A7RIV vs A7IV suitability for general purpose, lowlight, and street photography?
Dec 4, 2022
1
I’m looking to move from Canon to Sony, and am considering the A7 IV and the A7R IV, and am having trouble deciding between the two now that they are similarly priced. I’m mostly a travel/street/architecture photographer, with landscape and animals thrown in. More general purpose. I hardly ever do sports, portrait or studio work. I’ve seen sample images, and I’m absolutely in love with the resolution, sharpness, and detail of the R. The ability to crop to 30MP is also great. My concern is over AF reliability, low light, handholding, and noise on the RIV. I know the AF on the A7IV is better, has quite a bit more phase focus points, and rated for -4 (over -3). I’ve seen samples where the AF produces more soft focus and AF misses on the R. I do shoot a lot indoors, in low-light, and at night, so this concerns me. It’s hard to quantify how much better the AF is on the A7IV, or whether this would be a problem on the R? The A7IV has a larger ISO range too, although I can’t imagine using most of that in practice. Likewise, noise seems worse on the R at lower ISO levels (and it the camera has lower maximum ISO levels). How bad is the R and the AF for soft photos, lowlight, indoor, and night photography in actual practice? Also, I assume the larger sensor is more likely to show flaws, such shake from handholding? Is the R a bad street/city and general purpose camera, or is it made more for bright landscape conditions on tripods?
I’m really unconcerned about video, as I’m mainly concerned with photography. The new stabilization and 10-bit video features on the A7IV are nice to have. The new menus, lossless RAW, HEIC, CFExpressA, Bird Tracking, and swivel screen would be nice to have. However, the 60MP of the R seems to help future proof the photos being taken, and the EVF and LCD resolutions are better. Obviously the new RV eliminates most of the disadvantages of the RIV. Also, coming from Canon where I have tilt/swivel screens for over ten+ years, why does there seem to be dislike for the new tilt-swivel mechanism on the new Sony’s? I find them great on my Canon. Also, can you really not cover the display (face inwards) on the tilt-screen RIV to protect it? That seems like a bad design, and is a big selling point too of the swivel.
For photography first, which is the better camera in 2022, and is the RIV a good general purpose/street camera, or does it struggle with handholding, AF, and low-light enough to warrant going with the A7IV?