2015-07-29
Shangri-La’s Rasa Sentosa Resort, Singapore
Chance upon the opportunity to attend the Sony A7rMK2 event held by Sony Singapore. Of the many launch events in Singapore from Canon to Leica, this is actually my first launch event that I took time to attend. Expectations were high as I was closely following the development between the Canon EOS 5Ds/r and the Sony A7rMK2.
Honestly, I wasn’t sure what came to mind attending such an event, when most of the information these days are freely available months / weeks / hours from the actual event itself. Most of the information presented were already available from the Sony Alpha Rumor website.
Setting the expectations right, we were informed ahead that we are required to sign a Non Disclosure Agreement prohibiting us from taking back any RAW or Jpeg files produced by the Sony A7rMk2 during the event. I tried to justify a case at registration that there has been reports of confirmed shipment of the camera on the day itself in UK resulting in what should be a global cancellation of the NDA!. Well, I guess from the clueless reaction when asked, I could only assume that the matter has yet to be escalated to management where the appropriate PR response was provided.
There were many thoughts to what I should be packing from a Carl Zeiss Jena to the Otus, however I decided on the Carl Zeiss 21mm F/4.5 Biogon. Known for not being able to work properly due to its a symmetrical design and the very short flange distance of the FE mount. There were reports posted from rumor websites (now confirmed not to be true) that the color smearing was no longer observed.
Carl Zeiss Biogon 21mm F/4.5 T*
The group we divided into 20 after a few presentations from the marketing director and product experts and also the Sony Professionals Guest we were led to a room where each of us were provided with a camera and lens to try.
There was a short Q&A session where audience was able to ask anyone from the Sony Professionals with regards to their experience with the camera, and the majority seems to be very interested with adapters to use Canon Lenses as well as legacy lenses. I took a shot and fired one at the product manager on the lossless compression RAW issue that Sony cameras were facing ( Sony RAWs are not lossless – some information is dropped in the recording of the final RAW file) and got the very standard internet answer “we hear you, we are looking into it”. Well at least it wasn’t something inconsistent with that we can read and reference to.
I was given some big zoom lens which I didn’t try much, and after getting the green light to switch and test my lens I was amazed with the following:
- It grips much better than the Sony A7s or the Sony A7
- I bet the grip would be better once the appropriate L Plate grip has been installed on it !
- The new Viewfinder is indeed an improvement from the SonyA7s
- The shutter sound was alright (said to be a huge improvement against the Sony A7r (see this link here)
- LCD seems to be the same, did not notice anything different, however a big jump from what I have on the Canon EOS 6D
- Batteries are the same as the Sony A7s and A7 and also the NEX 3 , so no issue with not having enough extra batteries being around!
So here it is, the test results between the Sony A7s and Sony A7rMk2!
Preliminary shots on the Sony A7rMK2 was indeed impressive, however as I try the Biogon on my A7s I realized that the indoor environment presented a very challenging situation to induce the color smearing.
Sony A7s (Left) vs. Sony A7rMK2 (Right)
- Upon closer inspection from the LCD of both cameras, I am concluding that there were not much excitement over the results of this!
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