It seems to me that the most interesting upgrade on the new A7C duo is actually the focus bracketing, which is sad given that it’s a basic feature for the other brands. Other than that none of the new upgrades really interests me that much.
The saddest thing is the price of A7CR. After the release of A7RIII in 2017, all the sensors in the A7 line basically have similar output speed = resolution * readout speed. So you have 24MP * 20FPS, 33MP * 15FPS, 42MP * 12FPS, and then the IMX455, 60MP * 9.42FPS (listed in the datasheet). It’s so slow that you can’t even shoot 10FPS without sacrificing a little bit of the image quality (well on the A7CR you can’t even get 10FPS, finally revealing the sensor’s true color). So Sony’s mainstream sensors haven’t really improved in 6 years. Some people may argue that it’s actually 8 years because A7RII also has a 42MP sensor. It looks to me that the A7RII sensor is crippled somehow. 6 or 8, doesn’t really matter. The point is that the cost of these sensors should be very similar based on my experience in the semiconductor industry. So the 60MP sensor is not much more expensive than the 24MP one in the A7III.
But of course the price is not dictated by the BOM. Sony charges more money for the higher resolution bodies for sure. In the case of A7RV I’d say at least it’s really well equipped compared to the A7IV. You have a monstrous 0.9X 9MP EVF which is the best in the industry. A super fancy screen twisting mechanism. Two CFA compatible card slots instead of just one on the A7IV. USB 3.2. 2*2 MIMO. You get the point. So at least it’s a real deal premium camera. For A7CR there is absolutely nothing. It’s just A7CII with a different sensor and some AI framing shit. And suddenly Sony is charging $800 more. This is very unsettling.
Also you can understand why Sony’s A7 lines are all capped at turtle speed while Canon is already in the 20FPS era. If you push the sensor to the limit then A7IV can easily achieve 20FPS with slightly reduced image quality. Then people will start to think hmm maybe Sony’s super expensive 60MP turtle speed camera is actually not worth it?
So I was always saying that the 42MP sensor would be a better fit for the next A7C. Not only is it faster than 10FPS but also Sony wouldn’t dare to charge you $3000 for an old sensor.
The whole thing is just sad. And it gets even worse: the buffer size of A7RV is 583 compressed RAWs. On A7CR it’s reduced to 36. This is even worse than A7C (115 frames) even taking the resolution difference into consideration. And you don’t get the CFA slot to compensate for the limited buffer size (BTW CFA cards are super cheap in China now).
What can I say? At least 16-35GMII is really yummy.
Photo Engineering 