When the Sony Alpha 7R II arrived in the office late on Friday 31 July, there was a bun fight among those in the technical team. Like a child not wanting to part with a favourite toy at Christmas, it took some persuading to get it out of technical writer, Callum McInerney-Riley’s hands and into mine so that I could take it out to test. Just when I thought I’d squirrelled it out of view, AP’s deputy editor Richard Sibley requested to use it to film video footage for our new Video Mode website. After begrudgingly handing it back, I finally got my hands on it again two days later prior to heading out to take our first set of sample images.
So why all the fuss in the office about the new Sony Alpha 7R II? Well, as its name suggests, it’s the successor to the extremely impressive Sony Alpha 7R and its arrival sees it address some of the quirks we observed when we reviewed Sony’s first attempt at a high-resolution CSC. At the time of its arrival, the Sony Alpha 7R pretty much outstripped every single other CSC on the market – both in terms of resolution and performance. However it did leave room for improvement. Now we have the Alpha 7R II, which looks seriously impressive on paper with virtually all the features you could ever want. Here, we’ve posted our first images before bringing you our full review.
Sony Alpha 7R II sample images
The selection of images in our sample gallery was taken at Leeds Castle in Kent. Note these are 42.4-million pixel files, saved to the Quality 10 compression setting, which enables us to upload such large pictures to the website. Below you’ll find further examples illustrating the highly impressive level of detail the Sony Alpha 7R II’s sensor is capable of resolving.
All images by Michael Topham
Sony Alpha 7R II – Leeds Castle, Kent
Sony Alpha 7R II – Leeds Castle, Kent (100% magnification of the above)
Sony Alpha 7R II – Leeds Castle, Kent
Sony Alpha 7R II – Leeds Castle, Kent (100% magnification of the above)
