Benjamin Von Wong Visited A Guatemalan Garbage Dump And Brought Along A Sony a7r II

It seems like everyone’s been anticipating the release of Sony’s A7r ii–even if it was to see if the camera could live up to all the hype. Benjamin Von Wong was no exception. He recently purchased one to take along on a trip to Guatemala, hoping to fully test out the new camera and it’s video capabilities. 

He gave the camera a rather unorthodox, but mostly positive review (and one that’s totally worth the read for reasons perhaps more socially important than a camera review). The camera did have it’s downfalls, however, as Von Wong points out in his blog post:

“As far as cameras go, the A7r-ii was miles ahead of that of the A7r. Focus speed, start-up time, shutter lag and buffer and low ISO performance were light-years ahead of its predecessor…

When compared with a dSLR, the A7r-ii still feels sluggish on the auto-focus side of things, especially in low light situations making it behave more like a 5d-Mark II than a D810. The shutter lag present in every single EVF system yet created – whilst greatly reduced compared to the A7r, is still present enough to not recommend it for shooting sports or high action situations even with it’s 4d tracking abilities.”

He also made note of how disappointing Sony’s 28-135 f4 zoom performed, saying the RAW files looked “smudgy” when he looked at them on the computer.

“…I have since discovered that only seems to happen with my 28-135 especially when zoomed in, focusing at hyperfocal. I’ll have to get the lens checked out.”

He shared some of the RAW files, here, if you’re interested in taking a closer look. In the meantime, here’s a 100% crop of one of them:

Check out Von Wong’s full review and see more of his RAW files, be sure head over to his website.

[ via Benjamin Von Won ]