The Deets

Here are the details about the a7R II that I think matter:

42.4 megapixel sensor. That makes for a pixel resolution of 7,952 x 5,304, and lossy-compressed raw files that are about 41 megabytes in size.

4K sLog 2 video recording in-camera, full-frame or 1:1 crop.

On-sensor phase-detection autofocus

5-axis sensor-shift image stabilization

Everything that was already great about the a7 line, refined — including: The magnesium body (slightly larger than the a7S’s) looks and feels great The perfect articulated rear 3“ LCD screen Razor-sharp OLED viewfinder It comes with a battery charger and an extra battery! Yay! And boy, will you need them. Boo.



With that covered, let’s get something out of the way right away:

For Stills, Mirrorless is Totally Here

I don’t know exactly when it happened. Maybe it was way back in 2013 when Trey Ratcliff switched, or maybe it was later, when Sony threw enough processing horsepower at the full-frame line that autofocus started to work as well as we’d come to expect from DSLRs — but mirrorless has totally, resoundingly arrived.

...except for auto review.

There are still some adjustments if you’re coming from the DSLR world. A big one is image review — that thing where the camera shows you the photo you just took. It’s on by default, but you’ll quickly spelunk deep into the byzantine menus to turn it off, because it keeps you from seeing through the viewfinder.

Pause to absorb how stupid this is.

On a DSLR, when you snap a photo, the LCD is free to show it to you. It’s up to you to chimp it or not, but if you keep your eye to the viewfinder, you get an uninterrupted view of your subject, and your brain stays in shooting mode where it belongs.

Reviewing shots in the EVF is not just disconcerting, it will actually cause you to miss great shots. It’s a terrible idea.

However, it’s also not so great to run in full-macho mode with no review at all. There are so many settings available on these cameras that it’s easy to get some wrong, and I’ve blown many shots by blasting away without the rear LCD alerting me to my mistake.

The obvious solution would be to enable review on the rear LCD, and not in the viewfinder. But this option is not available on any of Sony’s Alpha cameras. Until it is, you have to choose between the review blocking your subject, or sacrificing any kind of auto-review at all.

...and battery life.

DSLR shooters generally don’t turn their cameras off, because there’s no reason to. Unless you’re using an unusual continuous autofocus mode, a DSLR left on is using almost no power. We think about how many days we can go without charging, not how many shots.

Not so with mirrorless. These cameras chew through power. The a7S came with an external charger and an extra battery, ostensibly because of its video emphasis. The a7II (the Alpha that nether specializes in Resolution nor Sensitivity, and that I got to play with in San Diego thanks to Sony) ships with only one battery and no external charger, which is crazy. Sony is wise to include both with the a7R II.

...and cost.

Recently, folks finding my How to Take Good Photos for Under $1,000 article have asked me if I still recommend a DSLR over an entry-level mirrorless for getting into serious photography. The answer is yes, largely because of price.

This isn’t a tremendously germane point to a discussion of the a7R II, a full-frame flagship camera body — but it is worth mentioning in the context of mirrorless adoption in general.