Sony A7R Mark II Hands-On Review Field Test

On this two part extensive review of the A7R Mark II Chris Niccolls and Jordan Drake from the Camera Store in Canada take a look at a look at this new exciting camera from Sony both for stills and video shooting and gets some interesting conclusions.

On the first part of this video Niccolls looks at the stills aspects of the camera (and there is a lot to look at including, body design, sharpness, AF, stabilization and more). This first video also looks at the camera compared to the Canon 5DS R along with photographer Kyle Marquardt.

Part II – Jordan Drake looks at video and finally both give some concluding remarks

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dlbM2lEaI48[/youtube]

At the end of the day the A7R II is an amazing camera – both for stills and for video and if you have the budget (and need the capabilities) it is certainly something you should consider. However it does have its drawbacks and this is maybe the most important thing to realize – from Niccolls and Drake’s experience and still have some bugs, it isn’t completely consistent on operation, both the super 35mm and the FF video modes have limitations and the menus are annoying (to be frank we never had any issues with Sony menus – but maybe this is just us).

Niccolls and Drake thinks that this camera is going to appeal to a lot of enthusiasts but they still don’t see to many pro’s ditching their camera for this (maybe a few more on the video side).

This isn’t the first review of the A7R II that we posted here – you can see quite a few others on this link.

Here is a reminder of the A7R II specs (see our original post on the camera – here):

42MP Full-Frame Exmor R BSI CMOS Sensor (the first ever FF back side illuminated sensor).
BIONZ X Image Processor (improved/updated and 3.5x faster than the one on the A7R).
Internal 4K XAVC S Video & S-Log2 Gamma, 100MBit in 4K and 50MBit in 1080p (a first for Sony).
5-Axis SteadyShot in-body stabilization (similar to the one on the A7 II).
399 Phase-Detect AF Points & 5 fps Burst (on paper the most advanced AF system ever created).
Shooting speed – 5 fps (with AF).
0.5″ 2.36M-Dot XGA OLED Tru-Finder EVF (improved EVF).
3.0″ 1,228.8k-Dot Tilting LCD Monitor (but no touch screen sadly).
ISO 102,400 with a silent shutter mode (thanks to the electronic shutter).
Durable reduced-vibration shutter design and weather-resistant magnesium alloy body.
Built-In Wi-Fi Connectivity with NFC.
Price: $3200 (on Amazon).

If you don’t want to miss any new photography product be sure to check out our product photography section on our photo gear channel. If you liked Drake’s review you can find many more of those on “the Camera Store” channel here on LensVid.

Iddo Genuth

Iddo Genuth is the founder and chief editor of LensVid.com. He has been a technology reporter working for international publications since the late 1990's and covering photography since 2009. Iddo is also a co-founder of a production company specializing in commercial food and product visual content.