Sony A7 IV Camera

Sony’s latest generation full–frame mirrorless camera

Sony remains a respected force in photography and videography, with its latest full–frame mirrorless in the Alpha A7 IV building on its Mark III predecessor from three years ago and reaffirming the seriousness of its maker’s intent. At the heart of this latest offering is a generous 33– megapixel full–frame sensor, pitched at both stills photographers and those recording video.

The look and design of Sony’s A7 series has barely altered since its inception, even if there have been incremental shifts. We once again get a robust build and a design that resembles a downsized DSLR. This comes complete with a shooting mode dial, command wheel, and various buttons that will enable anyone trading in an old DSLR and swapping to this mirrorless system to feel on fairly familiar ground.

The Sony features an electronic viewfinder (EVF) above the touch screen LCD. With the camera at eye level, it’s easy to forget we’re composing our framing without an optical viewfinder, so detailed and lag–free is the EVF.

As well as a newly developed 33MP chip, the Sony A7 IV features the latest–generation Bionz XR processor to cope with extra data processing. Autofocus speed and accuracy has been an area that developers have keenly focused on (forgive the pun) of late. We’re pleased to report back that the Sony’s autofocus was frequently spot–on, while there’s the ability to tap the screen and move the focus point around manually.

Though the Sony A7 IV itself offers as solid a lineup of features as any semi–professional Alpha camera to date, a boast this time around is the ability to record 4K quality 60P video continuously for more than one hour. That’s useful perhaps if we’re attempting a single shot project similar to Sam Mendes’ supposedly “one take” 1917, doubling the recording duration we’d typically have got in the past from this ilk of camera.

A camera body costing $2,500, or $2,700 with lens, is not inexpensive, and for that price, with the new 33MP sensor factored in, we were expecting to be knocked out by Sony A7 IV’s results. Though on occasion we did notice some fall–off of focus towards the extreme edges of the frame, images were as detail–packed and color rich as we were expecting. Most of us won’t require all 33MP for everyday shooting, but wedding, portrait, and fashion photographers will find it useful.

The Sony A7 IV sees the manufacturer stick to a winning formula — a robustly built camera that delivers swift responses and accurate, detailed imagery. It also excels thanks to your ability to expand the system beyond the camera body and lens you bought to begin with, thanks to the manufacturer and third parties’ very extensive accessory offerings.

Sony A7 IV Camera Features

Aspect Ratio: 3:2
Number of Pixels (Effective): Approx. 33.0 megapixels
Number of Pixels (total): Approx. 34.1 megapixels
Sensor Type: 35 mm full frame (35.9 x 23.9 mm), Exmor R CMOS sensor
Anti-Dust System: Yes (Charge protection coating on optical filter and image sensor shift mechanism)
Recording Format: JPEG (DCF Ver. 2.0, Exif Ver. 2.32, MPF Baseline compliant), HEIF (MPEG-A MIAF compliant), RAW (Sony ARW 4.0 format compliant)
Image Size (pixels) [3:2]: 35 mm full frame L : 7008 x 4672 (33 M), M : 4608 x 3072 (15 M), S : 3504 x 2336 (8.2 M), APS-C M : 4608 x 3072 (15 M), S : 3504 x 2336 (8.2 M)
Image Size (pixels) [16:9]: 35 mm full frame L : 7008 x 3944 (28 M), M : 4608 x 2592 (12 M), S : 3504 x 1968 (6.9 M), APS-C M : 4608 x 2592 (12 M), S : 3504 x 1968 (6.9 M)
Picture Profile: Yes (Off / PP1-PP11) Parameters: Black level, Gamma (Movie, Still, S-Cinetone, Cine1-4, ITU709, ITU709 [800%], S-Log2, S-Log3, HLG, HLG1-3), Black Gamma, Knee, Color Mode, Saturation, Color Phase, Color Depth, Detail, Copy, Reset
Dynamic Range Functions: Off, Dynamic Range Optimizer
COLOUR SPACE: sRGB standard (with sYCC gamut), Adobe RGB standard and Rec. ITU-R BT.2100 standard (BT.2020 gamut)
14bit RAW: Yes
Creative Look: ST, PT, NT, VV, VV2, FL, IN, SH, BW, SE, Custom Look (1-6)
Image size (pixels) [4:3]: 35 mm full frame L : 6224 x 4672 (29 M), M : 4096 x 3072 (13 M), S : 3120 x 2336 (7.3 M), APS-C M : 4096 x 3072 (13 M), S : 3120 x 2336 (7.3 M)
Image size (pixels) [1:1]: 35 mm full frame L : 4672 x 4672 (22 M), M : 3072 x 3072 (9.4 M), S : 2336 x 2336 (5.5 M), APS-C M : 3072 x 3072 (9.4 M), S : 2336 x 2336 (5.5 M)
SOFT SKIN EFFECT: Yes
Recording Format: XAVC S, XAVC HS
Video Compression: XAVC S: MPEG-4 AVC/H.264, XAVC HS: MPEG-H HEVC/H.265
Audio Recording Format: LPCM 2 ch (48 kHz 16 bit), LPCM 2 ch (48 kHz 24 bit)2, LPCM 4 ch (48 kHz 24 bit), MPEG-4 AAC-LC 2 ch
Picture Profile: Yes (Off / PP1-PP11) Parameters: Black level, Gamma (Movie, Still, S-Cinetone, Cine1-4, ITU709, ITU709 [800%], S-Log2, S-Log3, HLG, HLG1-3), Black Gamma, Knee, Color Mode, Saturation, Color Phase, Color Depth, Detail, Copy, Reset
Movie Functions: Audio Level Display, Audio Rec Level, PAL/NTSC Selector, Proxy Recording (1280 x 720 (Approx. 6 Mbps), 1920 x 1080 (Approx. 9 Mbps), 1920 x 1080 (Approx. 16 Mbps)), TC/UB, Auto Slow Shutter, Gamma Disp. Assist
Creative Look: ST, PT, NT, VV, VV2, FL, IN, SH, BW, SE, Custom Look (1-6)