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Sony a7R II quick tests part II: Slow motion and slow shutter

By site editor Dan Chung:

Here are a couple more quick tests of the a7R II that I did yesterday. The a7R II has built-in slow motion shooting, but it is limited to 120fps at 720P (100fps in PAL mode). I had high hopes that this would be better than the a7S, but sadly the image is still pretty soft and laced with aliasing. This is a real shame given how good the 4K modes are. It would have been great to to see 1080P instead, even if this was in a Super16 crop mode rather than S35. We might have to wait another generation or two to see slow motion that matches the larger cinema cameras coming from a compact system camera.

Shooting slow motion with the Sony a7R II outside St Pancras Station
Shooting slow motion with the Sony a7R II outside St Pancras Station

The test above is shot at 100fps in S35 mode using S-Log2 and S-Gamut. It was then graded very roughly using FilmConvert. Lenses are the Zeiss Batis 85mm f1.8 and Touit 12mm f2.8. Shutter speed was set at 1/200th and ISO at 800.

You can shoot as low as 1/4 of a second on the a7R II
You can shoot as low as 1/4 of a second on the a7R II

One feature of the Sony a7R II is the ability of the camera to record video with a slow shutter speed, right down to 1/4 of a second. This can be used for creative effect and, although not commonly used these days, is still a tool worth having. Everything in the video below was shot at ISO 800 at 1/4 of a second.

a7R II slow shutter filmconvert graded from Dan Chung on Vimeo.

More tests to follow – stay tuned.

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