[Music] Sony has bifurcated their compact Full-frame a7c lineup into two models in The second generation we have the A7 C2 Which I reviewed a few months ago with The 33 megapixel sensor coming from the A74 and then we have the A7 CR with the High resolution 61 megapixel sensor of The a7r mark 5 now the A7 CR cost about $800 more than the A7 C2 but $900 less Than the a7r mark 5 at about $3,000 so the question is is is it worth The money that's what we're here to Explore in today's review and we'll dive Deeply into it right after a word from Our sponsor today's episode is brought To you by Phantom wallet the minimalist Modern wallet that is now even better Better with the new Phantom X that is Crafted from aluminum right here in Canada it is 22% smaller and 35% lighter While still making it easy to access Your cards and money when you need them Thanks to their unique Fanning mechanism You could even customize your wallet due To its modular design with accessories Like a money clip cash holder ID display And even chipolo and air tag tracking Integration visit store. fanom Wallet.com to check out their unique Sizes Styles and finishes that span from Aluminum to Wood to carbon fiber and use Code Dustin 15 for 15% off when you're Ready to check
Out so this camera is the identical body To the a7c mark 2 like that camera it Comes in either the all black which I Reviewed the A7 C2 in or the silver Edition as seen here and I really kind Of like the silver edition just adds a Little bit of a touch of style one of The things that I really like about what Sony has done in this second generation Is that essentially almost all of my Ergonomic complaints of the original a7c I love the camera I didn't love the Handling but they have resolved almost All of that here in the a7c and after Just getting back from several weeks of Traveling using this as my soul camera I Can tell you that it's a camera that Really is quite a joy to use it is Compact that's what this whole series is About and I think that for a fair market Of people that's really what they Envisioned mirrorless being all about is The ability to get high performance in a Compact body and if that is your Definition of what a mirrorless camera Should be I don't know that there is any Better example than the A7 CR this is a Camera that is only 4.9 in wide by 2.8 In tall by 2.5 in deep or 124x 71 by 63.4 millimet and really the only change From the original a7c is a good one in My opinion and that is it's a little bit Deeper because they've got a little bit
Better grip on here the camera weighs in At 55 G that's with a with a memory card And the battery inserted making it only 1 G heavier than the a7c mark 2 and it Weighs that's 1.1 lbs now interestingly Here my kind of main complaint still With this is because it's not a very Tall camera my pinky finger ends up Getting kind of loosely orphaned under There there's no real place for it to go But unlike the a7c too they have Included a grip extender as a part of This kit and so you just use the wheel To mount that onto the bottom into the Uh the tripod mount at the bottom which By the way that is replicated that Quarter inch is replicated at the bottom Of this and now all of a sudden I've got A grip large enough for my full hand to Fit on now when I traveled I traveled Without this and so I could go as Compact as possible but around home as I've been using it shooting out in the Field I've been using it with this G Strip extender because it just frankly It gives me a better overall experience And it also means that if you put a Little bit more robust lens on there You've got a little bit more camera to Hang on to which is kind of nice now I Talked about there being some ergonomic Improvements and those are really Focused on the ability to have more Control points the first a7c did not
Have a front mounted wheel right near The shutter button the second generation Does and so that makes a significant Improvement there there's now a total of Four different control Wheels which Means that I can operate this basically The same as any of my other Sony cameras Once I get it set up and So that Obviously is is really great because you Get accustomed to a certain workflow I Can fully replicate this even on this Compact camera there also is an Additional custom button which is very Nice to have and as it also has a new uh Dial here underneath the main control Dial that allows you to switch modes and The great thing about that is that you Can have a full custom setup for either Stills or video that includes your Buttons your menu functions you can just Really go from a hybrid from one to the Other with just switching that mode dial Switch there which is a really nice Addition another thing that we have have On more recent Sony cameras is in Improved touch you can navigate all the Menus Now by touch and that just makes For a better ergonomic experience and it Does help to make up for the one thing That is still missing and that is any Kind of joystick and that's the one Thing I would still like to see them Improve is to add a bit of uh even if It's a small joystick like on some of
The Fuji cameras just gives you that Extra navigation option which is Certainly worth having we do have a Slight Improvement to the LCD resolution It is now 1.04 million dots compared to The 921,000 um dot display that was on The a7c it's still a 3-in very angle Screen and so you can operate it at you Know different modes I know that some People still prefer the tilting screen I Personally prefer this articulating Screen it just gives me more flexibility In my mind and you can go ahead and Debate that ad ndum in the comments down Below it has a slight reorganization of The ports compared to the a7c but all of The same bits are here and unfortunately That includes having only a single SD Card it is UHS 2 compatible but we are Missing the ability to have you know Type or CF Express type A which would Give us a faster flow rate for Information and we're going to see that That does cause a few issues that we'll Get to in just a moment unfortunately The other limitation here is there still Is just a micro HDMI port and so you Know for these cameras being so good at Doing video micro HDMI is far from Optimal it's just kind of a flimy Connection point and I do miss having a Larger HDMI port out of that now the Viewfinder is more range fire finder Style over to the left side of the
Camera I don't love that position Ergonomically I know there are a few of You out there that prefer it what is Kind of indisputable is that at a $3,000 Price point this is an unders spect Viewfinder here it has a resolution of Just 2.36 million dots you know the a7r Mark 5 which is kind of the kind of Competing camera in terms of the same Sensor it's got an over 9 million dot um You know viewfinder and so that's a Pretty radical difference it does have a Slightly faster refresh rate than what We saw on the a7c and a little bit Higher magnification but it's just it's One of my least favorite things about it The viewfinder just doesn't look all That great to look through and so you Know it's just it's unders spect again For this price point the battery comes Courtesy of the Npfz100 battery and I will note that one Of the clever things about the grip Extender is it's got a little bit of a Lock on the bottom and it'll spring out Of the way to give you easy access to The battery port there at the bottom and Then you can lock it back in place so You have a little bit more of a steady Place to put your finger once again now In this particular application it is Rated at only 490 shot so it's actually 540 shots on the A7 C2 so a little bit Less battery life due to higher demands
From the you know bigger sensor that is In this particular camera one other Thing that's worth mentioning mentioning About the build and handling is that we Do have improved inbody image Stabilization it is rated up to seven Stops it has that active stabilization Mode in video if that's so desired and So it just even though it's a compact Camera everything's miniaturized it Really works quite well and so that's Obviously embody image stabilization is Fantastic and to have such an effective System in such a small camera is great Now when it comes to the autofocus System we basically have a similar Autofocus system to the a7r mark 5 and So that is a lot of goodness that is Packed in here though there is one Significant difference that we'll get to In just a second so we have 69 93 phase Detect AF points it covers 79% of the Image sensor so not as high as what we Saw on the a7c Mark I but frankly in Real world use I didn't really notice a Difference there are a bit fewer Autofocus points and they're distributed In a little bit tighter array but I was Able to track action and do all those Things I don't really have any kind of Criticism really kind of the bigger Thing it used to be that every Generation of camera you wanted to see More and more AF points it seems like
Now we've got enough AF points I'm not Seeing that being the move so much what I'm seeing more is a focus on AI Processing units like this camera has to Allow for smarter tracking to use those AF points better and so we have got an Improved processor the Bion zxr and then We have that a AI processing unit and so As a byproduct it does a better job of Tracking the things that former models Track like with humans they say there's A 60 60% Improvement for animals and Birds a 40% Improvement and so you have More advanced angles and poses that it Picks up but then you also have the Ability to track things like insects Cars and trains airplanes you know so on And so forth and that works for both Stills and video and so you get very Good video AF here as well I found that It did a really quite a good job of Tracking action I did some pickup Basketball action with multiple lenses Both Sony lenses and then third party Lenses I found that it tracked just fine Burst rate is only 8 frames per second And so that's not mind-blowing though It's only two frames off the 10 frames Per second and the Sony a7r Mark 5 but The huge difference between those two Models is the buffer depth here now the A7r mark 5 does have CF Express type a Support in both of its card slots and as A byproduct it has much deeper buffers
So because of being limited by that SD Card we get a maximum of of 36 RW that's Best case using the you know the lossy Compressed format if you switch to a Lossless compressed format which is my Preference you get 16 uh a limit of 16 In that buffer to give you an idea of The a7r mark 5 it gets 550 lossless Versus 16 in this camera so obviously That's a huge difference and even when Shooting jpegs if you're shooting extra Fine you only get 48 of those and if you Switch down to fine you can get up to 320 and go further than that and you're Basically you don't have limits any Longer but obviously the storage media Is really going to limit the performance Of the autofocus performance and so that Is if you're looking for to shoot action This may not be your camera but if you Know you're if action is something you Rarely do and you're not really Concerned about buffer death autofocus Was fantastic for both Stills and video So let's talk about video for a moment The basic video specs here is that you Have no crop in 4k 30 at 4K 60 which is The upper limit of when it comes to 4K That you can shoot in the camera you get A very mild 1.2 times crop and so that Is a little bit of an adjustment but It's not enough to keep you from getting Wide- angle shots now you can also shoot In super 35 mode or apsc and in doing so
You do get that 1.5 times crop but then You're getting an oversampled 6.2k Footage that is oversampled to 4K and so You get a more detailed footage it looks Better though because remember we do Have some limits when it comes to the Pipeline here information transfer There's a slower readout and so you will Get a little bit more rolling shutter if You're kind of shooting abruptly so you Need to Choose Wisely for those Different situations now you can record Up to 10bit 4.2.0 internal and you have various Codec options all the way up to about 600 MBS and so you do have a fair bit of Flexibility there but you're not going To get you know 4K 120 things like that And you're going to get that little bit Of a crop even at 4K 60 the camera does Include things like SL log 3 S gamit 3 Where you're going to get over 15 stops Of dynamic range for editing it does Include s citone and a wide variety of Creative looks and you can also um Display Luts and so you get an idea of What your finished footage will look Like and you can even put some user Created LS into the camera again just Give you a little bit more versatility In your capture for video and so the Video quality looks good no problems There but there are more robust video Options if that is going to be your
Priority and frankly if video is your Priority you don't really have a lot of Reasons to choose the a7c much more Expensive over the a7c Mark II so let's Talk about the sensor now I will do a Detailed breakdown if you want to jump Ahead to that where I show you dynamic Range and resolution and ISO and an Actual interactive breakdown but if you Just want kind of the Just an overview of that then you can Stay right here this us utilizes a 61 Megapixel sensor from the uh the a7r Mark 5 it is a great sensor and it's Made even better by the fact that you Can choose three different sizes of Lossless compressed raws and to me the Most useful of those is the 26 me Megapixel Mr ra setting for many Situations 26 megapixels is enough and One thing I really love about it Particularly in an event type setting Where frankly 26 megapixels is enough is That I have the option that at a button Push if I you know set it to that which I do I can switch between full frame and Apsc modes which the apsc mode also Happens to be 26 megapixels and so as a Byproduct I can get basically like a Built-in telecon converter and so at That same 26 megapixel resolution level I can get either the fullframe image Circle or the apsc crop and as a Byproduct it just gives me versatility
Particularly if I'm shooting with a Prime lens and that kind of setting the Camera has very good dynamic range and Uh and it's it's really really good at Highlight recovery and so as a byproduct You do get a really really really Competitive dynamic range performance Out of the sensor the iso performance is I would say good for a highresolution Camera but it does have some limitations And if you want to know what those are Take a look at my image quality Breakdown at the end I would say overall That Sony color science while I still do Slightly prefer Canon and Fuji it is Much improved and frankly it's very Competitive in basically all settings Now and one thing I do find is I Actually think that the the auto white Balance is a little bit better in Sony Than what it is in those other models That I test and so overall this is a Great sensor it's it's maybe the best Full-frame high resolution sensor that's Out there it just does a lot of things Really really well so in conclusion I I Would say that there's only one real Reason to choose the a7c over the a7c Mark II and that is if you're looking For a compact camera that really has High resolution it is a one hit wonder But that hit is a really good one 61 Megapixels of resolution and an amazing Sensor in a compact camera like this now
The a7r mark 5 does have more robust Features a better viewfinder and screen It's much deeper buffer depth has better Physical controls has better storage Options but it is nearly $1,000 more Expensive and so if you're looking for The cheapest way to get to that Resolution point with the modern Autofocus system this is the way to do It and but again I think the biggest Reason to choose this is if your Priority is to travel small and light There are all kinds of great great um Compact lenses that work well on this Camera and if you want a list of those I Do have that included in my text review And so you can check that out in the Description down below there are also Buying links there because is this Camera worth it well let's put it this Way it's a much more compelling camera To me than the sigma FPL which is the Other small way to get that kind of Resolution but this camera is just it's A real camera in the way that I don't Consider the sigma to be so I would say That this is the best option for getting High resolution while keeping that Compact body that's on the market right Now and if you want more to explore that More you can look at those buying links Or you can stay tuned right now for our Detailed sensor evaluation so let's jump Into that
[Music] Together so first of all let's talk About this resolution for a moment Obviously with 61 megapixels of Resolution it really gives you a lot of Versatility uh for kind of deeply Cropping into an image so for example Here at a pixel level you can see just How much detail is there and this is With the 16 to 35 mm uh GM Mark I and so You could deeply crop this image still Have I'm showing you on a 4k monitor so That's still a lot of pixels there and So you could crop this in and really Have a macro Type image from obviously What is a much larger image likewise if You have a larger landscape type scene Like this and by the way this is not Shot with an expensive lens this is just The very inexpensive VTR autofocus 20 mm F2.8 lens you can see again if we Zoom Into a pixel level there is just tons of Information that is there so as a Byproduct we can easily crop into a you Know a much tighter image like this Going back for a moment going into this Image and then I've re-edited for this You know particular scene right here and You can see that clearly we still have Lots of of resolution like I have the Ability to go in a fair bit even on a 4k Monitor here and so I mean that's Obviously going to be extremely useful What's then also useful is that for
Example in going into this setting where I've this is actually using an apsc lens The uh vro Pro AF 27mm f1.2 and so even Shooting at f1.2 you can see and in the Apsc mode I still have plenty of room to Crop into that and to allow myself to Get closer to the subject which can be Really useful in a setting it also means That you know for example a couple of Other images from the vro using apsc Specific lenses on this high resolution Is great because uh you know instead of Having a having to have a completely Separate body I can shoot on this and Still get as high of resolution 26 Megapixels is what is currently Available on Sony and as you can see it Delivers really beautiful end results Another shot here just shows you just You know what this kind of combination Is capable of and so to me that's Extremely useful now one of the Tradeoffs of high resolution is that it Does tend to be a more sensitive when it Comes to high ice ISO performance and The big reason for that here's base ISO Of 100 is that obviously you go into 100% magnification those every one of Those pixels is really quite obvious so I'm going to pan around here for a Moment to give you an idea of what Things should look like and so obviously It looks beautiful at the base ISO but There's a lot of information that is
There and so that means that as you Start to see flaws show up they're just A little bit more magnified because they They cover more more pixels and thus are More obvious so starting at ISO 400 we Can see comparing to the base ISO on the Left that everything still looks really Nice and clean contrast and colors look Very similar we can see there's Basically no additional noise that is There in the color swatches everything's Still looking nice and clean here on the Right side we'll jump that on up to ISO 1600 and so you can see looking at them On a global level everything is Basically identical contrast looks Identical color um there's no color Shift or anything like that everything Looks looks the same and as we look here At a pixel level everything pretty much Looks the same as well there's not Really a lot of additional noise that is There yet and even in this area which is Where I primarily see pattern noise Start to emerge there's still very very Little there and the black levels are Still you know quite consistent not Quite as Inky black as what they were at Base ISO but again not far off so we'll Now switch to that ISO 1600 where we saw That that you know there's not a whole Lot of different yet and we'll start to Compare the higher isos moving from There so the first thing that I want to
Observe is that starting at about ISO 3200 as you can see that there is just The very slightest uh grid pattern that Starts to emerge here now you can't Really see it in this particular image In the out of focus area because this Should all just be Inky black and so Where you're primarily going to see it Is in these color swatches and then also In this here where you can just see There's just a little bit of a pattern There but again as far as color shift no Problems there we can see that the noise Pattern is slightly rougher but still Not at all objectional so keeping I ISO 1600 on the left but now moving to 6400 On the right you can definitely see that Grid pattern a little bit more obvious And so that's the kind of the main kind Of weakness I would say and we'll Re-examine that in a moment you can also See looking in this area that the pixels Are looking a little bit rougher here And what we can also see is that now Looking up into this area that should be Consistently BL black you'll see here And there just some kind of hot pixels It's a little more uneven and thus we Don't have as much Blackness our Contrast is going to be reduced a bit by That if we look in here at the mirror You can also see a little bit of a Pattern noise there and also just the Slightest bit of a green tinge in that
Area so now with the examination jumped Up to 12,800 on the right we can see That that grid pattern has become much More obvious and again that is the Primary weakness here Everything is getting a little bit Rougher inside this you can see a lot More of those hot pixels that's also True if we move out into this area you Can just see that it's it's quite Inconsistent so you see kind of some Snow effect there that is taking place And as we get down into this area Everything is getting just rougher still And if we jack that on up now Isa 12,800 On the left and 25,600 on the right you Can see that from here on it's just Going to get rougher still I would say That this is the first area where at 25,600 that I start to see just a little Bit of a color shift it's a little bit Greener and you can see even in the Metal here that there's just a little Bit of a shift even in those Shadows Towards that green tinge we could see it Before in this mirror area and it's a Little bit more obvious now and even Here in the texture on the grip of the Old SLR you can see a little bit of that Kind of pattern noise that is emerging There and then of course if we take a Look here that grid pattern pattern is Not necessarily worse now kind of the Roughness of the pixel starts to obscure
That grid pattern just a little bit more Now the upper limit of the Native ISO Range is 32,000 and so that's only a third stop Beyond 25,600 so there isn't necessarily A huge difference between these two and In some ways kind of ironically at 32,000 I feel like there's a little bit Less of a color shift than what we saw Before but what you can see is that the Noise pattern is just a little bit Rougher and obviously quite inconsistent There now I wouldn't recommend moving Beyond the native range on a high Resolution body like this at 51,200 you can see there's definitely More of that color shift the image just Has a little bit more of a green tinge To it and then likewise if you go into a Pixel level you just see that everything Looks rougher still contrast is get Lower and looking off into this Information it's starting to look just Basically unusable and that's only going To get worse if you go to the expanded Limit of 102,400 and that is now not a usable Image you can definitely see that Overall color shift in the black areas That it's just kind of has a green tinge To everything I would not recommend Using that let's go back and take a look At that grid pattern for a moment Because here is an ISO 12,800 and where
I mostly see it is in areas where it Should just be kind of uniform so in This case beyond the guitar we have just A wall and so that wall should be Consistently uniform so I mean the Pattern noise isn't a problem here but If you look at what should be just Consistently smooth you can see that Kind of grid pattern that is there now There is an interesting work around and That is to utilize the Mr ra setting now Obviously you're going to get lower Resolution uh 26 megapixels versus 61 But let's take a look at how this Compares so if we look in this area here You can see that grid pattern that's There this is ISO 12 ,800 on both you Can see how that noise pattern is just Much finer and you don't see that grid The same way on the back of this old Bible cover leather bound you can see That it just it's very inconsistent Texture-wise here on the right side on Mr ra it just looks a lot cleaner Likewise if you look at these various Volumes you can see that detail and Contrast just looks a little bit better And if we pop over to this side you can See once again that there's just a big Difference in this overall noise look Here by comparison and so if you need to Shoot in very dim situations shooting an MR raw you're going to get less Resolution but it does allow you to get
Just cleaner in results and that just Might be use useful so let's talk about Dynamic range for a moment and so we're Going to do a series of tests where First I purposely underexpose from this Base ISO and then I overexpose and then We'll see how well we can recover that In post which gives us an idea of how Well this does in recovery of of Shadows And highlights so this gives you a look At how things should be here now Sony Cameras are very very good at Shadow Recovery so I'm going to skip all the Way past one two and three stops and We'll go right to a four stop of Underexposure so here's what the Original looks like at four stops of Underexposure you can see that there's Just a lot of Shadows that are crushed Things that look unnatural there and Here I have just added four stops of Exposure back in post so let's see how Cleanly we were able to do that so Jumping in here into the front of the SLR you can see that all that Information has been recovered it was Completely crushed and in Shadow it is Back now including the inside of the Mirror and the detail that is there Everything looks really nice and clean Looking over into this area there's very Little noise that is there and if we Look into the shadow information Obviously it's not as deep black as on
The left because that was severely Underexposed but what we can see is that The shadow information still looks good And and looking here into some of these Color swatches we can see that they also Look nice and clean now if we skip from That to a five stop of underexposure now Obviously you're not typically going to Shoot images like this but what this is Giving you an idea of of what you can do In recovering shadows in another kind of More normal type image and we can see That we continue to do a really good job Now I will say that at five stops There's just a little bit of a noise uh That is there kind of a color shift and Uh it's not bad um it's but it is there And so things are a little bit more Inconsistent and we can also see if we Look here in this area that we do have Some uneven pixels now so I would treat Four stops as you know probably your Limit you try to pull it too far and you Do start to get a little bit of noise And also a little bit of color Blotchiness in those areas but at the Same time this image particularly at a Global level looks perfectly usable it Looks very natural uh in general and so That's pretty great now switching the Other direction we're going to start to Look at overexposure my experience is With modern cameras that they tend to be Much better at Shadow recovery than they
Are at highlight recovery and so Starting here at two stops we can see For example if we look at the color Swatches that there are colors that have Been lost here kind of blown out we can Also see if we're looking on the left Side that in the original there is Texture information that has been lost In these shiny areas is where we Particularly tend to to see it but we Can see on the right where I have uh I've added or excuse me I've removed two Stops of exposure just imp post we can See that we've got that texture Information all back perfectly we can Also see that those color swatches have Been recovered and so the colors look Natural once again now typically it's at Three stops of highlight recovery where I start to see the flaws emerge and I'm Actually quite impressed by how well That this particular camera does on this So our three stop of overexposure you Can see that's severe overexposure on The left all of these color swatches Information is is lost we can see as far As color um recovery it's done a really Really good job that all looks really Really good how about those hot Potential Hot Spot areas surprisingly Even here at this three stops of Overexposure we can see that those hot Spots have actually been recovered Really well and all of that various
Texture information is back look around That spot Matic that's actually really Impressive that's a great three-stop um Overexposure recovery now the Practical Limit is is between three and four stops You can see that that is severely Overexposed and in this case not all of The color swatches are back and we can See here that if we for example take a Look at some of these Hot Spot areas Textures are not fully back on the front Of the the SLR you can see not all that Information is there any longer likewise If we look over on the timer face here You can just see that the overall base Color has been lost and it just Everything looks kind of unnatural at This point but this is definitely a much Better than typical highlight recovery So to give you an idea of some practical Value for that in this case uh obviously I have no front lighting for my my Subject here in this shot and even Though it's a bit overcast it's a bright Overcast and so what I've been able to Do in this shot is I've been able to Increase the exposure on the face of the Model and it still looks nice and clean There and then also I've been able to Hold back those highlights and so we Haven't lost the sky information and Then with the horses you can see that Even though they're a little bit more Shadowed they're not crushed and so
That's very very useful and this shot Here shooting I mean there's a huge Range of exposure value here um and so You can see the underside of the bridge Which would be in complete Shadow There's a sky that would be very bright And then various you know snow covered Areas we can see that through processing I've been able to increase the exposure To where we can see the underside of the Bridge fine and if I zoom in there and Take a look it's not full of noise and Ugliness it looks fine then likewise Here with the highlights in the sky I've Even been able to recover some of the Sky information and so it's just not Completely blown out and then likewise If we look over in the snow patches um While there are I think a few hot spots That are there for the most part you can Still see all the various textures there And as a it just gives me a lot of Flexibility for uh editing images in Post so overall I would say that this is A really really nice sensor for high Resolution I would say that the weakest Area is maybe the high ISO performance But relative to other highresolution Cameras it does quite good so this is Really about as good a sensor as you're Going to find and it's very impressive To get it in such a small camera you've Made it to the end thanks for watching Have a great day and let the light
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