Sony A7R V - First thoughts

I've had my Sony A7R V now for about a month, and I've put it through it's paces.

The first thing I will say, is that this review is not a technical test, it is very much my opinions based on my experience, but hopefully it will be useful.

Teething issues

The Sony A7R V appears to have a few teething issues, some of these are more problematic than others.

Adobe Camera RAW support

The first issue is that the A7R V is not supported by Adobe Camera RAW out the box. Which means importing to Lightroom just doesn't work.

Edit: As of December there is now Adobe RAW support. You can read about Sony A7R V RAW support on Alpha Shooters. I'll leave the workaround here in case it is useful to anybody who finds this post looking for a similar solution for a newer camera.

I found a workaround, using an EXIF editor to convince Lightroom I had actually taken the photos on a Sony A7R IV instead.

This works, but it adds around 10 minutes onto your Workflow for every 1000 images you process.

To implement the hack, you need to install the ExifTool by Phil Harvey.

Once it's installed, you can run it from the command-line using the following command, which will iterate through your photos and create copies with modified EXIF data.

exiftool -sonymodelid="ILCE-7RM4" -ext ARW -r [path to folder]

Issue with Sigma 150-600mm DG DN OS Sports

The second issue, and possibly the most heartbreaking for me, was that my Sigma 150-600mm lens did not work with the Sony A7R V.

Edit: As of December there is now a Sigma firmware update (ver.0.2) for the 150-600mm DG DN OS Sports lens which appears to have fixed the issue. The update does not mention the A7R V specifically, but it does mention a similar issue with the A7 IV, which I can only assume has been inherited by the A7R V.

I headed to Rowlands Gill with my friend Callum, excited to capture outstanding 61mp photos. But, unfortunately, what I found was that no matter how much I had the auto-focus dialled in, the photos were soft.

It was tack sharp in the view finder, I pulled the trigger, and the outcome was blurry.

It wasn't user error. I eliminated hand-shake by going up to 1/8000 of a second. I eliminated aberrations by attempting shots right through the aperture range. And I eliminated noise by putting the ISO down to the 100 and 200 mark. No matter what I tried, the photos were blurry.

I took over 1000 shots that day, and I got about 3 which are usable.

8K videos don't play on VLC Media Player

There is no support for 8K videos on VLC Media Player. I tend not to delete in-camera, so I have a lot of videos I need to delete once I get to my computer.

I usually just scrub through in VLC and delete the ones I don't need. But it just crashes when I try to open them. It opens briefly, then flickers white continuously until you close the programme down.

The good news, is they do play using the 4.0 VLC Nightly Build. So there is a workaround. You just have to put up with a dev build of VLC which may or may not have bugs.

The good stuff

So, lets talk about the good stuff first.

The autofocus

Hands down, the best autofocus system I've used.

Birds, animals, and people. It just finds the eye every time. I'm not much of a macro photographer, so I've not tried the insect tracking, I can't imagine it's something I'll ever use.

On very rare occasions, the birds plumage can confuse it. But 9 times out of 10 it has no issues.

When using a GM Sony lens, it's almost flawless. However, I have noticed when using my Sigma lenses it loses the subject a little more often. Not enough for it to be unusable, but enough for me to notice.

Either Sigma haven't quite got their system right yet, or Sony are deliberately slowing it down. Either way, it's just something to be aware of.

Another thing to be aware of, is that as good as the autofocus is, there are limitations.

It was unable to keep up with req squirrels when they were running and jumping at full speed. But, I'm not sure there are many systems that would. They're bloody quick!

The image quality

The main reason anyone buys one of the cameras in Sony's 'R' range is the resolution. And, it does not disappoint.

Having 61 megapixels is amazing. I was taking shots of a Red Squirrel with a 200mm lens and cropping out about 70% of the photo and I still had a usable image.

I've also found that you can do a lot of re-framing in other situations. For example, at events, if you use a wider lens, you can get several usable photos out of 1 frame by just cropping in on different sections.

This could be great for events such as weddings where it's possible to miss great photos because you can't photograph everyone at the same time!

I use heavy image compression on blog posts, so it's never going to look as good as it does in the 62.7mb RAW file. But hopefully it will help illustrate my point.

But, for context, this Jumping Red Squirrel was taken at the same location and the same distance with the same lens.

The video quality

Ok, so the 8K video is outrageous. Until you zoom in on one, you just cannot fathom how much detail it actually captures.

Below is a screenshot. A side-by-side comparison to illustrate what was captured by the 35mm sensor, and what detail is actually available when you zoom right in.

Again, the image compression is going to affect it, but you get the idea. There is insane detail captured at a range where 1080p and even 4k is just going to give you muddy artifacts.

The thing to watch is that 8K files are massive. My Pheasant video was 1 minute and 16 seconds, and it clocked in at a whopping 1.87GB.

So you're only realistically going to get about 30 minutes on a 64GB card.

I'm not entirely sure how long you can continuously record in 8K. I imagine if you're not using the latest CFexpress cards there might be limitations.

I was just using a Sandisk Extreme Pro UHS-I card, and it did record. But I haven't pushed it with more than a minute or so of footage yet.

The flip out screen

This one might not seem like an important one, but, as somebody who likes to take low shots of streets, the lack of a flip screen really hindered me when I moved from my Canon 6D Mark II to a Sony A7 III.

The flip out screen is like most cameras, where it peels out to the left and can swivel through 180 degrees.

However, the A7R V also has another trick. The screen not only swivels, but also pulls away from the body the way the rest of the A7 range does.

This lets you keep the screen clear of the ports if you want to attach a monitor or mic etc.

The bad stuff

The images are noisy

Because there are so many pixels, they obviously much smaller than my A7 III in order to fit them all on the same size sensor.

This is noticeable, especially in low-light situations. The A7R V does produce grain, and quite a lot.

However, you don't really see it until you zoom right in. And, in most cases, running it through Topaz DeNoise fixes it for anything less than 10,000 ISO.

I will be keeping my Sony A7 III as my second shooter, and probably for low light situations, as the A7 III handles higher ISO's better in my opinion.

It's noticeably bulkier

The body looks almost identical to my Sony A7R III. However, when you pick up the A7R V it is heavier and wider.

I think most of the thickness is due to the new screen and the hinge it's mounted on. But I think there's also probably a bunch of tech and heat-sink contributing the the extra depth.

It's not a lot, but it is noticeable, especially if you have the two bodies side by side.

Conclusion

As I say, this is not an in-depth review, but my first thoughts. I'm really happy with the A7R V, it is a substantial upgrade on my A7 III.

However, I'm not sure it's twice as good as the A7 IV, but it is almost twice the price. A lot of the features such as 8K video, insect, car and plane tracking, they just feel a bit too niche to be worth the extra investment.

If you need ridiculous resolutions, then go for it. But, I think in most cases the A7 IV is probably going to give you everything you need in most cases for a lower price tag.