the Sony A9 II is the fastest and really best mirrorless sports and wildlife camera but Sony Released the Sony A7R IV which is their high-megapixel body that would be wonderful for landscapes and have a very similar purpose to Canon 5DS R.

The Sony A7R IV announcement was one of the more perplexing announcements compared to the Sony A7R III. It can also take really awesome highly detailed shots of wildlife and allow you to have that opportunity to crop in a little bit more.

so should you switch to Sony if you want high resolution beast that’s what the R stands it could capture images at a little bit of a faster speed and have a little bit more of a buffer.

its fourth edition of the A7R series was released in September 2019 and this camera is still on the top list of camera enthusiasts because of its greater ergonomics high-resolution sensor and stunning color production ability.

the Sony A7R IV has been a workhorse and an amazing camera it had everything you need and many photographers switched from the Canon 5D Mark IV and Canon 5DS R to A7R IV.

A7R IV is the most advanced camera I’ve ever used in my projects and tested it with a different photographer with my friends. I believe Sony A7 III and Sony A7R III are fantastic cameras but there are new cameras every year and now A7R IV. And I will share my opinions as well as facts about this magic camera.

If you are interested in these cameras Sony A7R, Sony A7R ii, Sony A7R iii, and the Sony A7R IV all of these cameras have very high megapixel count sensors so you can take a photo and print it on a billboard with great detail on.

the A7R IV is more than just the A7R III with a high-resolution sensor and digital microphone interface. There are several important tweaks to the body that become apparent once you start using the camera.

The purpose of sony’s A7R line is mainly to combine the incredible image quality and the convenience of a normal mirrorless camera system.

The A7R IV is the best mirrorless camera on the market in the mirrorless interchangeable-lens world and even outside of mirrorless.

And that is because it combines every single piece of innovation that Sony is responsible for not just in the full-frame but in the entire business into a single package.

The A7R IV is in a class better by itself when it comes to high-resolution full-frame mirrorless cameras that’s what you’re looking for and if you can afford it.

This is the highest resolution and most versatile option, a very tough camera to pass up if it has what you’re looking for. it’s the best of everything that Sony has if you want the king of autofocus you can turn to the Sony Alpha A9 or the Sony Alpha A9 II.

In my testing, I found that this camera can handle like the A9 but it still doesn’t have as many PDF points as the A9 does.

Disclosure: Some of the links on this site are affiliate links, meaning that if you click on one of the links and purchase an item, I may receive a commission. All opinions however are my own.

Sony A7R IV Review

1. Performance

Sony A7R IV has two UHS, two card slots, better weather-sealing a bigger grip, and a good reason that all of these things make the A7R IV more compelling than the previous generation.

Sony Alpha A7R IV is a full-frame mirrorless camera with 61 megapixels 10 frames per second shooting 4K videos up to 30 P. It also delivers 14 stops of dynamic range unless you shoot at up to 4K video at 30 frames per second and 24 frames per second, and other HD resolution options. It will do 1080p at 60 frames per second and then 120 P slow motion.

It has all of Sony’s latest AI smarts including the canny eye face and animal detect autofocus first introduced on the Sony Alpha A 6400.

A7R IV shoot still frames at up to 10 frames per second with autofocus and auto-exposure which is incredible for a camera with that kind of resolution. You will get a fast UHS 2 card through the hand. The buffer is great sixty-eight compressed raw or JPEG or 30 uncompressed raw files.

the camera house 567 phase-detection autofocus points and a range of 325 to 425 contrast-detection autofocus points.

It has all of Sony’s latest AI smarts including the canny eye face and animal detect autofocus first introduced on the A 6400.

Sony A7R IV shot in JPEG with no converter at the time of the shooting. Sony announced that this camera has got 15 stops of dynamic range beating out cameras like Blackmagic Pocket 6K but also A7R IV is one stop more than the Fuji GFX 50 and Fujifilm gfx 100.

I realize that I need something stable, or a faster shutter speed because of its high resolution.

It’s built-in stabilization and a composite mode that combines 16 frames to generate images with up to 240 megapixels. It’s the successor to the A7R III with this performance appears to simply be a high-resolution version of the A7R III.

the Sony A7R IV has 5 axis in-body stabilization system with up to 5.5 stops of shake control. You can shoot handheld down to a 15th. So if we talk about its competitors Nikon and Canon have brought out similarly lightweight mirrorless cameras but Canon is still acting in-body stabilization.

I notice that while I was working on the A7R III in many scenarios I found that this camera didn’t have enough megapixels it has only 40 megapixels. In comparison with A7R IV has 61 megapixels on the full-frame sensor.

If you want to record external video it’s limited to 8-bit in the vast majority of circumstances which I found that with Nikon Z6 and Nikon Z7 you can record in 10 bit to an external recorder.

the difference between those cameras is xqd cards in Nikon Z6 and Z7 are about 33% faster than the Sony A7R IV tough SD cards.

One of the big improvements on this camera is having a ton of autofocus points across the frame with zero issues including low-light, reliable detection, and tracking features.

The R series has become one of the Sony higher resolution models with an incredible record-setting of 61 megapixels. So the previous high-resolution camera that I had used was the Canon EOS 5DS and Canon EOS 5DS R at around 50 megapixels and A7R IV is even a bit higher and it has a significant 32 percent increase over the A7R iii.

There are no other cameras with a high pixel density with which to compare pay office 7-hour for images.

Sony A7R IV Specs

• 5 gigahertz Wi-Fi connection
• textured AF joystick
• larger c3 button
• larger multi-selector dial
• redesigned port covers
• axis in-body image stabilization deal
• USB-C port
• sony multi-interface
• terminal FTP
• background transfer
• the pixel shift
• shooting mode
• zoom updated

2. Sony A7R IV Body

A7R IV is absolutely amazing build quality and is made out of a magnesium alloy with a rubber construction around the grips. Also is dust and moisture-resistant especially when you use it with a moisture-resistant e-fit.

They’ve also made several refinements to the layout most notably they’ve enlarged the front grip and improved the contouring.

It has a small body but there are a lot of photographers that just love the feel of a big body.

at first, glance appears to be identical to the Sony A7 III but sony claims improved weather sealing, and if you look closely at a few small but useful adjustments become apparent.

the grip is much deeper which means it feels better in your hands it’s more reminiscent of a Nikon Z6 or Z7 design.

In comparisons with cameras like a Canon EOS R5 or the Nikon Z series A7R series is much better and these are the first Sony cameras where I haven’t felt like I needed a grip.

Sony redid some of the button layouts and they do not feel as plasticky as they felt before. They have a nice bounce back when you press them nice tactile feel and they also have a newer much larger-looking joystick.

A7R IV has a grip that is obviously larger and easier to hold there are buttons with a more resounding press. There is the rear top dial which is also much easier to use and there is the locking mechanism on the exposure compensation.

So, except VF upgrade to 5.7 million dots from the 3.6 million actually which makes it the best on the market there are two UHS two slots which is great if you shooting at fast-paced scenarios it’s able to clear the buffer a lot faster.

the control layout hasn’t changed much but sony has improved a few things the buttons are bigger the power switch firmer and the mode dial and joystick are grippier overall. I found the A7R IV to be easy to handle though with large hands.

so this camera has an all-new design compared to the A7R III the A7R IV has a much beefier grip that is easier to hold on to.

So if you own an A7R iii or an A7 iii or an A9 and already have a vertical grip and want to upgrade to this camera you can’t take the old grip and put it on to this camera.

• If you want to shoot vertical I suggest vertical grip.

most obviously the exposure compensation dial has a long-overdue locking button which it’s locked by a ballpoint pen style button, unlike the mode dial lock button which needs to be held down while turning.

Behind a flap on the left-hand side, you’ll find the same wired connectivity as before a 3.5 mm analog microphone input and headphone output mini HDMI and a pair of USB ports using micro and C connectors these allow you to tether and power the camera over USB at the same time.

they’re Bluetooth and Wi-Fi but include five gigahertz transmission and the camera can also work for image transfer by Bluetooth.

3. Sony A7R IV Menu

the menu is still, all the same, you can’t touch to do that you can’t swipe from one image to another so you’re pretty limited to the rebut overall, and the feel of this camera definitely has great improvements.

In terms of the menu, I heard a lot of rumors about it but I also found improved buttons and an improved joystick in the back and improved placement of the various dials. Everything is just perfect all of the buttons and wheels are the same as the previous model.

this camera is a professional camera it lets you set it up exactly the way you want but it absolutely takes a lot of time invested in learning this camera and getting it set up the way you like.

the touch implementation is weak because it has different locking controls for the exposure compensation and the mode dial that seems strangely of two different styles that are reversed from each other.

4. Image Quality

image quality is incredible and the sensor can handle highlights beyond anything I’ve ever seen, with a natural color rendition of JPEGs right out of the camera. Especially the lifelike skin tones.

the A7R IV performs really well the image quality is very good I found there’s a little bit of noise occasionally in lower light but the 61 megapixels do make a difference it just simply delivers better image quality when it comes to photos.

I also compared again the Sony A6500 and found that the image did very slightly favorably compared under that circumstance at least at base ISO values.

In comparison, the original images shot at iso 100 between the A7R iii in the A7R IV the A7R IV images were 0.4 stops darker.

A7R IV has full in-body image stabilization it works really well. It’s, not one of the best systems I think Panasonic and Nikon are slightly better on this.

I think it is unbelievable image quality for me I’ve shot a few weddings with it and many different scenarios with models and I absolutely love it.

the A7R IV has the ability to shoot in super 35 mode and still has the megapixels to produce a sharp image which is a big advantage for this camera.

5. Dynamic Range

A7R IV captures up to 14 stops of the dynamic range including hybrid log gamma but I realized that there seems to be a lot more noise in the photos just like on the A7 iii. In my opinion, I think the reason is because of the 61-megapixel sensor.

The dynamic range gives you tons of shadow on highlight detail if you overexpose a shot in the raw mode you’ll be able to recover details with the well-controlled noise levels.

6. Buffer

With the Sony, the buffer is insanely faster, albeit not quite as fast as the Sony A9 or the Canon 1DX Mark III but it’s the combination of megapixels, usability, up-to-date processors, and the UHS-II card formats.

7. Sony A7R IV Battery Life

Battery life is excellent for a high-resolution mirrorless camera powered by the same z-series battery as the A7 III. Sony A7R IV can deliver up to 670 shots per charge or 170 minutes of continuous recording when using the rare LCD for displays of continuous video recording on a charge using the viewfinder.

you can record as long as your battery or sd cards allow and it also receives the slow and quick mode zebras time code settings proxy recording the frame grab option hlg cine 1 through 4 and s log gammas.

8. Detection and tracking

It’s really great feature from Sony that they include face and eye detection and even face registration which means you can tell the camera to focus on faces/or eyes in still photos and videos. I found that I can tell it to focus on the right eye or the left eye.

A7R IV has light racking no eye autofocus tracking in the video which is actually really helpful because the camera is able to focus on the eyes of the subject versus having to rely on face detection and contrast and phase detection.

A7R IV tracking sensitivity allows you to adjust the focus engine to movement and complex scenes as needed. It offers both focus magnification and peaking if you prefer manually focusing.

this camera is animal eye detection autofocus it works pretty well but you need to set the camera to either human or animal eye detection.

the camera uses a lot of fancy detection and algorithms to track an object in the frame right. It can detect an eye or a face and track it. you can choose an object within the frame and it will
track that object.

Sony’s detection and tracking technology are more reliable, especially when considering real-time autofocus and it’s also the easiest to use. Sony has greatly improved its face detect video autofocus so it’s better than any rivals except for Canon.

the A7R IV has 567 face attack AF points compared to 425 on the previous model A7R III and improved the speed and accuracy of its AI-powered eye and face detection.

it rarely let me down while shooting on the wedging in continuous AF with a 70 to 200-millimeter zoom it locked onto the people’s faces and eyes or track their bodies on wider shots.

A7R IV has excellent focus capability animal I detect features as I say I just see another camera like the Nikon D850. I did a lot of commercial work and found an awesome camera that did many things as well.

9. Sony A7R IV Autofocus

the new sensor sports are larger and denser autofocus awaiting before the previous Sony Sony A7R II & A7R III offered 399 phase detection spread over around 45% to the frame concentrated in an area in the middle. If I compare it with the Sony A7R II autofocus is really bad maybe on A7R III is pretty good at focusing.

A7R IV and the Sony A6400 have eye autofocus tracking which is incredible for shoots like weddings or live events.

But the new A7R IV increases this to 567 faces detects but spread across 74% of the frame in a roughly square area that covers essentially the entire frame vertically and 74% horizontally.

to deliver 26-megapixel images the AF system works at apertures down to F11 and at light levels of minus 3v fitted with a Neph ii lens while also inheriting the latest real-time tracking and
real-time eye autofocus for both humans and animals.

The real-time AF on A7R IV is a huge improvement something that came from the Sony A9, Sony A9 ii, and in the Sony Alpha A6000, Sony Alpha A6100, Sony Alpha A6400, and Sony Alpha A6600.

the autofocus will never let you down and works fine for the occasional 4K video shoot. The A7R IV is viewed against Nikon D750 and Panasonic S1R.

in terms of video, it’s full-frame 4K that is downsampled from 6K if you want to get a full pixel one-to-one readout you have to go down into the super 35 crop mode architecture.

Autofocus tracking is amazing but for video, I think the A7 iii autofocus is actually a little bit more reliable.

So, Sony has done a fantastic job through its IAF and face tracking technology to get a much better end result.

So, A7R IV autofocus feels sharp and tight, ready for any kind of action.

this camera has real-time AF, a real-time eye face AF, and real-time tracking even with sunglasses on, just like the Sony A9.

10. Sony A7R IV Viewfinder

in terms of usability, the viewfinder is another massive upgrade going over the A7R iii to the A7R IV, and especially the A7 iii is a much higher resolution you can set it to high fps which I’ve seen in the Panasonic S1 series, and the new Fuji GFX 100.

The LCD screen on the A7R IV feels the same as the A7R iii but it’s still much better than the A7 iii which is just mind-blowingly frustrating.

The LCD screen on A7R IV is fine it’s accurate and sharp but the R5 and Nikon Z-series cameras are definitely better because their rear screens are much better.

The OLED screen is exceptionally bright and clear turn on high quality for a 120 frame refresh. This articulating LCD screen is the same design as the previous model.

So you’re limited to this angle and it is touch-sensitive only for panning around in an image. So it’s just not that really nice experience that you find in Canon or Olympus touchscreen operations.

it also has a tilting 3-inch versatile touch screen which is great even if you’ve got gloves on or for instance if you’ve got wet hands.

the rear display on this camera is touch-enabled and more responsive than on the A7R III. So, for some photographers, this will not be a camera for vloggers because the display doesn’t flip around and it’s definitely not aimed at sports shooters.

So I don’t recommend buying the A7R IV for video recording maybe for shooting it does well to maximize bouquet and low-light capability.

Sony made an upgrade on A7R IV they didn’t seem to upgrade it with the Sony A7S iii which is a little bit disappointing especially on a camera that’s so heavily focused on video but it will be nice if Sony improves the LCD Screen on the SonyA7 IV and put something really impressive in.

the crop mode brings you closer to the action turning a 200-millimeter lens into a 300-millimeter lens. In terms of the resolution is an added bonus like wildlife photography as you can crop in a lot while retaining detail.

11. Sony A7R IV Sensor

this sensor is a brand new sensor it’s a 61-megapixel full-frame CMOS sensor with the most pixels ever and I must say this is a massive upgrade to pretty much anything I have used before.

A7R IV shoots with a 61 megapixel sensor and like the A9 II has dual UHS II SD card slots and the maximum shooting speed is 10 frames per second.

the A7R IV will shoot 30 frames in a buffer which is only about twice what you will get with the Canon 5ds R and that’s going to take a long time to clear with those 61 megapixel files going to UHS-II SD card slots.

So with a 61-megapixel sensor, this camera makes the highest resolution full-frame mirrorless camera. If 61 megapixels is just too much for you, you can crop it to super 35 mode, 26 megapixels.

the A7R IV comes down to a 60-megapixel resolution it’s substantially more than its competition and on top of that, the camera still has great dynamic range and lowlight performance.

there’s really no downside and if you’ve got the lenses to support that high resolution it’s going to give you the best results of the camera.

it’s a 30% increase over the A7R III but when you look at it graphically it’s not a huge amount there is certainly an increase in landscape photographers looking to print huge images or wildlife photographers or sports looking to crop and have a lot of room for that.

The resolution can be useful because it allows you to deeply crop images and still have a lot of usable resolution.

12. Sony A7R IV low-light Performance

I found also it focused well in very low light conditions the A7R IV works well in low-light considering the high resolution at speeds of up to ISO 6400.

13. A7R IV Wireless Capability

Sony has updated the wireless capability of this camera you can now do wireless tethering you can shoot to the card and tether wirelessly at the same time.

14. Sony A7R IV Weight

If I compared Sony A7R with the Sony A7R IV they are both different in size where A7R IV currently comes in at 665 grams or 1.5 pounds.

The A7R was basically just an RX1 that Sony turned into a mirrorless camera but still it has that rx1 style camera with the same design.

there’s still not much difference with the lens and handle in comparison to Panasonic S1R.

• 10 grams heavier than the last model A7R III
• 665 grams in comparison with the Panasonic S1R weighs over 2 pounds

15. Sony A7R IV Specs

• 26 mp in APS – C mode
• 15 stops dynamic range
• Up to 10 frames per second with AF/AE
• Buffer 68 compressed raw
• 2 UHS II SD Card Slots

16. EVF Resolution

the A7R IV has 5.76 million dot EVF of resolution that is 1.6 times more than the A7R iii, which is probably the same one that I saw in the Panasonic S1.

It’s a big improvement over the last model it’s clear and has a fast 120 frames per second refresh rate with minimal lag.

Z7 has IAF but is just not nearly as good as the IAF in the Sony cameras. The EVF is spectacular the sensor is spectacular there’s all the glass that you needed from 1.2 to 1.4.

17. Sony A7R IV ISO Range

In my test, I found the A7 III has a much cheaper body and significantly higher ISO performance again A7R IV.

ISO performance looks to be the same as in the A7R iii but A7R IV features a native iso range.

• ISO 100 to 32 000 further expandable to a high setting of 102400
• usable images up to iso 6400 or 12800 with minor processing for focus.

if you need more light sensitivity you can raise your ISO to 3200 and to 6400 it’ll do a pretty good job.

18. Sony A7R IV Sound

The sound quality is just as good the audio levels are always perfect and the microphone definitely recommends it. If you have a camera that is going to be capable of it just like Sony A7C or A7R IV and newer should have that capability.

Battery Life

the A7R IV is able to 670 shots off the back panel and 530 shots off the EVF these are big numbers and it’s all thanks to this amazing battery the FZ-100.

19. Sony A7R IV Price

So is this the greatest full-frame camera at its price point of $3500. So, this is a fantastic price it’s in line with the Z7 and the D850. $3,500 for a 61-megapixel camera Sony gives you a medium format camera.

I think yes it is it gives more capability with autofocus performance and resolution than the Nikon Z7 and the Panasonic s1r.

So honestly, a camera like this with this resolution will compete against medium format cameras especially given the price point compared to medium format cameras.

So is this camera for this price range maybe not necessarily I mean if you don’t need this resolution and you don’t want to spend this money you can wait and see what will happen with Nikon Z9 maybe they will make a more reasonable resolution that fits a better price point.

Advantages

• Best-in-class photographic information
• 61-megapixel sensor combined with best-in-class autofocus.
• The real-time tracking, improved weather sealing
• better dust and weather resistance, time-lapse is their built-in.
• Great battery life, great autofocus system which you can find in the Sony A9.

What I love on A7R IV there’s a completely silent mode that uses an electronic shutter.

Another advantage I like with A7R IV is that it will give you nice stabled video and photos even if you don’t have stabilization in the lens. And that’s kind of a good thing because a lot of Sony’s lenses do not have stabilization built inside of them.

One more thing I wish this camera had an active steady shot for a video like the Sony rx100 mark 7 unfortunately that is not here because of some kind of limitation with the processor. But this camera can run circles around just about every other camera in its class.

A big improvement for this camera is the A7R IV is the only Sony full-frame camera that doesn’t have a recording limit which is pretty nice.

Disadvantages

• Buffer is so large sometimes that writing to the card can take a long time.
• A7R IV takes longer to startup than the Nikon Z cameras and the reason for that is xqd versus SD cards.
• autofocus performance suffers by adapting the lenses.
• Slow Buffering
• locked out of some features

I notice that the camera sometimes the human eye detection would catch the eyes of the animals but not every time all animals will be registered with the tracking of A7 RIV.

I found it buggy for me I can say as a disadvantage was when the touchscreen was active move the focusing point for touch and drag which would then throw off my autofocus. But after I turned that feature off had no problems.

I was stuck in some wedding when I was shooting uncompressed raw files up to 120 megabytes I realized large speeds dropped to around 7 frames per second. This is one more disadvantage I found during my work.

Wrapping Up

this is one of the best alternatives to medium format and if you want an equally competitive option but one that’s also lightweight flexible and affordable A7R IV is currently your best bet.

it’s not perfect but it excels across the board as a device perfectly suited for professionals and it’s a tough competitor.

I like the deeper grip and the better buttons, the higher megapixels in the image quality but the overall usability specifically in relation to I detect autofocus I found focusing problems with the new Canon mirrorless cameras and the new Nikon mirrorless cameras. Also were missing software to process the pixel shift images and software to do the wireless tethering to PCs.

A reason to go with A7R IV over the Z7 is that everything is right in front of your face, for its particular photo shoot, the two card slots IAF and lock-on tracking. Also gives you the ability to record redundant the same photos to the top as the bottom. If you wanted to shoot video you could shoot redundant video to both cards.

this camera offers you a ton of solid video features allowing you to shoot 4k up to 30 frames a second. So, if you want to get the best video quality possible you’ll want to crop into the super 35 mode where you’ll get a clean full pixel readout in 4k.

If you want to do video shoots, I still prefer the A7 iii because the file size is a bit smaller for photos. in terms of Sony full-frame cameras, the A7R IV is the only camera that does unlimited recording.

But if you need a cheaper camera that does that then you have to look at the Sony A 6600 which is a cropped sensor camera. But if you want a full-frame Sony camera with autofocus tracking in video and unlimited recording limit the A7R IV is literally the only choice.

Conclusion

I think the A7R IV has accomplished exactly what sony has always set out to do to make a camera that is the best at everything. And that’s exactly what they’ve done with the A7R IV the best full-frame mirrorless camera ever.

the A7R IV is a camera that offers the highest resolution on the market and especially when you pair it with big aperture lenses you can get amazing image quality and detail.

sony improved the autofocus on A7R IV and also with buttons and the joystick but their touchscreen interface is limited.