Sony isn’t any stranger to producing impressively small full-frame cameras. The authentic A7C took the innards of the bigger A7 collection and stuffed them in a extra compact physique. The ZV-E1 went additional, with a tiny physique that appears positively comical hooked up to lengthy lenses.
These smaller our bodies at all times contain characteristic compromises. No one needs a heavy digicam, however some options imply bodily limitations. While the sensors could be the similar, the viewfinders are smaller, and different options had been typically absent.
Enter the brand new Sony A7C R. In my expertise testing it for a number of weeks in North Carolina’s Outer Banks, it comes closest to offering every part you want in a digicam and nothing you do not. The impressively small physique is however comfy to carry and carry round all day, and has many of the options even a professional would need.
All Things Great and Small
Two years in the past, I examined the unique Sony A7C and located that whereas the compact, rangefinder-style physique was excellent for touring, the viewfinder was too small and the 24.2-MP sensor was a step again from the 40-MP sensor in my Sony A7RII. It was tantalizingly near every part I needed, however not fairly there.
The A7C R solves no less than the sensor downside, and will get a lot nearer to the best journey digicam. It’s nonetheless lots small at 4.9 inches extensive, 2.8 inches tall, and a couple of.5 inches deep. It weighs just below a pound at 15.2 ounces (430 grams) for the physique. With the FE 28-60mm F4-5.6 lens Sony despatched alongside for testing, the full weight got here to 21.1 ounces.
Photograph: Sony
The 61-MP CMOS sensor within the new A7C R is identical sensor you will discover in Sony’s A7R V, launched just a few months earlier than the A7C R. It’s top-of-the-line sensors I’ve examined, able to glorious element, with nice dynamic vary. The low-light efficiency is spectacular as effectively, with little or no noise even effectively up into the five-digit ISO choices (the A7C R can shoot all the way in which as much as ISO 102,400, however as you’d anticipate, these photos are very noisy).
There’s nothing about this sensor that I can suppose to complain about. It’s incredible. The ensuing RAW recordsdata are giant—round 65 MB per picture in my testing, with low gentle photos being the most important. You can get this right down to round 45 MB per picture in the event you go for compressed RAW, however on the time I used to be testing, no software program might open these recordsdata (Lightroom and others have since added help).