What do you want in a camera? I have a list, and it’s simple: Logical and easy use, an ability to deliver the images or video that I need, body wear, and for digital cameras the promise that the sensor and software will work together deliver something that I can work with in post.

A good camera interface, that’s pretty personal and lots of good approaches to this exist. If that weren’t the case, there wouldn’t be multiple companies making somewhat different cameras that all, in their essence, perform the same task of storing photons as electrical signals for use and sharing. That, today, is what a camera is: Software and firmware that combine to interpret the light that reflects off of whatever we place in front of them to record the images and videos that we need them to record. For interface, I prefer dials to buttons for the core functions so that I can access those without taking my eyes away from the camera.

Imperfection is the playground of beauty. One possible perfection exists – perfect is by definition an absolute and no state of greater perfection than perfect exists. So everything that exists is some variation on imperfect, and those variations give us infinite beauty. Without hesitation, I prefer a worn camera. A brand new black camera lacks form. It’s form is there, but it’s like a statue in a lump of marble. The form needs the artist to release it. The artist, the photographer, in using a black camera, brushing the finish off the edges, allows the camera’s shape to come through in thin brass strands that lengthen and spread. Those brass lines, they remove some paint but their affect is to amplify and complement what remains. Like shadows complement the softness of incandescent light that passes through a lamp shade, brass and silver wear complement black cameras. I like cameras used, with dings and dents, character. With a worn camera, I will almost never know what scratches or dents I’ve given it, how wearing it around my neck has caused it to hit tables or doorways and what those do to it. Scars and wear, regardless of what carries them, tell a story. That, too, is true of us. The scar on our arm tells a story about a not clearing a barbed-wire fence, the creases around our eyes and cheeks of the many thousands of smiles we’ve shared, the backs and knees that crack with a sound like rocks hitting pavement share the hundreds of times we picked up our children and grandchildren. Our bodies and our faces, which take more from the universe than our bones were meant to handle, tell our stories, to those who will listen, record, or decipher them. That is why we photograph people and why people, of course, are the best subject to photograph. A camera should arrive the same way as the people we meet and the scenes we photograph, with marks and flaws that show, to those who listen, the stories those subjects, through images, tell.

And as for the marriage of software and hardware, basically any digital camera made in the last five or so years, and certainly those that are brand new, can deliver on that front. Functionally, the software supporting a camera shouldn’t even be a consideration when buying a camera as long as you can edit the photos in the software that you use.

Our bodies and our minds tell stories; cameras capture those stories. Today, we have the ability to capture those stories in still images and video. Marry the two in a solid, reliable package and you get the A7S II. My A7S II wears a year of scars from mountain climbing, videography, hitting my belt buckle, dust-filled wind, falling off rocks, and tripods knocked over in the wind. In 2020 I took my A7S II to the summits of six mountain summits higher than 14,000 feet, across boulder fields, up at least one Class 3 scramble with exposure, and to any number of alpine lakes.

Within days of buying it, the A7S II became the camera that I use the most, my go-to for almost every trip. Anything requiring video sees this camera packed first into the bags. If you’re a subscriber, you’ve seen more work from this camera on my channel than any camera except my Pentax K-3, which digitizes all my 35mm negatives and slides. The A7S II is my go-to video camera for everything from my regular Cameras and Coffee series to my video manuals, lens reviews, and hike logs. This camera does everything I ask it to reliably, well, and with very few issues. I took to it so quickly because it ticks every box I have for cameras – a good interface, some wear so that I don’t feel badly about using it, and software that works very well with the hardware.

#SonyA7SII #A7SIIReview, #SonyA7SIIReview

References:
"Oh What a Whirl" by Jules Gaia used under active license from Epidemic Sound at the time of this video's upload.

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Gear I used for Filming and Editing:
Sony A7S II, Yashica 45mm f/1.7 lens, and a lapel mic.

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