Sony A7 II Image Quality

No surprises here that the image quality is practically identical between the original A7 and the A7 II. With both cameras sharing the same 24.3MP full-frame sensor and BIONZ X image processor, the base ISO images are crisp, vibrant and full of fine detail.

This is an interesting comparison with both cameras producing lots of fine detail, but the Sony does noticeably better with the mosaic, while the Canon does a bit better with the tone-on-tone detail in the red fabric. Despite having a low-pass filter, we can see some moiré pattern interference in the red fabric in the A7 image. The Sony, however, does do considerably better with detail in the pink fabric.

Pitting a 24.3 full-frame camera against a 16.3 APS-C camera is a little unfair, but the two cameras have similar form-factors, and the X-T1's unique X-Trans sensor is known to produce fantastic images, so we thought this could be an interesting comparison. In all three comparisons, both cameras produce lots of sharp, fine detail, but the Fuji struggles in the pink fabric and just doesn't have the "pop" of the sharpness from the Sony (which could be in part due to differences in their in-camera sharpening).

Similar to what we saw with the A7R vs D800E, it appears that the Sony is applying a bit more in-camera sharpening versus the Nikon. Both cameras produce a lot of fine detail, and both do great with the red fabric. The Sony wins with the pink fabric in this comparison. Sony has made huge strides in their JPEG processing, and particularly with how they can create dramatically sharp images without creating halos or outlines around objects.

Despite having a smaller sensor, the 28MP NX1 is able to produce very high-res images and give the full-frame A7 II a run for its money here at base ISO. Fine detail on the bottle and mosaic crops from both cameras are very impressive and rater evenly matched. The fabric swatches however show the biggest difference. Pink fabric detail is excellent from both cameras, but while the A7 II shows some moiré interference, the NX1 is cleaner but displays slightly less fine detail.

Again, both cameras here at ISO 1600 display very clean, highly detail images, with very little, if any, difference between the two.

The default noise reduction from the Canon in the first crop seems to be just a hair cleaner and smoother than the Sony, but it's quite minor. Both cameras retain lots of fine detail in the mosaic, with the Sony in the lead thanks to its excellent sharpening, and both do almost equally well with the red fabric (though the edge goes to Canon with a better leaf pattern).

The smaller sensor of the Fuji holds up surprisingly well here at ISO 1600. There's more grain in the bottle crop from the Fuji (but not an extreme amount), and the Sony produces crisper detail in the mosaic. However, the Fuji is able to produce a much more distinct red leaf pattern. The overall win goes to the Sony, but it's frankly surprising how well the X-T1's smaller sensor does here.

This is a bit of a mixed comparison, with no clear winner. The Sony does better at cleaning up high ISO noise with their default level of noise reduction in the bottle crop, and also produces crisper detail in the mosaic. However, Nikon does markedly better with the red fabric, while the Sony handles the pink fabric much better. Apart from its handling of the red fabric, we'd give the nod to the Sony A7 II here.

The NX1's default noise reduction processing is taking an aggressive stance toward noise at this ISO, and the artifacts from this processing are quite visible in the bottle crop and really reduces fine detail rendering in the fabric swatches. All told, the A7 II takes the crown in this comparison set, though that's no surprise given the NX1's smaller sensor.

Looking very closely, you can see slight differences in the A7 II's NR processing compared to its predecessor. However, by and large, again, the images at ISO 3200 are strikingly similar. There's still a great amount of fine detail and low noise at this higher ISO level.

The Sony does a bit better with the mosaic crop in terms of fine detail, but the Canon looks slightly cleaner with noise in the bottle crop and does slightly better with the red fabric. A toss-up, really, depending on what you're looking for. We'd personally probably go with the A7 II, but others might as easily pick the 6D.

Both bottle crops here looking very similar with both cameras doing equally well at controlling high ISO noise. The Sony does better with fine detail in the mosaic crop, while they both struggle with the red fabric pattern. Again, advantage Sony, but we're surprised by how well the X-T1 does, given the difference in sensor sizes.

Interestingly, the high ISO noise starts to hurt the image quality from the Nikon, which you can see in both the bottle and mosaic crops. The Sony shows less noise and is able to produce a lot of fine detail in the mosaic. As before, the Nikon does better with the red fabric, while the Sony handles the pink fabric better.

The strong NR processing is really the NX1's big downfall here in this comparison. The A7 II still displays great control of noise, while displaying a lot of fine detail, despite having NR processing enabled by default. The NX1 however has a lot of fine detail smoothed away by noise reduction processing here, but again, keep in mind the NX1's much smaller photosites.