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We burn out Christmas tree every year after the Christmas season is over. A nice tradition....

I made this at Death Valley National Park on the toad to the old Harmony Borax mine in the Furnace Creek area of the park. ISO 3200, 27 secs, f/2.8 with A7r2 and Samysng 14mm f/2.8 lens. I had no in camera noise reduction, processed in Lightroom CC with some slight noise reduction applied.

Three weeks without a proper camera and I was pretty lost. Yesterday the A7RII arrived and the key question is was it worth the wait? After shooting this morning as I do before dawn in low light at high ISOs, getting home uploading the images into Lightroom - at first I was pretty dismayed. There did seem to be more noise. Then my brain kicked into reason - I don't normally shoot at high ISO's and these were deliberately taken at 640 - 1250 to see what the latest fuss was about on the web. Now, having uploaded them to my site and evaluated the end-result I am happy. Three jumps forward - one sideways step is how I sum it up. 1. Focus IS better - until you hit low light or the long zoom on a telephoto. 2. Stabilisation has been achieved - it's in camera and that is a huge advantage. I shot handheld at 1/6th. 3. 4k is worth the $4k. The video features are fantastic - and they are in-camera. 4. Noise at high ISOs is about the same as the A7R to my eye. The last point is a sideways step in my opinion and yes I think the pre-release hype from Sony was to make much of the camera's weakest point. It does have high ISO noise - despite the new design. NOTE: I did not have long exposure NR on - which I always did on the A7R and maybe when I set that to ON - my results will be better. I was just hoping to do away with that as it makes long exposures - so slow. Here are my initial shots: Pacific Basin - shot at 160mm in low light, auto-focus with the LA-EA3 and Sony 70 - 400mm, hand held at 1/10th and ISO 1250. Walking the dog: shot handheld at 1/6th Slippin' into silk: 30 seconds at ISO 640. All have been sharpened and had noise reduction applied - this is a normal part of my workflow and I have applied it so I can compare to my 5D3 and A7R images.