The Sony Alpha 7S II is not only impressive when looking at the specs but also performs great on real life productions. If you’re not too crazy about Ultra HD yet or just don’t finish your projects in that high resolution you might want to take a look at the 120 frames per second recording mode. The DSLM can shoot 120fps in 1080p with a bitrate of 100Mbps which is pretty high considering it has the same bitrate in 2160p. The downside for all who shoot in PAL is that the camera only offers 100fps because the frame rate is doubled: 25p, 50p, 100p. In NTSC it’s 30p, 60p, 120p. What does that mean? If you slow down the 100fps PAL footage in post to 25fps you will have less slow motion than when slowing down 120fps recorded in NTSC to 24fps. That’s not something knew but useful to know when starting to work with the camera.
Since the introduction of the XAVC S codec Sony included the 120fps recording option in some cameras but usually just in 720p resolution which was nice to have but the image was far from detailed and not really enjoyable. Click HERE to watch some XAVC S samples captured with the Sony RX10.
So finally we got such a high frame rate at a proper resolution and the best thing is that the footage actually looks good. Yes, in certain cases there is still some moiré/aliasing visible but nothing too bad. There’s really nothing to complain about here.
Below is a sample video shot entirely at 120fps and slowed down to 24fps:
The music was provided by Premiumbeat .com and the track is called „Zero Gravity“ by Notes Productions.
You can buy the Sony Alpha 7S II HERE at B&H!
Written by Moritz Janisch