Going Full-Frame: Sony A7II

Cost: $994.71 (including lens and shipping)

So, after a lot of hesitating and investigating, I took the plunge to full frame. I found a great deal on B&H for a used Sony A7II, in original box and with low shutter count. Although not the latest and greatest Sony model, it does have all the whistles and bells you want on a full-frame mirror-less, including 24.3MP Exmor CMOS sesnsor, full HD recording 60p with high-rate 50Mbps XAVC S format, fast AF, and 5-AXIS SteadyShot in-camera Image Stabilization that will even work with older manual lenses.

So why the move to Full-Frame from APS-C? Several reasons...

• A larger sensor will have the sensor pixels spread over a larger surface, resulting in less noise
• A larger sensor will have the sensor pixels spread over a larger surface, resulting higher acceptable ISO rates.
• If both the APS-C and the full-frame sensor have a similar pixel count, the full-frame sensor will result in sharper images, as the captured light is spread over a lens dense surface. This is of course limited by the capabilities of the lens. A very sharp lens will also provide great sharp pictures on APS-C, but lenses of a slightly lower quality might appear sharper. Or at least, full-frame is a little more forgiven for lower quality lenses.
• Most full frame camera's, as targeted to more serious photographers, have better and more capabilities then APS-C camera's. In my case, comparing the A7ii with my old a6000, the A7ii has two wheels to set aperture and shutter speed, instead of one and one more customisable button. It also features in-camera stabilisation that was lacking on the a6000 (although available on higher end APS-C camera's and Pentax DSLR's).
• A wider crop factor. A wide angle lens will have a wider field of view on a full-frame camera. This means that a wide angle lens is indeed a wide angle lens. A legacy wide angle lens, say a 35mm, will look like a 52mm lens on the a600, so more like a portrait lens. To get trough wide angle on an APS-C camera, you need to go to ultra-wide-angle lenses that are costly, and difficult to make, resulting often is sharpness issues and distortions at the edge.
• Ability for shorter depth of field, allowing to be more creative when using Bokeh or background blur when isolating objects.
• And last, but not least, the ability to test legacy lenses as they were really designed for. Most legacy lenses are designed for 35mm film, and full frame is the digital format that is the closest to that format. With an APS-C sensor, you only use the center of the lens. This might result in better sharpness around the edges of the photo, as most manufacturers assured the best quality in the middle of the lens, but you miss the true character and abilities of a lens when not using the out-of-center glass.   

There are of course also disadvantages. Wild-life photography becomes more challenging, or at least more expensive. With APS-C, due to the crop-factor, a 300mm lens could be used as a 450mm lens, and pretty decent to take a picture of most wild-life. On a full-frame, 300 mm is pretty useless for smaller animals, so you need to invest in longer lenses that become increasingly expensive with longer focal length, especially if you want to use a "faster" lens. In my opinion, the lens speed becomes less relevant due to the better ISO capabilities of full-frame, and the better image quality will allow for more cropping in post-production.

A smaller depth of field will also make Macro photography more challenging.

In short, plenty of reasons to switch, and I must say, after my first shoot with the A7ii, just "WOW". I have waited way to long for this jump. Not only do the pictures look more impressive due to the smaller depth of field, but the camera is clearly capable of a higher dynamic range resulting in clearer and more color full pictures.    

I'm looking forward to test more lenses with this new setup, and might even re-test some of my already reviewed lenses.