Andrew Reid

It's true some of the M42 adapters short out the pins. Put some tape over the back of the M42 adapter, the bit that touches the pins is then covered. The tape doesn't interfere with the screw mount or infinity focus.

If the mainboard and main CPU backs straight onto the rear (likely) then it is indeed the heatsink being covered by the LCD. Also I notice when 4K is enabled, you can't enable Sunny Weather mode which makes the LCD backlight go crazy bright, thus generating more heat. It gets greyed out in the menus. Worth testing this I reckon... ---- How often do you record continuous takes one after the other of 30 min+ Live events and interviews... that is about it. For everything else including the long hikes in the sun, you should be less worried than you guys seem...

I'd rather have a blown out bottle top than a grey fog and terrible colour!

I had good results with the Arri profiles in Film Covert as well. Premiere CC 2015 Lumetri Color is a good step forward but I am not sure I 100% trust the built in profiles yet. Have you seen the train wreak it makes of S-LOG 2? Select the SLOG2 - SL - PROFILE LUT with your A7S / A7R II footage and have fun trying to get that to look good!!! Two tints... too yellow or too pink, take your choice

Nope. The mirror is in the way!

I love the Blackmagic image as well and the URSA Mini 4.6K looks extremely good so far. I can't get my head around why they keep announcing stuff at NAB instead of closer to when they are actually read to ship. Somebody move NAB closer to the Blackmagic release dates because visa versa is clearly never going to happen!! Video Assist is just a cheap monitor... good one at that... but why does it take them until October to get them out of the door? Summer is peak shooting time!! Yep the price is good however Blackmagic seem to have more firmly defined their market as professional. With the initial cameras they had more of a cross over appeal and Blackmagic seemed to encourage it and get them into consumer high street photography stores as well. Can't see that happening with the URSAs.

That's a great lens and you will be amazed how light it is as well.

Thanks for buying the book Doug. The focus magnifier seems to differ between stills and movie mode, also the magnification factor in stills mode is different depending on if APS-C mode is enabled or full frame. So it is 4x only in movie mode but if you read the bit about stills mode and switch to 16:9 you get a few benefits including the cleaner 12x magnification on the 2nd press. Agree that the A7R II is such a good all-rounder. There's been quite a negative response in this thread, I didn't think the review was that bad. Overall I am loving the A7R II. Just had to point out a few of the drawbacks. It is amazing how hyped it has been and how these things have been totally glossed over or added as small print to the bottom of a list of cons below a massive list of pros and a headline that screams AMAZING. Filmmakers gotta know the truth or it really does mess us up on a shoot. Well the A7S full frame 1080/60p is pixel binned so not so good, Nikon D750 is better for that. Super 35mm 1080p from the A7S is all from a full pixel readout. The A7R II is very unlikely to do 1080/60p better than the A7S, it can't do a 36MP full pixel readout from the full frame sensor at 60fps. The A7S only manages it because the Super 35mm crop portion of the 12MP sensor is extremely low res by comparison. In S35 crop mode, let's see... A7R II has 15MP to contend with, unlike to do 60fps with full pixel readout, maybe in 24p. I'll try it.

Thank you. That sums it up well. No camera is perfect. Knowledge, or another word for it, truth, is an asset. If you have that you will choose the right camera for the job and get good results out of anything if you know the limitations.

In part 1 of the Sony A7R II review we will look at the A7R II not as a consumer camera but as a professional cinema camera. The benchmark for this camera is going to be the Canon 1D C. Read the full article

What is the point of the Sony beating the Canon for dynamic range if they both look shit when you dig that far down? Nobody does that in the real world. It is showing some technical aspect of the sensor and nothing more. Also the dynamic range of the A7R II only seems to extend that far in the green channel. May as well be black and white. Where's the colour information gone?

Best penis swinging physics I have ever seen in a computer game! Loved the whole style, it's entertaining from start to finish. If anything it almost looked too good!! If you really want VHS quality.... shoot with a NEX VG90!! It has the VHS colours straight out of the camera. I'm not joking!! Have you seen Computer Chess? I haven't yet but loved the trailer and it's on my list... that looks very CRT tubey. I love it when someone puts a ton of effort into something and its a labour of love which this music video clearly was. Enjoyed the music too man... we shall have to work together on something in the future, perhaps when I get myself back to the UK and divorce myself from my family of 600 lenses and 24 cameras

Quite an interesting test that one. Good to see the full frame mode is looking so good. The only time I will be using S35 mode is when I want to use ISO 6400+ and Speed Booster in very low light. It was never going to be a minimal rolling shutter 4K camera from a 42MP sensor. But even the fact it has less rolling shutter in 4K than the A7S does in 1080p shows an impressive step up in sensor readout speed. And that it is able to match the GH4 despite the enormous difference in sensor size and resolution is mind-blowing.

Still too many words and not enough pictures on this thread! Take some 10bit ProRes and convert to a high quality 8bit codec at the same bitrate (around 250Mbit/s would be good) Then post screen shots of the image quality (hint - they will look identical) and also the grading issues you find (hint - you will never push it that far to breaking point in a real world grade)... LOG is more important to image quality & dynamic range than 10bit vs 8bit.

Yeah. There is!! And all of them fuck all to do with 10bit.

Show us then!! I'm going to fucking bed!

Spare a millisecond proving it then, and do us all a fucking favour.

Because it isn't the 10bit you're liking. For a start your screen is 8bit. Secondly a typical 10bit camera like the Blackmagic Pocket has a wide dynamic range - you liking that and also the high data rate of ProRes meaning fine grain and very little compression so less colour data is lost. Also you are liking the look of an i-frame codec rather than long GOP and 422 over 420. All make a difference to the image. The 1D C proves that you can get amazing amounts of colour information out of a 8bit file. Hell, 42MP A7R II JPEGs prove this 10bit is massively overrated because people blame 8bit for stuff that is really the fault of heavy compression (banding) and sensor related shortcomings in DSLRs. If a line-skipping DSLR went 10bit tomorrow in a firmware update you would notice no difference. And as for grading, I have tried grading 8bit and 10bit from the same camera and you have to pixel peep ridiculously hard to see a difference. Raw makes all the difference for grading, it is a different ballgame. 10bit is not.

Because you're wrong!

Correct. It's not a huge huge leap. 1D C 8bit vs BM Pocket Camera 10bit... guess which looks better.

Rumours were true they did reach out but not sure much came of it, they also reached out to me over a book but nothing came of that, I think they are just scouting / testing the waters really. They did a great job on the NX1 let's hope they can now do a great job on a raw shooting full frame camera By the way if 10bit is the 'holy grail' even when compressed, why isn't everyone on this forum shooting 14bit?

Magic Lantern already did... 14 bit raw. Medal goes to them.

Please continue all A7R II topics here:

Of course the A7R II is great I just think there's a high chance it will be obsolete for video in just 6 months. Also, Sony making their own $3300 camera obsolete in just 6 months for video is a really stupid strategy.

That would be an interesting direction to take the A7S II. I am sure it would be able to do an 18MP full pixel readout if it inherited the sensor architecture of the RX100 IV's 1" sensor and scaled it up to full frame with better cooling, heat sink, larger body. Therefore you'd have 30fps continuous shooting as a sports stills cam. Buffer memory is one of the most expensive parts of a camera and they always limit the size. However with CFast 2.0 cards you'd be able to write 18MP raw directly to the card continuously at 30fps. In theory 4K raw video would also be possible. The aim of speed kinda clashes a bit with sensitivity though... fast sensors are noisier because they generate more heat. So Sony may choose to limit the speed and extend ISO instead. Personally I'd call for a balance. I don't really need 4 million ISO that often You can count on better AF being part of the A7S II. Already on the A7 II and especially the A7R II it is massively improved. In terms of the A7S II I am expecting an evolution not a revolution but part of me prefers the NX1's body as a mirrorless camera that handles more like a flagship DSLR. I find Sony's ergonomics much improved over the NEX days but they are still too cramped and fiddly. Also please give us a reorganised menu system and a better function / favourites menu. I want to be able to have 4k / 1080p file format on the favourites menu like on my 1D C for quick access.