A loyal Lumix shooter and customer for years, replaced my GH4 with a Sony A7S II was no easy decision. their cameras have done very well for me on countless projects.

in the heat of orlando, there wasn’t a choice…i knew the gh5 was on the horizon so i snagged the G7 for a few projects and was waiting for the gh5. glad i did…

Would you recommend this a7sii for narratives over the blackmagic cameras? I’m looking for a camera for film and I don’t know where to invest my money.. thanks

Thanks Noam, really appreciate your insight!

Hey Noam, I stumbled upon your blog while searching info about the GH4, and even though I’m getting more and more convinced about buying it (Nikon user here), I can’t help but feeling curious about the long awaited GH5. Any news about it? We are in May already and so far I haven’t read nor heard anything about it being released anytime soon.

I’ve always had Nikon cameras but I’m a videographer and I’m not really happy with the results you get for video, specially on terms of dynamic range and cinematic quality. For stills, it’s awesome.

Very informative post, keep up the good job!

Hi Noam,
Have you done a review of the sony a6300? I’m just starting out in wedding cinematography and leaning to the A7SII, however the a6300 might be a better entry level choice? Heard it overheats and I have seen the rolling shutter is far more noticeable. Also I love the internal stabilization the 7s II has, but I may feel more comfortable putting either camera on a stabilizer. Do you use a stabilization system with the A7S II?
Thanks in advance! Going to B&H today so hope you can respond!

Hi Naom, thanks for the info. I was looking to A7S low light photos and videos about a year ago. I had a feeling that the city lights in the dark were so bright that I wasn’t sure if I’m getting a natural look of a wide dynamic range camera. Perhaps A7S ii is improved but still it’s good to see how dynamic range shrinks with the higher values of iso in that camera.
Is there any table that you know to spell it out, or if you could compare it yourself and give us feedback?
Thanks a lot.

Thought about that as well, but I’ve been there (BMPCC and Oly camera) and ended up using one of them most of the time and keeping the other gathering dust in a bag.
I guess that for my kind of work (one short narrative a year, some live music stuff and mostly run n gun shit) it would make more sense to have something versatile. Even when I don’t take so many stills but would like to have the option available if I want to.
The GH4 was really versatile, and I certainly had the right glass for it. But for some reason I ended up selling it like you, and now here I am, wondering which camera to get…

A7sii s-log 3 internal 8-bit or Gh4 Vlog with atomos ninja 10-bit for better picture quality and grading?

having all three main brands of video DSLR/M cameras, canon, panny and sony, they all have their strengths and weaknesses. canon has the best skin color but wide shots are mush and slow-mo is awful. panny has amazing color in good light but can look bad in low light, superb details and best ergonomics. sony has the best low light, best slow-mo, but the worst menu and battery life is pitiful.

if i could only keep one, i’d keep the a7sii but the gh4 is a very close second, and in some instances the gh4 is still better. i’m still optimistic on the gh5, not so on the 5d4 unfortunately.

one thing i’ve noticed is that at equal iso ratings the gh4 seems much brighter than both canon and sony, it’s easily one stop. maybe it’s the lumix glass but the gh4 is actually better in low light than many give it credit for.

Let’s keep in mind, the GH4 and the A7S (first version) were released about the same time. From what I can find, Sony A7S came out in April of 2014, and Panasonic GH4 came out the next month in May (please correct me if I’m wrong). When they were both first announced, there didn’t seem to be a clear winner, as they both excelled in different areas.

18 months later (1.5 years), the A7S II is released, and now has many of the features that gave the GH4 an edge over the original A7S, while still keeping it’s original strengths and adding new features that neither camera had. Many people are jumping ship or considering it because some of the reservations they had with the A7S are now rectified with the A7S II.

However, what features does the GH5 bring to the table? No one has a firm grasp on that yet. There is no reason to believe that there will not be a GH5, and there is also no reason to believe the GH5 won’t have many improvements over the GH4. From previous time tables, we can reasonably expect the GH5 around April-May of 2016 (2 year production cycle, which is common and on par with their GH line). I believe people who have bought into the m43 system should at least wait until the GH5 releases to decide to move over to the Sony E-mount system (unless money is not an issue, then I think having both GH4 and A7S II would be awesome).

Panasonic and Olympus have showed no signs of abandoning the m43 system, and both continue to innovate with it. So it stands to reason that the GH5 would be something that Panasonic would want to be successful, and are putting time, research and money into. Panasonic has shown in the past that they try to meet their customers needs, and I’m sure the advantages that the A7S II introduced are not lost to them. 4 months from now there could be discussions and posts about “Why I should have waited for the GH5 rather than jump to A7S II.” I’m not saying that will happen, but we are comparing Sony’s new generation of A7S to Panasonics LAST generation of GH. It’s like saying “the Playstation 4 is clearly better than the Xbox 360, and I’ll probably switch over to the Playstation ecosystem” before waiting for the Xbox One to come out (just an illustration, not trying to tell people which system is better).

Remember also that the advancement of technology can always change things. At a point in time, probably about 2 years ago, the Canon 5D Mark III was one of, if not, the best low-light performer(s). The sensor in the A7S is the same physical size as the one in the 5D, but with innovation and advancement in technology, the sensor destroys the 5D in low-light now. Pixel count plays a role, but iso technology and noise reduction algorithms play a larger role. Maybe not for the GH5, but there is a high probability that a few years down the road, sensor technology will have advanced to the point where m43 sensors can achieve low-light results similar to the current A7S. In development is a new sensor tech called “organic sensor,” and noise reduction algorithms will continue to improve. With the addition of speedboosters, smaller form sensors can have larger form look and feel with smaller lenses.

Personally, I feel that the future will end up moving down to aps-c sized sensors or even m43 type sized sensors as the “standard” (in the way that full frame 35mm is todays “standard”). Once sensors are able to deal with low-light with less noise, focus will turn to lens development. Look at Sigma, producing the first f1.8 constant zoom lens. This lens was made for aps-c size sensors, and would be very large and cumbersome to make for full frame. Also consider speed boosters. They currently turn a m43 sensor on the gh4 into a super 35mm sensor equivalent. If, in the not too distant future, sensors have gotten to the point where low-light noise is not as big of an issue, the only difference will be bokeh differences between sensor sizes. So far, and compact, constant f1.8 zoom lens has only been able to be produced for aps-c sized sensors. What if they made that with a built in focal reducer for a m43 sized sensor? You would start to able to achieve full frame, prime lens type results with a zoom lens on a smaller sensor. If this type of thing happens, we will be able to produce images same or similar to “full frame” standards of today, using smaller lenses and bodies that are already starting to be developed.

Much of this does not directly deal with the topic at hand: GH4 vs A7S II. But the main thing is, lets see what GH5 gives us! If they do not keep pace with Sony in terms of new features and innovation, the next couple years could see a huge shift towards Sony. I personally like the m43 system, and hope that it can keep pace and stay relevant so that the format sticks around for future development. I think there is more potential for m43 in the future if they can stay as a common mount system for years to come the way Canon and Nikon have done. If m43 can fully establish itself as a system that will be around for years to come, more companies will invest more money into developing new and improved lens/sensor/accessories for the m43 system, and we could see some great stuff.

All that being said, if the GH5 does not compete, and does not innovate with new/better codecs, features and options, and does not at least close the gap a little bit in terms of low-light performance (even if that just means clean or relatively clean performance up through 3200 iso), I will be hard pressed not to seriously consider switching to Sony. I would still prefer the ergonomics and physical size of m43, and I still feel that smaller sensor formats will advance to the point where the differences between m43 and full frame sensor size differences will be more or less negligible, but if that is going to take 5 years or so to develop, it would be hard to hold off switching systems for 5 years until that becomes a realization, and then maybe you can switch back (Canon and Nikon users, I’m sure you understand).

P.S. a great thing happening right now is adapters that are getting smarter and allowing different mount formats to connect and use electronic controls for auto focus, aperture and image stabilization. Hopefully these keep getting better so that they are virtually indistinguishable from using them on their native mount. That will make switching systems much less of a costly chore than in the past, since buying a handful of adapters is MUCH cheaper than investing in all new lens selections.

you know how they say “you dont just buy a camera. you buy yourself into a camera system” well its still true, but theres another aspect thats probably even more important: The potential and technological leaps than can be expected in the near future. and while m43 often hits the limit concerning sensor size and low light capability, the future is wide open for APSC and FF.

do you remember last year how the press guy from panasonic said: “well we couldnt have added IBIS to the gh4. the sensor is quite large and moving it with a heatsink on the back is pretty much impossible.” in the meantime the engineers at sony sit in their freaking lab and making it work with a camera that has a sensor 4 times the size and also making it fit 42MP as well. thats the kind of engineers we need today.

m43 was never a professional choice for filiming and additionally panasonic bet on the wrong horse by putting OIS in the lenses. i cannot tell how excited i am to put my vintage takumar lenses on my a7s2 and shooting stabilized footage out of my hand.

i said it before and i say it again: panasonic is done, while sony keeps to amaze with every new camera they put on the market.

Thanks for sharing, great. As a stills Photographer im always amazed about the MP counting and think its funny to read about 12 mp is fine for most web stuff? I have have worked with Mercedes, Nike, several fashion magazines, Sony, Ericsson, Porsche on an international level often on jobs that resulted in big poster prints all over europe and i can tell you that as late as 3 years ago one of my main cameras was a 12 MP Nikon d700. 12 mp is not fine for most web stuff, 2 mp is. 12 mp is fine for most fashion, catalog, poster and big print jobs. This year we shot Hugo Boss with a d3s with prints bigger then 3 meter high hanging at som airports. Sure my Hasselblad and 645z have more resolution and there are times when you absolutly need them. Im just saying- 12 is not just fine, it more than enough, 42 mp on the other hand thats something that is going to be to much even 2035.

Thanks for this Noam. As a GH4 shooter, I too have been very impressed with what Sony has done in the last couple of years to the point where I am considering the move to one of the a7 cameras. In regard to color grading, I’m curious what you generally find yourself doing with the a7SII footage. Does it require basic corrections (e.g., white balance is often a little off) or do you end up having to do fairly extensive secondary corrections to get things to a basic starting point? How well does the 8 bit footage hold up when grading? And how is the battery life? Thanks so much!

I’ve had my 7sii for a little over a week now and I’m finding it extremely difficult to use. The menus are atrocious, and the autofocus (for stills) is unusable with canon glass and Metabones. Big bummer when I’m trying to capture a moment on the fly. You can’t.

May return.

What’s your experience after using it for a bit now?

I’ve been using a GH3 and got a used GH4 recently and love the improvements. My question is glass. Since I have no lenses for the sony except 2 aps-c zooms, do you have a good recommendation for lenses that won’t break the bank while I experiment with it. Naturally the DOF is a major consideration for the switch. My use will be mostly interviews and shorts for my yoga studio.
Thanks in advance
Bobby

Pleas post a follow-up after you’ve spent more time with the A7SII. I’m particularly curious you’ll grow to miss the video-friendly ergonomics and features that are lacking on the A7SII, such as not being able to use the shutter button, not being able to view shutter angle, etc. All those little niceties that make the GH4 so video-shooter friendly compared to other DSLR-style cameras.