Digital Camera World - UK (2019-12)

http://www.digitalcameraworld.com DECEMBER 2019 DIGITAL CAMERA^115

Digital Camera verdict

Sony claims 15 stops of dynamic range for this

camera, but in our lab tests the A7R IV was

slightly disappointing compared to its rivals.

The Sony A7R Mark IV raises the resolution bar for

full-frame sensors, but it’s a subtle, incremental

improvement rather than a giant leap forward.

4.0 Excellent

Lab tests

The Sony A7R Mark IV’s resolution advantage

is due in part to our new test method, so its rivals

may be closer than they appear here. We show

this comparison chart for information purposes.

The Fujifilm GFX 50R wins in this test by virtue of

its larger sensor, and the Lumix S1R is close behind –

Panasonic cameras tend to be good at noise control.

your cameras to be logical and
obvious, it’s a different story.

Performance
On paper, the Sony A7R Mark IV looks
spectacular; in practice, the advantage
of its 61MP resolution over 40-50
megapixel rivals is more subtle.
You have to be particularly careful
with the shutter speeds and focusing
to get the full benefit of the 61MP
sensor, and although Sony claims
a 5.5-stop shutter speed advantage
from the five-axis in-body-stabilisation,
you’d be unwise to rely on it. We tried
some handheld shots with the new
Sony 35mm lens at slow shutter
speeds between 1/8 and 1/2 sec,
which should be in its safety zone,
and got a pretty poor success rate.
Despite disappointing lab results,
the real-world dynamic range is very
good. Our outdoor shots under a tricky
overcast sky came out really well, with
subtle sky detail, and no blow-out or

colour shifts. Sony says it’s tweaked

the processing to produce subtler

highlight gradations, so perhaps

that’s the explanation.

The colour rendition is especially

good, and the A7R IV produces very

natural-looking JPEGs. Most of our

sample shots were taken using Auto

white balance, and none looked as

if they needed colour correction.

The Eye AF works almost uncannily

well as long as your subject is not

moving about too quickly. It started to

lose contact with very rapid subject

movements in continuous shooting/

continuous AF mode, but only under

pretty extreme provocation.

The A7R IV’s 10fps continuous

shooting mode is amazing in a

camera with this kind of resolution,

but the size of its buffer shows it’s

not really a sports specialist. Once

the buffer is full, it takes some time

to clear while the data is written

to the memory card. Rod Lawton

Features Build &

handling

Performance Value

5.0 4.0

The A7R IV’s rich colours and

subtle highlight rendition

have done a great job

with this sunset scene.

The 61 million pixels in

the image sensor render

textures excellently

Sony Alpha 7R IV Mirrorless

3.0 4.0