Honestly just amazing

Adam W Paluch said:

I upgraded from the sony a6400 because I wanted to go full frame, as this system offers a better selection of lenses than APS-C. The camera feels great to use, with excellent ergonomics. The 42mp resolution allows to crop into pictures quite a bit and still be able to have a resolution high enough to print in large format. Only downside is that the camera is a tiny bit heavy compared to the a6400 but that's not a problem for me. Overall, it's a great camera.

Click to expand...

The A7RII is a five year old digital camera which image quality are only beaten by five other ones up till the current now, and that is not by much (DXOmark measurement 98 vs the best ones today at 100 points). Canon R5/6 not yet measured by them, might change that position, might not.

The A7RII will be in the history books for how much before its time it was in image quality and it is also the camera that really fueled Sonys progress into being a respected camera maker.

The A7RII is not a do it all camera like the A7III. It is rather specialized for slow paced photography. It does landscapes, cityscapes and even portraits really good. Use it for slow photography with a thought behind and it shines.

The AF is surprisingly good and fast with native glass, but the buffer is not large and fills fast if one tries to shot action with it. And many operations are rather slow. The smaller batteries and their life is also a factor many have problems with, but I have personally seldom needed the spare battery on my outings with it or the events I have shot with it as my second camera as a wing man for my A9.

Would I buy it again today? Probably not, I would most likely go for an A7RIII that addresses basically all weaknesses of the A7RII (though looses the apps) and by that becomes a much more all around camera.

But used right within the envelope it handles well, it is still one of the best camera out there. I started with photography back in 1980 so I have been trough some camera since then and I would say that it is my best camera purchase ever, it just delivers what I got it for over and over again.

lattesweden said:

Adam W Paluch said:

I upgraded from the sony a6400 because I wanted to go full frame, as this system offers a better selection of lenses than APS-C. The camera feels great to use, with excellent ergonomics. The 42mp resolution allows to crop into pictures quite a bit and still be able to have a resolution high enough to print in large format. Only downside is that the camera is a tiny bit heavy compared to the a6400 but that's not a problem for me. Overall, it's a great camera.

Click to expand...

The A7RII is a five year old digital camera which image quality are only beaten by five other ones up till the current now, and that is not by much (DXOmark measurement 98 vs the best ones today at 100 points). Canon R5/6 not yet measured by them, might change that position, might not.

The A7RII will be in the history books for how much before its time it was in image quality and it is also the camera that really fueled Sonys progress into being a respected camera maker.

The A7RII is not a do it all camera like the A7III. It is rather specialized for slow paced photography.

Click to expand...

i shot my daughters netball game last week and it didnt miss a beat.

lattesweden said:

It does landscapes, cityscapes and even portraits really good. Use it for slow photography with a thought behind and it shines.

Click to expand...

You mean its not good for spray and pray ?

lattesweden said:

The AF is surprisingly good and fast with native glass, but the buffer is not large and fills fast if one tries to shot action with it. And many operations are rather slow. The smaller batteries and their life is also a factor many have problems with, but I have personally seldom needed the spare battery on my outings with it or the events I have shot with it as my second camera as a wing man for my A9.

Would I buy it again today? Probably not, I would most likely go for an A7RIII that addresses basically all weaknesses of the A7RII (though looses the apps) and by that becomes a much more all around camera.

But used right within the envelope it handles well, it is still one of the best camera out there. I started with photography back in 1980 so I have been trough some camera since then and I would say that it is my best camera purchase ever, it just delivers what I got it for over and over again.

Click to expand...

--
Olympus EM1mk2, Sony A7r2
http://www.dpreview.com/galleries/9412035244
past toys. k100d, k10d,k7,fz5,fz150,500uz,canon G9, Olympus xz1 em5mk1 em5mk2

Enjoy, its a great camera, ive had mine for 6 months now and love it, AF is as snappy as the latest cameras if you look at Imaging recourses performance tests. the buffer is slow if you get carried away in burst mode but i rarely shoot bursts.

Don

Donald B said:

lattesweden said:

Adam W Paluch said:

I upgraded from the sony a6400 because I wanted to go full frame, as this system offers a better selection of lenses than APS-C. The camera feels great to use, with excellent ergonomics. The 42mp resolution allows to crop into pictures quite a bit and still be able to have a resolution high enough to print in large format. Only downside is that the camera is a tiny bit heavy compared to the a6400 but that's not a problem for me. Overall, it's a great camera.

Click to expand...

The A7RII is a five year old digital camera which image quality are only beaten by five other ones up till the current now, and that is not by much (DXOmark measurement 98 vs the best ones today at 100 points). Canon R5/6 not yet measured by them, might change that position, might not.

The A7RII will be in the history books for how much before its time it was in image quality and it is also the camera that really fueled Sonys progress into being a respected camera maker.

The A7RII is not a do it all camera like the A7III. It is rather specialized for slow paced photography.

Click to expand...

i shot my daughters netball game last week and it didnt miss a beat.

Click to expand...

As I wrote, the AF is quite good, but the buffer fills fast.

I've shot horse wagons with their passengers going by on a small scenic road and filled the buffer on every pass even though I don't shot in continuous drive but press for each shot. I shot RAW+JPEG.

It gets even worse with uncompressed RAWs.

Member said:

Member said:

It does landscapes, cityscapes and even portraits really good. Use it for slow photography with a thought behind and it shines.

Click to expand...

You mean its not good for spray and pray ?

Click to expand...

It is not good for Continous shooting no.
Or when you take many images in a row also in Single mode since it writes very slow.

Also in Single Drive mode how fast after a shot one can press Play/review is a rather long time, and if one happens to press before it is ready when it is still writing one gets an error message which is quite irritating and one have to wait a little longer and then press again. It would have been better if the message said that it isn't ready and it automatically, when it was ready, showed the image. The way it is implemented and just throws up that error message is somewhat annoying. The write times before one can review just one image is longer than any other camera I've had. So one have to work a little slow with it and then it is fine.

Member said:

Member said:

The AF is surprisingly good and fast with native glass, but the buffer is not large and fills fast if one tries to shot action with it. And many operations are rather slow. The smaller batteries and their life is also a factor many have problems with, but I have personally seldom needed the spare battery on my outings with it or the events I have shot with it as my second camera as a wing man for my A9.

Would I buy it again today? Probably not, I would most likely go for an A7RIII that addresses basically all weaknesses of the A7RII (though looses the apps) and by that becomes a much more all around camera.

But used right within the envelope it handles well, it is still one of the best camera out there. I started with photography back in 1980 so I have been trough some camera since then and I would say that it is my best camera purchase ever, it just delivers what I got it for over and over again.

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

What SD card are you using? If you're not using a U3 card, you're not getting the full performance out of the camera's writing ability.

And do you really need the JPG? I shoot RAW + JPG, too, but rarely use the JPGs.

SQLGuy said:

What SD card are you using? If you're not using a U3 card, you're not getting the full performance out of the camera's writing ability.

And do you really need the JPG? I shoot RAW + JPG, too, but rarely use the JPGs.

Click to expand...

Spot on, check what SD card you are using. The A7Rii has been tested to write up to about 35 MB/sec, so you don't need anything superfast: check out some of the cards in this excellent resource... SD cards tested in A7Rii

SQLGuy said:

What SD card are you using? If you're not using a U3 card, you're not getting the full performance out of the camera's writing ability.

Click to expand...

These two are the ones I use in my A7RII.

SQLGuy said:

And do you really need the JPG? I shoot RAW + JPG, too, but rarely use the JPGs.

Click to expand...

I have the JPEG as a backup for write errors. Only have needed to use it once in my whole life on my RX100mkI. One can off course turn the JPEG off when one needs better write performances. I used to do that on my Olympus cameras when focus bracketing up to 35 images. I have an A9 nowadays as my camera for continuous shooting so the A7RII is shot RAW+JPEG all the time basically.

--
Best regards
/Anders
----------------------------------------------------
Mirrorless, mirrorless on the wall, say which is the best camera of them all?
Some images:
https://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/64169208
https://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/64221482

ukbassman said:

SQLGuy said:

What SD card are you using? If you're not using a U3 card, you're not getting the full performance out of the camera's writing ability.

And do you really need the JPG? I shoot RAW + JPG, too, but rarely use the JPGs.

Click to expand...

Spot on, check what SD card you are using. The A7Rii has been tested to write up to about 35 MB/sec, so you don't need anything superfast: check out some of the cards in this excellent resource... SD cards tested in A7Rii

Click to expand...

See the image I posted of the two cards I use in my A7RII. The closest on the page you linked to is Lexar 32GB 1000x UHS-II which did 34.28 MB/s in their test.

lattesweden said:

ukbassman said:

SQLGuy said:

What SD card are you using? If you're not using a U3 card, you're not getting the full performance out of the camera's writing ability.

And do you really need the JPG? I shoot RAW + JPG, too, but rarely use the JPGs.

Click to expand...

Spot on, check what SD card you are using. The A7Rii has been tested to write up to about 35 MB/sec, so you don't need anything superfast: check out some of the cards in this excellent resource... SD cards tested in A7Rii

Click to expand...

See the image I posted of the two cards I use in my A7RII. The closest on the page you linked to is Lexar 32GB 1000x UHS-II which did 34.28 MB/s in their test.

Click to expand...

Should be good.

Surprising, though, because even when I was shooting continuous high for horse jumping events, I didn't run out of buffer. I also shoot RAW + JPG, with uncompressed RAW, and that was with my older, slower, SD card. I certainly had to wait some time for the buffer to clear, but it was it was enough to handle bursts like a horse coming towards me over a couple of in-line jumps.

SQLGuy said:

lattesweden said:

ukbassman said:

SQLGuy said:

What SD card are you using? If you're not using a U3 card, you're not getting the full performance out of the camera's writing ability.

And do you really need the JPG? I shoot RAW + JPG, too, but rarely use the JPGs.

Click to expand...

Spot on, check what SD card you are using. The A7Rii has been tested to write up to about 35 MB/sec, so you don't need anything superfast: check out some of the cards in this excellent resource... SD cards tested in A7Rii

Click to expand...

See the image I posted of the two cards I use in my A7RII. The closest on the page you linked to is Lexar 32GB 1000x UHS-II which did 34.28 MB/s in their test.

Click to expand...

Should be good.

Surprising, though, because even when I was shooting continuous high for horse jumping events, I didn't run out of buffer. I also shoot RAW + JPG, with uncompressed RAW, and that was with my older, slower, SD card. I certainly had to wait some time for the buffer to clear, but it was it was enough to handle bursts like a horse coming towards me over a couple of in-line jumps.

Click to expand...

I was shooting horse wagons with passengers that came after each other on a small scenic road. At the time I was using compressed RAW+JPEG and I hit the buffer so I couldn't shot. Imaging Resource said this in their test:

"Switching from compressed to uncompressed RAW files in Continuous Hi mode had no significant effect on frame rate, however it drastically decreased buffer depth from 23 frames to only 9 frames, and it also reduced clearing time slightly from 24 to 22 seconds due to the shallower buffer."

Source: https://www.imaging-resource.com/PRODS/sony-a7r-ii/sony-a7r-iiA6.HTM

Imaging Resource calculated RAW+JPEG once the buffer is full to 0.63 fps and to 0.85 fps for only RAW.
--
Best regards
/Anders
----------------------------------------------------
Mirrorless, mirrorless on the wall, say which is the best camera of them all?
Some images:
https://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/64169208
https://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/64221482

Great camera with one major downside: The EVF. Shimmering at first mag step makes it hard to focus MF (unlike one accpets that shimmering as "focus indicator" - which I don't). It is been fixed with the a7r3.

SQLGuy said:

lattesweden said:

ukbassman said:

SQLGuy said:

What SD card are you using? If you're not using a U3 card, you're not getting the full performance out of the camera's writing ability.

And do you really need the JPG? I shoot RAW + JPG, too, but rarely use the JPGs.

Click to expand...

Spot on, check what SD card you are using. The A7Rii has been tested to write up to about 35 MB/sec, so you don't need anything superfast: check out some of the cards in this excellent resource... SD cards tested in A7Rii

Click to expand...

See the image I posted of the two cards I use in my A7RII. The closest on the page you linked to is Lexar 32GB 1000x UHS-II which did 34.28 MB/s in their test.

Click to expand...

Should be good.

Click to expand...

By the way, I tested all my cards with a free Windows program called CrystalDiskMark a year or so ago so I would know how they performs: https://crystalmark.info/en/software/crystaldiskmark/

My A9 and A7III which are my event body pair (my A7RII is my landscape/cityscape body nowadays). The A9 and A7III I use with a Sony Though card in the UHSII slot for RAWs and a Lexar 1000X card in the UHSI slot for JPEGs.

--
Best regards
/Anders
----------------------------------------------------
Mirrorless, mirrorless on the wall, say which is the best camera of them all?
Some images:
https://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/64169208
https://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/64221482

I've used 2 A7R2 cameras for almost five years, and have not been tempted to upgrade.

I'll add another category: Flash at night. I use a small flashlight to illuminate the subject. The AF is great.







- Richard

Donald B said:

Enjoy, its a great camera, ive had mine for 6 months now and love it, AF is as snappy as the latest cameras if you look at Imaging recourses performance tests. the buffer is slow if you get carried away in burst mode but i rarely shoot bursts.

Don

Click to expand...

As you, I don’t shoot bursts very often. I agree that the A7RII still is a great camera. And that does say a lot, years after its introduction. Still a very competitive camera, especially in IQ.

I upgraded to A7RIV last year and Sony managed to improve an already fine camera a lot! Once you use that A7RIV (and maybe also the A7RIII...don’t know, because I never had it), you realize how much more potential a camera can have. Sony does an amazing job over and over again.

happy shooting

mujana said:

Donald B said:

Enjoy, its a great camera, ive had mine for 6 months now and love it, AF is as snappy as the latest cameras if you look at Imaging recourses performance tests. the buffer is slow if you get carried away in burst mode but i rarely shoot bursts.

Don

Click to expand...

As you, I don’t shoot bursts very often. I agree that the A7RII still is a great camera. And that does say a lot, years after its introduction. Still a very competitive camera, especially in IQ.

I upgraded to A7RIV last year and Sony managed to improve an already fine camera a lot! Once you use that A7RIV (and maybe also the A7RIII...don’t know, because I never had it), you realize how much more potential a camera can have. Sony does an amazing job over and over again.

happy shooting

Click to expand...

I shoot a Olympus em12 as well and no Sony camera is as slick as it for operation speed and total programming I will stick with the a7r2 until Sony catch up

Don

--
Olympus EM1mk2, Sony A7r2
http://www.dpreview.com/galleries/9412035244
past toys. k100d, k10d,k7,fz5,fz150,500uz,canon G9, Olympus xz1 em5mk1 em5mk2

Donald B said:

mujana said:

Donald B said:

Enjoy, its a great camera, ive had mine for 6 months now and love it, AF is as snappy as the latest cameras if you look at Imaging recourses performance tests. the buffer is slow if you get carried away in burst mode but i rarely shoot bursts.

Don

Click to expand...

As you, I don’t shoot bursts very often. I agree that the A7RII still is a great camera. And that does say a lot, years after its introduction. Still a very competitive camera, especially in IQ.

I upgraded to A7RIV last year and Sony managed to improve an already fine camera a lot! Once you use that A7RIV (and maybe also the A7RIII...don’t know, because I never had it), you realize how much more potential a camera can have. Sony does an amazing job over and over again.

happy shooting

Click to expand...

I shoot a Olympus em12 as well and no Sony camera is as slick as it for operation speed and total programming I will stick with the a7r2 until Sony catch up

Don

Click to expand...

I cannot tell that; never owned the em12 (but I did own the E3/E5/EM5). Did you ever try the A7RIV for at least a couple of days? If not....don' t do it. You might get tempted

Total programming on the A7RIV is astonishing. Believe me.

I 've had my a7rii since I bought it used after the a7riii came out. It has met all my needs and the IQ is still the best Sony has to offer in the a7r series. I could upgrade to the a7riv, but I'd rather buy lenses.

mujana said:

Donald B said:

mujana said:

Donald B said:

Enjoy, its a great camera, ive had mine for 6 months now and love it, AF is as snappy as the latest cameras if you look at Imaging recourses performance tests. the buffer is slow if you get carried away in burst mode but i rarely shoot bursts.

Don

Click to expand...

As you, I don’t shoot bursts very often. I agree that the A7RII still is a great camera. And that does say a lot, years after its introduction. Still a very competitive camera, especially in IQ.

I upgraded to A7RIV last year and Sony managed to improve an already fine camera a lot! Once you use that A7RIV (and maybe also the A7RIII...don’t know, because I never had it), you realize how much more potential a camera can have. Sony does an amazing job over and over again.

happy shooting

Click to expand...

I shoot a Olympus em12 as well and no Sony camera is as slick as it for operation speed and total programming I will stick with the a7r2 until Sony catch up

Don

Click to expand...

I cannot tell that; never owned the em12 (but I did own the E3/E5/EM5). Did you ever try the A7RIV for at least a couple of days? If not....don' t do it. You might get tempted

Total programming on the A7RIV is astonishing. Believe me.

Click to expand...

Ive read to many things that it cant do compared to my em12 which i use. i will stick with it for my studio work. The whole camera settings can be saved on the olympus not just a dedicated menu of common settings. this is very important when switching from studio work to out door candids to video. I dont even think about it, just turn the mode dial and im locked in to the exact settings i need.

Don

Donald B said:

mujana said:

Donald B said:

mujana said:

Donald B said:

Enjoy, its a great camera, ive had mine for 6 months now and love it, AF is as snappy as the latest cameras if you look at Imaging recourses performance tests. the buffer is slow if you get carried away in burst mode but i rarely shoot bursts.

Don

Click to expand...

As you, I don’t shoot bursts very often. I agree that the A7RII still is a great camera. And that does say a lot, years after its introduction. Still a very competitive camera, especially in IQ.

I upgraded to A7RIV last year and Sony managed to improve an already fine camera a lot! Once you use that A7RIV (and maybe also the A7RIII...don’t know, because I never had it), you realize how much more potential a camera can have. Sony does an amazing job over and over again.

happy shooting

Click to expand...

I shoot a Olympus em12 as well and no Sony camera is as slick as it for operation speed and total programming I will stick with the a7r2 until Sony catch up

Don

Click to expand...

I cannot tell that; never owned the em12 (but I did own the E3/E5/EM5). Did you ever try the A7RIV for at least a couple of days? If not....don' t do it. You might get tempted

Total programming on the A7RIV is astonishing. Believe me.

Click to expand...

Ive read to many things that it cant do compared to my em12 which i use. i will stick with it for my studio work. The whole camera settings can be saved on the olympus not just a dedicated menu of common settings. this is very important when switching from studio work to out door candids to video. I dont even think about it, just turn the mode dial and im locked in to the exact settings i need.

Don

Click to expand...

Fine if you are happy. Good luck with your cameras and happy shooting!