Sony A7R IV Low light situations.

[Mannheim62]

Hello, I just posted a question on the "Full-frame Open Talk" forum concerning the A7RIV. Can anyone tell me how this camera handles low-light with low ISO situations? I'm hearing pros and cons. Also, is there a "preferred" macro lens for the A7RIV. I've just sold my Nikon D850, D810 and all lenses, flashes, etc., so I'm starting fresh. I'm still on the fence as to which camera I'm going to purchase, the A7RIII or the A7RIV. Any help or suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance,
Mike

 

[jhousteniii]

Here are the best lenses to maximise the potential of the Sony A7RIV | sonyalpharumors

Marc Alhadeff made this graph showing the best lenses to achieve maximum sharpness for your Sony A7rIV. Marc is known for making a ton of FE lens reviews and is one of the few that can therefore give you this complete overview! The very best you can get are: Sony FE 135mm f/1.8 GM at

www.sonyalpharumors.com

This article rates the lenses against the 60mp of resolution of the RIV.

 

[Mannheim62]

Outstanding James, thank you so much. That's exactly what I was looking for; simple and to the point.

Much appreciated,
Mike

 

[jhousteniii]

Outstanding James, thank you so much. That's exactly what I was looking for; simple and to the point.

Much appreciated,
Mike

You are welcome Mike. I rented the RIV for a few weeks and the resolution was insane and I have the RIII. It was a bit more difficult to deal with the added noise, but if you are doing macro on a tripod, you probably don't have to worry about it. Good luck.

 

[Mannheim62]

Thanks James. I do macro amongst other things, but that's my biggest concern about the RIV is the noise. If you don't mind, I have a couple of other questions.
1. Since you've used both cameras, which do you prefer and why?
2. Are the features and functions of both cameras the same? Megapixels aside that is.
3. Is the build quality much better in the RIV than the RIII?
4. With all the firmware updates to the RIII, does it still have a gray focus indicator (for lack of a better term)?

 

[jhousteniii]

I honestly think the A7RIII is he best all around camera Sony makes. With enough light, however, the RIV is better, the resolution is insane and the AF is better too. Also PDAF works on the RIV up to and including F11 while the RIII only works up to F8. This is only an issue if you want to use the 200-600 G lens with the 1.4xTC which forces a max aperture of F9.
That said, I didn’t buy the RIV because I shoot in less than optimal lighting most of the time and shooting BIF requires very high shutter speeds which as you know just drives up the ISO. Additionally, because of all that resolution you are forced to shoot at even higher shutter speeds to avoid seeing the slightest bit of shake which makes the noise situation worse. One last item that convinced me to stick with the RIII is that, in order to shoot at 10 FPS with the RIV, you have to shoot in “compressed” RAW which takes away a small amount of dynamic range and leaves you with that much less “rescue ability” when editing photos.
Do I wish I had more resolution? Sure. Do I wish I had better AF? Yes. Do I miss dealing with more noise than I do with the RIII? No. Could I deal with it if I had to? Yes.
Lastly, I am one of the few people that like the small form factor of the RIII vs the RIV so the larger body wasn’t a need for me. I did however like the larger and easier to use buttons, the (2) UHS II slots, the different color focus squares on the screen and EVF and a few other improvements that were made over the RIII, but in the end I decided what I needed more than resolution was top of the class AF and even better low light capabilities than the RIII which has me holding out for something more along the lines of the A9. I’ll keep the RIII until it stops working and add the A9 at a later date. Oh and the RIII still has the Grey focus indicator. Good luck with your decision.

 

[Mannheim62]

Thanks again James for taking the time to provide such detailed answers to my questions. I very much appreciate it; you've given me a lot to think about.

Mike

 

[earchphoto]

Hi Mike, I've gone up to 25600 with the a7rIV and the 70-200/2.8 to photograph owls at night. It is noisy of course, but the camera did focus okay. Not as fast as the a9 for sure, but it did get the job done. I had to use noise reduction in post to make the photo usable, definitely a lot of noise above 10000 iso.

 

[Mannheim62]

Hi Mike, I've gone up to 25600 with the a7rIV and the 70-200/2.8 to photograph owls at night. It is noisy of course, but the camera did focus okay. Not as fast as the a9 for sure, but it did get the job done. I had to use noise reduction in post to make the photo usable, definitely a lot of noise above 10000 iso.

Hi and thank you for replying. Reading your post got me thinking ... I looked at the photos I've taken over the last year and my ISO's are nowhere near even 10,000. So I think I'll be ok.

Thanks again,
Mike