Camera ReviewRonMartBlog

Sony a1 II + 28-70mm f/2 GM Review: A Five-Figure Dream Camera—But Is It Worth It?

With the Sony a1 II Mirrorless Camera and FE 28-70mm f/2 GM Lens now costing well into five-figure territory, the obvious question is whether this setup is actually worth the money. In this review, I’ll walk through my real-world take on its strengths, its weaknesses, and whether this configuration makes sense for anyone beyond the deep-pocketed few.

Sony a1 II + 28-70mm f/2 GM Review: A Five-Figure Dream Camera—But Is It Worth It? — click to check current price / availability

✅ Pros

• ✅AI-based subject recognition makes autofocus feel smarter and more dependable
• ✅Eye autofocus remained impressively reliable, even at extreme distances
• ✅The FE 28-70mm f/2 GM is a versatile, inspiring lens for almost any creative vision
• ✅Excellent image quality with impressive detail, color, and dynamic range
• ✅Blisteringly fast performance across the board

⛔ Cons

• ⛔The body-and-lens combo is priced well beyond what its real-world gains justify
• ⛔Handling and body design feel more consumer than pro at this price point
• ⛔The FE 28-70mm f/2 GM feels like a great 2016 lens, not a particularly exciting 2026 one
• ⛔Inconsistent hot shoe compatibility with my older Elinchrom Skyport triggers was a real frustration
• ⛔The rear LCD still trails Canon’s fully articulating vari-angle touchscreen in real-world flexibility
• ⛔Reduced-size Sony RAW files caused compatibility issues in some software, including DxO
• ⛔Sony’s higher-speed EVF modes come with a visible drop in viewfinder quality

TL;DR ⚡

For all it offers, the step up from Sony’s cheaper siblings comes at a point where the law of diminishing returns is impossible to ignore.

This is an outstanding Sony flagship combo, but it lives deep in diminishing-returns territory. If you truly need 50MP, fast burst performance, strong AI AF, and premium glass in one kit, it delivers. For almost everyone else, the smarter move is dropping down a tier on the body or lens and keeping thousands in your pocket.

Table of Contents

1. Who it’s for and who should skip
2. Real World Shots
3. Recommended products
4. Closing thoughts

Who it’s for

• Sony Enthusiasts want the top of the line Alpha system
• Wildlife, sports, action, and landscape shooters who need both 50MP resolution and 30 fps performance
• Videographers who need 8K30 / 4K120 video
• People who invest in the best lenses from Sony, Zeiss and Sigma's Art Series to get the most out of this sensor

Who should skip

• Photography Hobbyists who aren't in the top 1% income bracket
• People who aren't willing to buy the top of the line lenses to get the most out of this sensor
• Photographers / Videographers with modest computer and storage configurations who aren't willing to upgrade
• A7R V Owners who don't need 8k video or the performance improvements

Real World Shots 📷

The photos below are real-world samples. Click any photo to open the original size.

Click here to view the entire gallery of images taken for this review.

I handed this setup to my 10-year-old daughter and had her take this shot of me under my Elinchrom lights. Even in that kind of casual real-world use, the image quality and tonal range were hard not to appreciate.

f/8 for 1/125 sec at 70 mm ISO 100 [0 EV, Pattern metering, No flash, Manual with FE 28-70mm F2 GM]

I dropped the ball a bit here by not putting a gelled light behind me to create better separation from the background. The good news is that the RAW file had enough flexibility to rescue the shot and add that separation later in post. Click the photo to open the original size 👆

Right after unboxing the camera, I stepped into my daughter’s room and took a quick snapshot just to get a feel for it. As first impressions go, it was a good one, with surprisingly solid ISO 12800 performance and reliable eye autofocus from the very first shot.

f/5.6 for 1/80 sec at 61 mm ISO 12800 [0 EV, Pattern metering, No flash, Aperture priority with FE 28-70mm F2 GM]

I quickly learned that, much like Nikon, this is a camera that rewards being very deliberate with your metering choice. It does exactly what you tell it to do, not necessarily what you hoped it would do. Canon bodies tend to be more forgiving in this area. Click the photo to open the original size 👆

The only reason I’m showing this admittedly terrible photo is because I wanted to see whether the AF could lock onto the bird—and how Sony’s AI autofocus would handle such difficult conditions. I’m happy to report that it passed with flying colors.

f/2 for 1/1000 sec at 70 mm ISO 160 [0 EV, Pattern metering, No flash, Shutter priority with FE 28-70mm F2 GM]

I’d encourage you to open the full-size original and zoom in on the bird to really appreciate what this camera and lens combo was able to pull off. Then try the same thing with your current camera, and you may come away even more impressed. Click the photo to open the original size 👆

I love this shot because it really shows off what this lens and camera can do: excellent sharpness, beautiful bokeh at f/2.5, strong subject separation, and gorgeous in-camera color. Frames like this are exactly why I enjoyed shooting with this combo.

f/2.5 for 1/80 sec at 70 mm ISO 400 [0 EV, Pattern metering, No flash, Aperture priority with FE 28-70mm F2 GM]

This is another shot where it’s worth downloading the original and doing some serious pixel peeping to appreciate the sharpness, tonal range, and impressive ISO 400 performance. Click the photo to open the original size 👆

As tempting as it is to live at f/2, this lens—as with most lenses—gets even sharper when you stop down a bit. In this case, that means you end up with a very sharp f/2.8 image while still enjoying the light-gathering advantage that, to me, is the real benefit of owning an f/2 lens instead of an f/2.8 one.

f/2.8 for 1/80 sec at 63 mm ISO 500 [0 EV, Pattern metering, No flash, Aperture priority with FE 28-70mm F2 GM]

This was a tough scene to meter, with a very dark foreground subject set against harsh sunlight in the background. The camera did a reasonably good job of holding most of the scene together, and the detail preserved in the full-size RAW file was enough to recover the harsher highlights in post. Click the photo to open the original size 👆

For this long exposure, I intentionally spot metered on the rock above the waterfall, which explains why the rest of the scene ended up darker. Unfortunately, the EXIF data claims pattern metering across the board, even though this shot was actually taken using spot metering.

f/22 for 1/2 sec at 70 mm ISO 200 [0 EV, Pattern metering, No flash, Manual with FE 28-70mm F2 GM]

The detail and tonal nuance in the shadows are quite good here, and this shot really shows that off—especially on displays that can render a broader range of black tones. Click the photo to open the original size 👆

Be sure to check the gallery for the f/2.8 version of this same shot. It delivers the added sharpness you’d expect while still maintaining very similar separation and bokeh. Ultimately, your intended output size will determine whether that extra sharpness matters more than the slightly creamier tree bokeh in this f/2 version.

f/2.8 for 1/80 sec at 70 mm ISO 250 [-1 EV, Pattern metering, No flash, Aperture priority with FE 28-70mm F2 GM]

This was a surprisingly tough shot to compose because the main tree is leaning. Straighten for the subject, and the background looks crooked—particularly the tree on the left. Straighten for the background, and the subject starts to look accidentally tilted. Such is life in photography. Click the photo to open the original size 👆

When it came to photographing my daughter skating, the Canon R6 Mark II I reviewed absolutely mopped the floor with this camera, which is pretty shocking given the price difference. No matter how I configured it, I couldn’t get the kind of consistent accuracy I was getting with the Canon. That may say more about me than the camera, but after enough misses like this, I stopped fighting it and put the camera away.

f/2 for 1/640 sec at 70 mm ISO 640 [0 EV, Pattern metering, No flash, Manual with FE 28-70mm F2 GM]

The awful white balance here was entirely on me, not the camera. I simply forgot to reset the setting after shooting in the woods earlier in the day. Click the photo to open the original size 👆

Any parent who has tried to photograph kids in a school play already knows that only basketball is worse when it comes to ending up with a pile of unusable shots. Even at ISO 1250, though, this unedited RAW file had a lot going for it. My lens didn’t have the reach I really needed, and my angle from the stands as a regular audience member certainly wasn’t ideal, but with a quick crop and a little Lightroom work, this would be a perfectly usable shot—which says quite a lot.

f/4 for 1/250 sec at 70 mm ISO 1250 [0 EV, Other metering, No flash, Manual with FE 28-70mm F2 GM]

Given my distance from the subjects, I knew that even at 70mm I could get plenty of depth of field at f/4, so I went that route to keep the ISO down. I also took my chances at 1/250 sec, betting that the movement would be subtle enough—and in this case, that proved to be the right call. Sony’s Highlight metering mode was brilliant for this kind of scene. Click the photo to open the original size 👆

While multi-segment metering didn’t do me any favors here, the eye autofocus absolutely nailed the shot. Zoom all the way in and you’ll see just how precisely it locked onto the iris.

f/2.8 for 1/80 sec at 70 mm ISO 320 [0 EV, Pattern metering, No flash, Aperture priority with FE 28-70mm F2 GM]

Again, please excuse the composition—I had to stay seated and make the best of what I had, and let’s just say I didn’t exactly pull it off. 😄 Click the photo to open the original size 👆

Highlight metering let me down a bit on this one, but I was glad to come away with a better sense of both its strengths and weaknesses. In fairness, it did exactly what I asked it to do.

f/2.8 for 1/125 sec at 70 mm ISO 250 [0 EV, Other metering, No flash, Manual with FE 28-70mm F2 GM]

This is a scene where center-weighted metering would have been the smarter choice. Click the photo to open the original size 👆

I didn’t quite get the shutter speed right, but the AF system still proved impressively capable by locking onto the eyes through the distracting fur.

f/2.8 for 1/400 sec at 70 mm ISO 100 [+0.7 EV, Other metering, No flash, Manual with FE 28-70mm F2 GM]

I believe I used spot metering for this one, though entire-screen average or even multi-segment probably would have been the better choice for a scene like this. I also intentionally bumped exposure compensation to +0.7 EV to keep the snow from turning gray, and the good news is that no highlight detail was lost when processing the shot. Click the photo to open the original size 👆

Recommended Products

Closing Thoughts

The Sony a1 II and FE 28-70mm f/2 GM form one of the most capable all-in-one pro kits on the market, especially if you want flagship action performance, flagship resolution, strong hybrid video, and a standard zoom with a more prime-like f/2 look. It's a natural choice for those with a big investment in the best lenses available for the Sony E mount.



But if your work rarely lives at the extremes—high-speed action, ugly light, tight turnarounds, and high-pressure assignments—you’ll probably get better value by dropping down a tier on the body and/or sticking with a 24-70mm f/2.8 or a SIGMA Art series lens. This is exactly where diminishing returns get very expensive, so there's no way I'd buy this camera or lens.

👉 Click here to learn more

Camera ReviewRonMartBlog

AI Versus Human Photo Editing - Which Do You Prefer?

I decided to do a quick post on photo editing the old fashioned way (Lightroom Classic and Photoshop with my favorite plug-ins for me) vs just giving ChatGPT or Gemini a simple prompt and seeing what happens.

Table of Contents

1. Observations
2. Before & After
3. Closing thoughts

Observations

• Original Photo Details: Taken with a Sony A1 II at f/11 for 1/125 sec at 70 mm ISO 100 [0 EV, Pattern metering, No flash, Manual with FE 28-70mm F2 GM]
• ChatGPT 5.2: Distorted the head, but didn't really do much to improve the contrast or tones.
• Gemini Nano Bannana Pro: Did a better job at making noticable ehancements, but mars the photo with a huge Gemini logo.
• Ron's Edit's: Still my favorite, both for personal satisfaction and final results

Before & After

Before | After Original vs ChatGPT 5.2

Before | After Original vs Gemini Nano Bannana Pro

Before | After Original vs Ron's Edit with Lightroom Classic, Portraiture & ColorEfex

Closing Thoughts

Are you switching to letting AI enhance your photos? If so, what's your favorite and how has your experience been? If not, why not?

Software ReviewSkin SofteningPortrait Enhancements

Imagenomic Portraiture 5 Review (2026): Pro-Level Skin Retouching Without the Plastic Look

Imagenomic Portraiture just got a major upgrade. Its intelligent auto‑masking speeds up the workflow by accurately identifying where skin softening should apply with minimal manual input. New features like Fill Light make it easy to brighten faces without complex masking, while Uniformity helps balance facial tones for a more polished look. Improved sharpness tools bring texture back naturally, and the upgraded shine‑reduction effectively eliminates harsh hotspots—making the overall retouching process faster, smoother, and more professional.

Imagenomic Portraiture 5 Review & Discount — click to check current price / availability

TL;DR ⚡

The new Imagenomic Portraiture is faster and smarter. Auto‑masking needs almost no manual input, Fill Light brightens faces easily, Uniformity balances skin tones, improved sharpness restores natural texture, and shine‑reduction removes harsh hotspots.

A smarter, faster Portraiture provides realistic skin softening that brightens faces, evens tones, restores texture, and removes shine with minimal effort.

Table of Contents

1. Who it’s for and who should skip
2. Pros and cons
3. Video review and tutorial
4. Before & After
5. Closing thoughts

Who it’s for

• Studio Portrait Photographers
• Wedding Photographers
• Commercial Photographers
• Anyone who wants skin and hair to look magazine ready

Who should skip

• Photojournalists who rely on authenticity

✅ Pros

• ✅Can purchase as a subscription or one-time price
• ✅Achieves smooth skin without blowing details — even on high contrast portraits.
• ✅Softens while still providing features to preserve sharpness and texture
• ✅Gives hair that shampoo commercial look
• ✅Powerful AI masking makes fill lighting on the face trivial

⛔ Cons

• ⛔Expensive one-time price
• ⛔Still easy to make people look too plastic-like if not careful
• ⛔Some enhancements are better left for other products

Video Review & Tutorial🎥

If the player doesn’t load here, watch on YouTube.

Before & After

Before | After Final Before and After taken with a Canon 5D Mark III using a 300mm f/2.8L IS II at f/5.6 for 1/1250sec @ ISO 800

Before | After New Fill Light feature - On (before) and Off (after)

Before | After Uniformity Feature - 0 (before) and 40 (after)

Before | After New Reduce Shine feature - Before (0) and After (40)

Before | After Get smooth hair with the Hair Mask - Before (Mask hair - 100) vs After (Don't mask hair - 0)

Before | After Return face texture with Sharpness - Before (0) and After (Max - 40)

Closing Thoughts

Nearly 20 years ago, my mentor insisted that if I wanted the best results for skin softening, I should use Portraiture—and they were absolutely right. Over the years, I’ve spoken with many top‑tier pros working on high‑value projects, and Portraiture was one of their “secret sauce” tools. Meanwhile, countless tutorials claimed you could get the same results manually. What I learned is that Portraiture was always a step ahead—delivering next‑level quality faster and with far less effort. Getting perfect skin in seconds became a no‑brainer.

Fast‑forward to today: at first glance, it may look unchanged, but under the hood it’s faster, smarter, and loaded with improvements in object detection and workflow efficiency. It’s still a world‑class leader—and now it’s better than ever.

Although my review focused on using Portraiture in Photoshop, it performs just as seamlessly in Lightroom Classic.
If you’ve used Portraiture—or tried alternatives—I’d love to hear your experience. What tools are essential in your portrait retouching workflow? Drop your thoughts or questions below!

👉 Click here to learn more

Camera ReviewRonMartBlog

Imagenomic Portraiture 5 Review (2026): Pro-Level Skin Retouching Without the Plastic Look

Imagenomic Portraiture just got a major upgrade. Its intelligent auto‑masking speeds up the workflow by accurately identifying where skin softening should apply with minimal manual input. New features like Fill Light make it easy to brighten faces without complex masking, while Uniformity helps balance facial tones for a more polished look. Improved sharpness tools bring texture back naturally, and the upgraded shine‑reduction effectively eliminates harsh hotspots—making the overall retouching process faster, smoother, and more professional.

Imagenomic Portraiture 5 Review (2026): Pro-Level Skin Retouching Without the Plastic Look — click to check current price / availability

TL;DR ⚡

The new Imagenomic Portraiture is faster and smarter. Auto‑masking needs almost no manual input, Fill Light brightens faces easily, Uniformity balances skin tones, improved sharpness restores natural texture, and shine‑reduction removes harsh hotspots.

A smarter, faster Portraiture provides realistic skin softening that brightens faces, evens tones, restores texture, and removes shine with minimal effort.

Table of Contents

1. Who it’s for and who should skip
2. Pros and cons
3. Video review
4. Before & After
5. Closing thoughts

Who it’s for

• Studio Portrait Photographers
• Wedding Photographers
• Commercial Photographers
• Anyone who wants skin and hair to look magazine ready

Who should skip

• Photojournalists who rely on authenticity

✅ Pros

• ✅Can purchase as a subscription or one-time price
• ✅Achieves smooth skin without blowing details — even on high contrast portraits.
• ✅Softens while still providing features to preserve sharpness and texture
• ✅Gives hair that shampoo commercial look
• ✅Powerful AI masking makes fill lighting on the face trivial

⛔ Cons

• ⛔Expensive one-time price
• ⛔Still easy to make people look too plastic-like if not careful
• ⛔Some enhancements are better left for other products

Video Review 🎥

If the player doesn’t load here, watch on YouTube.

Before & After

Before | After Final Before and After taken with a Canon 5D Mark III using a 300mm f/2.8L IS II at f/5.6 for 1/1250sec @ ISO 800

Before | After New Fill Light feature - On (before) and Off (after)

Before | After Uniformity Feature - 0 (before) and 40 (after)

Before | After New Reduce Shine feature - Before (0) and After (40)

Before | After Get smooth hair with the Hair Mask - Before (Mask hair - 100) vs After (Don't mask hair - 0)

Before | After Return face texture with Sharpness - Before (0) and After (Max - 40)

Closing Thoughts

Nearly 20 years ago, my mentor insisted that if I wanted the best results for skin softening, I should use Portraiture—and they were absolutely right. Over the years, I’ve spoken with many top‑tier pros working on high‑value projects, and Portraiture was one of their “secret sauce” tools. Meanwhile, countless tutorials claimed you could get the same results manually. What I learned is that Portraiture was always a step ahead—delivering next‑level quality faster and with far less effort. Getting perfect skin in seconds became a no‑brainer.



Fast‑forward to today: at first glance, it may look unchanged, but under the hood it’s faster, smarter, and loaded with improvements in object detection and workflow efficiency. It’s still a world‑class leader—and now it’s better than ever.



Although my review focused on using Portraiture in Photoshop, it performs just as seamlessly in Lightroom Classic.


If you’ve used Portraiture—or tried alternatives—I’d love to hear your experience. What tools are essential in your portrait retouching workflow? Drop your thoughts or questions below!

👉 Click here to learn more

Has AI Made Photo Editing Obsolete?

Camera Review RonMartBlog

AI Editing: Cheating, Tool, or the New Normal?

AI tools can now transform your images with a single prompt. But just because you can fix it in post with a sentence, should you? Does the 'magic' replace the art of photo editing?"

A simple prompt to transform your image effortlessly!

Before & After

Before | After Canon R6 Mark II Original at f/5.6 for 1/80 sec at 63 mm ISO 8000 vs Gemini Nano Banana Pro Enhanced

✅ Pros

• ✅Simply write what you want in the prompt, and magic happens
• ✅“Good enough” is now ridiculously easy
• ✅Editing time drops from hours to minutes

⛔ Cons

• ⛔Surrenders creativity to the algorithm
• ⛔Output size is frustratingly a different size than the original input
• ⛔"Shifts the satisfaction from creating the image to requesting it

Let's Hear Your Thoughts!

Sound off: At what point does 'editing' stop and 'generating' begin? If the AI does the heavy lifting, are you still the photographer, or just the prompter?"

Are you quietly letting AI replace your editing hours? Or is hands-on Photoshop (or Lightroom Classic) still the soul of your photography? Drop your take below."

REVIEW: Sony a7R IV with with 24-105mm Lens

Sony Alpha a7R IV Mirrorless Digital Camera at B&H
shown with Sony FE 24-105mm f/4 G OSS Lens
also sold in kit form

When I reviewed the Sony a7R III in 2017 I declared it my camera of the year. I was literally blown away with it, so I was a bit shocked when the IV came out and I started hearing rumblings of it being inferior to its predecessor. After all it had gained almost 19 more megapixels and had performance improvements that were sure to make it better, right?

Read on to see if more is better or if Sony ruined a good thing.

Camera Body Thoughts

You can read about all of the big features on Sony’s website, but my real world observations were that the viewfinder is definitely very good and the joystick feel is now excellent. My favorite feature – eye AF – now works without requiring special setup or holding a button and even features support for specifying which eye it should focus on or you can still have it decide using the auto feature. Lastly the lock button on the exposure compensation is a welcome addition to avoid accidental changes.

Other than that, really this feels like mostly the same camera now with loads more megapixels.

I did not try the Pixel Shift Multi Shooting feature on this camera or the III, even though it sounds interesting. If any readers have had great results with this feature, then I’d love for you to post links to your favorite shots on my Facebook page alongside the post for this review.

Imaging Edge Desktop

Imaging Edge Desktop Editor

I don’t keep up on every detail around Sony, but I noticed that Sony offers an option besides my recommendation of CaptureOne for Sony (or CaptureOne Pro). Their raw editing software is called Imaging Edge Desktop that is super crude, but gets the job done if you don’t have anything else. I do think its better at raw processing Sony files than Adobe Lightroom / Camera Raw, but my favorite is still Capture One to bring back the most details from Sony ARW files.

Bookshelf

For my long-time fans of the blog, I thought I’d throw in a bookshelf shot here (more available in the gallery) to show the razor sharp detail in the Lord of the Rings book, great color and excellent detail in the shadows.

f/8 for 15 sec at 105 mm ISO 100 [0 EV, Pattern metering, No flash, Aperture priority with FE 24-105mm F4 G OSS]

With 61 megapixels you get super shallow depth of field, so you’ll notice even at f/11 that the books on the edges are out of focus, so its a good thing this camera and lens perform well at f/16 & f/22 as you are definitely going to need those apertures!

Real World Shots

All of the photos are 100% unedited in-camera JPEG originals. Generally speaking I tried to shoot with camera default settings, but I did adjust the white balance to daylight or shade for landscape shots. I also enabled eye AF auto as well as face priority which I’ll discuss in sample photos below.

You may download and view the photos associated in this article while your browser is open to this article, but you permission to have the images locally ends when you navigate away from this article. All images are copyright Ron Martinsen – all rights reserved – so you may not edit, print, alter, republish or link to any of the photos in this article without my ink on paper notarized signature.

For the full gallery of photos, visit https://photos.ronmartblog.com/sony/a7Riv.

f/4 for 1/320 sec at 105 mm ISO 100 [0 EV, Pattern metering, No flash, Aperture priority with FE 24-105mm F4 G OSS]
My 4 year old daughters first shot with this camera was spot on thanks to great eye AF

f/4 for 1/400 sec at 105 mm ISO 100 [0 EV, Pattern metering, No flash, Aperture priority with FE 24-105mm F4 G OSS]
Even rush attacks from my daughter with hair and hand distractions had a good keeper rate,
but if you pixel peep these images aren’t as tack sharp as those from the a9 or a7R III

f/5.6 for 1/640 sec at 105 mm ISO 100 [0 EV, Pattern metering, No flash, Aperture priority with FE 24-105mm F4 G OSS]
The advantage of more megapixels is better bokeh, but the challenge becomes less depth of field

f/5.6 for 1/640 sec at 105 mm ISO 100 [0 EV, Pattern metering, No flash, Aperture priority with FE 24-105mm F4 G OSS]
Perhaps I’ve grown to used to my iPhone XS Pro, but I often forgot to do some exposure compensation to adjust for the meter really sticking faithfully to a 18% gray exposure in its default multi metering mode

f/5.6 for 1/400 sec at 105 mm ISO 100 [0 EV, Pattern metering, No flash, Aperture priority with FE 24-105mm F4 G OSS]
Switching to center metering mode vs spot worked better for scenes like this

f/5.6 for 1/125 sec at 105 mm ISO 640 [0 EV, Pattern metering, No flash, Aperture priority with FE 24-105mm F4 G OSS]
Even seemingly static shots like this with virtually no wind required a handful of shots to get a fairly sharp image without boosting the shutter speeds – which I tried to avoid given the mediocre ISO high performance (as shown in the next shot)

f/4 for 1/400 sec at 24 mm ISO 10000 [0 EV, Pattern metering, No flash, Shutter priority with FE 24-105mm F4 G OSS]The overall dynamic range seemed less than the a7R III or the D850.

f/5.6 for 1/80 sec at 78 mm ISO 2500 [0 EV, Pattern metering, No flash, Aperture priority with FE 24-105mm F4 G OSS]
As good as eye AF is, the foreground bunny and eyes closed seemed to trip it up

f/5.6 for 1/80 sec at 78 mm ISO 2500 [0 EV, Pattern metering, No flash, Aperture priority with FE 24-105mm F4 G OSS]
When I shot a similar shot without the bunny in the foreground it did much better

f/5.6 for 1/125 sec at 105 mm ISO 400 [0 EV, Pattern metering, No flash, Aperture priority with FE 24-105mm F4 G OSS]
Lots of gallery shots including this one and the one below prove that hair distractions often aren’t an problem for the excellent eye autofocus

f/5.6 for 1/640 sec at 54 mm ISO 100 [0 EV, Pattern metering, No flash, Aperture priority with FE 24-105mm F4 G OSS]
In super harsh direct sunlight I got mixed results with multi metering, but overall it was good enough especially since the raw images support a whopping 15 stops of dynamic range which means almost any sharp shot can be saved

f/4 for 1/500 sec at 105 mm ISO 125 [0 EV, Pattern metering, No flash, Shutter priority with FE 24-105mm F4 G OSS]
f/4 @ 105mm for 1/500 sec at ISO 400
In harsh midday sun I once again felt like this camera was underperforming compared to what I’m used to enjoying from my iPhone XS Pro but its still about the same as what I saw with the a7R III.  Once again, its pretty easy to correct if you shoot RAW.

f/5.6 for 1/320 sec at 105 mm ISO 5000 [0 EV, Pattern metering, No flash, Manual with FE 24-105mm F4 G OSS]
f/5.6 @ 105mm for 1/320 sec at ISO 5000
The advantage of so many megapixels is that you can preserve a lot of detail even after aggressive noise reduction which is a good thing as ISO 5000 shots are definitely going to need Noiseware if you are doing anything with the shots besides posting them small like this online

f/5.6 for 1/320 sec at 105 mm ISO 6400 [0 EV, Pattern metering, No flash, Manual with FE 24-105mm F4 G OSS]
In my opinion, ISO 6400 is my usable limit for this camera – in ideal lighting conditions

f/5.6 for 1/30 sec at 75 mm ISO 2500 [0 EV, Pattern metering, No flash, Manual with FE 24-105mm F4 G OSS]
There’s great flexibility in the auto white balance setup, but even the default is reasonable for everyday snapshots like this taken under tungsten lights.
The extra megapixels definitely help bring out the texture of the red maguro

f/8 for 1/2 sec at 24 mm ISO 100 [0 EV, Pattern metering, No flash, Aperture priority with FE 24-105mm F4 G OSS]
Daylight white balance is pretty warm even with standard creative style so I never even tried landscape or shade white balance during this review period

f/5 for 1/100 sec at 83 mm ISO 5000 [0 EV, Pattern metering, No flash, Aperture priority with FE 24-105mm F4 G OSS]
Gorgeous bokeh that is buttery smooth is definitely a benefit  you get with 61 megapixels
as shown here on a shot from my Peak Design Travel Tripod review

f/5 for 1/50 sec at 43 mm ISO 1600 [0 EV, Average metering, No flash, Aperture priority with FE 24-105mm F4 G OSS]
This is a tough scene due to the dark blacks and bright iPhone XS Pro LCD, but multi metering actually did an admirable job. I could easily make this shot perfect with some raw editing and layer masks.

f/16 for 4 sec at 30 mm ISO 100 [0 EV, Average metering, No flash, Aperture priority with FE 24-105mm F4 G OSS]
Without the tilting LCD this shot wouldn’t have been possible.
See a behind the scenes of this shot in my Peak Design Travel Tripod review.

f/16 @ 24mm for 2.5 sec at ISO 100
Another down low shot made possible thanks to the tilting LCD.
See a behind the scenes of this shot in my Peak Design Travel Tripod review.

f/8 @ 36mm for 1.3 sec at ISO 100
Generally cameras start to lose sharpness after f/8 due to diffraction, but not here.
Compare this f/8 shot to the f/16 shot below
See a behind the scenes of this shot in my Peak Design Travel Tripod review

f/16 @ 36mm for 6 sec at ISO 100
I was pleased to see that f/16 kept the sharpness of the in-focus f/8 subjects while offering sharpness to the f/8 out of focus subjects thanks to minimal detail loss.
Simply put, f/16 (and even f/22) can be used without concern – if you can keep the ISO low.
See a behind the scenes of this shot in my Peak Design Travel Tripod review

f/9 @ 46mm for 2 sec at ISO 100
I was playing around using the Peak Design Travel Tripod as a tabletop tripod for this shot and got an impressive result. Given the importance of keeping the ISO low on this camera, I’d strongly urge you to bring a tripod everywhere you take this camera to avoid going beyond ISO 6400.

f/9 @ 49mm for 4 sec at ISO 100
I moved the flowers in to better light with less distractions and got great detail on the center of the flower with highlights that are easily recovered with the raw file.

f/5.6 @ 105mm for 1/500 sec at ISO 400
It surprises me how weak the in-camera JPEG’s are, but I guess Sony gave up making improvements there knowing that the 15 stops of exposure adjustments possible with the RAW file make it ridiculous to not shoot raw with this camera.

f/5.6 @ 105mm for 1/500 sec at ISO 1600
Ask a 10 year old to find a prop that we can use to test eye AF, and this is what you get.
You get the point though – even with a clear distraction, eye AF does a stellar job for about 80% of the complex scenarios like this that I threw at it. It might miss a frame or two, but more times than not it nailed it like this.

f/5.6 @ 105mm for 1/500 sec at ISO 3200
I was super pleased that photo bombing big brothers didn’t confuse the auto focus either.

f/5.6 @ 105mm for 1/500 sec at ISO 3200
Once again, while my daughter waved a stick in front of her face the eye AF never faltered…

f/5.6 @ 105mm for 1/500 sec at ISO 3200
This one frame was the only one that focused on the stick, but that’s what I’d expect with AF sensitivity set to 5 (most responsive) as it was in this case. The default or slower most likely would have kept the eye in focus.

f/5.6 @ 105mm for 1/500 sec at ISO 800
I’m used to Canon’s default Evaluate metering on my 1DX II prioritizing the focus point, but the default multi metering here and another similar shot always did a scene average which still results in hot spots and the subject being too dark. Again this is all savable with the RAW, but its a theme that demonstrates that Sony expects you to shoot raw and spend a lot of time fixing these in-camera issues unless you are very diligent in your manual adjustments on a per shot basis.
Sadly enabling Face Priority in Multi Metering mode did not solve the problem in cases like these.

f/5.6 @ 105mm for 1/500 sec at ISO 1250
Yeah, another eye AF test – I just couldn’t help but try to trip it up but it almost always nailed it.
Thankfully the IV does it automatically with an option to prioritize which eye like Fujifilm offers, without having to hold a special button as was required with the III.

f/5.6 @ 105mm for 1/250 sec at ISO 1250
I registered both kids faces with my daughter as the #1 priority. However, my son was in the #2 spot so the camera alternated between the two subjects as shown in this series of shots.

f/5.6 @ 105mm for 1/250 sec at ISO 1250
Since my son was in the #2 spot for registered faces, the camera sometimes would choose him over my daughter who was registered in the #1 slot.

f/5.6 @ 105mm for 1/250 sec at ISO 1250
When I unregistered my son’s face, I had a 100% success rate with the camera prioritizing her face over his. This feature is available on many Sony models and as a parent I can’t emphasize enough how much I love this feature – especially with photo bombing big brothers!

f/5.6 @ 105mm for 1/250 sec at ISO 800
I know I keep going on about the metering, but in this shot the meter just blows the exposure on the dress and cheek highlights

f/4 @ 105mm for 1/320 sec at ISO 100
When I switched from multi-metering to spot metering with focus point link enabled it did a better job but at the expense of the entire background. Canon shooters who appreciate partial metering or how Canon does spot metering are going to struggle like I did with getting perfect metering in-camera. That said, I was happy with how this one came out even if it wasn’t my intent to completely lose the background.

f/4 @ 105mm for 1/250 sec at ISO 500
My daughter was dancing around behind the tree while winking and once again the eye AF feature did a great job.

f/4 @ 105mm for 1/250 sec at ISO 500
Auto white balance on overcast days had mixed color results with this shot being taken a few minutes apart from the shot below.

f/5.6 @ 105mm for 1/125 sec at ISO 1000
Here the auto white balance color was outstanding whereas above it was fairly blue so I wondered if face priority in multi being enabled not only helped the exposure but the skin tone colors for this more close up shot than the one above.

f/5.6 @ 105mm for 1/250 sec at ISO 2500
Take moments apart from the two previous shots, the average result in real world shooting was that auto white balance does a pretty good job.

f/11 @ 77mm for 1/160 sec at ISO 100
This studio shot gave the IV and this lens the opportunity to show their strengths – and it did in the detail in the eyes and the hair. However the extra megapixels showed how unforgiving the depth of field is at f/11 as the bunny belly is completely out of focus. This is to be expected, but its something to consider when shooting in the studio as you are going to want lenses that are razor sharp from f/11 to f/16 – at least.

f/9 @ 52mm for 1/125 sec at ISO 100
I cranked up the lights to try to freeze the action on some hair spin shots but my decision to open up to f/9 cost me too much depth of field so my previous point applies. If you are going to have a dynamic studio shoot with this lens, I’d recommend staying closer to f/16 than f/8.

f/9 @ 105mm for 1/100 sec at ISO 100
Ok, I admit this shot is mostly here because its cute but I was happy that eye AF saved me from having eyes that were out of focus. Her eye lashes are razor sharp which is exactly what you want in a shot like this, so I was happy the camera did the right thing without me having to put any thought into it.
For the record, she was sad because the studio chair was scary high. She took the next shot shortly thereafter, so she recovered quickly.

f/11 @ 105mm for 1/125 sec at ISO 100
A 61 megapixels camera is always going to find its happy place in the studio under ideal lights so the strength of this camera and lens camera combo shined for this shot. Even a thin stray hair over the camera right eye is tack sharp at 100% Here the softness on the neck and body work brilliantly to direct the viewers eye to the face exactly like you’d want it.
Yes, if you are a studio photographer you are going to enjoy this camera – especially if you pair it with amazing glass like the Sony FE 90mm f/2.8 Macro G OSS Lens or SIGMA 85mm f/1.4 Art Series .

f/14 @ 32mm for 3.2 sec at ISO 100
For fun, the gallery has several series of shots where only the aperture differ.
Enjoy comparing this f/14 version to the f/16 version and the f/22 version.

f/22 @ 31mm for 6 sec at ISO 100
I have no reservations shooting this camera at f/22 but I sure wish this camera had the built-in focus stacking that I enjoyed in the Fujifilm GFX 50s.

f/5.6 @ 71mm for 1/160 sec at ISO 12800
Buttery smooth bokeh is an advantage of 61 megapixels no matter how bad the high ISO noise is – especially when showing small version of the the massive files.

f/22 @ 32mm for 13 sec at ISO 100
This shot, taken with a circular polarizer, had loads of detail and deep greens – especially when viewed at 100%.

f/22 @ 27mm for 15 sec at ISO 100
Same scene photographed with the camera nearly touching the water using the Peak Design Travel Tripod. It obviously needs a perspective adjustment because I had issues with the viewfinder sensor making the LCD screen go black because the viewfinder was too close to the legs. I’m sure there’s a way to disable it, but I wasn’t able to figure it out deep in the backwoods while standing in the water for this shoot. If you buy one of these cameras, don’t be like me – learn how to disable this feature if you plan to shoot shots like these!

Conclusion

Well we’ve been down this road before where more megapixels doesn’t always mean a better camera. Yes, I loved the extra megapixels in the wonderfully fun to use Fujifilm GFX 50s but more often than not the extra megapixels end up being a disappointment as a primary everyday camera as I observed  with the Nikon D800 and the Canon 5DsR.  It seems Sony wasn’t concerned about that and decided to leapfrog all of these cameras by offering a whopping 61 megapixels (9504 x 6336 pixels), but would this result in mediocre autofocus performance and poor high ISO performance as I’ve historically observed?

The short answer is sadly, yes.  Don’t get me wrong, this is a great camera but you do make tradeoffs that I wouldn’t make – especially for this price point.

I’d gladly still take a Sony a7R III over a IV any day of the week. The extra megapixels have only made the ISO performance above 800 below average by todays standards and increased the number of out of focus shots I got even in bright lights both outdoors and in the studio.

This camera simply isn’t for me. If was going to go with more megapixels I’d still opt for the Fujifilm GFX 50s, but if I wanted the best camera I’ve ever used then I’d have no reservations “stepping down” to the much more affordable Sony  a7R III or the sports machine gun that is the a9 II (see my Sony a9 review).

I will say that I did enjoy the range of the Sony FE 24-105mm f/4 G OSS Lens , but I’d need to test it with a different camera to really render a final verdict. I was terribly disappointed with the Sony FE 24-70mm f/2.8 GM Lens when I reviewed it with the a6500 and a9, but I also loved the Sony Vario-Tessar T* E 16-70mm f/4 ZA OSS Lens that some Sony fans hate. I will say the 24-105 covers a focal range that I most enjoy when carrying only one lens, but given the constraints of a 61 megapixel sensor I’d love to retest it to get a better feel for its true performance.

I also wish that I had a Sony FE 90mm f/2.8 Macro G OSS Lens or SIGMA 85mm f/1.4 Art Series to use for this review as that would have given me the most accurate picture as to just how good this sensor is in terms of resolving detail, but I still don’t recommend the a7R IV based purely on its autofocus and ISO performance despite what other fanboy and paid advertising sites say about it.

Where to Buy?

To learn more or buy today please use the following links:

• Sony Alpha a7R IV Mirrorless Digital Camera at B&H
• Sony FE 24-105mm f/4 G OSS Lens at B&H
• a7R IV & 24-105mm Kit at B&H

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• Sony a7R Mark III - Camera of the Year 2017
• Sony a9 with 24-70mm GM
• Sony a6500
• SIGMA 24mm Art Series
• SIGMA 35mm Art Series
• SIGMA 50mm f/1.4 Art Series (includes comparisons)
• SIGMA 85mm f/1.4 Art Series - the best art series I've tested
• X-Rite ColorChecker Passport
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• Zeiss Otus 85mm f/1.4

Enjoy these and more on the Reviews tab as well as Ron's Recommendations.

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