I received the brand new Sony a7R V from Sony Netherlands for review. It’s a great opportunity to find out if the autofocus is as good as advertised. Looking at the camera seriously makes me wonder: which photographer is this camera for?
It’s been three years since Sony a7RIV was announced, so it’s time to upgrade. Instead of increasing the expected resolution, Sony a7R DRAW has the same 61 MP sensor. Everything else is brand new. The latest Bionz processor not only allows for a slight increase in dynamic range, but also enables an enhanced AI-based autofocus system which seems to be the main selling point.
How does it look?
Sony has come a long way since the first Alpha series cameras. With the Sony A1, the design has finally become more mature. Ergonomics has gotten better, the quality of the buttons has increased, and the menu has been redesigned.
After sony a1the sony a7 IV also has a nicer design and a bulkier body. Honestly, it was the first Sony that I liked. The new one Sony a7R DRAW have almost the same design.
The buttons have a good feel and the accents are clear. The joystick works well and the dials have a good grip. The camera is the right size for my hand, allowing for a firm grip. There is a lockable switch for photo, movie and S&Q settings, below the PASM dial.
However, it is not perfect. There are a few things that could be improved. The back could have a better grip so you don’t accidentally push it in while rotating. Menus don’t always make sense, the help function is useless, and the settings projected in orange on the LCD aren’t sharp and clear.
LCD screen
With that said, the design of the body has matured. But what’s really cool is the LCD screen. It has the same tilting capabilities as previous models. But it is also fully articulated, which can be found on a7IV. This makes the screen really great. I love it.
The second screen is an electronic viewfinder. It has a resolution of 9.44 million OLED dots. It refreshes up to 120 fps. If it feels like looking through an optical viewfinder. But the resolution will decrease as the camera focuses. More on that later.
Another beautifully designed detail is the doors that cover the joints. These are not the thin rubber caps found on many cameras. It also hides a full-size HDMI connector, which is great if you’re watching videos.
AI AF . option
Perhaps the most important selling point is the artificial intelligence autofocus. Sony claims a 60% increase in speed and object recognition. Of course, this is compared to its three-year-old predecessor. The Sony a7R V can now recognize people, animals, birds, insects, cars, trains and planes. Indeed, there are settings for animals and birds, but there are also combinations of the two.
Any autofocus settings can be customized. It is possible to change how fast it will track an object and how it will stick to the object. You can choose what is used for autofocusing for each subject. Eye AF, Head AF, or Body AF can be enabled for animals, birds, and people. However, more AF customization options are available, which makes it difficult to find the perfect settings for your genre of photography.
Autofocus works great. It selects the eyes of birds, dogs, and humans and switches between eyes, head, and body as needed. While it’s arguably much better than the previous model, I can’t say I’m overly impressed with its performance.
There are situations where autofocus is difficult. It prefers to focus on people when taking pictures of my dog, although I set it to animal AF and it couldn’t get to the right spot while taking pictures. It couldn’t find a bird when taking pictures through the leaves with bird AF enabled, and on one occasion it failed to focus at night at all.
That’s not to say the autofocus is a failure. Most of the time, it works flawlessly and it continues to amaze me with its speed and accuracy. But it will struggle in more difficult cases when I would expect the AI-powered autofocus to do a much better job.
It may be a wrong setting responsible for my findings. If that’s the case, it can take a very long time to figure out what can be set to improve AF. There are too many custom settings available and thus too many variables to take into account. Perhaps Sony has gone a little too far with these customization options.
Real-life AF capabilities
Fast and accurate autofocus makes it possible to track fast-moving subjects. The camera can recognize people, animals, birds, trains, cars and planes. This makes the camera perfect for action and sports shooting. So that’s why I tried to shoot some action scenes with my dog.
Most modern mirrorless cameras can shoot 10 frames per second or more with the mechanical shutter. Switch to the electronic shutter and the number of frames per second will double, triple or even quadruple. I also expect this from the Sony a7R V.
Amazingly, the camera can only capture up to 10 frames per second, depending on the right settings. You have to switch to JPEG or mechanical shutter and lossy raw compression to achieve this speed. If you switch to a better picture quality setting, the speed drops to 7fps.
With the electronic shutter, speed is limited to 8 fps with lossy compressed JPEG or RAW. Uncompressed RAW will limit the rate even further, at 5 frames per second. There is also a pronounced rolling shutter effect with the electronic shutter that makes it unsuitable for panning.
While 10 fps may be enough for action photography, most people will prefer a faster frame rate for this type of photography. It makes the Sony a7R V not the best choice for sports or action photography, despite its intelligent autofocus.
The resolution of the electronic viewfinder must also be mentioned. If the camera is in focus, the image quality in the viewfinder will decrease significantly. This is no problem if you focus once and shoot. But if you’re using continuous AF, you won’t have a high-quality viewfinder to use.
Dynamic Range and ISO
The performance of the sensor is good. There is no doubt about that. At ISO 6,400, the camera performs well. Noise becomes noticeable from ISO 12,800 and above. I wouldn’t use a camera with ISO 25,600 or higher. Especially with in-camera JPEGs, denoising degrades image quality. Of course, you can adjust the noise reduction inside the menu.
I also tested the camera to see how to fix the low light in post-production. I took a series of photos at ISO 100 and the photo was underexposed by seven stops. I edited the raw photo in Lightroom Classic to see what the image quality would look like. To me, this is a good indication of how good the dynamic range is.
I find a four-stop correction to be acceptable, with five stops being the absolute maximum for lifting the ball. I don’t recommend going beyond five stops as the image quality starts to degrade rapidly. I believe it works well, although not groundbreaking.
Other possibilities are small but valuable
Sony has added a few nice settings that will help photographers who often use longer exposures or large depth of field. With the Sony a7R V, you now have a bulb timer at your disposal at your disposal. It makes exposures over 30 seconds much easier. There is also the ability to shoot a series of autofocus. The camera will adjust the focus gain up to 299 shots. It’s perfect for macro and landscape photography if extreme depth of field is required.
As expected, you won’t be able to stack images together in camera. You need to use the software to get the final result. This also applies to the option to take multiple photos with pixel shifting. This option will take a series of images with the sensor shifted for a higher resolution final result. The camera doesn’t automatically superimpose the images, which means you’ll get a bunch of images that have to be processed at home using Sony’s imaging software.
My judgment
I find Sony a7R DRAW a great camera, and at the same time I was a bit confused. First of all, the design has been greatly improved, especially if you compare it with its three-year-old predecessor. The new articulating LCD is awesome. I wish this was done on more cameras. Well done, Sony.
The new menu structure, while not perfect, is a welcome improvement over the old one. Sony can still improve with help pages that contain really useful information, better distribution of menu items, and less confusing acronyms. In addition, quick menus and on-screen menu information can be much easier to read clearly. But these are specific to Sony cameras. The only problem may be the extensive customization options, which can make it difficult to find the best settings for your photography.
What frustrates me the most is the combination of limited frame rates. You would expect a camera with such a sophisticated autofocus system to be capable of capturing fast action shots. Even when shooting in JPEG, you won’t get more than 10 frames per second. If you want a silent shutter, the best the Sony a7R V can do is 8 frames per second.
What I Like
- Autofocus has a wide subject recognition range
- Lots of customization options (though perhaps a bit too much)
- Fully articulating flip screen
- Two card slots for analog cards (CF Express Type A or UHS-II-SD)
- Body and handle dimensions
- Doors on connections instead of rubber caps
- Full-size HDMI
- Auto Focus Bracketing
- Take multiple pixel-shifted photos
- Built-in bulb timer
- High resolution of the electronic viewfinder
- Dynamic range and ISO performance
What can be improved
- Menus (yes, even the new menu system)
- On-screen menu options are sometimes hard to read
- The AF menu is probably too customizable to make it difficult
- Limited to 10 frames per second with restrictions
- Visible rolling shutter effect with electronic shutter
- Charging with USB-C shows no sign of full battery (you need to unplug the charging cable to see the battery charge level)
- EVF resolution decreases while autofocus is active
- There is no in-camera fusion of pixel-shift multipoint capture
Which photographer is the camera for?
Whether you should upgrade to the new Sony a7R V depends on the camera you’re using at the moment. The best way to decide if it’s worth it is to look at the specs and make a list of the things you need or just want. If you ticked all the boxes, then yes, you should upgrade.
But if you’re a sports or action photographer, I don’t think this camera is perfect for you. Even with such good AI-powered autofocus, the Sony a7R V is still too slow for proper action shots. Unfortunately, no other camera has this sophisticated AI AF system yet.
If you are a landscape photographer, the resolution is excellent. Increasing dynamic range can also be great, but exposure compensation or filters will allow for even better results when it comes to noise levels. For this type of photography, you don’t need a complicated autofocus system. If you own the previous version, there’s not much reason to upgrade. I think the bulb timer and autofocus are not enough to justify that.
If you are a wedding photographer, it can be very appealing. But remember how much resolution this camera has and ask yourself if that resolution is necessary for this type of photography. The improved autofocus is welcome, of course. But you don’t need more trains, planes and cars. Probably sony a7 IV is a camera better suited for this genre of photography.
That said, if you need to upgrade because your camera is old, Sony a7R DRAW a great one to have, unless you shoot action and sports. In that case, there are better options.
What do you think of the Sony a7R V? Let me know in the comments below.
