WEBVTT

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Hello friends Brandon here with my first ever camera review The a7s Mark II like

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the original this camera has had many in the video Community talking but does it

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stack up to the current camera Market

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before I go any further this camera has Stills features but I will be tackling

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this review from a video perspective the original a7s hit the market along with

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the GH4 about a year ago the a7s stole the hearts of many shooters with its

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unbelievable ability to nearly see in the dark the mark 2 looks to add some

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functionality while maintaining what everyone loved about the Mark 1 the body

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of the camera is very similar to the original design with only a slightly

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larger side gri and a few more buttons the record button is unfortunately still

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on the far right of the camera above the SD card door and is as awkward to press

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as ever you can however remap it to almost any other button on the camera so

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it becomes much less of an issue in the Box notably you get two batteries which

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is nice since the a7s chews through Power lasting about 2 to 3 hours of

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shooting per battery going a step further Sony has again included the

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ability to power the camera off of a USB battery Bank as long as you have a

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battery in the camera a feature I will definitely Ely be taking advantage of

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during long shoot days at events like CES the display on the a7s2 composes of

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a 1.2 million do 3-in screen and a 2.3

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million dot electronic viewfinder the 3-in display is reasonably bright but

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with a couple of issues first off the mechanism for how the monitor

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articulates which Sony has still not changed since they got into the

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mirrorless camera Market is not incredibly useful it simply tilts up or

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down and has very insignificant travel I found a particular particularly annoying

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when using it on our tripod at its highest height making it very difficult

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for someone at my height to see the shot easily coming off of a year of shooting

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with the GH4 which has many more position options for its display this

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took some adjusting on my part the evf on the a7s2 is very solid and using it

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as another point of contact when shooting handheld with this camera is

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great until we get into the biggest issue with both displays on the

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a7s2 focus the punching to check focus

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and peeking on the a7s2 are the worst I have ever used on any camera especially

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of this caliber is incredibly soft punch all the way in and gives very little

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confidence for critical Focus particularly when you're in fast-moving

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situations the peaking is passable but isn't particularly useful on such a

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small display even on the lowest setting if you are the type of person who often

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shoots events or fast-paced documentary work I would recommend a small inl

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monitor to add to your rig to combat this issue let's get into the a7s 2's

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improved autofocus system I tested tested it while walking around the

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office and the results are disappointing the autofocus seems to be a bit slow to

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react and with the lens I tested Sony's 1635 mm F4 there was weird micro Jitter

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that renders the shot unusable it's possible the performance issue is due to

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the lens however that does not give me very much confidence to trust the

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autofocus system in most situations but your mileage may vary so what makes this

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camera so special that sensor the a7s2

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sports an effective 12.2 megapixel full-frame sensor that has stolen the

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title of low light King from every other camera on the market so to see proof for

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myself I went down to Vancouver's Olympic Village to test out the low

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light here's a shot of some large steps near the area with what my eyes could

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see now here's what I could see with the

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camera what sorcery is this here's

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another example of what my eyes can see and what the camera can see now you

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might be thinking that's great I'll never have have to use lights for videos

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again this camera can basically see in the dark let me stop you right there the

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point of having the ability to use such high isos on a camera like this is not

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simply to crank your ISO to get the exposure for your shot but to really

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take advantage of the control you have over your depth of field you no longer

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have to expose your shots at f1.4 with a

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razor thin depth of field for night shots to me that is the most powerful

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part of the low light ability of this camera you can really think about how

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shallow or deep you want your focus and for those of you working in narrative

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your focus puller will thank you the second party trick this camera has is

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Sony's new in sensor 5 AIS stabilization

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which again I tested on a swagway and I was really surprised with the results

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this shot feels to me like it might have been done on a 3axis gimbal but it was

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simply me holding the camera while riding forward for comparison here's a

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very similar shot with the stabilization off this feature is a great addition but

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again to truly take advantage of it you really need to have e-mount lenses

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arguably the Most Wanted improvement over the Mark 1 is internal 4K which

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this camera can do at 30 FPS and 24 FPS

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in the xavcs codec at either 100 or 60 megabits

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per second this is a very welcomed addition since it will give you a bit

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more wiggle room when reframing shots in post comparing it to the 1080p honestly

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the difference especially when downscaling the 4K to 1080p is Rel

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relatively minor you can however see the difference when zoomed in all the way at

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400% the last of the recording modes is Sony's two flavors of slow motion you

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have the option of 120 FPS at 100 or 60

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megabits per second which will need to be conformed to your desired frame rate

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in post the admittedly more consumer friendly option is to have the footage

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slowed down for you in camera however I do not recommend this for pro use since

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the footage is fairly noisy and soft so in conclusion the a7s Mark II is BAS

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basically everything you could ask for in a small form factor camera if you can

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work around the relatively minor issues that I mentioned before as well as other

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little things like not being able to control monitor brightness while shooting 4K and not being able to custom

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white balance while in manual exposure really Sony you'll be looking at one of

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the best small form factor cameras on the market and going forward this will

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be the main camera I use to do Boll for all of our videos as I have been since

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beautiful yeah yeah so thank you guys for watching I

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had a lot of fun making this review and if you liked it leave a thumbs up and if

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you didn't go ahead and dislike it and maybe even tell me why on Twitter handle

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here I hope to do more videos like this in the future so your feedback is

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like this one or with a direct monthly contribution through the Forum now that

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you're done doing all that stuff you're probably wondering what to watch next so

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click that little button in the top right hand corner to check out this video where I reviewed the metabone

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speed booster it's quite a cool little adapter