not.

Right now I find it appealing thanks to size, the possibility to use with a Cambo Actus and pitentially AF. It would for sure be an interesting addition, but it doesn't appear to be a potential replacement.

Currently my feeling is that the price is too steep for an addition considering the marginal value that could be gained, but that feeling could still evolve.

Cheers,
Bernard

While you are thinking about the camera, the pictures are getting away
Why don't you post a wallograph?

Edmund

[BernardLanguillier]

While you are thinking about the camera, the pictures are getting away

Euh no... I have excellent equipment at the moment that I use a lot.

That's one thing I don't quite understand about the rush to get those new bodies super quickly. It feels as if some of the photographers around hadn't had any suitable body at all till now.  

What's a "wallograph" btw?

Cheers,
Bernard

[Tony Jay]

... My impression is "jack of all trades". AKA the universal backup. Canon AF lenses seem to work iff they are after 2006.

In fact it does seem to be a potentially excellent "allrounder" while not excelling to the extreme in any one way.
For my part I am still waiting to see whether this camera does, in fact, hit the pass-mark in the areas I am interested in.

Tony Jay

[eronald]

Euh no... I have excellent equipment at the moment that I use a lot.

That's one thing I don't quite understand about the rush to get those new bodies super quickly. It feels as if some of the photographers around hadn't had any suitable body at all till now.  

What's a "wallograph" btw?

Cheers,
Bernard

Well, go and use your existing stuff is what I meant.
Here is the wallograph thread.

[BernardLanguillier]

Well, go and use your existing stuff is what I meant.
Here is the wallograph thread.

Got it, thanks.

Cheers,
Bernard

[eronald]

Got it, thanks.

Cheers,
Bernard

Awaiting your wallograph
With your range of equipment ...

Edmund

[David Watson]

Bernard

I changed from Nikon to Sony without any great hope of improvement from the camera itself.  What I did want however was access to the excellent Zeiss lenses and in particular the two new Batis lenses.  I had used an Otus on my D810 and really liked it but with poor eyesight found manual focus to be a difficulty.  The 25mm, 35mm, 55mm and 85mm Zeiss lenses are extremely good on this camera.

The weight reduction is noticeable and welcome.

[Paulo Bizarro]

Has anyone here been able to perform long exposures?

Reports about excessive noise are starting to pop up.

Cheers,
Bernard

Perhaps the long exposure noise reduction was not engaged? It is there to be used, to do dark frame subtraction in camera. I had a similar problem when I tested the Oly EM1, too much noise in long exposures, and sometimes it is not practical to engage LENR (e.g. star trails).

Perhaps these more video-geared sensors are more prone to this? They warm up quicker?

[BernardLanguillier]

Awaiting your wallograph
With your range of equipment ...

Yep, I'll post some tonight, that will have been shot on Sunday though!

Cheers,
Bernard

[adrian tyler]

i used the a7r ii yesterday at night, just using street lighting and can confirm that at 6400 asa using exposures around 10th to half a second that there is a much more noise than i expected, i've reduced my highest usable asa to 1600... we'll have all michaels et al. test results soon enough and i imagine this will all be well documented...

1/6 sec;   f/7,1;   ISO 6400

LOT'S of exposure and shadow recuperation in ACR

[pegelli]

Thanks for those examples adrian. What were actually your Exposure and Shadow settings in ACR?
You exposed the entire frame at ISO 6400, but with lots of these corrections in the raw conversion the shadows might be more exposed at an equivalent ISO of 12600 or 25200.

[BernardLanguillier]

Besides the noise, flare is pretty bad here, what lens was used?

Cheers,
Bernard

[adrian tyler]

it's the canon 17mm tse, flares like hell

pieter
tha settings were
exposure +1,85
shadows + 50
clarity +21

further back in this tread i have an image shot at 6400 asa in much less extreme light, it's downloadable as a dng and really quite impressive, as you suggest this one has been pushed and pulled well beyond 6400!

[spidermike]

i used the a7r ii yesterday at night, just using street lighting and can confirm that at 6400 asa using exposures around 10th to half a second that there is a much more noise than i expected, i've reduced my highest usable asa to 1600... we'll have all michaels et al. test results soon enough and i imagine this will all be well documented...

1/6 sec;   f/7,1;   ISO 6400

LOT'S of exposure and shadow recuperation in ACR

How does that compare to other sensors you have used - people have widely different ideas on what they consider 'usable' 'unusable' and 'atrocious' so if you can give some idea how the A7Rii relates to your experience with other cameras that would give us something to relate to.

[pegelli]

it's the canon 17mm tse, flares like hell
exposure +1,85
shadows + 50
clarity +21

Thanks adrian, with those settings the shadow areas are at least at iso 25200 if not more. It's noisy indeed but not surprising with those data I think. Whether acceptable or not everybody has to decide for themselves.

[adrian tyler]

How does that compare to other sensors you have used - people have widely different ideas on what they consider 'usable' 'unusable' and 'atrocious' so if you can give some idea how the A7Rii relates to your experience with other cameras that would give us something to relate to.

compared with the d800e, a7ii & rx1 i think it's about 2 stops better, subjective opinion obviously.

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

i used the a7r ii yesterday at night, just using street lighting and can confirm that at 6400 asa using exposures around 10th to half a second that there is a much more noise than i expected, i've reduced my highest usable asa to 1600...

Hi Adrian,

Thanks for the example. I'm wondering, given the 1/6th second exposure time, I assume you were shooting from a tripod. Why not use ISO 800- 1600 to begin with and increase exposure time? As e.g. earlier tests by Jim Kasson have shown for the A7R , There is no quality gain (as expressed in higher Signal/Noise ratio) to be expected above ISO 800, maybe 1600, and until proven wrong, that assumption may also be valid for the A7R II. Just 'under-exposing' at ISO 800 and pushing in post-processing could already deliver higher quality.

But, an image starved of photons will always be noisy, due to photon statistics. So you'll get even better results by increasing the actual photon exposure for the shadows. And to remedy highlight clipping, just bracket, and combine in postprocessing.

The glare is hard to avoid with bright lights in the actual image area, but one can try to shield the bulging lens for all non-image-contributing lightsources.

Cheers,
Bart

[spidermike]

compared with the d800e, a7ii & rx1 i think it's about 2 stops better, subjective opinion obviously.

Thank you Adrian. 2 stops better - that is some going when comparing to what is considered an ISO-less camera.

[adrian tyler]

Hi Adrian,

Thanks for the example. I'm wondering, given the 1/6th second exposure time, I assume you were shooting from a tripod. Why not use ISO 800- 1600 to begin with and increase exposure time? As e.g. earlier tests by Jim Kasson have shown for the A7R , There is no quality gain (as expressed in higher Signal/Noise ratio) to be expected above ISO 800, maybe 1600, and until proven wrong, that assumption may also be valid for the A7R II. Just 'under-exposing' at ISO 800 and pushing in post-processing could already deliver higher quality.

But, an image starved of photons will always be noisy, due to photon statistics. So you'll get even better results by increasing the actual photon exposure for the shadows. And to remedy highlight clipping, just bracket, and combine in postprocessing.

The glare is hard to avoid with bright lights in the actual image area, but one can try to shield the bulging lens for all non-image-contributing lightsources.

Cheers,
Bart

thanks for the advice bart, actually i was rather hoping that with the image stabilization and iso gains i could retire the tripod forever! but it seems that i'm stuck with it!

as you say, a serious test/photo would have required a tripod and more careful exposure settings but i was just taking my evening stroll and 'trying my luck,' and 'messing' with the camera, however putting the extremes of the iso aside, i must say that the image stabilisation works very very well and in can see that in low light non-tripod situations that up to 1600 asa (6400 if there is no pushing in post required) and down to about a 1/6th of of a second it is quite feasable to get excellent results hand held...

though as i say i don't think i'll let go of the tripod just yet!