Anyone pick up an A77II for video yet? Any thoughts? I need a second camera for occasional B-Roll or "extremely bad weather" use and I was thinking about picking up this one. Plus, I sometimes shoot sports stills and that new AF system looks amazing. There are a couple sample videos online, and they look much better than the A77 did (though obviously not as good as my A7S), however, I was hoping to get some input directly from someone that has used it, and/or edited footage from it.

If you've followed me, you know I shot a lot of video with the A77 when it first came out. I've since moved on but miss having a fast DSLR for sports photography and video in really harsh conditions. (For example, I filmed in an Icelandic winter storm last year.) Also I find that my A7S is often "fully rigged" (cage, xlr, monitor, etc.) since I shoot with it daily and I don't always want to break it down for some casual photos.

I already own a few A-Mount lenses, both in FF and DT, as well as FE lenses. My bread and butter glass are FF A-Mounts. I considered the A7II, but I'm thinking that even with improvements in AF there's no way it will touch the A77II for photographic use. Then there's the A99, which is just lacking in too many areas to be considered seriously at this point. (I love WiFi for photos and the A77II is rumored to be getting XAVC-S with an update in December.) And hey, if the A99II is awesome next year (or whenever it comes out) the cost of the A77II is pretty low and I won't be out much if I decide to upgrade.

I ended up buying an A77II for stills and to play second fiddle to my A7S for occasional video use. Today I used it for some locked-down b-shots while filming a Mercedes on the A7S.

Video is still a bit soft, but with much more detail than the previous A77 and seemingly less aliasing than the A7R (at least, today I didn't notice any). I'm looking forward to the XAVC-S upgrade that's apparently coming this month.

http://www.drivingsports.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/A77II-mercedes-still.jpg

http://www.drivingsports.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/A77II-mercedes2-still.jpg

Picture profile: Neutral -2-1-3. Shot at 1080/60p AVCHD

Here's a similar shot of the same car with the A7S (unscientific comparison... especially since this is a slow pan.) 1080/30p XAVC-S

http://www.drivingsports.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/A7S-mercedes-still.jpg

Is there still a bit of digital crop when stabilization is enabled? (like the last couple generations since they disabled IBIS for video)

I believe there is. I just upgraded to the 2.0 firmware with XAVC-S and will be doing a comparison against my A7S soon. I'll be sure to include some shots with stabilization.

Comparison:

Sony A7S vs A77II SLT XAVC-S 1080p Comparison on Vimeo

Sorry, didn't have time to test stabilized shots. My time was short as it was (as you can see by those totally awesome slider shots.)

thks for posting this.
I'll have a look at it tonight when i get home.

I am also curieus on whether stabilisation has improved a little or remained the same and iso performance.
chr