I’m not a fan of most camera tests. They usually involve someone filming a stuffed animal in a badly lit room, or a bored model staring at the camera holding a color chart. These tests have their uses, but I’m always more interested in real-world applications. In this case, my real world application is some adorable baby chickens my mom is raising. There are 14 of them, but I opted to only film 3 so I could concentrate on filming and not chicken wrangling.

I took them into the backyard, where there is a nice mix of light and shadows from the oak trees. Everything was shot on the Sony A7S Mark 2 in 4K, ISO 1600, handheld, and using the S-LOG3 Picture Profile. The lens is a Sigma ART 50mm 1.4 Nikon Mount with a Commlite adapter.

My initial thoughts are as follows:

• This thing is lighter than my old 7D, but still has a nice heft to the body.
• In-camera stabilization is AMAZING! I think if I put a stabilized lens on this thing though, I may rip a hole in the space time continuum from how stable it is.
• I now want to go back and re-shoot everything in S-Log3 so I have better dynamic range.
• File sizes aren’t as huge as I thought they would be. My hard drives and wallet thank me.

All color grading was handled with Magic Bullet Looks and some tweaked S-Log3 Grading Presets for Magic Bullet Looks courtesy of Stu Maschwitz. Check them out, they are free and incredibly helpful!

Special thanks to my wife for helping corral the chicks. And if you’re interested in buying a Sony A7S Mark 2 yourself, please use this link from B&H so I get some $$ too.