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Sony a7ii totally useless for video?


trorvik
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I use the a7ii for video 98% of the time. But I was stupid enough to choose the a7ii over the a7s because it has the in body 5 axis stabilization which is really really great for adding stabilization to prime lenses and better AF. The a7ii is great in almost every way. And as a stills camera it probably is one of the best. But from what I have experienced after some more real life use is that the video from it is so full of moire and aliasing that you cant use it for anything other than close-ups with extremely shallow depth of field. For this it will give you amazing video. But if you step down just a few f-stops and try to film anything resembling a landscape or streetshot it will find and produce moire patterns and aliasing where no other camera has made moire patterns or aliased before.

 

In the beginning I hoped that this was just something that happened with some buildings with patterns. But turns out you can never ever film a building, grass, water, a book, text, clothes with more than one color, trees with details, detailed signs or anything else with fine details without the result looking really really horrible. 

 

I was aware that reviews said it had some problems with aliasing and moire. But usually when reviews points this out they are talking about "normal" aliasing and moire problems on par with the GH3/GH4/RX10/AF100/etc where this can be a problem in some situations. This is acceptable for most people. But the a7ii is so much worse in this aspect than any camera I have ever tried that I am shocked. So to others who are considering this camera for video and want to shoot anything other than close-ups. Stop. Don't buy it. Trust me. It is so much worse than you can ever imagine. 

 

Right now I am beginning to realise that buying this camera was the biggest waste of money ever. In the future I have to learn from my mistake and pay more attention to reviews. But for now I have to replace it with something else as soon as I can.

 

The a7rii might be the best replacement. But after wasting so much money on the camera it is just too expensive for me. I am also thinking about waiting to see if the a7sii might be a little bit little bit more affordable. But that will be at least a few months until it is released. The rumored a6100/7000 might come sooner. If it has external mic/headphone input I might just move to aps-C. But since I have already bought two FE lenses I would loose money selling them as well. Mayby the best option is to do what I should have done from the start and get the a7s. I woild have to say goodbye to the stabilization and faster autofocus. But compared to unusable video from the a7ii I might be able to live with that.

 

But I will probably have to use the a7ii for at least another month or use my RX10 instead.

 

Does anyone know about any setting or function on the camera that will at least reduce this problem a tiny bit? I read that shooting 24/25p might help. But I have to use 50p for my purposes. Can turning off all the dynamic range automation mayby help? Some other setting I have overlooked?

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

        

 

 

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RX10 m2?

See review at eoshd.com. Possibly the cheapest option at this stage? (Not sure whether it meets all your needs)

Or wait for A7S2. At least to see what's on offer.

Or wait for A7S2 to be released and get a used A7S cheap?

Tim

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Thanks for replying :-)

 

RX10 mark i and ii are great cameras for many uses but the sensor is just too small to get shallow depth of field. I have the RX10 mark i but need another camera for more "serious" work. 

 

I think I will at least wait a little to see the specs and pricing of the a7sii and the follow up to the a6000 before I decide. I could really benefit from the super fast AF of the a6000

 

I will also be looking for a reasonably priced used a7s. The problem is that few people are selling them used, and the few who do are still selling them for around 80-90% of new price right now, even for ones used a lot. At least in this country. But hope the price both new and used will drop a bit as soon as they release the new version.

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I have made a couple of testvideos with  my a7II + different lenses

i think its not that bad for video, you just have to live with the moire, that means you need an external monitor so to see when moire is happening to avoid these shots

 

but more important you only have 1080P

 

i love my a7II for stills its amazing and i also have a panasonic Lx100 compact camera which does outstanding 4k Video, the quality is really, really great and it has an amazing leica lens 24-70 1.7-2.8 on it

 

you can watch my sony and panasonic videos on my youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCiTupTj11iyk_Baxt29EsQQ/videos

 

It all depends on your need, for me the a7Ii + lx100 deliver outstanding quality and everything i need right now

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Great looking videos :-)

 

The LX100 videos look fantastic. And no moire problems on that camera....:-)

Sadly it doesnt have an external mic/headphone input which I need for interviews. I would have loved to be able to buy the a6000 but that has the same problem. If they can keep the a7s like it is but add IBIS to it without raising the price too much that would have been a perfect camera for me.   

 

It seems like you are having a lot less problems with moire than me on the a7ii. The few places i can see it in your videoes on youtube are more in line with the GH4 that i sold to buy the a7ii. It might be down to youtube compression or something but I am starting to wonder if there is something wrong with the sensor on my camera. The camera produces great looking photos the few times I have used it for that. And also great looking video shots much of the time but I get a combination of moire and something more resembling noise on almost any object with fine details. Even in facial hair. Today I tried shooting S log and all other profiles but no difference.

I am unsure if choice of lens affects moire. But I see that you are using very different lenses than me. I have mostly worked with the kit lens. I will try again with the 28mm f2 lens i also have and see if its as bad with that lens.

 

Another thing is the APS-C crop mode. I was hoping to be able to extend my zoom reach by using that when needed and mayby buy one of the cheap aps-c superzooms. I have seen videos where people are doing this on the a7s, and it looks good. But the results are terrible on my camera when doing it with the kit lens. It looks like digital zoom. The result (video) is full of noise (even in bright daylight) and the resolution looks like if you zoomed in digitally in Premiere. It is far from usable. The clear image zoom is even worse. I dont have any aps-c lenses to try it out. Mayby it looks better with an actual aps-c lens? Have you tried this on your a7ii?

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thx

 

its the a7II that gives you the moire, i also have it a lot if you look closely in my test videos for a7II 

 

but the lens can really make a difference and the focal length, the minolta apo 100-300mm which is the cheapest lens for 70€ actually worked the best on the a7II for video, you can´t see any moire in there

 

 

but so or so the question is if 1080P will be enough for you, the best looking 1080P videos i have seen on youtube are all 4k downscaled to 1080P

 

 

though i will make a new testvideo with my new sigma 24mm 1.4 art and the a7II lens soon 

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The Minolta lens looks really great compared to the price. And not any moire :-) Might be a good option for a long zoom.

 

4K is nice. I had it on my GH4 but didnt use it much because the autofocus in 4k on that camera is very poor, and since I work on steadicam much of the time I need good autofocus. Which the a7ii is quite good at. It does not "hunt" as much as the GH4. Apart from the IBIS (for handheld shooting) the improved AF was the main reason i chose the a7ii instead of the a7s. I know working with full frame on steadicam in a "run and gun" situation is pure madness, but I am somehow able to make it work because of the AF-performance of this camera. 

 

I work for a TV station but use my own camera most of the time (the 2/3'' shoulder cameras the station owns dont give a lot of creative options so only use those when I have to). 

 

We have chosen to use 720p50 instead of 1080i which most channels use. So in the end most of the stuff i do end up downscaled to 720p50. A bit sad to loose half the resolution but interlaced video isnt that great either. And 1080p50 should be enough to do 720p50. We might move to 4k at some point. We offered our cable distributor to become one of the first (or the first) channel here to broadcast 4K. But they are not ready yet. I guess it is mostly because of the cost of upgrading all the decoders that customers have at home. So it will take some time to go 4K. And by then I will probably have upgraded to another camera anyway. 

 

So unlike most people 4k isnt that important to me. Good AF, IBIS and good low light performance are my main priorities in a camera. So unsure if less morie on the current a7s is worth loosing both IBIS and the better AF for. Looking forward to sonys upcoming announcements to see if they can offer something that have all the things I want in one camera :-)                

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4k downscaled to 1080P will give you the best detail, so also if you are only using 1080P or 720P the downscaled 4k will always look better then shot in 1080P

 

saying that, heres my testvideo with the great sigma 24mm1.4, sharpness is excellent and moire is much better controlled than i thought on a7II with this lens

 

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Yes Great sharpness. The close up of the chain thing (anchor?) i stunning :-) Not much moire, and a very filmic look. Reminds me a bit of the Voigtlander 0.95 i had for my GH4. From what I can see this has to be a full frame lense? 

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  • 2 months later...
 

4k downscaled to 1080P will give you the best detail, so also if you are only using 1080P or 720P the downscaled 4k will always look better then shot in 1080P

 

saying that, heres my testvideo with the great sigma 24mm1.4, sharpness is excellent and moire is much better controlled than i thought on a7II with this lens

 

Just out of curiosity, how did you record 4k with the a7II? I was told that the hdmi is 1080p only (never had the chance to try).

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  • 1 year later...

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