EDITOR’S PICKS
CAMERAS
CAMERA OF THE YEAR: SONY A7R IV
With its 61-megapixel back-illuminated sensor, the Sony a7R IV is not only the highest-resolution Alpha camera yet but it’s also currently the resolution leader in full-frame cameras. Considering the size and processing requirements of those files, it’s also incredibly fast, capable of capturing images at up to 10 fps while maintaining continuous autofocus and autoexposure tracking and sustaining that speed for seven-second bursts. The sensor’s big resolution also makes the camera’s APS-C crop mode more useful, recording 26.2-megapixel files with the advantage of the telephoto magnification effect that comes with crop-mode shooting.
The high-resolution theme continues with the camera’s 5.76 million-dot UXGA OLED Tru-finder EVF. Sony has put a lot of thought and development into its EVFs, and it shows. Shooting with the a7R IV, you’re likely to forget you’re looking through an electronic viewfinder at all—it’s that close to an optical viewfinder experience—yet you still enjoy all the benefits (like focus peaking display) that an EVF offers.
Dynamic range is also improved in the a7R IV compared to its predecessor, with up to 15 stops of range when shooting at “lower sensitivities.” (Sony doesn’t officially state the upper ISO limits of this capability.) The focusing system is a hybrid system with 567 focal-plane phase-detection AF points and 425 contrast-detection AF points. The intelligence behind the AF system is also upgraded in the a7R IV, with advanced Real-time Tracking plus Real-time Eye AF for still image recording and—for the first time in a Sony camera—Real-time Eye AF for movie recording.
The a7R IV’s combination of massive Sony, .
