Is the Sony A7RV Better than the Sony A1? It's Complicated

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A7R5 Medium Raw is a game changer for wedding and event shooters.. no crop 26mp files..

I have heard many mention that due to A1 does not have a "dedicated AI processor" on the A7RV therefore many not be possible to have the same level of subject recognition capability upgraded. "See it to believe it" is my model so I went through the teardown photos of A1, A9 II and A7RV and examined the motherboard chip layouts and found them to be mostly identical. Imagine Sony may just make one motherboard and turn features on and off to save production cost like Tesla? Then I re-watched the product announcement video for Sony A1 and found in the section of Real-time Eye AF at 9:54 and 10:41 both were mentioned by Sony on how improved A.I. technology is been implemented into A1 for subject recognition to work with the system that tracks and focus at 120/s. I think the A1 does have the A.I. chip built in and most likely runs on a fast clock speed to accommodate the 120/s calculation so it is most likely able to implement the same or higher level of subject resonation through firmware. It really just depends on Sony's willingness to add them into the new A1 firmware to keep their top customers happy. The fact is that most A1 owners with A7RV A.I. recognition ability will most likely buy the A1 II without second thought if it comes with a Global shutter sensor anyway so Sony really have nothing to worry about.

What you showed about the Sony A1 losing focus on an object (a person in this case) is a setup issue and not a focus issue. In order not to lose the object in focus, you should set the focus "Tracking sensitivity" to a low level. In that case the focus will be kept even if the object passes behind others. I use the camera almost every day and I don't have any issue with that.

Thanks for the Video, your reviews are great 👍🏻. I ordered the A7rV last week here in Germany.

This comparison pretty much sums it up. I have both the A1 and A9. I guess the A1.2 will have all the new features of the A7R5, but using the current stacked sensor. This would be in line with their current policy, using the sensor for 2 generations. They may change the processor for better integration of the AI chip. Automatic sbject recognition works better on the A7R5. As I mostly select the subject to track, it's not such a big deal for me. But it looks like the stickyness, thanks to the AI chip, is better on the A7R5. Personally, I will always go for a stacked sensor with it's much faster readout.

The only camera that allows to use fully electronic shutter with flash sync is the A1. Still being the Queen 👑

I will never give my Sony a1 away. It can shoot 30fps a second so even when I’m drunk I can capture cool shots. Word up

Does the V"feel" just as fast and responsive as the A1? I rented an A1 for a week and, when I went back to my A7RIV, that's what I missed the most! My camera felt "laggy" and sluggish compared to the A1. And I don’t mean the AF system or the shooting speed or the buffering, necessarily. I mean the general use of the camera. The menus, startup time, time between switching shooting modes, etc....just feels INSTANT on the A1 in a way that it doesn't on the A7RIV. Additionally, there are definitely times when you have to "wait on" the A7RIV, one example that comes to mind is that, after shooting a short burst (only 2-3 shots) of photos, I can't immediately record a video, I have to wait for the buffer to clear. (this is even when using a 300 MB/s write card, since there is a write-speed bottleneck inherent in this camera) The overall responsiveness of the A7RV hasn’t been mentioned in any write-ups or videos I’ve found, I’m starting to think there is an NDA Sony made folks sign to not talk about it!

I am kind of mind blown how much they improved and innovated since the A1. All small things but very useful in day to day life

Thank you very much, great video! I love my sony A1 and the lens selection but frankly their lack of substantial/meaningful firmware updates is embarrassing! Even for their "Flagship camera". Focus breathing compensation came out with A7SIII (OCT 2020) and still not available for the A1!!!! So I don't see the new focus stacking (A7RV) making its way to other models. Also $1200 for a CF express type A is disgusting!!!

So is the better autofocus on the a7rv with 10 fps better than the A1 for sports or wild life? that's 30fps. my question would you even need the extra 20 fps due to the better focusing?

I still love my Sony A1, wouldn't trade it for any other camera on the market. I'm definitely curious what the Sony A1 Mark II will bring to the table though.

Yes the A7riv has some well known "issues", and the new camera addresses this. Its much more responsive with the newer processer.

I love my A1 . But when focusing with backlighted object, the performance is horrible...Maybe that is why the focus was not stable in the test.

The still not resolved issue is whether the A7R5 is able to “stick” the af-c on a rapidly moving human subject or not (street photography scenario). Differently from my previous A9, my current A7R4 is unreliable: it puts a green square on face (recognition range is about a paltry 6 meters away), af-c nominally follows, but the photo is soft 80% of times. I am currently debating between buying a used A1 or an A7R5 (same price), but having owned A7R, A7R2 and now A7R4, I had shooting experiences not aligned with Sony claims.

It's going to trickle down to the a93 and a1.2 I can't be mad that the a1 doesn't have this because it's over a year old now. If it was 6 months I agree I'd be mad.a1 is still a beast

Just switched to Sony and got the A7R V. Seems the colors are nice now! I need a second body though. Are the A1 colors the same???? Anyone have an answer to this?

A1 is too expensive to have such a crappy screen. It also doesn't flip out.

Really hope Sony will bring out the a9III sooner with every new feature that the a7rV has. And please add the feature to switch between animal subjects with the joystick.