Sony has announced the Alpha 7 II in Japan, a 24MP full-frame mirrorless featuring a 5-axis sensor-shift image stabilization.

The camera's new IS system detects and corrects various camera shake along five axes for still images and video, including angular shake (pitch and yaw) that tends to occur when shooting with a telephoto lens, shift shake (along the X and Y axes) that becomes noticeable as photographing magnification increases, and rotational shake (roll) that often affects shots at night or when recording video.Sony says the new IS can reduce shake by 4.5 stops using the CIPA standard. If an E-mount lens with OSS is attached, the camera will detect it and use a combination of in-lens and in-body stabilization.

The a7 II (ILCE-7M2) features 117 phase detect and 25 contrast detect points on its 24.3 effective megapixel 35 mm full-frame Exmor CMOS sensor but Sony is claiming a 30% improvement in the a7 II's AF speed and 1.5x better tracking performance than its predecessor.

In addition to recording in AVCHD Ver. 2.0 Full HD (1920×1080) 60p (50p)/60i (50i)/24p, the camera records in XAVC-S, a format derived from the professional XAVC format. This offers Full HD video quality at a high bit rate of 50 Mbps. Long GOP compression is used, targeting differences between frames, along with the MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 codec for video. Regarding audio recording, linear PCM is used and files are saved in the MP4 format. The α7 II also supports the S-Log2 gamma function, which preserves a wide dynamic range, and a wide S-Gamut mode. Other features include Time Code/User Bit (useful in editing), Rec Control (for synced recording with compatible external recorders), marker display/settings, and dual video recording.

The a7 II is expected to ship in Japan on December 5th with an expected retail price of ¥190,000 (about $1,600).