Hey all, after almost 10 years without a camera I'm looking to get back into the game. I have no idea how I afforded gear back in the day but I'm back on the search and man is stuff pricy. To keep my entry costs down right now I'm looking at an A7 II instead of the A7 III that I would like. My main focus would be automotive/track photography. I know the A7 III is obviously much better but in the case where I'd rather have $500 towards good glass I'm leaning towards the A7 II.
Everything is improved on the A7iii vs. A7ii: autofocus, dynamic range, high ISO, and color. Maybe get a used one in good condition? But you can make excellent photos with the A7ii too.
It's a gear forum. What do you think they are going to recommend you do? The early Sonys are lovely cameras, strong and reliable, durable, lighter. Here is a DR comparison (you lose just 0.4 stops at base, have parity at 400-500, then drop just 0.6 stops at high ISO) over the a7III.
The a7II is better in DR than the Nikon Z6III under ISO 800; and gives up just one third of a stop to Canon's R6II at base ISO. So much progress, it boggles the mind! (literally, it seems).
And a couple of fresh (and randomly chosen) images I shot a few months back with the a7II. Do they look any good to you? The reason is glass, cheap but fantastic Simeras from China. Color is from the part of the process through which the light travels to reach the sensor - who would have thought it? And you already know your personal style is derived from the lenses you use. No one goes: 'that must be from the latest camera', right?
Cameras are just recording devices, they just kept getting more expensive, more complex, heavier and more fussy. Anything to part you from your money! It's new, 'it has to be better - buy one!' they say hand on heart. cheers and good luck.
philip_pj wrote:
It's a gear forum. What do you think they are going to recommend you do? The early Sonys are lovely cameras, strong and reliable, durable, lighter. Here is a DR comparison (you lose just 0.4 stops at base, have parity at 400-500, then drop just 0.6 stops at high ISO) over the a7III.
The a7II is better in DR than the Nikon Z6III under ISO 800; and gives up just one third of a stop to Canon's R6II at base ISO. So much progress, it boggles the mind! (literally, it seems).
And a couple of fresh (and randomly chosen) images I shot a few months back with the a7II. Do they look any good to you? The reason is glass, cheap but fantastic Simeras from China. Color is from the part of the process through which the light travels to reach the sensor - who would have thought it? And you already know your personal style is derived from the lenses you use. No one goes: 'that must be from the latest camera', right?
Cameras are just recording devices, they just kept getting more expensive, more complex, heavier and more fussy. Anything to part you from your money! It's new, 'it has to be better - buy one!' they say hand on heart. cheers and good luck....Show more →
I believe Helena is using A7II and her photos are some of the most beautiful photos on FM. She uses voigtlander lenses so I must have seen them in voigtlander threads and flickr. I own one and it's a very capable camera. Of course if money is not an issue, the newer cameras are better. Use the money to buy glass.
gome1122 wrote:
Hey all, after almost 10 years without a camera I'm looking to get back into the game. I have no idea how I afforded gear back in the day but I'm back on the search and man is stuff pricy. To keep my entry costs down right now I'm looking at an A7 II instead of the A7 III that I would like. My main focus would be automotive/track photography. I know the A7 III is obviously much better but in the case where I'd rather have $500 towards good glass I'm leaning towards the A7 II.
Thoughts?
Would your automotive and track photography deal with moving objects? Quite a few people here are mentioning the quality off the a7 II output, and are mentioning manual focus lenses. If you pivot off of image quality to AF needs, especially with moving subjects, then that has improved over time with each model. I haven't shot the a7 series, but the a7R III seemed better from a focus and tracking perspective than the a7R II (maybe not tons), and then the a7R V (never shot the a7R IV) improved much more.
So image quality in all the Sony full frame mirrorless cameras has kind of always been excellent. But with AF and tracking, and general speed of the camera in usage, has improved as newer models have come out. But if you don't need AF, or don't need AF tracking of moving subjects, then what I describe here may not matter as much.
Take my thoughts above as one data point. Not trying to discount anything anyone else has said.
It's perhaps worth mentioning that the EVFs up to and including the A7iii had a quality that could seriously spoil the fun of photography for anyone who wasn't used to even worse. A resolution of under 3.7 MP requires a pretty high tolerance for discomfort imo.
Vision excellence is sadly not distributed widely, that much is true. Everyone uses one source as the benchmark in this respect - themselves! Who could have guessed?
Fine vision is dependent upon and composed of several skills and behaviours, on top of diet and life experiences. Most merely desire that technology comes to their rescue, sound familiar? And fine, we want everyone to be happy.
Make no mistake, however. There are definitely people who experience literally no trouble whatsoever in using any of the Sony EVFs, maybe this inquirer is one of them - we want to give people the benefit of the doubt here. He can at least take a look and see for himself. It's also good to see people upset enough to respond here, to provide the other side of the equation.
Nifty Fifty wrote:
It's perhaps worth mentioning that the EVFs up to and including the A7iii had a quality that could seriously spoil the fun of photography for anyone who wasn't used to even worse.
And yet the viewfinder of the A7 II is superior to some of Sony's current, much more expensive cameras, like the A7cR and A7cII...
The A7 II is a nice little camera that is still capable of taking great photos, and I continue to sell images that I made with that camera when it first came out.
philip_pj wrote:
Vision excellence is sadly not distributed widely, that much is true. Everyone uses one source as the benchmark in this respect - themselves! Who could have guessed?
Fine vision is dependent upon and composed of several skills and behaviours, on top of diet and life experiences. Most merely desire that technology comes to their rescue, sound familiar? And fine, we want everyone to be happy.
Make no mistake, however. There are definitely people who experience literally no trouble whatsoever in using any of the Sony EVFs, maybe this inquirer is one of them - we want to give people the benefit of the doubt here. He can at least take a look and see for himself. It's also good to see people upset enough to respond here, to provide the other side of the equation. ...Show more →
Of course, how someone perceives a pixelated EVF depends on his eyesight. I agree with you there. If your eyesight is already so poor that you can no longer see pixels, then you have a clear advantage here. But we can't know if the original poster already has such poor eyesight, hence my comment.
And yet people can use the A7 II with its unusable viewfinder to make fabulous photos…I guess these people all have poor eyesight. Or maybe they are just good photographers that know how to create great photos with any camera and not find excuses along the way.
Cliff L. wrote:
And yet the viewfinder of the A7 II is superior to some of Sony's current, much more expensive cameras, like the A7cR and A7cII...
You're right, but that doesn't make it any better. Two years ago, after over 20 years of only looking at 6x6 focusing screens, I wanted to buy a mirrorless camera, and I thought the A7iii would be perfect for me. When I looked through the viewfinder, I could hardly believe that a camera universally praised and selling very well in 2021 could have such a poor viewfinder. Admittedly, I hadn't really looked into the topic beforehand. Luckily, a salesperson advised me to try the viewfinder of a Z6ii, and it was a completely different story. So I decided to spend more money than planned and bought the A7iv, even though I found its viewfinder inferior to the Nikon's, despite having the same resolution. No matter. It was acceptable for me. Based on this experience, I thought it would be good to point out to the original poster that there are significant differences in this regard, even among similarly priced models. Whether that's important to him in the end or not, he can decide for himself.
chez wrote:
And yet people can use the A7 II with its unusable viewfinder to make fabulous photos…I guess these people all have poor eyesight. Or maybe they are just good photographers that know how to create great photos with any camera and not find excuses along the way.
What's with all this irrelevant, pointless chatter again? Are you looking for a fight again? I never said a word about it having any impact on the quality of the photos. However, it does have a VERY significant impact on whether I enjoy looking through the viewfinder (and therefore whether I enjoytaking photos) or not. If you enjoy looking through a bad viewfinder, feel free to do so; I have no objection.
Nifty Fifty wrote:
What's with all this irrelevant, pointless chatter again? Are you looking for a fight again? I never said a word about it having any impact on the quality of the photos. However, it does have a VERY significant impact on whether I enjoy looking through the viewfinder (and therefore whether I enjoytaking photos) or not. If you enjoy looking through a bad viewfinder, feel free to do so; I have no objection.
I was just expanding on your insane comment about people’s bad eyesight and they being the only one’s that could use the a72 viewfinder. Many members here use the A7c2 / A7cr which has about the same viewfinder and are happy with the camera. Putting forth your desire for a better viewfinder is one thing, saying people need to have poor eyesight in order to use the A72 viewfinder is totally a different thing…it’s utter bullshit.
chez wrote:
I was just expanding on your insane comment about people’s bad eyesight and they being the only one’s that could use the a72 viewfinder. Many members here use the A7c2 / A7cr which has about the same viewfinder and are happy with the camera. Putting forth your desire for a better viewfinder is one thing, saying people need to have poor eyesight in order to use the A72 viewfinder is totally a different thing…it’s utter bullshit.
You clearly have reading comprehension problems. I didn't say anything you're accusing me of. I said that someone who can't distinguish pixels (and in the case of the A7iii's viewfinder and similar cameras, you'd actually have to have poor eyesight to do that) has an advantage here. That doesn't preclude people with excellent eyesight from deciding that it's sufficient for them. The fact that cameras with poor or no viewfinders sell exceptionally well shows that many people don't value a better viewfinder. That's perfectly fine. But why the outcry starts immediately when someone calls a comparatively poor viewfinder "comparatively poor" is beyond me.
cheers and good luck.
