The Best Value Hybrid Camera? A Review of the Sony a7 IV

Sony has just unveiled its brand new a7 IV. Here’s a deep dive into all of the upgrades over its predecessor.

Gerald Undone gives an in-depth guide to Sony’s latest and greatest camera, exploring all of the tweaks that the Japanese manufacturer has introduced. Most of the major changes concern video performance, offering some major upgrades over the a7 III. Photographically, the major changes involve real-time object tracking and animal eye autofocus, as well as the improved dynamic range and increased resolution.

Stabilization is clearly improved and for me, Gerald’s vlogging test shows that the a7 IV is far more viable as a walk-and-talk camera compared to the a7 III.

The decision to keep the burst speed for stills at 10 frames per second is interesting. Sony is making a fair bit of noise about the processor in the a7 IV and the vast size of its buffer, so it seems fair to assume that the camera is capable of much faster speeds. I’m not sure that Sony would feel the need to protect the a9 II or a1 by capping the burst speed of the a7 IV given the disparity in price, but why else would Sony do this?

What do you make of Sony’s new camera? Let us know in the comments below.

Andy Day's picture

Andy Day is a British photographer and writer living in France. He began photographing parkour in 2003 and has been doing weird things in the city and elsewhere ever since. He's addicted to climbing and owns a fairly useless dog. He has an MA in Sociology & Photography which often makes him ponder what all of this really means.

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1 Comment

I like Hugh Brownstone of Three Blind Men and an Elephant. At least in his reviews he looks at specs from a real world view as in are they more than enough for a photographers actual needs and not just someone, like lots of other photographers complaining the specs don’t offer more.

https://youtu.be/-T0GZck7-Ng