Sony Announces New Cameras (RX100 IV, RX10 II, Alpha 7R II)

[2StepSteve]

Surprised no one here is talking about this yet?!

Yesterday Sony announced three new cameras.

RX100 IV - Using a new stacked sensor, this should bring better high ISO performance and an increase in DR. Quite disappointing though that it is using a 1" sensor still and they haven't managed to squeeze a 4/3 sensor in there as speculated. 4K video (limited to 5 minute recording time!) and super slow motion (480 fps and 960 fps) and faster AF are the main additions feature wise. Still no touchscreen, very disappointing. If a touchscreen was present I may have upgraded my RX100mkiii.

RX10 II - 1" type stacked 20MP CMOS sensor, 4K video recording (up to 29 minutes) and improved readout speed thanks to a new DRAM chip. The body design and lens specs remain in line with the RX10, including a Zeiss-branded 24-200mm equivalent F2.8 lens

a7R II - Now this has my full attention. The a7R II appears to be an absolute beast in the spec department. Magnesium bodied, 42MP new sensor (world's first full-frame backside illuminated CMOS sensor), 399 phase-detection AF points, in camara 5 axis stabilisation, 4K video.

This in particularly is interesting: http://www.dpreview.com/articles/4329110043/alpha-dog-hands-on-with-sony-a7r-ii?slide=5

PDAF will work even with third-party lenses via existing adapters, including in continuous AF tracking mode.

This is potentially a huge deal - especially for Canon users. We've used an a7R II with a Canon 24-70mm lens and a Metabones adapter, and focus is indeed very fast indeed. We'll be looking at this in more depth as soon as we have a production sample camera, but for now, we're highly impressed.

Hey Canon, is all this sinking in yet? Hello?

 

[2StepSteve]

I feel the same. I've been fearing for Canon's future for a while now, at the moment it's looking bleak unless the 5DIV can somehow make a miracle happen. I hope I'm wrong, but I just can't see it happening. They are lagging too far behind Sony sensors and what really kills it is they are far too proud to ever adopt another companies sensor.

The ISO performance and DR will be off the chart here on the a7R II. On paper it's a total achievement and I respect Sony for pushing ahead not just a little, but for actually going for it! So refreshing!

I'm very keen to see how a Canon lens performs on a a7R II, even if it's something like 80% of the AF speed I'm still interested. Looking forward to seeing more info on this.

 

[2StepSteve]

Tony Northrup's round up of the a7Rii