The A7 series has always been Sony’s dependable full-frame workhorse, the jack-of-all trades, and the camera most generalist photographers should probably buy, whether they shoot portraits, sports, landscapes, weddings, or video. The new A7 V doesn’t aim to change the purpose of this line; it’s still the everyman’s camera, but it represents the biggest generational shift this range has seen since the A7 III.
While the A7 V has many, many improvements that trickle down from other recent models, Sony has introduced a couple of firsts. There is the debut of a new partially stacked sensor, which improves readout times for faster burst speed and writing video. This is joined by a refreshed Bionz XR2 processor, which finally integrates the separate AI unit we have seen in most of Sony’s recent range into the processor itself, and enables an evolution in autofocus performance over the prior model.
