Gadgetory

hello friends Brandon here with my first ever camera review the a7 s mark - like the original this camera has at many in the video community talking but does it stack up to the current camera market before I go any further this camera has stills features but I will be tackling this review from a video perspective the original a7s hit the market along with the gh4 about a year ago the a7s stole the hearts of many shooters with its unbelievable ability to nearly see in the dark the mark 2 looks to add some functionality while maintaining what everyone loved about the mark 1 the body of the camera is very similar to the original design with only a slightly larger side grip and a few more buttons the record button is unfortunately still on the far right of the camera above the SD card door and is as awkward to press as ever you can however remap it to almost any other button on the camera so it becomes much less of an issue in the Box notably you get two batteries which is nice since the a7s chews through power lasting about two to three hours of shooting per battery going a step further sonia's again included the ability to power the camera off of a USB battery bank as long as you have a battery in the camera a feature I will definitely be taking advantage of during long shoot days at events like CES the display on the a7s2 composes of a 1.2 million dot 3-inch screen and a 2.3 million dot electronic viewfinder the three inch display is reasonably bright but with a couple of issues first off the mechanism for how the monitor articulates which sony has still not changed since they got into the mirrorless camera market is not incredibly useful it simply tilts up or down and has very insignificant trouble I found it particularly annoying when using it on our tripod at its highest height making it very difficult for someone at my height to see the shot easily coming off of a year of shooting with the gh4 which has many more position options for its display this took some adjusting on my part the EVF on the a7 s2 is very solid and using it as another point of contact when shooting handheld what this camera is great until we get into the biggest issue with both displays on the a7 s to focus the punch in to check focus and peaking on the a7 s two are the worst I have ever used on any camera especially of this caliber is incredibly soft punch all the way in and gives very little confidence for critical focus particularly when you're in fast-moving situations the peaking is passable but isn't particularly useful on such a small display even on the lower setting if you are the type of person who often shoots events or fast-paced documentary work I would recommend a small and light monitor to add to your rig to combat this issue let's get into the a7s2 s improved autofocus system I tested it while walking around the office and the results are disappointing the autofocus seems to be a bit slow to react and with the lens I tested Sony's 16 35-millimeter f/4 there was weird micro jitter that renders the shot unusable it's possible the performance issue is due to the lens however that does not give me very much confidence trust the autofocus system in most situations but your mileage may vary so what makes this camera so special dat sensor the a7s2 sports an effective 12.2 megapixel full-frame sensor that has stolen the title of low-light King from every other camera on the market so to see proof for myself I went down to Vancouver's Olympic Village to test out the low-light here's a shot of some large steps near the area with what my eyes could see now here's what I could see with the camera what sorcery is this here's another example of what my eyes can see and what the camera can see now you might be thinking that's great I'll never have to use lights for videos again this camera can basically see in the dark let me stop you right there the point of having the ability to use such high ISOs on a camera like this is not simply to crank your ISO to get the exposure for your shot but to really take advantage of the control you have over your depth of field you no longer have to expose your shots at F 1.4 with a razor-thin depth of field for night shots to me that is the most powerful part of the low-light ability of this camera you can really think about how shallow or deep you want your focus and for those of you working in narrative your focus puller will thank you the second party trick this camera has is Sony's new in sensor 5 axis stabilization which again I tested on a swegway and I was really surprised with the result this shot feels to me like it might have been done on a three axis gimbal but it was simply me holding the camera while riding forward for comparison here's a very similar shot with the stabilization this feature is a great addition but again to truly take advantage of it you really need to have email lenses arguably the most wanted improvement over the mark one is internal 4k which this camera can do at 30 fps and 24 fps in the xav cs codec at either 100 or 60 megabits per second this is a very welcomed addition since it will give you a bit more wiggle room when reframing shots in post comparing it to the 1080p honestly the difference especially when down scaling before K to 1080p is relatively minor you can however see the difference when zoomed in all the way at 400% the last of the recording modes is Sony's two flavors of slow motion you have the option of 120 fps at 100 or 60 megabits per second which will need to be conformed to your desired frame rate in post the admittedly more consumer-friendly option is to have the footage slowed down for you in camera however I do not recommend this for pro use since the footage is fairly noisy and soft so in conclusion the a7s mark ii is basically everything you could ask for in a small form-factor camera if you can work around the relatively minor issues that I mentioned before as well as other little things like not being able to control monitor brightness while shooting 4k and not be able to custom white balance well and manual exposure really Sony you'll be looking at one of the best small form-factor cameras on the market and going forward this will be the main camera I used to do b-roll for all of our videos as I have been since the camera arrived Squarespace is a simple platform for building powerful and beautiful websites starting at only eight bucks a month with a free domain if you sign up for a year and you get 24/7 live chat and email support for your website whether you're going for one of their larger awesome templates or even one of their cover pages designs for more focused on a single page they also have support for things like Commerce if you intend to sell products and responsive design so your website can look great on all screen sizes start a trial with no credit card or card and start billing today also be sure to use offer code lines for 10% off on your first purchase Squarespace build it beautiful yeah yeah so thank you guys for watching I had a lot of fun making this review and if you liked it leave a thumbs up and if you didn't go ahead and dislike it and maybe even tell me why on Twitter handle here I hope to do more videos like this in the future so your feedback is welcome while you're at all of that maybe even consider supporting us directly by using our affiliate code to shop at Amazon buying a cool t-shirt like this one or with the direct monthly contribution through the forum now that you're done doing all that stuff you're probably wondering what to watch next so click that little button in the top right hand corner to check out this video where I reviewed the meta bones speed booster it's quite a cool little adapter