As you know, I no longer shoot with Canon. I have been in the market for a Sony A7R, but decided to wait for its replacement the A7R II which was announced in early June. Professional tests will only come to market after the camera starts shipping in August. Those of you following the photographic gear market and who read my blog regularly, will know about Canon's major announcement of their new mega pixel king the 5Ds and 5Ds R of 50 mega pixels.

          When that camera was announced I was disappointed at three key features (which are important to me; I realize they may not be important to others). Firstly, Canon themselves admitted that the dynamic range of the camera is not improved. To me this was a huge problem because Canon's sensors are already far behind the competition and with no improvement in sight I was disheartened. For my style of shooting and processing images, dynamic range is really important. Secondly, I was disappointed at Canon's statement that the high ISO performance also is not improved. This may not effect many photographers as we tend to want to shoot at low ISO for landscapes. However, when the wind blows you need good high ISO performance in order to get good shots while using a faster shutter speed to freeze the wind blown objects (like foliage). Lastly, I felt that the price was very steep at $3,699.00. For these reasons and the fact that I had a rather terrible experience with Canon's service (which was not an exception, apparently it was their official policy), I decided to move on. I got my first Canon in 1987, and have had many since. I am hopeful and cautiously optimistic that Canon will, in time, catch up and perhaps again be the leader in sensor technology they once were. Competition between the camera manufacturers are good for consumers.

          Now I have started to make the switch to Sony. Why not Nikon? Nikon makes great cameras and excel in dynamic range. Of late, there has been huge issues with quality control at Nikon, and their handling of these issues did not inspire confidence. I must say in all fairness, that they eventually came through and did what was right to replace the D600. Nikon is also dependent on Sony sensors (who owns roughly 50% of the sensor market). I am not sure I am willing to invest a lot of money with Nikon due to this dependence. The minute the relationship between Sony and Nikon sours, Nikon will be lost up the creek. A few years ago Nikon would come out first with the Sony sensor. A year or so later Sony would bring out a camera with the same sensor. Now the tables have turned. Sony came out with their own camera using the new sensor before Nikon. Are things changing; I don't know. What I do know is that I really like what Sony is doing with their gear lately. I also like that Zeiss is coming out with great lenses for Sony; some of the best in the world. Just recently they announced a new Batis series of lenses boasting auto focus and stabilization.

          So here is what I like about the new Sony A7R II:

• 42 Mega pixels; yes, I know many do not want or care for more mega pixels. I do! For landscape work it brings out more detail and I can print larger. Yes, I know many will challenge me and ask, "well, how large do you print?" Just for the record, I just completed a shoot early June for yet another bill board. I have shot for 6 meter (yes, 18 feet) banners and print large banners all the time. Lastly, mega pixels are also good for cropping.

• Dynamic range; we don't know yet how good this camera is going to be at dynamic range but I have read that Sony claims it to be better than the old model. The old model has wonderful dynamic range.

• High ISO; we will also have to wait for tests before jumping to conclusions, but if the highest ISO setting of this camera is anything to go by it should be good. The Canon has a highest setting of 6400 while the Sony goes all the way up to 102,400; that is 4 extra stops! The question now is how good will the Sony really be at 6400?

• IBIS; in body image stabilization is huge and works well. It allows stabilization with lenses that are not stabilized. This is a wonderful feature, especially for those who do not use tripods (shoot topics for which tripods are a hindrance).

• Lenses; as mentioned those Zeiss lenses are awesome and Sony's are good also (16-35 F4 OSS; 55 F1.8; etc). The biggest benefit is that with adapters you can fit almost any full frame lens to this camera. The auto focus with these non-Sony lenses have been greatly improved with this new camera.

• Shutter vibration; an issue that plagued the previous model and the Nikon D800 has been solved with this camera and they gave us a silent shutter to boot (great for wildlife and weddings).

• Auto focus is now claimed to also be fixed and fast.

• 4K video; makes this camera future proof for some time. I do not use video much, but have found it to be handy from time to time.

• Better viewfinder; there has been some debate between optical viewfinders and electronic view finders. This view finder offers great features such as live histogram, focus peeking, magnification, review of images, etc.

• Customization; you can customize buttons to setup the camera for your own style of shooting and comfort.

• Stronger lens mount; there were reported issues with the previous camera's lens mount to the point where a third party mount replacement kit was sold. This camera seems stronger and appears to be better weather sealed.

          There are still some unanswered questions such as:

• Genuinely uncompressed RAW; I have spoken to friends who have been using the previous model professionally who claim that this is a non-issue.

• Tested dynamic range and high ISO. When a company says something is not improved you can believe them. Whey they say things are improved vastly, one has to take that with a grain of salt until verified independently.

          Negatives ...

• Price! I was expecting this camera to come in at around $2,400 to $2,500. At $3,200 it is rather expensive. On paper the specs look really great but the price ... The only thing that pacifies is that the Canon is even more expensive with less features.

• Touch screen; how a camera cannot have a touch screen in the year 2015 boggles my mind, especially at that price point. Touch screens are awesome for video focusing - you simply touch the spot you want in focus and there it goes ... It is also very nice for still photography because you can zoom in with a pinch of the fingers and swipe to move around the image. We need to check every body's eyes, we need to check critical focus at specific points. A touch screens makes doing so a breeze.

• USB 2; where is USB 3; although this is not a huge problem for me.

• 1 Card slot; peace of mind requires dual card slots for backup. Having said that, I have found memory cards to be very reliable. I have had multiple cards go through the laundry and they still worked.

          I will wait for the professional tests of the camera to come in, make my evaluation and act accordingly. On paper, it sure seems like a winner.