Photographers have seen Announcement of the fifth release of Sony’s coveted a7R series Can be forgiven for being a bit overwhelming. The a7R IV has achieved a beautiful 20 million pixels over its predecessor—61MP vs 42MP—while the sensor is unchanged in the Mark V. Likewise, the a7R IV can still shoot 10 frames in quick succession. /sec like the Mark III (albeit with a huge resolution), and the Mark V also hits 10fps. Indeed, the only spec that really stands out is the Mark V’s vastly larger buffer—an astounding 500+ uncompressed RAW files—but that’s probably not the kind of spec that shooters still use. can feel excited.
So what To be What’s the big deal about Mark V without improving resolution or continuous shooting speed? Well, if you pay attention Backscatter’s comprehensive review of Mark V, you’ll find—autofocus. As CEO and critic Jim Decker told Media Producer Robin Dodd, “They have a brand new in-camera AI engine dedicated to focusing. Now I can say that this is probably the best focus camera I have ever used.” Jim points out that while autofocus on the Mark IV and its predecessors is well-suited to wide-angle scenes, it’s severely lacking for macro—something we also found in our a7R III review. Now, it looks like Mark V has finally fixed that.
Turns out, while autofocus is a big and important upgrade, in Jim’s view, there are quite a few other small improvements that complement each other—including much-improved white balance, viewfinder electronic with impressive dynamic range and 4K/60p video on offer (albeit with moderate cropping). Finally, there seems little doubt that for Backscatter, the a7R’s fifth iteration retains the best stills camera crown.
For Jim’s in-depth analysis of the a7R V, check out the video below or Full review of Backscatter.
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