Sony A7R V review: Stunning images, improved video, unbeatable autofocus

Sony’s full-frame A7R IV was one of the best mirrorless cameras I’ve reviewed, so there was a lot of pressure on its successor. The company’s answer is the 61-megapixel A7R V, designed to deliver the maximum amount of detail in portrait and landscape photography.

Although it uses the same sensor as the A7R IV, the new model has been improved in almost every aspect. The processors have been upgraded to the same ones found in the 50-megapixel A1, allowing for faster AI autofocus and tracking and better video specs. Sony has also improved stabilization, the rear screen, the EVF, and more, all for the same reason. $3,900 price like its main rival, the Canon EOS R5.

Sony’s advanced technology has always been its superpower, but rival models from Canon, Panasonic and others have begun to catch up. To find out if the A7R V is worth buying over other cameras, and even the latest model, I took it out for some detailed tests. Spoiler alert: It’s an impressive camera.

body and handling

Sony made some design changes to its full-frame mirrorless cameras starting with the A7S III, and the A7R V continues in that vein. In addition to a slightly larger grip, it has a number of improvements over the A7R IV, such as a new dedicated selector for video, photos, and slow motion (S&Q) mode.

By removing that feature from the mode dial, it’s relatively easy to switch between photos and videos, and then switch modes in each. It is also possible to share some, all or none of the settings, such as shutter speed and ISO, between photo and video modes using the personalization menu. Sony has also moved the record button from the back to a better position at the top.

As with other Sony cameras, it’s intuitive and easy to use. However, some people may find it uncomfortable to hold all day, especially those with larger hands. That’s because the grip has some hard edges and a material that’s less comfortable than Canon’s R5, for example.

A big new innovation on the A7R V is the rear screen. Instead of a simple tilting screen as before, Sony has created a completely new system. It not only flips, but also tilts, not just up like Panasonic’s similar system in the GH6, but down and out as well.

In addition to being better for vlogging and selfies, it also allows you to move the screen away from any microphone or monitor cables. It is also better for photographers. Some people prefer a tilting screen (for shooting at high and low angles), so the A7R V has the best of both worlds.

The A7R IV already had a very good 5.76 million-dot EVF, but Sony made it even better. Resolution on the OLED panel is up to 9.44 million dots, though it drops when you focus or boost the refresh rate to the maximum of 120Hz. Still, it’s now close to matching what you’d see in an optical viewfinder.

Like the A1 and A7S III, it has a pair of dual-format card slots. Each accept CFexpress Type A UHS-II SD cards or faster, but much more expensive. The latter are required for 8K video and allow you to take longer bursts of photos before the buffer fills up.

With the A7R V now being a much better camcorder, Sony has seen fit to swap out the fragile little micro HDMI connector for a full-size one. While it’s still not up to professional standards, it offers a relatively secure connection and allows for more robust cables, as micro HDMI models are prone to breaking.

It has the same battery as the A1 and offers exactly the same number of max shots on a charge, 530. That’s in lab conditions though, and I got roughly double that in the real world. The USB-C 3.2 Gen 2 port is PD-compliant, so you can charge the battery and power the camera at the same time. It also comes with microphone and headphone ports as you’d expect, plus a wired LAN port and the ability to make Zoom calls or live stream over USB-C via the UBC webcam standard.

Performance

The A7R V has roughly the same burst speeds as its predecessor, 10fps in mechanical and electronic modes, capturing C-RAW and JPEG photos. That drops to 7fps when shooting uncompressed RAW files. While it’s not super fast compared to the Sony A1 or Canon EOS R5 (both have stacked sensors), it’s not bad for a 61-megapixel camera. You can shoot around 104 C-RAW + JPEG files before the buffer fills up, though that takes less than two seconds.

Sony is known for its brilliant autofocus, and the A7R V may be its best camera in this area to date. With 693 phase-detection focus points (versus 567 on the A7R IV), normal AF (no subject tracking) is astonishingly accurate in all five area modes, delivering the vast majority of sharp images even with fast moving subjects.

Things get even better when you activate the AI. In addition to excellent face, head and eye tracking, Sony has introduced a new body tracking mode. It works much like 3D motion tracking software used for animation, predicting the position of your head and eyes based on your skeletal structure. If you can’t follow your subject’s face, you can also switch to their body and still take sharp photos.

In addition to humans, it can also track people, birds, animals, insects, cars, trains, and planes. However, you must select them manually; it would be nice to have an auto mode that allows the AI ​​to choose the subject like the Canon EOS R6 II. It also has a tap-to-track mode that locks on to subjects more precisely than rival models.

In most of these tracking modes, the camera did a good job of focusing on the subject’s eyes. Otherwise, it accurately tracked the head or body and still delivered sharp photos. The results were particularly impressive when you consider the high resolution that shows focus defects in minute detail.

It sometimes failed to lock on to the eyes of birds and other animals, though that’s something Sony could improve with firmware updates. Overall, though, he nailed the spotlight almost every time, outscoring his rivals by a solid margin.

The A7R V also has a new in-body stabilization system, which increases it from 6 to 8 stops with compatible lenses, the same as the Canon EOS R5 offers. It was very good for photography, allowing me to take sharp photos up to a quarter of a second. That means you can shoot handheld and capture the beam of car headlights, for example, while freezing the background. Having said that. falls a bit short for the video as you will soon see.

image quality

As it has the same 61-megapixel sensor, the A7R V offers almost identical image quality to the A7R IV. That’s not a bad thing, as the latter can produce stellar images. With very high resolution and the lack of an anti-aliasing filter, only Hasselblad and Fuji’s 100-megapixel medium format cameras offer greater detail. If that’s not enough, you can use Sony’s Pixel Shift Multi-Shot and quadruple it to 240.8 megapixels.

Without a low-pass filter, beware of anti-aliasing or moiré that can appear in detailed or repetitive parts of an image. However, the high resolution means that the detail has to be very fine.

JPEG files are ready to share from the camera, with sharpness and noise reduction levels finely tuned. Colors are more accurate but perhaps less flattering to skin tones than Canon’s latest models. The system is particularly well-suited to sunny and blue-sky scenes, making the A7R V an excellent choice for shooting landscapes.