Sony A7R II Image Quality

At base sensitivity, it's pretty obvious that the Sony A7R II's 42-megapixel sensor is gathering more detail than the 36-megapixel chip in its predecessor, the Sony A7R. Both cameras yield a clean, crisp image as you'd expect, and given there's nothing other than the resolution difference to choose between the pair, we'd call this one for the A7R II.

The resolution difference is even greater when compared to the A7R's most affordable current-gen sibling, the 24-megapixel A7 II. Here, the higher-res camera has a clear edge -- as you'd expect, given the price difference -- especially in the red fabric swatch and mosaic label.

With a resolution of 50 megapixels, the Canon 5DS R is the only full-frame camera in this comparison to best the Sony A7R II in terms of sensor resolution. And as you'd expect, at base sensitivity the Canon DSLR does indeed resolve a bit more detail than its mirrorless Sony rival. In other respects, the pair show only relatively minor differences. Canon has slightly more accurate color though, which coupled with its higher resolution gives it the edge at base sensitivity.

Placed head to head against the 36-megapixel Nikon D810, the Sony A7R II once again has a noticeable resolution advantage. It also handles the difficult red fabric swatch much better than does the D810, which shows significant moiré patterns. (That's the wavy red bands in the swatch.)

The Sony A7R II comes surprisingly close to the Pentax 645Z at base sensitivity, given that its full-frame image sensor is much smaller than the medium-format chip in Ricoh's camera. The 645Z is clearly resolving quite a bit more resolution than does the A7R II, something which is particularly apparent in the red fabric swatch. Sony's color rendition is more convincing, though, especially in the pink swatch.

Stepping up to ISO 1600-equivalent, things get a bit more interesting. The Sony A7R II still yields a bit more resolution than did its predecessor, but that comes at the expense of a bit more noise in the bottle crop. But if we look at the mosaic label and fabric swatches, the A7R II's noise reduction algorithms have done a better job, with less of the smudginess apparent in the earlier camera's images.

As you'd expect thanks to its much larger pixels, the Sony A7 II turns in a cleaner-looking result than its much higher-res sibling at ISO 1600-equivalent. However, the A7R II extracts a good bit more detail than the A7 II is able to, and we'd have to give it the edge here overall.

At ISO 1600-equivalent, the Canon 5DS R still has a slight resolution edge over the Sony A7R II. Its less-aggressive noise reduction doubtless helps out here, but the other side of the coin is that the Canon's image looks a bit noisier. Which approach is better likely depends on your personal tastes and workflow needs; we're going to call this a tie.

Moving on to the Nikon, the D810 shows similar noise levels to its higher-res rival, but it's clearly trailing in other respects. There's much more detail in the Sony A7R II's crops, and it also better holds onto contrast in the difficult red swatch.

The Sony A7R II's color rendition is still more pleasing at ISO 1600, and noise is slightly better controlled too. When it comes to detail, though, the larger medium-format sensor of the Pentax 645Z pays dividends. There's little if any sign of the fine thread pattern of the red swatch in the Sony's crop, for example, while the Pentax still shows it fairly clearly.

Moving up to ISO 3200-equivalent, the Sony A7R II yields a noisier bottle crop than that from the original A7R. That seems in part to be down to less aggressive noise reduction, though, with the A7R II holding onto more detail which its predecessor loses to noise reduction smudging.

It's a similar situation against the A7 II, as well. Again, the Sony A7R II's bottle crop is noisier, but more detail remains in its mosaic label and fabric swatches.

The higher-res Canon 5DS R turns in a rather noisier bottle crop than that of the Sony A7R II, but that noise has a more film-like grain that's rather easier on the eye. However, the A7R II has a pretty clear advantage in terms of detail, and it also better holds onto contrast than does its Canon rival.

At ISO 3200-equivalent, the Nikon D810 better tamps down noise in the bottle crop, but the Sony A7R II's mosaic and fabric swatch crops have more detail, better contrast, and aren't as muted as those from the Nikon.

Once again, the huge sensor of the Pentax 645Z yields a better result at ISO 3200. Where the Sony A7R II has lost most of the thread pattern in the fabric swatches, its medium-format competitor still retains quite a bit of that detail. The same is also noticeable in the mosaic label, although not to the same degree. (That's in part due to the different scale of the two images making that from the Pentax appear softer, but it seems the Sony camera is also using a bit stronger sharpening.)