A quick note about Pixel-Shift: I didn’t test it because it doesn’t fit into any of the work that I do and is an incredibly niche capability. Although I could potentially use it for my real estate photography, not even useful there, as those images end up getting posted at around 3MP in resolution on realtor.ca, so it would be a huge waste of time. That being said, I still should have mentioned it. My apologies.
Hi Wes ,very nice video and I like it a lot because I also shoot with a7r4, but currently I am facing very bad iso noise at iso800 and iso 1000 even at properly exposing the image without lifting shadows or exposure on LR. I just wana know that how is sony A9 do in hash weather conditions. We will be moving to prince Edward island very soon and the climate is harsh, snow. I won't be shooting in heavy rain, but definitely will be shooting when snow is all around ,in very freezing climate and also sometimes and thre are snow flakes. Do you think A9 will stand with that kind of weather. I believe a9 must have less noise because of less megapixel. Just concerned about weather sealing on a9. Kindly reply. Thanks in advance.
I’m just 45 minutes away from PEI and use the a9 in all weather conditions around here without issue. I do recommend putting the little plastic hot shoe thing in to keep snow and ice from building up up there, but that’s about it. Also, with any camera, when you bring it in from the cold, it’s best to warm it up slowly. Leave it in the camera bag by the door (where your house isn’t as warm, and the bag is cold) to let it happen more slowly and prevent condensation on the inside.
I'm really thankful that finally, finally, finally, some talks about the missing sRAW in a real photographers workflow. For me, this is a complete dealbreaker for this camera. They should've named it A9r, so the A7R III could've get a successor with less pixels, but no now we're in a trap. I don't now how others think, but for me, the A7R I 36Mpix sensor was a blessing. It was such a sweet spot. I shoot a lot of different stuff, for products I need that resolution, butat 61Mpix we're in diffraction wonderland. For events, most of my commercial clients don't want more than 10Mpix files. And like you mentioned, those files doesn't look great at high ISO, but thats what I expect when they bring a 61mpix sensor. Even at low ISO I was dissapointed. When they can't keep up with the predecessor it's just to early for 61mpix. The 42mpix sensor was better than the 36mpix predecessor even when I liked the characteristics better from the 36mpixer. For my private stuff I bought an Canon G5XII with it's 20mpix 1" sensor and no, it's not the same in image quality but even the screen and it's touch capabilities blows the Sony's out of the water. It's a real shame for Sony, this is tech from 2014 - it's old, it's outdated and it's really bad even compared to this compact camera for around 900$. And because of the missing sRaw, I tested this little camera at some events and you wouldn't belive it, it's damn good at weddings etc.. It's fast, the filesize is super small and you're getting closer to your subject. For me, the A7R line is going to be uninteressting in the future. My A7RIII can now work untill it's dying and if they don't replace it with something very similar or better in ISO performance, I buy the old one again. I'm really done with this cock lenght comparsion challenge between the manufactures.
One obvious and ironic issue Sony now faces is now that they've managed to mature their mirrorless system, each successive generation is less of an upgrade than the last. When once Sony users (Which were, at the time, a rare breed) saw the next gen come out, and all the great advances it would bring, they'd immediately want to upgrade. But now? The a7Riv and a9ii have been incremental at best, making a great camera just a little bit greater. They're going to have to reinvent the wheel sometime soon to continue to drive the G.A.S. in their followers like they once did. I'm not saying it's a healthy thing to rely on, psychologically, but it's truly a foundational part of their business strategy.
Very nice video, love to watch the video. I use a7r4 with gm 24-70 and batis 85 and gives beautiful colors and performance. Regarding autofocus if you wana track a child on a swing use zone focus rather than face and eye detect and you will get almost all shots in focus. I love this camera. However indoors i use flash even for my personal work taking photos of my kids and i am used to using flashes. And outdoors kust use wide aperture lenses to keep the iso below 3200, i personally prefer belwoe 1600. Over all i like the camera .
The conclusions are absolutely not in line with my experience. Image quality of the a9 or the a7iii do not come close to the files of the a7r iv, not even to the files of my Leica SL2 or other Leica’s. No camera brings home more data then the a7r iv unless you go medium format or higher, but then you lose out on portability and AF. Stop comparing individual features. Rate a camera for what it is. the a7r iv is not a sports camera and not a camera for quick social media stuff. It is a camera that bridges a bit towards medium format without all the medium format hassles. For that it is a 10 of 10. Does the censor have character? Naaahh. You hate post? Buy a Leica. Or a Fuji if you are on a budget 👍🏼
Yeah we REALLY need a medium raw for the FF mode, obviously we already have that for the APS-C mode. Yes, it could slow down the burst rate (because the CPU would have to do some extra work to downsample the image, although the files will be smaller too, so ... might not slow down at all), but it would still be a great option to have.
It really needs to be built into the SOC for it to be effective and not wear on the battery/speed. As a firmware update it would indeed weigh things down a lot. I don’t expect it to ever come in this particular camera.
I heard and read reviews that on apsc mode in low light is bad quality and noise is worse than the full resolution 61mp. Anything you wanna say if this is true?
This is true, which is why I wouldn’t use it in APS-C mode for weddings. Additionally, in APS-C mode you’re obviously cropping in a lot. Both of these things make that less than idea for working indoors.
I think I also mentioned that’s not possible on the a7iii. They updated the firmware of the a9 and a7Riv to do it, but apparently it’s “not possible” on the a7iii (they don’t feel like it).
Hi Wes! Thanks for the video. Now I see that you use the Sony 90mm with this camera as well. Does it focus as good as when you use it on the A9? Or is it the same as on other cameras ? Thanks Wes!
It’s somewhere in between, but closer to the a9. I think that one thing that helps the a9 is the blackout free shutter (I usually do macro work with LED lights), and thus uninterrupted focusing.
I think it is the camera for me for my next upgrade for shooting birds. You have a lot of flexibility with the A7R IV, if you don't need to shoot super far, you can shoot in full frame which will give you a ton of details and wildlife shooters love that. But, if you are shooting birds of the size of you hand 150 ft away, you can opt to shoot in APS-C mode for max reach without having to use teleconverters. Also, coming from an APS-C body and a 150-600mm zoom, effectively I have been shooting at 960mm wide open 99% of the time. Once you are used to that length, it is next to impossible to walk it back to say 600mm, that is if you don't want to use a TC on a zoom. The fact that the A7R IV is so high res, even in APS-C mode it will still give you 26 MP with a little leeway for cropping. Then, of course there is the AF which is world class after the A9/A9 II together with its animal/animal eye tracking capabilities. To add, from a zoom standpoint, the Sony FE 200-600mm G lens is arguably the best super zoom out there right now over the Nikon 200-500mm and of course the Sigma and Tamron 150-600mm. Canon will be launching the RF 100-500mm, but why pay more and lose 100mm right off the bat and not to mention it is an external as well (which I don't like)?
Yes and no. I only Mostly agree 😉 You see the a7iii is a “budget camera”. It’s half plastic, has lower res screen and viewfinder, and generally corners cut where they could. People who shoot weddings for a living are usually looking for a bit of a tank of a camera. Something that can take the unending onslaught of a wedding day, and turn around to do it again the very next day. The a9ii and a9 fit the bill, but it’s excessive in frame rate and price, the a7Riv fits the bill, but it’s excessive in megapixels. It legit puts wedding photographers in a tricky position with Sony.
I shot with a Hasselblad medium format 503CX 6x6cm (2-1/4" square) film camera (with Carl Zeiss prime lenses) for over 12 years for weddings and portraits in the 90s before switching to DSLRs. I was able to produce large 30x40 inch wall portrait enlargements easily with stunning results. I've never tried to printed anything that large with my Nikon or Canon DSLRs, but I'm curious as to how digital would stack up against medium format quality. I'd venture to say medium format wins, but I would never want to go back to film cameras again. Medium format digital cameras cost an arm and a leg plus a couple fingers, way more than a DSLR or mirrorless camera. A Hassy medium format digital camera costs about as much as a mid grade Mercedes Benz car. For that steep price tag, I would expect the medium format image quality to beat the pants off any smaller camera sensor. Anyway, please do a comparison video. I enjoyed this video too, keep up the good work!
Great video. Curious as to what point of ISO you would consider still usable on the A7R IV compared to the A7 III? I’m a wedding and portrait guy and think this video convinced me that my A7 III are good enough and this isn’t needed as a third, personal camera and for special projects.
ISO maxes are very personal. Some people love grain in images, some don’t mind, and some hate it. I fall into the latter category, so I try to keep my a7iii below 1600. Mind you, I have actually delivered images to clients at 52,000 (candle light). Comparing the two is very tricky and adds another layer of subjectivity. If you’re looking at the pixel level, the a7Riv looks to be 1/3 to 1/2 stop worse, so 1200 looks like 1600 in the a7iii. BUT if you scale it down to 24mp when you’re done editing, it gets much closer in the details at that level. It’s just when you get up past 12,800 it gets worse colour noise faster, which can’t really be scaled out like the pixel level stuff can be.
Wes Perry Thanks for the reply. I don’t tend to shoot higher than iso6400 at f1.8 and 1/250 for my wedding stuff. So that’s the kind of range I’d need. But I don’t intend to use the R IV for wedding stuff. Your comment about 1/3 to 1/2 stop difference is good to know.
Hey Wes Love you videos please keep it up. As for this camera I recently rented it for a beach photoshoot that I did. This can work particularly if not designed for weddings and in sports where you need to take a lot of photos in rapid succession. You're a9 or the a9ii it's better suited for that. Also,I find that shooting in the compressed mode for raw actually works out extremely well. On my a7riii I get extremely good looking files and and great dynamic range while all of the images that I shoot. When I did to be shoot with the A7R4 , I used a '85 GMaster lens.I can confirm that the files look absolutely stunning. So I do think that did lenses are more than capable of producing files from a 61 megapixel camera. Thanks again for making your great videos.
I was indeed shooting in compressed mode except for the day in the studio. I usually use an a9, so yeah, I’m used to a pretty high bar of operational speed ;)
Hi Wes I too didn’t think I needed 60mp senor and was disappointed that there is no medium and small raw like on the Nikon 850. But during lock down I hired an A7R4 and 400mm 2.8 and really loved it, so I bought one. ( not the lens too much cash for that!) hopefully we’ll get a firmware upgrade to be able to reduce the file size. But LR and my pc cope with them ok, backing up to the cloud is a pain but that’s due to our poor internet speeds. I didn’t notice that the back screen was bad! Lol I have long and short sight so even with an optical viewfinder on a DSLR I can’t tell if things are pin sharp until they’re on the computer. I mostly shoot silently, hardly know what the shutter sounds like on the A9 and you do get some black out on the A7R4, the mechanical shutter on the A7 is really quiet though. I took both bodies to a dance shoot recently, I don’t find I get the same high rate of focusing on the A9 that others do, possibly as I really push cameras too the limit, fast moving subjects in low light. The autofocus on the A7 was pretty similar to the A9 for my dancers. Editing the pics afterwards I couldn’t tell which was which in terms of grain unless I checked. I have the 90mm macro after you recommended it! I find it really hard to focus, but with the 100-400 and 200-600 for wildlife I’m blown away by the quality. Can’t often get close to a bird or animal so being able to crop massively in post is awesome. The D850 is so heavy and is in the draw gathering dust....
Yeah I was really shocked at how quiet the mechanical shutter was. Especially with EFCS turned off. I don’t think it’s possible to add medium raw through a firmware update, unfortunately. There’s be too much processing overhead. That sort of thing usually has to be built into the SOC from the start to be super effective.
Still sharper than the 135GM. Just insane. BUT you can actually see it starting to top out for detail at 61Mp. Even at f/5.6 to f/8. Things get a little soft at 100% zoom, whereas on the a7iii (which has such a weak AA filter it might as well not be there) you can see every pixel has its own separate detail to show.
I've taken this camera on several shoots, and have never had any buffering issues. I wonder if Sony addressed that with a firmware update? Just like all Sony's recent cameras, I wish the ergonomics were better, but their cameras feel like bricks wrapped in alligator skin.
Are you shooting compressed raw? Uncompressed, jpg, etc? Really depends on your shooting style. 95% of the time I have no such issues, but when something big happens and I don’t want to take any chances, oh boy it fills up fast.
I see you tapped into your Indiana Jones at the intro 😄 nice review, agreed with your overall conclusion. There is word though that Sony will release a firmware for the A7R IV to include small/medium RAW but it might be a little too late once that arrives. As a wedding photographer that also does video, thoughts on the a7r IV with 64mp and 4K 30p versus the upcoming a7s III with 12 megapixels and 4K 120p? total opposites 😄 but which would you pick between the two? Edit: interesting thoughts on ISO performance versus the A7 III. If scaled to the same pixels are you saying it will look similar? But say you enlarge the A7 III to 64mp that will show a lot more blotchy noise no? So one could say ISO performance is superior on the A7R IV?
I don't think we're going to see any improvement over the a7iii in high iso performance, honestly. Sony exec already said the S no longer stands for "Sensitivity", but now "Superiority". Whatever that means...just managing expectations.
Hi Wes, I have the A9 but shoot both Canon and Sony and have all the lenses I need on each system. I’m contemplating between one hybrid body, R5 (still waiting to see real world uses) vs adding A7R4 (on the way) for stills and A7S3 for video and keeping the A9 is for fast action uses. I have some questions on stills: 1) In Super35 mode, what are the file sizes in raw uncompressed? Also as I understand it, the focal length is only cropping the field of view but the effective focal length remains, i.e a 70mm is still 70mm but in Super35, the field of view is now cropped to 105mm. And I believe you don’t lose a stop of light like you would with a 1.4x teleconverter. Please confirm if correct or not 2) As for focus area coverage, Sony specs says it’s 74%, but I wonder if in Super35, do you then get 100% focus area as the field of view is cropped in? I also think the A7R4 has video eye af that the A9 does not 3) Have you used the 16 images pixel shift to produce an image of 240MP? I wonder how useful that feature is in reality 4) For comparison of the 20fps on A9 vs R5, I wonder if the R5 will have the same rolling shutter and distortion like you showed with the A7R4. I don’t see any mentioning of that anywhere for the R5. Some notes on pricing of A7R4, I just bought it brand new for $2650. Prices ranges from $2600-$3000 so that will change for those looking at the A7R4. I think it would be good to compare which prime lenses would resolve well on the A7R4? Thanks for the video! 🙏
I might have to answer each some separately, as the app interface is a bit wonky ;) 1) In crop mode the uncompressed files are around 50MB. 2) Yep, 100% coverage in crop 3) I didn’t get into the pixel shift. As cool as it might be, it’s a bit of an insane workflow, as I think it still has to be stitched together in post to get a file even biggerER than before 😂
4) the R5 will probably only do 20fps I’m locked focus/exposure. Canon’s have always been like this. Lofty FPS rates that drop SIGNIFICANTLY when doing tracking focus. I’ll be super shocked if it gets any higher than 10-12 FPS in real world tracking. It will have slight better rolling shutter than the a7Riv, as it needs to have a much higher sensor scan rate to achieve 8K and 20fps. But it still will be at least twice as slow as the a9 for scan time.
Epilogue: Unfortunately I only rented the Riv for a week, so I didn’t have time to go through Every lens...nor do I have Every lens. But I do have many of the best ones ;) haha
There are some points you'll only hear from Wes. He tells it as it is, light and shadow alike. Too bad that's such a rare quality but all the more kudos to Wes! (Also, thanks for the Pentax love. 🙂)
Wes Perry yes but ive noticed i eventually have to crop on full frame so on street photography days i show cropped most cases. I see what you mean thanks for the insight
It reduces your field of view, making a narrower frame, while also reducing your dynamic range/iso performance (you’re essentially turning it into a crop sensor). Since I Most of the time would prefer to have a medium sized raw, I’d essentially be paying $5000 for a crop sensor camera that sometimes shoots high res. Which is unreasonable.
Great review! I probably can tell you why you can't record video while the camera is writing images from buffer: there's no memory bandwidth on the memory card available. That means the compressed video could not be written anywhere while the sd card is busy. Yes, you could store it temporarily in memory, but there would be definitively a moment when the memory buffer is full, but the sd card is still busy. In that case the camera would have either to discard the beginning of the video or stop recording.
Thanks for your review, i really don’t understand why sony did not do the mraw etc, Canon does that for years (even 7D and 6D did this). I was thinking about the mark IV, but i got the 3 because it is a nice spot between 24 and 61
Not sure where you got that info from. The RAW files at about 61.5MB each in compressed mode and 122.8MB each in uncompressed. Looking at them in the folder right now. Maybe that's the size of the fine jpg files?
awesome review as always. Another issue with A7R4 is that other things start to cost a lot more...like a better computer to post process and more storage space to store all these bloated RAWs...but all the pixel peeping in the world I can get...love it lol
Oh for sure. I actually found that in capture one, for whatever reason, editing/processing took no longer than 24Mp files. Just the export and import that was slower. Didn’t expect that. Storage costs enough as it is, though. Would have to upgrade my scratch drive SSD’s to 2TB to handle wedding season. And those aren’t cheap when you use two redundantly to avoid data loss.
A high end Oled smartphone display costs $50-80 to supply. A cheaper one that’s still vastly superior to the ones in Sony cameras about $20. You can’t tell me there isn’t room in the budget of a $4500 camera for that! (Their flagship a9ii also has a similarly crappy screen).
For any of the work we did with the medium format camera (studio portraiture) pixel shift isn’t usable. Honestly, it’s not useful for anything but still life and some architecture work. Unless you’re on a tripod on rock or concrete, you don’t gain enough extra detail for it to be worthwhile. And since my issues with this camera are about workflow...well, it doesn’t stitch the files in camera and you have to reassemble them with proprietary software in post. So for me, personally, coming from a wedding and portraiture photographer’s perspective, it’s a non-starter. Especially when I find 61Mp to be too much to begin with 😂 Even so, though, for the sake of thoroughness I still Should have tested it anyway, so I am remiss there.
I've been loving the camera. Even though my A9's hit the autofocus better, I find myself loving the A7R IV's resolution so much for wildlife with the 400 2.8 I can't put it down lol! It doesn't play nice using tracking and the 200-600, but all my other lenses have been awesome with it. Hoping to get the 600 F4 soon, then it's off to the races lol. My poor hard drives :o( Funny about the exposure compensation dial, I find with the new version, even if it's unlocked it never moves like the A9 does
I used it for a couple other videos surrounding this review, but generally no. And for this one no, as I wanted to have it in my hand to talk about it. This was recorded on an a9.
The a7Riv is supposed to have more advanced video AF, as it also does Eye-AF in video, where the a9 only does Face Detect. In actual practice, I didn’t see that that made much difference. The a9 AF can be a bit snappier, though. The a7Riv does have picture profiles, which will let you shoot in Log formats, which the a9 does not do. But also the a9 has significantly less rolling shutter than the Riv. So you win some, you lose some 😉
The fact that it doesn't have small RAW is probably hurting its sales. Very few people need this camera but a good number of people want it. It's definitely not for me. The a7riii sells regularly for $2500 in the US and is probably my next camera. But for now, my a6000 still does fine.
Seems unlikely. In order for it to not be excessively processor/battery intensive, something like that usually has to be built into the SOC/silicon. Downscaling a raw accurately is no easy task. (Especially when you might be shooting 10fps).
Hi Wes, good on you for the realistic review! Have you noticed any extreme colour noise in the darker areas of images taken by A7RIV (I am currently shooting it with 135 GM)? This can be processed in the lightroom later, but still, an annoyance compared to my old Nikon DSLR!
Are you talking about in heavily pushed shadows, or all the time? I hadn’t, though. I did a real estate shoot with it (the house was a dive, though, so it didn’t end up in the image samples 😏) and I push the shadows pretty hard. Without pixel peeping I didn’t see anything unexpected.
@@WesPerry Usually very noticeable above 800 ISO on my unit (shooting RAW). Noticeable enough that I pixel peeped to check further. Once pixel peeped, there is extreme colour noise compared to my old nikon DSLR at similar ISO levels. Guessing it must be because of the millions of tiny pixels? Thia has been reported by other people as well: www.dpreview.com/forums/thread/4421015. Wondering if it is a general issue with the model?
Then your comment is worthless and annoying, why even bother. I'm researching before purchase and found alot of valuable insight in this video. So what is it that you can point out?
Great review! I probably can tell you why you can't record video while the camera is writing images from buffer: there's no memory bandwidth on the memory card available. That means the compressed video could not be written anywhere while the sd card is busy. Yes, you could store it temporarily in memory, but there would be definitively a moment when the memory buffer is full, but the sd card is still busy. In that case the camera would have either to discard the beginning of the video or stop recording.
But there would be a point at which it could still start the video and write it out. If I’m recording 50mbps video (6.25MB/s) to a 90MB/s card, that’s at 14x different I’m write speeds, so once it’s done clearing the photos, it would have no issue catching up with the video. But even with just One photo in the buffer it’s still stuck. I could understand if the buffer was half or mostly full, but just one? Frustrating :p
@@WesPerry Either an engineer wanted to make absolutely sure nothing goes wrong or the camera needs the entire memory to encode video. Who knows....? Give me the source code of the camera's operating system and I'll check it for you ;-)
A quick note about Pixel-Shift:
I didn’t test it because it doesn’t fit into any of the work that I do and is an incredibly niche capability. Although I could potentially use it for my real estate photography, not even useful there, as those images end up getting posted at around 3MP in resolution on realtor.ca, so it would be a huge waste of time.
That being said, I still should have mentioned it. My apologies.
Hi Wes ,very nice video and I like it a lot because I also shoot with a7r4, but currently I am facing very bad iso noise at iso800 and iso 1000 even at properly exposing the image without lifting shadows or exposure on LR. I just wana know that how is sony A9 do in hash weather conditions. We will be moving to prince Edward island very soon and the climate is harsh, snow. I won't be shooting in heavy rain, but definitely will be shooting when snow is all around ,in very freezing climate and also sometimes and thre are snow flakes. Do you think A9 will stand with that kind of weather. I believe a9 must have less noise because of less megapixel. Just concerned about weather sealing on a9. Kindly reply. Thanks in advance.
I’m just 45 minutes away from PEI and use the a9 in all weather conditions around here without issue. I do recommend putting the little plastic hot shoe thing in to keep snow and ice from building up up there, but that’s about it.
Also, with any camera, when you bring it in from the cold, it’s best to warm it up slowly. Leave it in the camera bag by the door (where your house isn’t as warm, and the bag is cold) to let it happen more slowly and prevent condensation on the inside.
@@WesPerry thanks for your help 🙏🙏🙏
I'm really thankful that finally, finally, finally, some talks about the missing sRAW in a real photographers workflow. For me, this is a complete dealbreaker for this camera. They should've named it A9r, so the A7R III could've get a successor with less pixels, but no now we're in a trap. I don't now how others think, but for me, the A7R I 36Mpix sensor was a blessing. It was such a sweet spot.
I shoot a lot of different stuff, for products I need that resolution, butat 61Mpix we're in diffraction wonderland. For events, most of my commercial clients don't want more than 10Mpix files.
And like you mentioned, those files doesn't look great at high ISO, but thats what I expect when they bring a 61mpix sensor. Even at low ISO I was dissapointed. When they can't keep up with the predecessor it's just to early for 61mpix. The 42mpix sensor was better than the 36mpix predecessor even when I liked the characteristics better from the 36mpixer.
For my private stuff I bought an Canon G5XII with it's 20mpix 1" sensor and no, it's not the same in image quality but even the screen and it's touch capabilities blows the Sony's out of the water. It's a real shame for Sony, this is tech from 2014 - it's old, it's outdated and it's really bad even compared to this compact camera for around 900$. And because of the missing sRaw, I tested this little camera at some events and you wouldn't belive it, it's damn good at weddings etc.. It's fast, the filesize is super small and you're getting closer to your subject.
For me, the A7R line is going to be uninteressting in the future. My A7RIII can now work untill it's dying and if they don't replace it with something very similar or better in ISO performance, I buy the old one again. I'm really done with this cock lenght comparsion challenge between the manufactures.
One obvious and ironic issue Sony now faces is now that they've managed to mature their mirrorless system, each successive generation is less of an upgrade than the last. When once Sony users (Which were, at the time, a rare breed) saw the next gen come out, and all the great advances it would bring, they'd immediately want to upgrade. But now? The a7Riv and a9ii have been incremental at best, making a great camera just a little bit greater. They're going to have to reinvent the wheel sometime soon to continue to drive the G.A.S. in their followers like they once did.
I'm not saying it's a healthy thing to rely on, psychologically, but it's truly a foundational part of their business strategy.
Just use apsc mode for events lol. Very easy
Very nice video, love to watch the video. I use a7r4 with gm 24-70 and batis 85 and gives beautiful colors and performance. Regarding autofocus if you wana track a child on a swing use zone focus rather than face and eye detect and you will get almost all shots in focus. I love this camera. However indoors i use flash even for my personal work taking photos of my kids and i am used to using flashes. And outdoors kust use wide aperture lenses to keep the iso below 3200, i personally prefer belwoe 1600. Over all i like the camera .
The conclusions are absolutely not in line with my experience. Image quality of the a9 or the a7iii do not come close to the files of the a7r iv, not even to the files of my Leica SL2 or other Leica’s. No camera brings home more data then the a7r iv unless you go medium format or higher, but then you lose out on portability and AF. Stop comparing individual features. Rate a camera for what it is. the a7r iv is not a sports camera and not a camera for quick social media stuff. It is a camera that bridges a bit towards medium format without all the medium format hassles. For that it is a 10 of 10. Does the censor have character? Naaahh. You hate post? Buy a Leica. Or a Fuji if you are on a budget 👍🏼
Yeah we REALLY need a medium raw for the FF mode, obviously we already have that for the APS-C mode.
Yes, it could slow down the burst rate (because the CPU would have to do some extra work to downsample the image, although the files will be smaller too, so ... might not slow down at all), but it would still be a great option to have.
It really needs to be built into the SOC for it to be effective and not wear on the battery/speed. As a firmware update it would indeed weigh things down a lot. I don’t expect it to ever come in this particular camera.
lmao the intro is comedy
I bought one and I like it except for the poor LCD
You should be using apsc or compressed raw mode for weddings...its really simple, only use the 60 megapixels when you need them...
I heard and read reviews that on apsc mode in low light is bad quality and noise is worse than the full resolution 61mp. Anything you wanna say if this is true?
This is true, which is why I wouldn’t use it in APS-C mode for weddings. Additionally, in APS-C mode you’re obviously cropping in a lot. Both of these things make that less than idea for working indoors.
@@MrHellrider9 its no different than an apsc camera, which are very usable
@@WesPerry people use apsc cameras indoors...
I’m not sure that I’d pay $3500 for an APS-C camera, though 😉
You got my love with this intro 🤩😂😆👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼😂👍🙌🏽
Waiting for my Oscar call 😏
I appreciate the honest review!
I appreciate the positive comment!
RAWsie will help :) I love the A7R4. Crop-Mode is great. LA-EA5 is a blessing.
Haha awesome intro dude. 😂
Hello Wes, What did you mean that you can set to red the focus box? and how can I setup to red on sony a7iii. Thanks for your great videos!
I think I also mentioned that’s not possible on the a7iii. They updated the firmware of the a9 and a7Riv to do it, but apparently it’s “not possible” on the a7iii (they don’t feel like it).
Hi Wes! Thanks for the video. Now I see that you use the Sony 90mm with this camera as well. Does it focus as good as when you use it on the A9? Or is it the same as on other cameras ?
Thanks Wes!
It’s somewhere in between, but closer to the a9. I think that one thing that helps the a9 is the blackout free shutter (I usually do macro work with LED lights), and thus uninterrupted focusing.
I think it is the camera for me for my next upgrade for shooting birds. You have a lot of flexibility with the A7R IV, if you don't need to shoot super far, you can shoot in full frame which will give you a ton of details and wildlife shooters love that. But, if you are shooting birds of the size of you hand 150 ft away, you can opt to shoot in APS-C mode for max reach without having to use teleconverters. Also, coming from an APS-C body and a 150-600mm zoom, effectively I have been shooting at 960mm wide open 99% of the time. Once you are used to that length, it is next to impossible to walk it back to say 600mm, that is if you don't want to use a TC on a zoom. The fact that the A7R IV is so high res, even in APS-C mode it will still give you 26 MP with a little leeway for cropping. Then, of course there is the AF which is world class after the A9/A9 II together with its animal/animal eye tracking capabilities. To add, from a zoom standpoint, the Sony FE 200-600mm G lens is arguably the best super zoom out there right now over the Nikon 200-500mm and of course the Sigma and Tamron 150-600mm. Canon will be launching the RF 100-500mm, but why pay more and lose 100mm right off the bat and not to mention it is an external as well (which I don't like)?
I love mine, but it is a landscape camera, not a wedding photographer's camera. That's what the A7111 is for.
Yes and no. I only Mostly agree 😉
You see the a7iii is a “budget camera”. It’s half plastic, has lower res screen and viewfinder, and generally corners cut where they could. People who shoot weddings for a living are usually looking for a bit of a tank of a camera. Something that can take the unending onslaught of a wedding day, and turn around to do it again the very next day. The a9ii and a9 fit the bill, but it’s excessive in frame rate and price, the a7Riv fits the bill, but it’s excessive in megapixels. It legit puts wedding photographers in a tricky position with Sony.
@@WesPerry a7iii is fine
Wes Perry there's literally nothing wrong with the A7iii for weddings.
I shot with a Hasselblad medium format 503CX 6x6cm (2-1/4" square) film camera (with Carl Zeiss prime lenses) for over 12 years for weddings and portraits in the 90s before switching to DSLRs. I was able to produce large 30x40 inch wall portrait enlargements easily with stunning results. I've never tried to printed anything that large with my Nikon or Canon DSLRs, but I'm curious as to how digital would stack up against medium format quality. I'd venture to say medium format wins, but I would never want to go back to film cameras again. Medium format digital cameras cost an arm and a leg plus a couple fingers, way more than a DSLR or mirrorless camera. A Hassy medium format digital camera costs about as much as a mid grade Mercedes Benz car. For that steep price tag, I would expect the medium format image quality to beat the pants off any smaller camera sensor. Anyway, please do a comparison video. I enjoyed this video too, keep up the good work!
Comparison video is already 70% done. Probably be out next week ;)
@@WesPerry That's fantastic, good to hear!
Great video. Curious as to what point of ISO you would consider still usable on the A7R IV compared to the A7 III? I’m a wedding and portrait guy and think this video convinced me that my A7 III are good enough and this isn’t needed as a third, personal camera and for special projects.
ISO maxes are very personal. Some people love grain in images, some don’t mind, and some hate it.
I fall into the latter category, so I try to keep my a7iii below 1600. Mind you, I have actually delivered images to clients at 52,000 (candle light).
Comparing the two is very tricky and adds another layer of subjectivity. If you’re looking at the pixel level, the a7Riv looks to be 1/3 to 1/2 stop worse, so 1200 looks like 1600 in the a7iii. BUT if you scale it down to 24mp when you’re done editing, it gets much closer in the details at that level. It’s just when you get up past 12,800 it gets worse colour noise faster, which can’t really be scaled out like the pixel level stuff can be.
Wes Perry Thanks for the reply. I don’t tend to shoot higher than iso6400 at f1.8 and 1/250 for my wedding stuff. So that’s the kind of range I’d need. But I don’t intend to use the R IV for wedding stuff. Your comment about 1/3 to 1/2 stop difference is good to know.
Hey Wes Love you videos please keep it up. As for this camera I recently rented it for a beach photoshoot that I did. This can work particularly if not designed for weddings and in sports where you need to take a lot of photos in rapid succession. You're a9 or the a9ii it's better suited for that.
Also,I find that shooting in the compressed mode for raw actually works out extremely well. On my a7riii I get extremely good looking files and and great dynamic range while all of the images that I shoot.
When I did to be shoot with the A7R4 , I used a '85 GMaster lens.I can confirm that the files look absolutely stunning. So I do think that did lenses are more than capable of producing files from a 61 megapixel camera.
Thanks again for making your great videos.
I was indeed shooting in compressed mode except for the day in the studio. I usually use an a9, so yeah, I’m used to a pretty high bar of operational speed ;)
If your looking for your dog, I think it’s in the cat!
😏
Hi Wes I too didn’t think I needed 60mp senor and was disappointed that there is no medium and small raw like on the Nikon 850. But during lock down I hired an A7R4 and 400mm 2.8 and really loved it, so I bought one. ( not the lens too much cash for that!) hopefully we’ll get a firmware upgrade to be able to reduce the file size. But LR and my pc cope with them ok, backing up to the cloud is a pain but that’s due to our poor internet speeds. I didn’t notice that the back screen was bad! Lol I have long and short sight so even with an optical viewfinder on a DSLR I can’t tell if things are pin sharp until they’re on the computer. I mostly shoot silently, hardly know what the shutter sounds like on the A9 and you do get some black out on the A7R4, the mechanical shutter on the A7 is really quiet though. I took both bodies to a dance shoot recently, I don’t find I get the same high rate of focusing on the A9 that others do, possibly as I really push cameras too the limit, fast moving subjects in low light. The autofocus on the A7 was pretty similar to the A9 for my dancers. Editing the pics afterwards I couldn’t tell which was which in terms of grain unless I checked. I have the 90mm macro after you recommended it! I find it really hard to focus, but with the 100-400 and 200-600 for wildlife I’m blown away by the quality. Can’t often get close to a bird or animal so being able to crop massively in post is awesome. The D850 is so heavy and is in the draw gathering dust....
Yeah I was really shocked at how quiet the mechanical shutter was. Especially with EFCS turned off.
I don’t think it’s possible to add medium raw through a firmware update, unfortunately. There’s be too much processing overhead. That sort of thing usually has to be built into the SOC from the start to be super effective.
...the 90mm F2.8 G with a7Riv combo is just 😳👌
Still sharper than the 135GM. Just insane. BUT you can actually see it starting to top out for detail at 61Mp. Even at f/5.6 to f/8. Things get a little soft at 100% zoom, whereas on the a7iii (which has such a weak AA filter it might as well not be there) you can see every pixel has its own separate detail to show.
Wes Perry agree. Have you used the Sony 100mm STF GM (underrated imo due to T stop of 5.6)??? It’s sharp af.
I haven’t. Way too specific of a lens for me to take interest. And I’ve never been a fan of the way it renders anyway. Matter of preference 😉
I've taken this camera on several shoots, and have never had any buffering issues. I wonder if Sony addressed that with a firmware update? Just like all Sony's recent cameras, I wish the ergonomics were better, but their cameras feel like bricks wrapped in alligator skin.
Are you shooting compressed raw? Uncompressed, jpg, etc? Really depends on your shooting style. 95% of the time I have no such issues, but when something big happens and I don’t want to take any chances, oh boy it fills up fast.
Super Troopers vibe in the beginning lol
I see you tapped into your Indiana Jones at the intro 😄 nice review, agreed with your overall conclusion. There is word though that Sony will release a firmware for the A7R IV to include small/medium RAW but it might be a little too late once that arrives. As a wedding photographer that also does video, thoughts on the a7r IV with 64mp and 4K 30p versus the upcoming a7s III with 12 megapixels and 4K 120p? total opposites 😄 but which would you pick between the two?
Edit: interesting thoughts on ISO performance versus the A7 III. If scaled to the same pixels are you saying it will look similar? But say you enlarge the A7 III to 64mp that will show a lot more blotchy noise no? So one could say ISO performance is superior on the A7R IV?
Between the two I’ll pick the a9/a9ii/a7iv 😏
12Mp is not enough, 61Mp is too much! 🤷🏻♂️
The a7siii is going to be a night scape photography dream. I can't wait to order mine.
I don't think we're going to see any improvement over the a7iii in high iso performance, honestly. Sony exec already said the S no longer stands for "Sensitivity", but now "Superiority". Whatever that means...just managing expectations.
@@WesPerry Yep maybe. I'm just going by specs of the new sensor according to the patent info.
Rather surprised that Sony hasn’t at least released the spec list just to sabotage R5 sales a bit.
@@WesPerry It's the quiet ones you have to watch out for. :-D
Hi Wes,
I have the A9 but shoot both Canon and Sony and have all the lenses I need on each system.
I’m contemplating between one hybrid body, R5 (still waiting to see real world uses) vs adding A7R4 (on the way) for stills and A7S3 for video and keeping the A9 is for fast action uses.
I have some questions on stills:
1) In Super35 mode, what are the file sizes in raw uncompressed? Also as I understand it, the focal length is only cropping the field of view but the effective focal length remains, i.e a 70mm is still 70mm but in Super35, the field of view is now cropped to 105mm. And I believe you don’t lose a stop of light like you would with a 1.4x teleconverter. Please confirm if correct or not
2) As for focus area coverage, Sony specs says it’s 74%, but I wonder if in Super35, do you then get 100% focus area as the field of view is cropped in? I also think the A7R4 has video eye af that the A9 does not
3) Have you used the 16 images pixel shift to produce an image of 240MP? I wonder how useful that feature is in reality
4) For comparison of the 20fps on A9 vs R5, I wonder if the R5 will have the same rolling shutter and distortion like you showed with the A7R4. I don’t see any mentioning of that anywhere for the R5.
Some notes on pricing of A7R4, I just bought it brand new for $2650. Prices ranges from $2600-$3000 so that will change for those looking at the A7R4.
I think it would be good to compare which prime lenses would resolve well on the A7R4?
Thanks for the video! 🙏
I might have to answer each some separately, as the app interface is a bit wonky ;)
1) In crop mode the uncompressed files are around 50MB.
2) Yep, 100% coverage in crop
3) I didn’t get into the pixel shift. As cool as it might be, it’s a bit of an insane workflow, as I think it still has to be stitched together in post to get a file even biggerER than before 😂
3.5) to get the most out of it you need to be on a tripod, on concrete. Not even kidding about that second part. Wood floors move too much.
4) the R5 will probably only do 20fps I’m locked focus/exposure. Canon’s have always been like this. Lofty FPS rates that drop SIGNIFICANTLY when doing tracking focus. I’ll be super shocked if it gets any higher than 10-12 FPS in real world tracking.
It will have slight better rolling shutter than the a7Riv, as it needs to have a much higher sensor scan rate to achieve 8K and 20fps. But it still will be at least twice as slow as the a9 for scan time.
Epilogue:
Unfortunately I only rented the Riv for a week, so I didn’t have time to go through Every lens...nor do I have Every lens. But I do have many of the best ones ;) haha
Awesome Wes! Much appreciated for all the quick answers.
Are you still using the A9 and upgrading to A92 + A7S3?
There are some points you'll only hear from Wes. He tells it as it is, light and shadow alike. Too bad that's such a rare quality but all the more kudos to Wes!
(Also, thanks for the Pentax love. 🙂)
Is there a Pentaxian hiding amongst my subscribers?? 😮😂
Thanks, TK!
@@WesPerry Yup. :)
I just love my Sony A9 :)
Would apsc shooting at 26mp solve the noise level for lowlight photos? not saying its bad at 62 but noticeable then predecessor
That would make it worse, because then you’re essentially working with an APS-C sensor.
Wes Perry yes but ive noticed i eventually have to crop on full frame so on street photography days i show cropped most cases. I see what you mean thanks for the insight
Deffo build quality much better from the a7r3, shutter button fix its finger print grease just warm it up with a hair dryer a couple times
A little late for the hair dryer fix, but it's working now :P
hello, why crop mode isnt ideal for most circumstances? isnt it smaller file size?
It reduces your field of view, making a narrower frame, while also reducing your dynamic range/iso performance (you’re essentially turning it into a crop sensor).
Since I Most of the time would prefer to have a medium sized raw, I’d essentially be paying $5000 for a crop sensor camera that sometimes shoots high res. Which is unreasonable.
Great review! I probably can tell you why you can't record video while the camera is writing images from buffer: there's no memory bandwidth on the memory card available. That means the compressed video could not be written anywhere while the sd card is busy. Yes, you could store it temporarily in memory, but there would be definitively a moment when the memory buffer is full, but the sd card is still busy. In that case the camera would have either to discard the beginning of the video or stop recording.
Looking forward to that comparison with the hasselblad
Looking at your ipad really doesn't work. Good case study.
Does the camera suffer the same buffering when using aspc mode ?
It’s a little better. Writing files that are about half the size.
Thanks for your review, i really don’t understand why sony did not do the mraw etc, Canon does that for years (even 7D and 6D did this).
I was thinking about the mark IV, but i got the 3 because it is a nice spot between 24 and 61
Not medium raw..it needs lossless compressed Raw...
That, too
I talked about that in a separate video 😏
Amazing video footage in the woods.
Hiring the documentary team from Planet Earth was expensive, but obviously well worth it 😂
Intro was just crazy lol
It’s just life up here in the jungles of Canada.
Why you don't use compress mode then?
I did for most of my time with the camera. Only used uncompressed in the studio for when we were comparing it to medium format (video still to come).
Wes Perry Then the files are not to big, 26!
Not sure where you got that info from. The RAW files at about 61.5MB each in compressed mode and 122.8MB each in uncompressed. Looking at them in the folder right now. Maybe that's the size of the fine jpg files?
Wes Perry You are right, I was with the a9!
awesome review as always. Another issue with A7R4 is that other things start to cost a lot more...like a better computer to post process and more storage space to store all these bloated RAWs...but all the pixel peeping in the world I can get...love it lol
Oh for sure. I actually found that in capture one, for whatever reason, editing/processing took no longer than 24Mp files. Just the export and import that was slower. Didn’t expect that. Storage costs enough as it is, though. Would have to upgrade my scratch drive SSD’s to 2TB to handle wedding season. And those aren’t cheap when you use two redundantly to avoid data loss.
Its strange why can't sony implement the displays they use on smartphones, if they do i am sure That will be huge!!!
A high end Oled smartphone display costs $50-80 to supply. A cheaper one that’s still vastly superior to the ones in Sony cameras about $20. You can’t tell me there isn’t room in the budget of a $4500 camera for that! (Their flagship a9ii also has a similarly crappy screen).
@@WesPerry Agreed Absolutely!!
I think you forgot to mention about the pixel shift mode(240megapixels). Please compare it in your next video with the medium format.
For any of the work we did with the medium format camera (studio portraiture) pixel shift isn’t usable. Honestly, it’s not useful for anything but still life and some architecture work. Unless you’re on a tripod on rock or concrete, you don’t gain enough extra detail for it to be worthwhile. And since my issues with this camera are about workflow...well, it doesn’t stitch the files in camera and you have to reassemble them with proprietary software in post. So for me, personally, coming from a wedding and portraiture photographer’s perspective, it’s a non-starter. Especially when I find 61Mp to be too much to begin with 😂
Even so, though, for the sake of thoroughness I still Should have tested it anyway, so I am remiss there.
@@WesPerry Thank you for your detailed reply Wes.It does make sense🙏🏼
I've been loving the camera. Even though my A9's hit the autofocus better, I find myself loving the A7R IV's resolution so much for wildlife with the 400 2.8 I can't put it down lol! It doesn't play nice using tracking and the 200-600, but all my other lenses have been awesome with it. Hoping to get the 600 F4 soon, then it's off to the races lol. My poor hard drives :o( Funny about the exposure compensation dial, I find with the new version, even if it's unlocked it never moves like the A9 does
Hi Wes, are you also filming on the A7RM4?
I used it for a couple other videos surrounding this review, but generally no. And for this one no, as I wanted to have it in my hand to talk about it. This was recorded on an a9.
@@WesPerry Thank you, do you think in your opinion this(A9) is comparable to the A7R4 in terms of video since they're both great for stills?
The a7Riv is supposed to have more advanced video AF, as it also does Eye-AF in video, where the a9 only does Face Detect. In actual practice, I didn’t see that that made much difference. The a9 AF can be a bit snappier, though.
The a7Riv does have picture profiles, which will let you shoot in Log formats, which the a9 does not do.
But also the a9 has significantly less rolling shutter than the Riv.
So you win some, you lose some 😉
would u recommend this camera for a beginner if I found a good deal on it?
well not completely beginning I used to have the Canon t3i dlsr. just new to miroless.
I found this camera for 1200 in my area.
Not really no. It’s a lot of camera and a lot of money. The a7iii (or the soon to come a7iv) would make a lot more sense.
used
That’s a suspiciously low price. They usually sell for over $3000 USED.
You should try the GFX 100 :)
I would love to!
The fact that it doesn't have small RAW is probably hurting its sales.
Very few people need this camera but a good number of people want it. It's definitely not for me.
The a7riii sells regularly for $2500 in the US and is probably my next camera. But for now, my a6000 still does fine.
Will be interesting to see what they come up with for the a7iv. Might have more pixels? 😏
@@WesPerry more than 42mp? I doubt it. But if it has 30-36mp, it'll most likely be my next camera.
Oh, definitely not more than 42. I just meant more than before. Yeah, most likely 32 at most. If they increase it at all.
@@WesPerry Do you think Sony could do a firmware update to make a medium to small size Raw file ??
Seems unlikely. In order for it to not be excessively processor/battery intensive, something like that usually has to be built into the SOC/silicon.
Downscaling a raw accurately is no easy task. (Especially when you might be shooting 10fps).
Hi Wes, good on you for the realistic review! Have you noticed any extreme colour noise in the darker areas of images taken by A7RIV (I am currently shooting it with 135 GM)? This can be processed in the lightroom later, but still, an annoyance compared to my old Nikon DSLR!
Are you talking about in heavily pushed shadows, or all the time?
I hadn’t, though. I did a real estate shoot with it (the house was a dive, though, so it didn’t end up in the image samples 😏) and I push the shadows pretty hard. Without pixel peeping I didn’t see anything unexpected.
@@WesPerry Usually very noticeable above 800 ISO on my unit (shooting RAW). Noticeable enough that I pixel peeped to check further. Once pixel peeped, there is extreme colour noise compared to my old nikon DSLR at similar ISO levels. Guessing it must be because of the millions of tiny pixels? Thia has been reported by other people as well: www.dpreview.com/forums/thread/4421015.
Wondering if it is a general issue with the model?
Would you think this body would be a good value at $2000?
Uh yeah
I’d say so. Haha
409 likes? The first minute alone is worth 1000 at least
I do what I can 🤷🏻♂️😂
😮😮
Are you suitable for wildlife photography
Some say yes
I would say not really
More cowbell, more bokeh, more pixels!!!
You have the laziest cat😂
Fact.
Wes, love ya but your cat is way too big. Not good for her.
Indeed. She’s been on “diet” food for over a year to little effect.
Is that cat alive?
🤷🏻♂️
Ur cat, lol
Right?? Haha
Sorry I just don’t have enough time to point out everything this guy was off about
Then your comment is worthless and annoying, why even bother. I'm researching before purchase and found alot of valuable insight in this video. So what is it that you can point out?
First
Great review! I probably can tell you why you can't record video while the camera is writing images from buffer: there's no memory bandwidth on the memory card available. That means the compressed video could not be written anywhere while the sd card is busy. Yes, you could store it temporarily in memory, but there would be definitively a moment when the memory buffer is full, but the sd card is still busy. In that case the camera would have either to discard the beginning of the video or stop recording.
But there would be a point at which it could still start the video and write it out. If I’m recording 50mbps video (6.25MB/s) to a 90MB/s card, that’s at 14x different I’m write speeds, so once it’s done clearing the photos, it would have no issue catching up with the video. But even with just One photo in the buffer it’s still stuck. I could understand if the buffer was half or mostly full, but just one? Frustrating :p
@@WesPerry Either an engineer wanted to make absolutely sure nothing goes wrong or the camera needs the entire memory to encode video. Who knows....? Give me the source code of the camera's operating system and I'll check it for you ;-)
I’m an electrical engineering technologist, but not a programmer, so have at it ;)