الخميس، 20 أغسطس 2015
Sony Alpha 7 II Full Review
tube-program Provides Sony has been pretty loud about its Alpha 7 series of mirrorless interchangeable lens cameras and deservedly so. The lineup consists of the impressive Alpha 7S, Alpha 7, and Alpha 7R. This year, Sony introduced two new additions, the Alpha 7 II and Alpha 7R II to this range. Both feature a new 5-axis in-body sensor-shift image stabilisation (IS) technology made by Sony itself. While Olympus also has a sensor-shift technology, its cameras do not use a full-frame sensor.
The Alpha 7 II has a tweaked design which makes it bigger, and faster autofocus performance. Sony sent us a review unit of the Alpha 7 II with a 28-70mm f3.5-f5.6 kit lens but we were also able to use it with 70-200mm f4 G OSS telephoto lens during a sponsored trip to the Kabini river and Nagerhole National Park in Karnataka. Does the Alpha 7 II improve upon its predecessor? Is it worth the price difference over its predecessor? Find out answers to these questions and more in our review.
Design and usability
Despite its increased dimensions and weight, the Alpha 7 II has considerably better handling than its predecessor. We attribute this to the fact that Sony has used a magnesium alloy with a nice matte finish and has extended the hand grip as well. Just touching the Alpha 7 II's body shows how Sony has gone to great lengths to make it feel premium. This is by far one of the best cameras we've held in our hands, the 600g weight notwithstanding.
All the dials and buttons have really good tactile feedback. The feel of each click is reassuring. The E-mount for the lens is present on the front and swapping lenses is not too difficult. The power switch/shutter button combo sits on the top of the hand grip, and protruding slightly from the front of the grip is a front dial.
The top has the speaker, hotshoe for accessories, mode dial, two custom buttons and exposure compensation dial. The left has a flap that hides the microphone socket, headphones socket and Micro-USB port. A flap on the right conceals the SD card slot. The bottom of the camera has the battery compartment and the tripod socket.
The rear of the Alpha 7 II has the 90-degree tiltable LCD and a viewfinder above it with a rubber eyepiece. Besides it lies the diopter adjustment dial, which can be used to adjust the picture seen through the viewfinder. The third custom button (C3) lies above the variangle LCD and also doubles up as the zoom control when viewing pictures. On the right of the display lies the rear dial, AF/MF and AEL switch, Fn button, control wheel, fourth custom button (C4) which doubles up as the delete button, and the playback button. The movie recording button lies on the thumb rest and feels really small.
Features and specifications
Under the hood, Sony continues to use the same 35mm full-frame 24.3-megapixel Exmor CMOS sensor. It also has the same Bionz X processor. What's new is 5-axis sensor-shift image stabilisation system, which we've already stated. The sensor's light sensitivity ranges from ISO 50 to ISO 25,600. The camera has an E-mount and can support FE and A-mount lenses using adapters that cost extra.
Sony uses a combination of phase detection and contrast detection autofocus systems; the camera has 117 phase detect and 25 contrast detect points. The following focus modes are available: AF-S (single-shot), AF-C ( continuous), DMF (direct manual focus) and manual focus. It also has the following focus areas: wide, zone, centre, and flexible spot (large, medium, and small). The metering modes available are spot, centre-weighted, and multi-segment.
The Alpha 7 II has a continuous shooting speed of 5fps, which is not as good as some other cameras which offer up to 12fps. Video enthusiasts will really value the addition of 1080p XAVC S video recording at 50Mbps. Price: Rs. 1,54,990 (with 28-70mm f3.5-5.6 lens)
Sony has also added wireless connectivity to the Alpha 7 II in the form of Wi-Fi and NFC. You will need an app on your smartphone to view pictures and use it as a viewfinder, which makes it easy to shoot group photos without having to worry about fitting everyone in the frame. Inside the box, Sony provides a battery, a Micro-USB cable for charging, and a lanyard loop.
The electronic viewfinder has a resolution of 2.36m dots and is extremely crisp. The camera detects when the eye is close to the viewfinder and shuts down the LCD to save battery life. The 3-inch TFT monitor has a resolution of 1.23m dots, which is not as detailed as the viewfinder but we found that it had decent viewing angles and decent amount of saturation. The software is extremely easy to use and we'd suggest using the custom buttons for quick access to your preferred options. For example we used the centre button (inside the scroll wheel) to provide us direct access to the Focus settings.
Pros
- Superior details thanks to full-frame sensor
- Great handling
- Impeccable build quality
- Slightly expensive
- Very few lenses available
- Disappointing battery life
- Build/Design: 4.5
- Image Quality: 4.5
- Video: 4
- Battery Life: 3
- Value For money: 3.5
- Overall: 4
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