AGENDA NEWS New Year’s resolution from Sony
The Alpha 7R V includes Sony’s highest- resolution sensor and offers several more advanced features than the flagship A1 – which costs around 50% more. The new £3999/$3898 A7R V offers 61-megapixel stills, 8K movie output, Sony’s most effective eight-step image stabilisation and a new four-axis multi-angle monitor. It features next-generation AF with advanced subject recognition thanks to an AI processor. The AI uses deep learning about human poses to improve AF accuracy, and subject recognition includes vehicles and insects. All this helps the A7R V’s real- time focus tracking, with a faster and more precise wide-area AF system. The flagship £6499/$6498 A1 doesn’t have the new AI processor – so can’t get these upgrades through firmware. When recording video, the A7R V has real-time eye AF for subject detection and tracking of human, animal and birds’ eyes. The new focus map function is a unique way of visualising depth-of-field in a similar way to peaking. This uses a multicoloured overlay of the scene that indicates which parts are in front of and behind the focus point depending on the aperture. Carried over from the FX6 cine camera is the AF Assist feature, which lets you switch over to manual focus to adjust focus position. This is a quick way to shift selective focus while recording. There’s also a new feature to improve how certain lenses perform when racking focus, as focus breathing compensation maintains a consistent field of view during a shot. This mode crops into the image slightly, but is now compatible with selected E-mount lenses. The new camera includes full-time direct manual focus and focus bracketing to allow for focus-stacked images. It’s the
The A7R V has upgraded Pixel Shift Multi Shooting for stills, which uses the in-body image stabilisation system to capture multiple pixel-shifted images that can then be composited to achieve massive- resolution captures. Using Imaging Edge Desktop, 16-image composite stills have roughly the equivalent of a 241-megapixel image. The A7R V also offers lossless Raw stills and selectable Raw image sizes. A new four-axis multi-angle LCD is based on a conventional tilting monitor, but with side-opening vari-angle flexibility – and there’s an electronic viewfinder with 9.44 million dots. The A7R V also includes two CFexpress Type A slots compatible with SDXC cards. There is also a menu system with touch control. Updated connectivity means files can be transferred at high speed over Wi-Fi, or a wired SuperSpeed USB 10Gbps connection via the USB-C port. And there’s USB streaming support at up to 4K. The camera has improved heat dissipation for extended recordings and an upgraded dust- and moisture-resistant design – so it’s great for outdoor shoots.
first in the R series to use the Bionz XR image-processing engine, which provides sensitivity settings from ISO 100-32,000 for both stills and movies and a wide dynamic range – with 15 stops for stills. For video, the A7R V records in 8K/24p and 4K oversampled from 6.2K with no pixel binning, with MPEG-H HEVC/H.265 codecs, All-Intra and 10-bit 4:2:2. At 8K/24p and 4K/60p there’s a crop of 1.2x in 10-bit 4:2:2. With no crop, it can do 4K at 30/25/24fps and 1080/120p. It can also output 16-bit Raw and offers S-Cinetone profile. That’s impressive, but the A1 still aces it with 8K/30p 10-bit 4:2:2 XAVC HS video, oversampled from 8.6K. The flagship also records in 4K/120p 10-bit 4:2:2, plus 240fps in 1080 HD resolution, and exports 16-bit Raw video over HDMI.
“The focus map function visualises depth-of-field in a similar way to peaking, using a multicoloured overlay to indicate what’s in and out of focus”
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