This is the a7R V, Sony's latest full frame camera.
It's like an a7R IV sensor, with alpha 1 video aspirations,
wrapped up in an a7 IV body,
but with a new tilt/flip screen mechanism
that's not only the best I've ever seen,
but that makes the rest of my cameras
seem clunky and limited by comparison.
Let's get undone.
♪ Gerald Undone ♪
♪ He's crazy ♪
- What's happening, everybody?
I'm Gerald Undone and I'm on the highway to the dangerzone.
For disclosure, Sony lent me this camera
to make this review, I do not get to keep it,
no money changed hands, and Sony does not get any input
on this video's production or get to preview it
in that it combines a tilt layer
with a fully articulating one.
However, unlike the S1H screen, this is much thinner,
and not only tilts up, but also down,
which were the major drawbacks of that S1H display.
In fact, this screen actually comes completely away
from the body, not only improving its maximum tilt range
but helping with heat dissipation.
And while away from the body, it's still sturdy enough
to allow for easy rotation of the flip out portion.
It's truly outstanding and I hope all future cameras
from Sony use this mechanism moving forward.
The rest of the body, as I said,
feels identical to the a7 IV,
except that this has a flash sync port
behind the full-size HDMI door.
But just like the a7 IV,
this camera has all the new stuff too,
so the photo/video/S&Q lever,
the new menu with the focus breathing compensation,
focus map, easy 1080p60 streaming over USB-C, 10-bit color,
S-Cinetone, and even the new Main at-a-glance menu pages
that we saw on the FX30 and FX3 2.0 firmware,
including the FX30's new video on-screen display elements
that are framed better around the 16x9 image,
which I've really come to appreciate.
Just little things like always being able to see
my battery life without needing to clutter my whole screen
with the rest of the elements makes a huge difference.
And it also comes with the shutter sensor protector
that we've seen in the last few models from Sony as well.
The a7R V basically has everything
that Sony has put in their different cameras
in the last couple years, but all at once, which is nice.
It's still a 61 megapixel sensor
just like the previous a7R IV,
but with a new autofocus system and improved IBIS.
It also uses the newer processor from the alpha 1,
which Sony claims is 8X faster than what was in the a7R IV,
which means we're getting a lot more recording options.
As I mentioned, we have 10-bit across the board now,
and we can record that all the way up to 8K
at 24 frames per second.
You can also record 4K up to 60 frames per second,
and then oversampled 4K at 24 and 30p in an APS-C crop mode.
And it's here that we're gonna see the biggest difference
between this camera and something like the a1,
which also does 8K.
This sensor just isn't as fast and some compromises
had to be made to achieve all of these resolution
and frame rate combinations,
and my biggest complaint about this camera
is the somewhat complicated cropping, binning,
and oversampling pipelines that when combined
with the added crops from things like active stabilization
made it so that I had hard time telling
what my true focal length was most of the time.
So for example, to get a true full frame,
full width, uncropped image,
you have to shoot 4K up to 30 frames per second.
This will create an image that is binned down
from an over-8K sensor.
This binning method is solid though,
it's the same one used on the alpha 1,
and I found that image to be just as good
as the a7S III's slightly oversampled 4K image.
Now from here you can switch to 4K60 if you want,
which unlike the a7 IV, doesn't force you into an APS-C crop
and instead puts a 1.2x crop on that full sensor
to bring it down to just 8K,
and then bins what's left down to 4K
at 60 frames per second.
I assume they needed to do this
to be able to readout the 4K fast enough for 60p,
because 4K120, isn't even an option on this camera.
So 4K60 has a 1.2x crop.
And the 8K24 comes from that same 1.2x crop 8K image,
but instead of binning it down to 4K,
they just deliver the 8K image
at a maximum of 24 frames per second.
However, it gets more complicated
as you can also switch to APS-C voluntarily,
which will crop in 1.5 times to a 6.2K portion
of the sensor and oversample your 4K recordings
from that 6.2K resolution,
but you can only do this up to 30 frames per second.
So there's no APS-C 60p on this camera, unlike the a7 IV.
So between all these modes
you have a full range of capability,
it just requires a bit of work to keep track of it all
when you're busy focused on your shoot.
And this is the major advantage that the a1 has
over this camera.
Because the alpha 1 is so fast,
you can just shoot anything and everything
in full frame with no crops and no fuss,
all the way up to 8K30 and 4K120.
But the a1 is $2500 to $2600 US more than this camera,
so the price difference makes the a7R V's compromises
seem quite reasonable.
Naturally though, I shot my chroma subsampling chart
to make sure there was nothing weird going on
with the binning and oversampling,
and I'm happy to report that the quality
is as expected between the different modes,
and the binning looks good.
Here in the 8K recording
you can see the individual blue pixels
between the bands of red, and this detail is well preserved
when looking at the 6.2K oversampled
APS-C recordings as well.
When moving to the 4K24 full frame binned recording,
we can see the pixel groups getting larger and conjoined,
but still keeping the distinct pattern,
and then finally when moving to 4K60,
which has it the worst being both cropped and binned,
we see that we lose a bit more detail,
but again, still preserving the color information
and most of the boundaries between blue and red.
And this is at over 400% magnification.
When we pull back to even 200%,
I find it hard to tell the difference between them.
So this is all handled well, just like the alpha 1.
Of course, rolling shutter is gonna take a hit
when compared to the a1's stacked sensor,
and the results are basically an inversion
of the previous detail rankings.
So the worst offenders for rolling shutter
are the 8K and oversampled APS-C modes,
these are gonna give you results closer
to the problem rolling shutter being a7 IV,
although this camera might be slightly faster,
but still quite a bit of jello.
If we switch over to the binned full frame 4K, however,
we get a better result with considerably less warping
during pans, which is improved a bit more still
when moving to 4K60.
These binned readout speeds are quite acceptable
in my opinion, and the rolling shutter effects
are tolerable in these modes.
Now I also went through and tested the battery life
and overheating during each of those readout methods.
For each test I used a fully charged FZ100 battery,
the same battery you'd find
in any Sony full frame mirrorless camera
over the last few years, and the ambient temperature
during the test was 23 Celsius or 74 Fahrenheit.
The camera's temperature threshold was set to high
and the screen was pulled out and away from the body.
For the 8K24, I recorded 1 hour 34 minutes
before the battery died with no overheat warning,
but the camera became extremely hot to the touch.
I couldn't hold the camera at that point
for longer than a minute without it getting uncomfortable.
In 4K60, I got 2 hours 25 minutes before the battery died,
again no overheat warning.
This time it was warm to the touch, but far cooler
than the 8K recording and it felt fine to hold.
Then for 4K24 oversampled APS-C,
it lasted for 2 hours 10 minutes before the battery died,
still no overheat warning.
It was quite warm this time, warmer than the 4K60,
holdable, but almost too hot to hold.
Then lastly, the 4K24 Binned Full-Frame
gave the longest battery life of 2 hours 33 minutes,
no overheat warning,
and this time it was barely warm to the touch.
So no concerns in that mode.
Now these results are based on my experience
in my environment.
Your results may be different.
Sony rates their heat dissipation at 30 minutes
of 8K recording.
I assume those are on the safe side,
but that's what they're advertising.
Now when it comes to actually recording these files,
it uses the same dual-double slots of the last few cameras
with two CFexpress Type A and two SD card slots.
And all the same codec options are available
including H.265 and All-Intra.
I also tested the dynamic range in each of those modes.
Now, considering we're using a similar sensor
to the older a7R IV,
I was expecting to see worse dynamic range
than cameras like the a7S III, a1, and a7 IV,
and my expectations were correct,
but improvements elsewhere in the camera
allowed us to regain some of that loss.
For example, now that we have 10-bit
we can confidently record in S-Log3,
which will provide some improvement over the gammas
that were better suited to 8-bit cameras,
and the 8K recording allows us to capture a finer noise,
which is easier to hide and less noticeable
when left in your shots.
So starting with that 8K image,
we captured 14.9 total stops on the Xyla 21,
which is reflected here in Imatest
beside the words Slope-based DR.
This is the total amount of patches
that the sensor could see,
but not necessarily good clean stops.
So instead let's look at the 0.5 Medium score,
which tells us how many stops have a usable,
signal to noise ratio of two.
And for the 8K recording we get 11.7 stops
when viewed on an 8K timeline,
which isn't too bad at all honestly, for a sensor like this.
But if we take that 8K image and drop it into a 4K timeline,
giving us an improved, downsampled 4K image,
we get a bump up to 12.4 stops,
which is a solid result and a worthwhile improvement
if you have the cards and hardware to work with 8K footage.
If instead you opt for the binned 4K in-camera,
you can expect about 11.8 clean stops,
and slightly worse if you shoot in 4K60 at 11.5.
And then lastly, if you shoot the oversampled APS-C 4K,
you can get 12.2 stops right out of camera.
Again, no big losers anywhere regarding the modes
on this camera.
Everything makes sense and is reflective of earlier tests.
There are avenues and combinations within this camera
to produce an optimal result,
but the binned 4K is a reliable option with no crop,
better rolling shutter and decent dynamic range.
It has a lower potential quality ceiling,
but it's a great option for a no-fuss shooting experience.
But let's take a closer look at that noise.
When shooting in S-Log3, the camera has a base ISO of 800,
but it appears to clean up at ISO 2500,
which is where I would place it's unofficial
second native ISO.
It has a maximum standard ISO of 32,000,
and I found it usable even at ISO 12,800,
but I would avoid pushing it to 25,600 when possible.
This isn't what I would call a low light specialist,
but you can count on it
in most reasonable situations when needed.
And thankfully there are no noticeable hue shifts
or color issues even when shooting as high as 25,600.
Color accuracy is superb and you can easily mix shots
with an alpha 1 or a7 IV.
I did, however, find this a7R V
to be slightly more saturated than the a1 when matching,
but bumping the saturation a few points on the a1
made the shots look almost identical.
It was also during this test
that I was able to see a practical difference
in the dynamic range between these cameras
when I purposely clipped the highlights
in the skintones equally on each.
After recovery you can see the alpha 1
retained slightly more of the face than the a7R V did.
The differences are small, but the a1 is slightly superior
in this regard, and you'd see a similar result
if you compared this new camera to the a7 IV,
which also outperforms the R V in this aspect.
But I'd be lying if I said I didn't like the bold,
saturated colors of this sensor.
I took it on a bit of an autumn photo walk
and was quite happy with how rich the images were
after using only a basic S-Log3 transform.
And while on that walk,
I also got a chance to test out the new IBIS system
on this camera.
Sony claims up to 8-stops of image stabilization
with the body alone,
which is quite high considering you usually need
to combine it with the lens IS to hit those numbers.
But I can say when it comes to video
that I think I did notice an improvement
in telephoto handheld shots.
I was able to easily hold a shot at 200 millimeters
by putting the camera in active mode
and it was rock solid like a tripod.
However, when it comes to walking around with the camera,
I didn't see a big difference over previous models.
Heavy footsteps are still quite noticeable in the frame
and it doesn't float as nicely as Panasonic for example.
It's workable, but not class leading
for those kinds of shots.
So my advice would be to use a gimbal
if you want smooth walking, but you can rely on the IBIS
for long, stable, handheld shots.
But keep in mind, the active stabilization mode
is not available when shooting 8K,
in that mode you only have the standard stabilization,
which does make a difference,
but doesn't give you that on-a-tripod feeling quite so much.
But let's go do a vlog test
so you can see the stabilization, rolling shutter,
autofocus, and possibly the dynamic range
all in action at once.
Okay, so here we go.
We've got 4K24. We're using the binned version
so it's completely full-frame.
But I've active stabilization on,
so it's gonna crop in a little bit.
Using a 20 millimeter lens, so if there's any kind of weird,
warpy stabilization stuff going on, we should see that.
And also rolling shutter-wise
that's what the binned 4K rolling shutter looks like.
It's not too bad at all I think.
Here, you're hearing the audio
that's recorded right into the camera
from a Rode VideoMic NTG on top.
This what the sky looks like, dynamic range-wise
is able to keep most of the sky in the shot,
just a couple of the clouds are out.
Eye tracking has been locked on to my eye the entire time
Now this camera has more to the autofocus
than just the eye tracking.
In fact, a big portion of my product brief
was spent talking about the autofocus improvements
on this camera so I think it's a big deal for Sony.
They've added this new AI Processing Unit
to the camera that uses deep learning to, as Sony puts it,
dramatically improve subject recognition.
In the briefing they were showing
how it can understand human poses and recognize eyes, ears,
noses, necks, shoulders, elbows, wrists, hips, knees,
and ankles, to help with pose estimation
and predict human movement.
What I noticed when using the camera
is that it had a lot more tracking box options
when aimed at people and it could rapidly move
between those different methods.
Instead of just face, when my subject turned away
from the camera it would put a box on their back,
or their head, or even predict where their eye would be
through the back of the head, which was pretty cool.
And apparently it works with masks and helmets
and other things that obscure the face.
And they added a lot more subjects that it can detect,
so now you've got human, animal, bird, and animal/bird
which lets you do both at the same time
and you can set a priority preference between those two,
and also insects now.
And animals isn't just for pets anymore,
but basically any animal.
And it can tell the difference between an animal's head
and body and eye.
Now I haven't been able to test this thoroughly
as there aren't that many different types of animals
around me, but it worked for the things I did point it at,
and it worked well on Google images of animals too.
The insect detection was quite competent as well,
even when I obscured it a bit in the frame with a plant.
It managed to track the head and thorax region
of the insect, which was pretty impressive.
The new system is supposed to be a lot more tenacious
with knowing your specific subject and not confusing it
with other similar subjects, whether that's people, animals,
or even cars and airplanes.
They added those new subject tracking modes too
and apparently it can tell one car from another
and track the front of your car as if it had a face.
But if I had to be critical of one aspect of the new system,
I would say that it's a bit busy, sometimes frantic,
and occasionally paranoia inducing.
When I was doing that follow shot to test the IBIS,
there were a lot of boxes moving about.
It would put a big box on the back, then the hood,
then the hat, then a predictive eye box,
then back to the hood.
Then one time it found a face in the tree off
in the distance, then back to the hat.
It made me worried that the shot was gonna be ruined
by the focus constantly changing depths,
especially when it went to the tree.
Thankfully when I reviewed the footage
it wasn't actually racking focus
to all those different boxes or distant trees.
So it seemed like I was merely seeing the calculations
and not the actual focusing, which is good,
but like I said, paranoia inducing,
because I was worried it kept botching my shot.
Maybe this is something that I just need to get used to
and practice with a bit more or perhaps Sony will tweak this
in firmware as they refine the system.
But there is a lot of potential here that's for sure.
Oh, and one time it thought this little guy was an airplane,
but what do I know, maybe he is.
Actually, that wasn't the only
autofocus blooper I encountered.
One time it thought this tree was an animal,
another it thought Lindsey was a car,
and best of all that this dog had an eyeball
worth tracking on his bananus.
But the best part of all this new autofocus stuff
is that all of the capabilities and detection methods
and subject types are available in both photo
and video with no limitations between modes.
And I was able to maintain that subject detection
all the way down to nearly five stops underexposed,
and keep it
all the way up to a good six or seven stops overexposed.
So no concerns there.
Now I've focused primarily on the video capabilities
of this camera, this is also a photography monster,
and I'm sure there's gonna be some great reviews
from a photo perspective coming out,
but if I can summarize my photography experience
with this camera in a sentence or two.
I would say that so far it's probably shaping up
to be my favorite photo camera of all time.
Maybe that title still belongs to the a1,
but if I consider the price difference,
this one wins by a mile when value is factored in.
It's truly been a pleasure to use
and I love this viewfinder,
it's the 9.4 million dot 120fps EVF.
Like I said, this isn't a review of the photo capabilities,
but I've just personally enjoyed my time with it.
So this is normally where I would make my value conclusions
and wrap up the video, but I find this one a bit tricky.
This is easily one of Sony's best cameras they've ever made,
but it's not the best value camera
in their lineup altogether, because you still have cheaper,
but very capable options in the a7 IV and FX30.
And if you want to go full speed with your budget,
you've still got the a1, which outpaces this camera
in most areas, and you'd hope it would
when you consider the price delta.
This new camera is a worthy upgrade over its predecessor,
the a7R IV, with much better video functionality,
better ports, better menu and interface,
better autofocus, and so on.
I guess it's just tough for me to put a label on something
that isn't the absolute best performer
and isn't the absolute best value either.
This sits somewhere in between.
But that in between is a camera that I personally love,
that is technically excellent,
and that's being offered at a fair price
when you consider the cost to performance
of the models above and below it.
And I suppose that's all we can really ask for...
Well that and for Sony to put focus breathing compensation
and animal eye AF for video via firmware
in their other cameras!
Yes, I'm not letting that go.
It's the flagship, Sony. The a1 is the flagship!
Why doesn't it have all the features
the other cameras have?
(gentle music)
Alright... I'm done.
(groovy music)