Sony’s 4th Gen A7R Tops 60 Megapixels

Sony has just upped the ante in ultra-high resolution cameras by installing a 62.5-megapixel back-illuminated, full-35mm CMOS in the Alpha 7R Mark IV. What’s more, Sony claims its new ‘Exmor R’ sensor delivers a massive 15 stops of dynamic range. The effective pixel count is 61 million, giving a maximum image size of 9504x6336 pixels. The sensitivity range is equivalent to ISO 100 to 32,000, expandable to ISO 50 and 102,800.

And the big numbers don’t stop there. The A7R IV also boasts 10 fps continuous shooting with full AF/AE adjustment (and for up to 68 best-quality JPEGs), a hybrid AF system which uses 567 phase-difference detection points and 425 contrast-detection points, an OLED-type EVF with a resolution of 5.76 megadots (and a 120 fps refresh rate), and a new ‘Pixel Shift Multi Shooting’ mode which combines a total of 16 shots to give a 240.8 megapixels image (that’s 19,008x12,672 pixels in size). The in-body image stabilisation (IBIS) operates over five axes and gives up to 5.5 stops of correction for camera shake.

Even with an ‘APS-C’ crop applied, the A7R IV still delivers 26.2 megapixels resolution, and this comes with a tripling of the burst lengths for continuous shooting. The AF system has Sony’s ‘Real-Time Eye AF’ capability which works with both humans and animals and uses an AI-based subject recognition algorithm for more reliable subject tracking.

On the outside, the A7R IV has a magnesium alloy bodyshell with what Sony says is “upgraded” sealing against the intrusion of dust and moisture. This includes additional sealing at all body seams, battery compartment cover and media slots. The stainless steel lens mount has also been upgraded to six fixing screws, presumably to deal with the increasing number of big supertelephoto lenses in the Sony FE mount system. Additionally, there’s a new focal plane shutter assembly which is rated to 500,000 cycles.

There are two slots for SD memory cards, both with UHS-II speed support, and Sony is claiming an improvement in battery life with the NP-FZ100 lithium-ion pack, up to 530 images when using the EVF or 670 when using the camera’s monitor screen. For extended shooting there’s a new vertical grip – the VG-C4EM – which accepts two battery packs – or the optional NPA-MQZ1K Multi Battery Adaptor which accommodates four batteries. In-camera battery charging is possible via USB-C. The monitor screen is a 7.62 cm LCD panel with a resolution of 1.44 megadots, faster-responding touch controls and adjustable for up/down tilt.

On the video side, the A7R IV records 4K UHD (i.e. 3840x2160 pixels) at either 25 or 24 fps from across the full width of the image sensor, and using the full pixel readout without pixel binning in the ‘Super 35’ format. The S-Log 2 and S-Log 3 gamma profiles are also available to maximise the dynamic range for colour grading flexibility. Additionally, Hybrid Log-Gamma (HLG) is provided to support an HDR workflow. Full HD recording is possible at full range of speeds from 1.0x to 100 fps for both fast-action and slow-mo effects. The ‘Real-Time Eye AF’ is available for the first for video shooting, and ‘Touch Tracking’ functionality automatically initiates ‘Eye AF’ when a human subject is selected. The ‘Multi Interface Shoe’ has been upgraded to include a digital audio interface to enhance the audio quality when using the new ECM-B1M shotgun microphone or the XLR-K3M XLR adapter.

The WiFi receiver supports both the 2.4 and 5.0 GHz bands and is supplemented by Bluetooth 4.1.

The Sony A7R Mark IV is priced at $5699 for the body only and it’s available in Australia now.

For more information visit www.sony.com.au