Sony A7R V: Initial Impressions
Related: Adobe, Adobe Camera Raw, digital sensor, pixel shift, Sony, Sony A7R, Sony A7R II, Sony A7R III, Sony A7R IV, Sony A7R V, Sony mirrorless, true-color sensor or image
EVF is lovely. AF is amazing. Brightness of rear LCD sucks (dim) but maybe it can be adjusted. Video button replaces C2, which confuses.
Sony A7R V feels very familiar, but different enough to confuse.
Sony A7R V vs Sony A1: dials and buttons are different enough to clash with critical oft-used habits, including the loss of C2 at camera top as on the A1.
Menus are changed, and will require relearning, and short of a firmware update for the Sony A1 which brings things into conformity with the A7R V (is this even planned and/or did I miss something?), it’s a mistake-provoking time-wasting situation switching between the two cameras.
Lousy continuity of design, ease of use switching between the two is not good, very badly planned. In former days, Nikon and Canon would never screw up professionals with habit-breaking changes. If Sony wants to massively overhaul the menu system, a firmware update ought to be there for prior models, at least the Sony A7R IV and the Sony A1. No pro wants to deal with multiple cameras having quite different user interfaces; it’s an abomination of design.
Will focus bracketing as on the A7R V come to the A1? If so, why not already?
These jarring changes mess with longstanding habits enough to really frustrate. But if you shoot just one camera body, no big deal I suppose.
Focus bracketing and pixel shift
Focus bracketing seems to work, but since I cannot open the raw files (see below), I can only evaluate with JPEGs, far from optimal.
PixelShift2DNG does not yet understand pixel shift sequences from the A7R V. I’ve sent sequences to the LibRaw folks, so support should come quickly.
I’m hugely disappointed that I’m stuck with huge 139MB uncompressed raw files for pixel shift; (see below) this has no technical justification. I can’t even conceive how anyone considers this a good idea. Indeed, pixel shift shooting is the mode most in need of saving space.
Bad design things remain. For example, switch to pixel shift mode and you have to manually change to self timer delay (2 seconds at least), or you will get ruined pixel shift shots by pressing the shutter release. Or did I miss something—the menu system is huge. If so, this is brain dead design. Strangely, focus bracketing has a "” setting—perfect. So why not so with pixel shift?
