Problems with Sony A7RII, Canon IS and Metabones Adapter

[Pat Reddy]

I noticed yesterday that image stabilization performed poorly when using a Canon lens with IS connected to the A7RII via the Metabones IV adapter. If I turned off the IS on the lens, then IBIS was also turned off in the camera.

Metabones has addressed the performance issue with a June 15 firmware update that allows you to select either lens IS or camera IBIS with the IS switch on the lens:

Metabones®

I haven't tried it yet, but I thought it would be worth mentioning here to prevent others from having to go through hours of confusion and disappointment.

Cheers.

[Gary Huff]

Whenever you purchase a new piece of gear, you should always make sure that piece and everything connecting with it is on the latest firmware.

[Michael Kraus]

Thanks Pat. Haven't gotten my camera yet but I'm sure I'll have my share of frustrations. Otherwise how do you like it so far?

[Charles W. Hull]

I switched from Canon to Sony with the A7II earlier this year, and right away had auto focus problems with the Metabones adapter and Canon lenses. I decided back then to move to all Sony and Zeiss lenses and am happy I did this; they all perform well with my A7RII. The A7RII is expected to work much better with adapters and Canon lenses, but I think this is still a work in progress. I see posts with lists of Canon lenses that work well and that don't work well. Hopefully over time firmware updates from Sony and Metabones will increase the number of compatible Canon lenses.

[Pat Reddy]

HI Michael,

It may not really be the nearly perfect stills and 4K camera that many of us were expecting. I am now getting good in-camera or on-lens IS performance with Canon lenses and the latest firmware on the Metabones IV adapter. My Canon 300 F4/L IS, however, only focuses intermittently and often it causes the camera to go dark for a few seconds and reset ISO and shutter speed. This could be a problem with my copy of the lens. The 70-200 F4/L IS focuses fairly quickly in video or stills mode. Focusing with the Canon 24 F2.8 STM IS is alright but can be slow or even unresponsive at times in video mode. Not all Canon glass will work well with this camera and the Metabones adapter, and many Canon lenses that do work may not work as well they do on a Canon DSLR. So, this is at least a bit of a disappointment.

On the other hand, shutter shock made it difficult to get sharp stills with the 70-200 F4 IS on a Metabones adapter and the A7R. With this combination on the A7RII, I am getting very sharp, high resolution images. Shutter shock on the A7R made for very poor resolution shots with the 300 F4/IS, but with the A7RII this is no longer an issue when my copy of this lens actually works. So they have been successful in making this a non-issue with the A7RII, and this is one of the reasons I wanted the A7RII.

The in-camera stabilization is excellent for both video and stills. I can get a very-sharp photograph with the Zeiss 55 F1.8 with shutter speeds of 1/30 of a second. 4K video in super 35 format shot with the Zeiss 55, Sony 35, Canon 24 STM, and Canon 70-200 F4/IS at 70 mm is quite smooth. Even with this latter lens at 200 mm, the video is reasonably smooth with a little effort. The 5-axis stabilization was another reason i wanted this camera, and it works well for stills and video.

I haven't played much with full-frame 4K video, but the super 35 4K video is stunning. It seems to have better resolution than my GH4 and less of the artificially sharpened look of my AX100. It is the best-looking 4K video from any 4K camera I have owned. Noise in this mode is a non-issue to me even at an ISO of 6400. My impression is that it is more capable in low light than the Canon C100 I used to own. 4K video is another reason I wanted this camera, and it has so far lived up to my expectations.

Stills look great even at high ISOs, and the noise is fine-grained in the higher ISO shots. There does seem to be slightly more noise at low ISOs (even 100 and 200) in stills mode than my A7R, but I don't think it will be noticeable in even large prints. For a while, I thought that the A7RII had more noise in the shadows at these ISOs than the A7R, but I shot comparison scenes this evening and pulled the exposure up by 4 stops in Lightroom, and it looks like shadow noise is fairly comparable with these cameras (at least at ISO 100 to 200).

I love the dynamic range of the A7R for stills, and I have the impression that the dynamic range of the A7RII is comparable. I didn't want to lose much ground here with the A7RII, and so this represents another expectation met by the A7RII.

I have read elsewhere that the A7RII may have a dynamic range of about 12 stops in video. Highlights seem to be handled well. You can dig into the menu and adjust video or stills presets to your hearts content (gamma, knee, color, etc.), and in this sense it reminds me of the Canon C100. It also has Slog2, which I have not played with much yet.

So after a little bit of testing and coming to grips with the fact that it is not quite the perfect camera I was expecting, I am very happy with it so far. It weighs 7 ounces more than the A7R and is very slightly larger, but is still a small, light-weight device. I hear it can overheat when shooting 4K continuously for more than half an hour or hour, but this is not something that I will normally need to do. It seems to eat batteries a little faster than the A7R, but you get 2 with the camera.

In short, it is a small, versatile, capable, dual-purpose professional stills and 4K camera.

Pat