Sony a7S II ILCE7SM2/B 12.2 MP E-mount Camera with Full-Frame Sensor, Black

This is my first interchangeable lens camera, after a year and a half of heavy experience with an RX100M3. I was pleasantly surprised to feel like a fish in water when swimming through the familiar menus and features, also found in its smaller cousin. I'm getting used to the new features, such as uncompressed RAW, more video settings, and the instructions actually couldn't tell me what "AEL" meant. This camera is still barely out of preorder, so I'll start seeing support from Sony, but right now, Sony's website gives a collective shrug when you check for available firmware upgrades/software. It's just not set up.One thing that I'm still getting used to with this camera... the controls change based on the lens you attach. I went for Sony E-mount Full Frame lenses. I figured out that's what "FE" means. E-mount is the type of lenses that this camera can natively support, but if you want to use the full sensor, rather than just a part of it, you need "full frame" ones. There are not many options. I wanted a fast 35mm prime and an 85mm prime. The 35mm prime...NO PROBLEM. There's a $1600 f/1.4 beast that is available. I robbed a jewelry store to pay for that one. But the 85mm options aren't so obvious. The closest FE lens currently available is a 90mm Macro f/2.8 lens. Not as fast as I wanted, but still pretty good, and... it's got rave reviews about it's sharpness. That plus opening up a pathway into macro photography while still giving me the bokeh I'm looking for... I piped down and bought it (for $1000... only had to rob a small jewelry store for that one). I saw a few rumors of more lenses coming out, but you should figure out what lenses you want BEFORE buying this camera. If you're not sure, well, I took the option of renting a camera from a rental website (I used lensrentals.com) with lenses I wanted, and, if you like em, you can apply the rental price toward the price of "keeping it". Or just return it and..now you know what the lens is like.One motivation for buying this camera... the main motivation... is my filmmaking. I like low-light cinematography, and I want it available to me. I had the confidence that this would open up that avenue for me, with 4K footage. I've used RED cameras for short films before, and although I don't think this is going to approach that quality, it lets me still compete in film festivals keeping to the same genre. I decided to go ahead and use the very fast 35mm f/1.4 lens to test the low light video, recorded at the highest quality 24p 100Mbps, with panning over my cat on a bed, with varying levels of light. (testing in a 10x10 room with a small lighting kit, 200/500/750, plus a lamp with a small CFL bulb... I think 40-60W) I left the aperture open all the way at f/1.4.The results? The small bulb was certainly not going to sufficiently light anything. You can still see everything once you start to crank the ISO into the thousands, but there's banding/noise galore. However, the 200W light was actually plenty enough to see everything at 100 ISO (min for video). I attached a screenshot from that test. It's still a bit dark, but it's clean. I didn't see any noise on my 27 inch computer monitor as I panned over the cat. Increasing ISO levels only got brighter, with no hint of noise. At about 1000 ISO, Luna started getting overexposed.So this certainly gives me the creative freedom to work wonders, film festival-wise.You see the sleepy cat there? My other motivation for upgrading my camera, you'll be disappointed to know, is cat pictures. I run my blog at littlechomper.com, and I want more action pics. If you haven't tried, taking fast-shutter pics of a cat jumping around while indoors... it's a tall order. I've had to be very creative with my RX100M3, hanging out near windows during the hours with the strongest light. Well, I'm sad to report that the A7s2 is no magic cure for my woes. While I definitely don't have to stay so close to windows, an interchangeable lens camera is a lot heavier, and I'm finding it's a pain in the ass to try to aim the camera and throw the cat treat. I take the precaution of always wearing my neck strap, and... I insured the camera too. But still, I'll have to get more creative with strategies to overcome this. I'm going to try to leverage the 4K slow motion video. With 4K resolution, the stills should be high quality enough, and I shouldn't have to worry so much about keeping my figure near the shutter. Focus will be the main concern. But I'm sure the camera is capable of getting the shots I want once I figure out the right strategy.On a relevant note, I think the 5-axis stabilization is working for me. The 90mm lens I have has built-in stabilization, and the 35mm doesn't, but I don't think it matters. The a7s2 has it built in, and supposedly leverages the stabilization in the lens, if available, to improve even more. I certainly can't do macro photography very well without the camera being mounted or resting on a surface, but I certainly feel more at ease exhaling slowly with arms in and trusting my own steadiness at 1/60 shutter speed.Speaking of macro, is it relevant to this review to say I added my 58mm Canon 250D close-up lens to my 90mm macro and got a pretty nice close-up of a penny? I'll add that picture. When you zoom in, you see some strange colors in there... reds and greens... I figure this is related to taking pictures of scratched up metal, or maybe it's just not enough light yet... I'm relying on exposure time instead. I'll include the penny picture.What other things can I comment on? I definitely like the shooting mode being locked into place, unlike on cheaper cameras (like the RX100M3 and most point n' shoots). Although sometimes you wish you can change it with one hand. There's lots of configurability. I see a "C1, C2, C3, and C4"... all user-customizable. I'll deal with that when I have time.And lastly, I use Capture One, rather than Lightroom for my images. Capture One provides custom profiles for each camera based on hands-on testing of each camera through the different ISO levels, so I think that helps improve its handling of RAW images. There's a super-cheap version for Sony only, so it let me stick with that. Originally, the RAW images coming out of the A7S2 wasn't supported by Capture One, but they've already released an upgrade... version 8.3.4 I believe, which supports the RAW images seamlessly. I'm back to my old workflow, only a couple days after receiving my camera from pre-order.

I own a small real estate photography company and I purchased this camera just a few weeks ago for two reasons:1) To add video to what I offer my customers as I see video as a huge and growing trend in my fieldand2) Because I wanted smaller files sizes and better dynamic range for my stills work as compared to my a6000.I have only had this for about a month now, but I feel that it clearly was the right choice. It was ordered along with the Sony 16-35mm lens which has done well too.I am not a specs-geek myself and I don't think I ever will be. We all see all those people who hash out specs and capabilities of different camera systems online and debate how many stops of dynamic range a camera has and all that. I often wonder how much money they are earning with their camera or if they just get some kind of "good feels" for waging war in various forums.If you are thinking of buying this camera and think that it is going to make you some kind of wizard at photography or a wizard with video...you likely should put those assumptions in a box and then put that box on a high shelf. I am going to post a series of images below. Half of them were created with images captured with this A7s2 camera. Half of them were taken with created with images captured with the a6000. Tell me if you think any of them are seriously better than the others. I don't think there's any significant difference at all myself.I suggest everyone select the right tool for the job. Where stills work is concerned, this a7s2 has a BIG advantage in the small file size as compared to my 24mp a6000. I can shoot a house, pull the card, and upload the files to the cloud nice and easy when they are 12mp. Then text my editor to pull them down and pre-edit them for me and have them waiting for final review and touch up when I get home. If I shot all my frames on 24mp (or God forbid the 48mp of the a7r2) I think that uploading the files on-site would be a major paint if not completely undoable in the trenches of a 5-house workday. This would apply DOUBLE to someone in my field who doesn't use off-camera flash but instead choose a run-and-gun HDR approach to the business where they are just peeling off hundreds of frames for each and every shoot.Furthermore, the low-light capabilities of this camera make certain shooting situations a breeze. I find that most basements in small, inexpensive homes are not good candidates for using flash. So I switch gears and DO shoot 3-shot all-ambient-light HDR in basements. Often DIMLY LIT basements. With my a6000...there was really an upper limit of about ISO 800 for low-value basement shots. More than that and you start worrying about noise. This means that sometimes...that final 3 stop overexposed frame would take a LONG time to shoot. We're talking 8 seconds. Then you gotta wait another 8 seconds for it to "process". This is NOT the case with this a7s2. I can easily push ISO to 3200 with zero worries. I've even done 6400 and been pleased with the results. So this eliminates this little problem for me.Where video is concerned, it does what everyone says it does. Shoot in Picture Profile 8 to get slog3 to maximize your dynamic range in post. Obviously, everyone is shooting different things, but if you're shooting real estate walk-through videos, I suggest shooting in shutter priority mode, Auto ISO, in 30 frames per second recording (30p) and 1/60th shutter speed. Also, use a fly-by-wire lens like the Sony 16-35, not a manual aperture prime lens or anything like that. You want the camera to be able to stop down the aperture all the way to f22 if need be when you are doing something like approaching a window. The slog3 profile shoots at 1600 ISO or higher and I found out the hard way that it's easy to overexpose. Using shutter priority mode and allowing the camera to adjust aperture on the fly goes a long way in overcoming that problem without having to resort to ND filters.I shoot video from a DJI Ronim M stabilizer...so that helps keep footage nice and smooth. The multi-axis IBS stabilization built-in to this s2 helps on that front too I'm guessing. I'm pleased with it.What about downsides?Well, there are SOME situations where I want more resolution. I shoot all my exteriors still with my a6000/Rokinon 12mm setup. I find that I may want to "crop to zoom" in post a bit more on exteriors and so having 24mp vs just 12mp is better for outside shots.I also like the lightness factor of the a6000. Two-story houses are usually best photographed from 8' to 12' above ground level. I bring a painters pole with an Arca Swiss clamp on the end with me to every shoot and so I can just put the a6000 on that and run it up to the desired height and then shoot my most important shots (the exterior front of the house) from higher up using the Sony WIFI app. I would NOT feel comfortable doing this with the a7s2 and 16-35mm lens. They weight quite a bit more and are just too pricey to put up on a pole like that.Finally, shooting out-of-doors in slog3 has required that I use Breakthrough Photography's 6-stop ND. If the sun is out, you really want to use that picture profile because there is going to be dynamic range issues wherever the sun is hitting trees or the edge of the house or whatever and is casting shadows. But again, you have to shoot at ISO 1600 for that and even at f22...it sometimes is overexposed. So ND filters there. A mentor of mine just decided to buy both and use the s2 for interiors and r2 for exteriors for video. Says it's the best choice...but I'll have to wait to get some more coin if I'm gonna get another pricey camera.