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Sony announces launch of the A7 II, the first full-frame camera with 5-axis image stabilization

By Marcus Wong - on 21 Nov 2014, 9:57am

Sony announces launch of the A7 II, the first full-frame camera with 5-axis image stabilization

Sony has just announced the launch of the A7 II (ILCE-7M2), perhaps marking the arrival of the next cameras in the A7 series of interchangeable-lens cameras.

The A7 II is the first full-frame camera with in-body image stabilization.

While the overall body design and megapixel count remain unchanged, the A7 II is slightly wider at 59.7mm (vs 48.2mm in the A7) and a bit taller at 95.7mm. It also gains a 5-axis optical image stabilization engine that is able to provide up to 4.5 stops of correction for all lenses mounted.This corrected image will also appear in real-time on the camera’s 3" White Magic LCD or in the OLED viewfinder, thus allowing you to fine-tune framing and focus even when composing images using telephoto or macro lenses.

The autofocus system seems to be largely the same, with the number of phase detect and contrast detect focus points remaining at 117 and 25 respectively, but a more advanced algorithm is used now, enabling optimal lens drive that results in a 30% gain in autofocus speed over the old model.A new algorithm also accounts for better tracking ability, as focus tracking and prediction of movement is said to be up to 1.5 times more accurate with this new model. The A7 II retains the ability to improve tracking and subject capture response with “lock-on AF” – that optimizes focusing in accordance with the size of the subject.

The camera also is ready to shoot 40% faster than current models, making the A7 II a markedly faster option just in terms of everyday use, and the total of ten custom buttons that can be assigned to any of 56 functions should mean very much less menu diving, which again adds for usability.

In addition to recording in AVCHD Ver. 2.0 Full HD (1920×1080) 60p (50p)/60i (50i)/24p, the A7 II now also records in XAVC-S when using an SDXC memory card rated at Class 10 or higher. This is a consumer format derived from the professional XAVC format, and records in resolutions up to 3840x2160 while using the commonly-read MP4 as the container format. Linear PCM is used for audio, and the A7 II records Full HD video at 50 Mbps.

It looks the same, but the A7 II is slightly wider and a bit taller than the A7.

A7 II from the rear.

At first glance, this seems like a minor update to the existing Sony A7, but it will be interesting to see how effective the image stabilization really is, and also just how much the new autofocus algorithms improve autofocus speed and accuracy.

Pricing and availability information have yet to be released, but the Sony A7 II is already available for pre-order from Amazon Japan for 184,560 yen.

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