Description

Sony's been building its A7 series of Alpha full-frame mirrorless cameras, each model has made compromises: great sensitivity but low resolution ( A7S II ), sharp image quality but slow autofocus system ( A7R ), fast autofocus system but not best-in-the-line photo quality ( A7 II ). But with its latest entry, the A7R II, Sony tosses all its newest technology at it.

In the newly reignited war over resolution in pro cameras, Sony's A7R II slips in at 42 megapixels, right between the Canon 5DS R 's 50MP and the Nikon D810 's 36MP. But the camera doesn't really need to claim highest resolution to stand out in the crowd of full-frame cameras; its excellent photo quality, great video (including support for 4K) and compact, comfortable design speak for themselves.

The camera costs $3,200, £2,800 or AU$4,500. That's not cheap, and while it's less expensive than the 5DS R ($3,900, £3,200, AU$5,540), it's more expensive than the D810 ($3,000, £2,380, AU$4,000). What the money buys you, though, is an excellent and compact full-frame mirrorless camera that's more suited for shooting video than its dSLR counterparts.

Image quality

This camera incorporates the first a full-frame BSI (backside illuminated) CMOS sensor (Sony's Exmor R branded sensors). BSI sensors have become extremely popular because their construction makes them more sensitive in low light than traditional CMOS imagers and because their structure allows for faster the readout speeds needed to support high-frame-rate video and stills.

SONY A7R II FULL-RESOLUTION PHOTO SAMPLESSEE FULL GALLERY

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BSI technology allows Sony to cram the 42.4 megapixels on the sensor and attain ISO sensitivity of up to ISO 102400 -- even in video -- while enabling a lot of other new features in the camera. Sony claims that all its current FE-mount lenses can resolve detail for higher resolution sensor, though I don't think the company had the inexpensive 28-70mm f3.5-5.6 in mind with that statement. I tested with a variety of Zeiss (the Batis 25mm f2 and 85mm f1.8) and Sony ZA lenses (35mm f1.4, 90mm, 55mm f1.8, 90mm f2.8 macro) however, and they all seemed to rise to the challenge.

As is the hallmark of the A7R models, the sensor doesn't have an optical low-pass filter (OLPF), which facilitates sharper images but the tradeoff is usually moire artifacts. (Moire is the color or wavy lines caused by interference between high-frequency patterns, like fine weaves, with the sensor grid.) Sony clearly does moire reduction as part of its JPEG processing, because there's none in the JPEGs while there's clearly a bit in their raw equivalents. However, even the moire in the raw files isn't nearly as I've bad as I've seen from some other cameras.

The camera has an excellent noise profile, with one exception. JPEGs look very clean through ISO 1600, remain quite good through ISO 6400, and remain usable all the way through ISO 102400, albeit "usable" depends upon how you plan to use them. The one exception: above ISO 6400 horizontal bands start to appear in dark areas, and I couldn't figure out a way to fix them, at least with existing raw-processing software. Not in every shot, but they cut across all the color channels and they're in enough photos to indicate it might be a problem for some people.

It retains shadow detail quite well through ISO 6400, but clips highlights, frequently irretrievably, across almost the whole ISO sensivity range. Raw files naturally do better -- the Standard default Creative Style used by JPEGs increases contrast so you lose both highlight and shadow detail -- but I still missed a lot of highlights. Hopefully, the firmware update slated for later this year, which adds lossless compression to the raw files, will make a noticeable difference; the first casualty of lossy compression is highlights and shadows. Problems with highlights are typical for BSI sensors, unfortunately.

Sharpness and color, on the other hand, rate as excellent. Even with the default Creative Style, color reproduction is quite neutral, and while the saturation is pumped up a bit I didn't see any real hue shifts except in a generally difficult-to-reproduce red (which was more accurate in the raw). And photos are sharp, with great detail resolution as long as you've got a high-quality lens.

It's a testament to the A7R II's photo quality that despite its issues, I think most people will be happy with the images they get from the camera, especially under controlled lighting environments, like studio shots.

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