Sony a7R II

I do love a bit of a geeky show so I was very much looking forward to the recent Photography Show in Birmingham to look at the Sony a7R II.

I have been looking to replace one of my DSLR cameras and I wasn’t sure if I should go for another DSLR or go for a mirrorless system. I own the Olympus OMD E5 cameras but these are pleasure cameras and I would not feel comfortable shooting weddings with them for a few of reasons. They are wonderfully compact but this can be an issue when navigating some of the buttons quickly (most things have to be quick when photographing weddings), the small size of the camera can make things unbalanced when you put a decent sized flash on top and the low light capability wasn’t quite spot on for me, although I do think we are picky as photographers now but it was still an issue for me. Also the system was micro 4/3rds not full frame; yes me being picky but I do love full frame.

Sony launched a full frame mirrorless system of cameras that caught the eye of my good pal and fellow photographer Lisa Beaney who invested in the system. Posts kept popping up about the amazing quality of this camera in low light and it was a full frame mirrorless system so it caught my eye and got me to thinking should I be considering this? I have been endlessly questioning poor Lisa for months, she is a very patient person and then Sony brought out the a7R II with a whopping 42M megapixels. Now this put me in a quandary as the aS system was 12M megapixels. How would this little baby cope in low light I asked myself then Lisa, yes poor Lisa!!!

The Photography Show was the place to be and ask a few questions, but I was still undecided and the multi-function wheel at the back of the Sony a7R II camera and was a an issue for me. I like to meet Lisa and Phill and the show as we can have a good old look at all the new shiny things they have on offer and I was at it again with the questions. The low light was still a sticking point for me and if I was going to invest the money in this system I had to be sure I was making the right decision. Lisa is an ambassador for Sony and she was doing a couple of talks on the stand to show what the camera can do, she was using her own equipment that she purchased with her own money so her talks are genuine!!! Anyway, I digress, she had her camera with her and thrust it into my hand and said, Claire go and play with it on a high ISO and see what you think, get the feel of it and use the focus wheel to see if it would be a problem. Oh dear that really did put me in a dilemma as it was 42M megapixels and it was fabulous shooting at 6400 iso. Then we wandered to Cameraworld who had a fabulous show deal on…well I am sure you can see where this is going. After lots of ringing of hands, a phone call to my Hubby in the vain hope he would put up a fight I took the plunge and purchased the Sony a7R II with the Sony Zeiss 24-70 and the Zeiss Batis 85mm.

Handing over the credit card brought me out in a cold sweat with a reluctance to hand it over but I kept telling myself, it’s worth it, it’s worth it!!! There was lots of deep breathing and justification for the remainder of the show much to the amusement of Lisa and Phill with much the same on my drive home.

The first chance to use this little baby came last Thursday, well I am pleased and I will write about that in my next blog post with some pics. I think my Sony a7R II and me are going to be great friends 🙂

Check out part 2 coming soon!!

Claire
xxx

https://www.sony.co.uk/electronics/interchangeable-lens-cameras/ilce-7rm2