B (142)

Better PhotograPhy march 2015

36

heavy lenses. I still noticed some wobbling

when using the Sony 70–200 f/4, though not

so much with the 28–70mm kit lens.

On to battery life, Sony’s ever persistent

foible. The 1020mAh battery runs out

way too quickly for a camera of this nature

and is also very slow to charge. Like other

Sony cameras, the battery needs to be

charged within the camera. This has certain

advantages because you can charge the

camera with a regular smartphone charger.

However, since it isn’t a separate charging

unit, you can’t leave one battery to charge

while shooting with another.

Performance

In terms of image quality and ISO

performance not much has changed

between the A7 and the A7M2. The camera

can shoot up to 5fps and has a buffer

capability to hold around 20 RAW+JPEGs.

The growing trend of cameras without

lowpass filters hasn’t yet caught up with the

A7M2. However, this hardly makes a real

world difference as the images produced

by the A7M2 are quite sharp. The moiré

reduction will benefit videographers too.

The A7M2 has a 117 phase-detect point

AF system with 25 contrast-detect points,

The much deeper grip is quite noticeable from the

moment you lay your eyes on the camera. The grip and

inclusion of IS is probably the reason, the A7M2 looks

a lot chunkier than its predecessor, yet it manages to

remains quite a small camera.

The camera offers a significant amount of

customisation. There are four customisable buttons

(three of which are seen in the top view of the

camera) as well as a customisable rear dial and a

exposure compensation dial on the top.

My only grievance with the new design is the

placement of the video recording button on the

right side of the camera. Trying to use the button

was quite annoying as I would end up changing my

composition often.

ErgonomiCs

Front To p rear

Viewfinder

Command

dial

shutter-release

shutter-release button

button

multi-interface

hot shoe

rubber grip

Video recording

Button

Tilting LCD Textured

thumbrest

Exposure

Compensation dial

test

Customisable

button

Test Shots

a Worthy Kit Lens?

The Sony FE 28–70mm f/3.5-5.6 OSS kit lens is competent for its price but is

rather unspectacular. Personally, I don’t think it does enough justice to the

camera. The centre sharpness of the lens is quite good, but not so much at the

edges. There is a bit of fringing and vignetting to deal with as well.

on compressed raWs

The Sony A7 series have upset users because of lossy compression in the

RAW files that the camera creates. That said, we are yet to test the RAWs

from the A7M2 against a similar 24MP full frame sensor to see it it has any real

world implication.

•    Sony   A7M2    body

•    Sony   28–70mm 

f/3.5-5.6 Kit lens

•    Charger

•    Battery

•    Audio  Video   cable

•    Camera strap

•    Hot    Shoe    cover

•    Body   &   Lens    caps    

•       Warranty    &   Manual

•    Software   CD-ROM

WhaT’s in ThE Box