One of the big headline features of the A7R II was its vastly improved autofocus system, including over 300 phase detect AF points covering over 40% of the sensor. Upon hearing this news, the first thing that jumped out to me was how would this affect the performance of adapted lenses – which has been very disappointing to this point.

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Sony Artisan Thibault Roland had a chance to interview an engineer from Sony, who worked on the A7R project. An interesting note from that interview, which you can find in its entirety here, is the bit quoted below, where the Sony engineer claims that the AF speed of Canon lenses adapted to the A7R II almost match their speed on Canon bodies.

We were confirmed that AF of Canon lenses was “much faster than before. With adapters (and in particular, with a firmware updated Metabones Mark IV) Canon lenses are almost as fast as on a Canon body.

Now, as we all know, just because an AF system is fast, doesn’t mean that it is accurate. But if this turns out to be true, I can see a wave of A7 adopters trading in their current A7 models and upgrading to the A7R II, specifically for this upgraded AF functionality. On the current generation of A7 bodies, the adapted lens AF speed is dreadful. It works, yes, but it’s so slow in most situations that there is little point in using it.

The first signs that this claim by Sony may be true are coming in as well, with videos posts by our own Miquel Quiles and Gordon Lang of Camera Labs showing a vastly improved AF speed on the A7R II.

[REWIND: SONY ALPHA A7RII: INITIAL THOUGHTS FROM THE SONY PRESS EVENT]

Sony A7R II pre-orders open up today as well, so now the question becomes, “Are you going to get one?” I know I am very very tempted to try and sell my A7 II and upgrade to the A7R II. It’s just a matter of if I can come up with the remaining money to cover the difference – which is quite massive (for me). But we will see.

If you are interested, you can get your pre-order in on the A7R II now over on B&H for $3198.

What about you? Are you planning to grab an A7R II? Do you think that the AF performance will be improved enough that you can actually use Canon lenses with AF? Leave a comment below and let us know what you think!

[via Canon Rumors]