is the A7rii ready for prime time? (and also to replace my 6D)?

Hi guys,

I've done a ton of research on the a7rii and still cannot decide whether to fully replace my Canon setup or not. Here's the background:

Gear:
6D
100L Macro
Tamron 24-70 VC
Canon 24-70L ii
Sigma 35 1.4 ART

Main Purpose:
Stills and videos of my 1-yo and 6-yo kids
Events coverage

Questions:
1. is the a7rii going to be more consistent in AF under low light (especially eye-AF if I switch to Sony lenses) compared to my 6D? This is very important as I usually need to shoot my kids (no, they would never keep still) in low-light situations. the S35 sucks in AF consistency, and I'm very curious to know if the a7rii can change that fact. I watched one of the youtube videos demonstrating the S50 on a7rii and there seems to be some hesitation when doing eye tracking.

2. Are your hit rates higher in general with the Sony compared to the Canon DSLRs?

3. is the noise level of the a7rii on par with my 6D?

4. Other than the obvious weaknesses of the a7rii (e.g. poor batt life, incompatibility with some adapted lenses such as my 100L, laggy UI), what else will I miss from my 6D?

I haven't used the A7 series before (although like you I'm very tempted to give them a try) but It's been said many time before that when using Canon glass through an adapter AF won't be as fast as using native glass. I honestly recommend renting the A7r ii for a few days to try it and see if you actually prefer it, I know I'll do just that if I ever plan to buy one!

Off topic but I'm interested in your thoughts on the 24-70s that you have

When I was trying to decide whether to switch from Canon to Nikon I first borrowed a setup to try, then I dipped my toe in the water by buying one camera and one lens. Once I was comfortable and happy I then bought new gear, shot with both setups for a while, then sold Canon. I suggest this is a good approach that lowers your risk. Only you can decide if the camera is good enough for you, in the situations you shoot in, and you decide this by trying it. Rent a setup.

For example at one wedding a few months in I couldn't work out why the Nikon was taking 2 seconds to take a photo once I hit the shutter button. I worked out it was red eye reduction but couldn't find the control (Nikons controls can be weird until you get used to them). I had two cameras (a minimum for a professional) so I used the other but it was annoying. Having a backup that you really understand can be important.

the.forumer wrote in post #17851674
1. is the a7rii going to be more consistent in AF under low light (especially eye-AF if I switch to Sony lenses) compared to my 6D? This is very important as I usually need to shoot my kids (no, they would never keep still) in low-light situations. the S35 sucks in AF consistency, and I'm very curious to know if the a7rii can change that fact. I watched one of the youtube videos demonstrating the S50 on a7rii and there seems to be some hesitation when doing eye tracking.

Short answer: Yes.

Long answer: The 6D's AF system isn't particularly great anyway. The one area where the 6D's AF system excels is in the -3EV sensitivity, but that's limited to the center point only, whereas the a7rII has an AF sensitivity of -2Ev throughout the entire frame. Outside of that the a7rII's AF system outperforms the 6D handedly. Much more sophisticated AF tracking system, many more AF points (the whole frame is covered with AF points vs the 9 points on the 6D), and features like eye focus,
which is extremely useful for portraits of kids:




I was messing with the afc eye focus on the rx1rII (which inherits the a7rII's AF system) and it was tracking my son's eye while he was on a playground swing, which was pretty damn impressive.

The downside when using adapted lenses is that the AF system is somewhat crippled. The more sophisticated AF tracking mode (lock-on focus) doesn't work, and things like eye focus don't work either. But again, the 6D's AF tracking isn't particularly great either, so you won't necessarily be missing much.

the.forumer wrote in post #17851674
2. Are your hit rates higher in general with the Sony compared to the Canon DSLRs?

Higher by a wide margin. No mirror means no AF calibration issues. Hit rate is damn near 100% outside of user error. User error is mitigated by eye focus when shooting portraits.

the.forumer wrote in post #17851674
3. is the noise level of the a7rii on par with my 6D?

The a7rII outperforms the 6D in low light....not only in terms of noise, but high ISO color fidelity and dynamic range.

i.e.:

ISO 10,000:

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/yagv​Zq

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/x4Rv​pd

the.forumer wrote in post #17851674
4. Other than the obvious weaknesses of the a7rii (e.g. poor batt life, incompatibility with some adapted lenses such as my 100L, laggy UI), what else will I miss from my 6D?

Not gonna lie...there isn't anything that I miss about my 5DIII outside of battery life and tracking performance with my Canon zooms.

Did you do any noise reduction on that 25,600 shot? Looks so clean!

Also being that the A7rii is nearly twice the price of the 6D, I would expect it to be much better in terms of AF and general performance

The new Nikon D5 is rumoured to have ISO 100K as regular and 3.2 million expanded. I bet 3M will have limited applications.

I think you have to consider how much you shoot in "low light". Surely the 6D isn't that poor under such conditions? Unless you were also selling your lenses to switch to native versions on the A7ii, then I would stick with the 6D. And even if you were selling your entire kit, I would go for the Nikon D750, which I recently did. Excellent AF in low light, and the grip is superb, makes the DSLR feel smaller. I tested both A7ii and D750 before eventually going for the latter.

i shoot quite frequently in low/poor light. While I'm 100% satisfied with the ISO performance, I can't say the same for its AF consistency and accuracy (especially on 3rd party lenses like the S35 Art and T24-70).

If the purported strength of the A7rii is as good as it says on paper, I'd have no qualms changing. However, user reviews tell me there are mixed results on the whole. That is why I'd like to seek further opinion on the AF consistency in low light (especially with adapted lenses)

Hi there,

just curious - how long have you been using your a7rii? and what lenses do you use along with it? I'm particularly interested in the S35/50 ART's performance along with the a7rii, in low light with hyperactive kids.

mystik610 wrote in post #17853179
Short answer: Yes.

Long answer: The 6D's AF system isn't particularly great anyway. The one area where the 6D's AF system excels is in the -3EV sensitivity, but that's limited to the center point only, whereas the a7rII has an AF sensitivity of -2Ev throughout the entire frame. Outside of that the a7rII's AF system outperforms the 6D handedly. Much more sophisticated AF tracking system, many more AF points (the whole frame is covered with AF points vs the 9 points on the 6D), and features like eye focus,
which is extremely useful for portraits of kids:




I was messing with the afc eye focus on the rx1rII (which inherits the a7rII's AF system) and it was tracking my son's eye while he was on a playground swing, which was pretty damn impressive.

The downside when using adapted lenses is that the AF system is somewhat crippled. The more sophisticated AF tracking mode (lock-on focus) doesn't work, and things like eye focus don't work either. But again, the 6D's AF tracking isn't particularly great either, so you won't necessarily be missing much.

Higher by a wide margin. No mirror means no AF calibration issues. Hit rate is damn near 100% outside of user error. User error is mitigated by eye focus when shooting portraits.

The a7rII outperforms the 6D in low light....not only in terms of noise, but high ISO color fidelity and dynamic range.

i.e.:

ISO 10,000:

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/yagv​Zq _DSC8236 by Carlo Alcala, on Flickr

ISO 25,600:

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/x4Rv​pd DSC06821 by Carlo Alcala, on Flickr

Not gonna lie...there isn't anything that I miss about my 5DIII outside of battery life and tracking performance with my Canon zooms.

When it comes to accuracy, I'm in the opinion that the sony squarely beats any canon out there, even using canon lenses. Would I replace a 6D with an A7rii....... well I came from a 6D and I'de replace it 10/10 times, it's so much more camera. You wont get eye tracking with your canon lenses, and you really should consider some native stuff when possible, however, you still get face tracking, which works good.

The 6D's outer points can struggle under low light and you should focus and recompose under said scenarios. The A7rii focus points will struggle under really poor conditions before the 6D, however, MF override is really a cinch (even if hardly ever required).

the.forumer wrote in post #17854381
Hi there,

just curious - how long have you been using your a7rii? and what lenses do you use along with it? I'm particularly interested in the S35/50 ART's performance along with the a7rii, in low light with hyperactive kids.

I got the a7rII at launch so I've had it for 5+ months now. I can't speak to the S35/50 AF performance as I sold them both off prior to getting the a7rII....but the 24-70 f2.8II and 70-200 f2.8II perform well enough even in low light:



The issues you're experiencing with AF consistency is inherent to the way the AF systems in DSLR's work. When you split the AF sensor from the image sensor and put a mirror in between them, any miscalibration between the two is going to throw the AF system off. Third party lenses are particularly susceptible to this. This is a reality to DSLR's that we've grown accustomed to this for all of this time and have come to terms with the need for microfocus adjust, but eliminating the mirror and building the AF system into the sensor itself alleviates this....hence greater AF accuracy and consistency with mirrorless bodies even when adapting DSLR lenses.

Outside of the 24-70 f2.8II and 70-200 f2.8I, I'm using mostly native lenses now....which is the way to go to really leverage the camera's AF system. Canon lenses work fine for anything outside of sports and wildlife though, and the ability to adapt them over makes the process of transitioning and/or supporting two systems much easier to do.

Dlee13 wrote in post #17853246
Did you do any noise reduction on that 25,600 shot? Looks so clean!

Also being that the A7rii is nearly twice the price of the 6D, I would expect it to be much better in terms of AF and general performance

I think I moved the luminance slider a bit, but nothing too aggressive.

Another example...ISO 20,000

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/wais​HV

Charlie wrote in post #17854499
When it comes to accuracy, I'm in the opinion that the sony squarely beats any canon out there, even using canon lenses. Would I replace a 6D with an A7rii....... well I came from a 6D and I'de replace it 10/10 times, it's so much more camera. You wont get eye tracking with your canon lenses, and you really should consider some native stuff when possible, however, you still get face tracking, which works good.

The 6D's outer points can struggle under low light and you should focus and recompose under said scenarios. The A7rii focus points will struggle under really poor conditions before the 6D, however, MF override is really a cinch (even if hardly ever required).

very curious - how badly will the a7rii struggle under poor light (talking about 1/20s, f1.4, ISO6400 and upwards) with either the native 24-70 f4 or the S35/50? If it hunts like the outer points of my 6D, then it's probably a dealbreaker to me.

Also, is there spot metering to the AF point that it has detected? E.g. in Face detect mode?

sell the 6D, a7RII is better in every regard.

I had my a7RII for about a month and half, and I haven't picked up a Canon camera since.

Click on bottom of my sig, all my lenses work, when I first tried the a7RII with outdated metabones the 85L I and Tamron 150-600 didn't work, but now with the latest firmware every lens I have works.

Canon 50L and Sigma 35 Art are super fast with AF as well