The Sony A7RV is a full frame, 61 megapixel camera for stills and video. The A7RV weighs 723g, almost as heavy as the flagship Sony A1 which weighs 736g. The Sony A7RV received a huge overhaul to Sony's well known eye AF. The A7RV now uses an AI processing unit to improve the camera's subject recognition capabilities. The new AI processing unit allows the A7RV to have better accuracy with autofocus and more variety in autofocus subjects. These autofocus subjects include humans, animals, birds, insects, trains, planes and cars. Watch my Sony A7RV real world review video below. I share real time human, animal and insect subject recognition examples in stills and video.
model pearl
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video dan @ i make films
All photos edited with my Earthy Lightroom Preset Pack!
SONY A7RV IMAGE QUALITY
For my portrait photoshoot on the Sony A7RV I am using the GM 50mm f1.2 and GM 35mm f1.4. I left the A7RV on a wide focus area to allow Subject Recognition to do all the work in catching focus on our subject, Pearl. In my review video, I have included similar comparison photos with different camera bodies. I have A7RV comparisons with the Sony A7IV, A1, A7RIV, Canon EOS R5 and Fujifilm GFX 100S.
The Sony A7RV has a 61 megapixel, back illuminated Exmor R CMOS sensor and the same BIONZ XR image processing engine as you'll find in the A7IV and A1. The main brand new feature we are seeing in the A7RV system is the AI Processing Unit.
The Sony A7RV has 693 phase-detection autofocus points and can shoot up to 10 frames per second. During my photoshoot, I am being liberal with how many photos I'm taking to see how the buffer handles processing many files and if the autofocus can keep up. I am using both V90s and CF Express type A cards during the photoshoot and I am shooting in raw + jpg. Like the Sony A7III, A7IV and A7RIV, the Sony A7RV has 15 stops of dynamic range. Please watch my review video embedded above to see 100% crops of the straight out of camera images I'm taking.
SONY A7RV VIDEO EXAMPLES
For these video tests on the Sony A7RV, Dan is using the GM 50mm f1.2 and GM 24mm f1.4. All the video shots are all hand held and are all recorded only relying on human Subject Recognition for autofocus. The Sony A7RV can film in 4K 24, 25, 30, 50 and 60P and uses 10 bit 4:2:2 colour sampling. 4K 24, 25 and 30p is full frame. When you switch to 4K 50 or 60p it induces roughly a 1.25 crop.
Additionally, the A7RV has the option to film video in 8K in 24 or 25p. 8K makes use of 10 bit 4:2:0 colour sampling and has the same 1.25 crop.
Of course I tried to see if we can overheat the camera. Using an external battery and the LCD screen flipped out during recording, I was able to record 2 hours and 46 minutes of 8K footage until my memory cards ran out of space. The heat warning symbol appeared on the screen about half way through the recording, but it only stopped because of the memory cards. I then formatted the cards and continued recording in 8K with the LCD closed for another hour until my external battery died. So I tried my best, but I wasn't able to get the camera to stop recording, shooting or turn off from overheating.
SONY A7RV LOW LIGHT PHOTOGRAPHY
Please watch my review video to see how the Sony A7RV performs with high ISO's in low light situations. I have included unedited, straight out of camera JPG comparisons between the Sony A7RIV and A7RV in low light.
SONY A7RV CAMERA BUILD
The Sony A7RV weighs 723 grams which is almost as heavy as the Sony A1 which weighs 736g. Most noticeably, the A7RV is the first Sony camera to feature a 4-axis multi angle LCD screen.
The A7RV includes the same dual layered mode dial as the Sony A7IV where you can switch between stills, video and S&Q mode. It also features the same endless scroll exposure compensation dial as the A7IV which can be used as a custom shortcut. These dials might be a new standard for Sony camera bodies since we are now seeing it in 2 consecutive bodies with the A7IV and now the A7RV.
The Sony A7RV includes dual UHS 2 or dual CF express type A card slots, it uses the FZ100 battery and has a full sized HDMI port. The camera shares the same 9.44 million dot EVF as the Sony A1. The EVF only refreshes up 120fps like the A7sIII, not 240fps like the A1.
SONY A7RV ANIMAL + INSECT AUTOFOCUS
With the Sony A7RV's new subject recognition AF, there are also sub menus in stills mode to further tweak your autofocus settings. I have included screenshots of the A7RV menu where you can find these settings. One of the most prominent options available in both animal and bird AF is the option to choose wether it prioritises focusing on the Eye, Eye/Head or Eye/Head/Body.
Animal autofocus did a great job in personal experience while testing it out on my cats Olive and Evie. The eye focus point is very sticky on their eyes and it did a good job at recognising where the position of the eyes are even when you can't see them in the frame. I noticed this works better when it's obvious what kind of animal is in the shot. For example, when Evie was sitting up and you can see her ears, the focus will instantly jump to her head. When she was crouching down the A7RV had a harder time determining if she was an animal or not. You can see examples of this happening in real time in my review video above!
In video mode, you don't have the same sub options as stills mode. In video, the A7RV only features eye AF for animals and birds, but is fast and does a great job at keeping track.
Insect subject recognition is extremely interesting to test out! I found a hornet working on her nest and capture photo and video of her with the A7RV and G 90mm f2.8 Macro. While the autofocus is not perfect, it makes it very easy and quick to capture insect photos. I have included insect and animal photos in my sample gallery which you can find a download link for at the bottom of this blog post!
SONY A7RV SUBJECT RECOGNITION MENU SCREENSHOTS
All photos edited with my Earthy Lightroom Preset Pack!
Please find a sample gallery of high resolution JPG files straight out of camera from the Sony A7RV here. I have included a landscape photo as well as sample shots showing animal and insect subject recognition. To see my portraits in the highest quality, please watch my YouTube review video linked at the top of this blog post and make sure to switch the video quality to 4K! If you enjoyed this blog post and review, you might want to check out my real world review of the Sony A7IV.
