Almost four years after the release of Sony’s hugely successful A7III Hybrid full-frame mirrorless camera, it finally launched a follow-up. the A7IV offers a range of new features and improvements such as a higher-resolution 33-megapixel sensor, improved video specifications and updated AI-assisted autofocus. However, at $2,500 It’s also $500 more than when the A7 III launched.
A lot has changed between the two models over the years. Sony now has to deal with formidable competitors such as Canon’s EOS R6 and the Nikon Z6 II. It itself has also released new high-end models like that A7S III, A7R IV and A1 loaded with the latest technology.
benefits
- Excellent picture quality
- 4K 60p 4:2:2 video
- Incredible auto focus
- Great handling
disadvantage
- rolling gate
- Relatively slow recording speeds
- high price
With all of this, I was naturally curious to see how the A7 IV would fare in a category it dominated for a number of years. How does it compare to rivals, especially when it comes to video? How much new tech from the high-end models has made it into the mainstream A7 IV? And is it suitable for professional use? Let’s dive in and find out.
design and handling
Gallery: Sony A7 IV full-frame mirrorless camera review | 28 photos
Gallery: Sony A7 IV full-frame mirrorless camera review | 28 photos
Sony’s A1, A7S III and A7R IV all had major body changes compared to their predecessors, and the A7 IV follows the same script. It has the same nice big grip so you never feel like you’re going to drop it, even with a big lens. It’s gained some weight and size though, weighing 699 grams compared to 650 with the AIII. It’s also 7mm thicker.
It has similar controls to the A7 III, with the biggest difference being that the record button has been moved from the back to a more accessible position on top. The buttons and dials also generally feel better and more precise, and the joystick is grippier and easier to use. Compared to the far more expensive A1, certain dials are missing, like the dials for shooting mode and autofocus. The lockable exposure compensation dial is the same but lacks the graphics as it’s designed to be programmable.
In a way, however, the body of the A7 IV is a step up from the A1. The rear touch display can articulate fully, not just tilt outward, so it’s much more practical for low-angle portrait mode shots. That also makes it much more useful as a vlogging camera.
It shares the same well-organized menu system as the A1 and A7S III, although some controls can be a bit tricky to find. As with any other modern camera, setting up the function menu, custom menus and manual controls to your liking is time well spent. Overall, however, Sony’s menus are now among the best and are more organized than, say, Canon’s EOS R6.
Steve Dent/Engadget
The 3.69M-dot EVF is much clearer than the A7’s 2.68M-dot EVF and is on par with similarly priced competitors. However, the rear display is smaller and has a lower resolution than that of the R6. That can make manual focus tricky, although the A7 IV has a new feature that can help there – more on that in a bit.
The A7 IV features a dual-slot card system that supports both SD UHS II and much faster CFexpress Type A cards. However, unlike the slots on the A1 and A7S III, it only has a single dual slot, the other being SD UHS II only. Type A CFexpress cards are not quite as fast as regular CFexpress cards, reaching a top speed of 800 RPM MB/s compared to 1,700 MB/s. They’re also only used in Sony cameras, so they’re relatively hard to find and quite expensive.
Other features include a USB-C port that can power the camera while it’s in use, as well as a full-size HDMI port, thank goodness. It uses Sony’s new NP-FZ100 battery, which delivers up to 580 shots, or around 2 hours of 4K video recording, on one charge. Finally, the A7 IV can close its mechanical shutter when the camera is off, protecting it from dust when you switch lenses. This is a feature that first appeared on the EOS R, so thanks for starting this trend Canon.
power
Steve Dent/Engadget
Sony’s mirrorless cameras are known for their autofocus speed and AI intelligence, and the A7 IV is no exception. However, Sony has made some compromises that affect performance.
The new 33MP sensor is back-illuminated, but it’s not stacked like the A1’s sensor, so readout speeds are relatively slow. As a result, capture speeds are 10fps like the A7 III in mechanical or electronic shutter modes for compressed RAW photos, dropping to 6fps when using lossless or uncompressed RAW, as many photographers prefer.
That’s still impressive considering the resolution has increased by nearly 50 percent. In comparison, the Sony A1 can capture 50-megapixel photos in electronic mode at up to 30 fps, showing the speed advantages of a stacked sensor.
While burst speeds aren’t improved, you can capture more photos at once, up to 1,000 in uncompressed RAW format. When using Sony or ProGrade CFexpress Type-A cards, you can shoot virtually endlessly without filling the buffer.
Steve Dent/Engadget
Another downside to the A7 IV’s slow sensor readout speeds is the rolling shutter. If you want to shoot silently in electronic mode, you have to keep the camera steady and your subject can’t move quickly either. Otherwise, you’ll see slanted lines and other artifacts that can be bad enough to ruin recordings. Using crop mode helps a lot, but then you lose the benefits of a full frame sensor.
The A7 IV is Sony’s most advanced camera to date when it comes to autofocus. All of Sony’s new AI tricks make it the most user-friendly and reliable camera I’ve ever tested in this regard.
Unlike the A7 III, face, eye and body tracking works in all animal, bird and human focus modes. Unless you turn it off, it automatically detects and tracks your subject’s eyes, face, or body, even if they turn around or disappear from the frame.
Whether you’re tracking sports, birds, or cars, the tracking point stays stubbornly locked onto your subject in most situations. All you have to do is touch the subject you want to track and the camera will pick it up from there.
Steve Dent/Engadget
The A7 IV’s autofocus can easily match the camera’s burst speeds for sports or bird shots. But more importantly, the A7 IV consistently nails focus in other tricky situations, especially people. In some chaotic situations with many subjects and complex lighting, I ended up with very few unusable shots. Keep in mind that optimum focus performance requires Sony’s latest lenses, but it has worked well with the newer Sigma models as well.
Focus is only part of the equation. It consistently nailed auto exposure and auto white balance in tricky situations with a mix of lighting. This worked well in a bar with a mix of studio and utility light or in front of the famous Parisian department store animated shop windows with all possible light colors.
In-body stabilization improves a half stop over the A7 III to 5.5 stops with compatible lenses, but none comes close to Canon’s claimed 8 stops on the EOS R6. However, this is offset somewhat by Sony’s superior high ISO performance. With a little care, I was still able to get reasonably sharp shots down to half a second.
picture quality
Gallery: Sony A7 IV test sample images | 54 photos
Gallery: Sony A7 IV test sample images | 54 photos
A big improvement in the A7 IV is in the image quality. You’d expect more sharpness with the extra resolution, and it certainly delivers. However, you might also think that the smaller pixels would make the A7 IV worse in low light, but no. In fact, the A7 IV performs even better than Sony’s low-light champion, the A7S III, across much of its ISO range.
Images are clean and usable in most low-light situations up to ISO 12,800, with plenty of detail even in underexposed shots. In fact, the A7 IV has the lowest noise I’ve ever seen at this ISO range. Properly exposed photos are usable up to ISO 25,600, but after that noise becomes a serious problem.
Sony has been improving its color science with every new camera lately, and the A7 IV may have its best setup yet. The green cast we saw on previous models is gone and colors are accurate straight out of camera and easier to balance in post than ever.
JPEGs look great straight out of the camera and offer a good balance of detail and noise reduction. The 14-bit RAW images deliver up to 13 stops of dynamic range, giving you plenty of room to lift shadows and bring back highlights. Overall, Sony’s A7 IV delivers perhaps the best images of any of its cameras, with a great balance of detail, high ISO performance and color accuracy.
