Product Reviews

After much thought and indecision I upgraded from the MkIV to the MkV and WOW! what a difference. Everything seems to be improved. The menu is much easier to understand and there's so much more that you can customise, I won't bore you with the figures, I might frighten you away. There's a lot of online advice on how to customise it to your needs, and I needed that. Virtually nothing has been overlooked, it even does focus stacking (but you need Photoshop, or similar, to process the images). Subject recognition is amazing: humans, animals, birds, insects, cars, trains, planes. For humans you can even specify left or right eye. For animals and birds it's body, head or eye. Oh yes, the screen is touch sensitive. Apart from focus, shooting and tracking it makes the menu easier to use too. What more can I say? I've only had it a couple of weeks, give it a couple of months.

I have always used Sony mirror less and these do not disappoint. Wish Sony could develop a shutter for the sensor when changing lens

Big improvement on the 7R111. The menu is easer to use and the fold away action of the screen keeps it clean & safe when not in use.

A technically amazing camera in such a compact size. I'm hoping to go out on the hills tomorrow to try it out alongside my Sony A74

I’ve had many Sony FX cameras but non as good as my Sony A7R V, I was worried that getting an upgrade from my A7R IV to the new A7R V wouldn’t be justified, but how wrong was I? The A7R V is a total beast the autofocus is by far the best I’ve ever seen, my R IV sometimes struggled in low light to even find a fast where as the R V nails the eye every time even in low light, I even tried it on my cat it’s worked impeccably. My only wish is a little better low light capability, but as for the moment we can’t have it all. Sony are nearly there with the A7R V I’m sure they give us the perfect camera very soon.

A long standing Minolta collector and user migrated to Sony through Nex to A7 to A7Rv and sooooo pleased to have arrived. So many improvements not just about MP. The articulation on the screen, the best, the Viewfinder, do not miss an optical viewfinder at all. Focus bracketing, still needs refining but so welcome. Will I miss APSc not while FF is this compact, not too small to grip well. And a menu, even I can follow.

A truly brilliant camera and noticeably better than the A7R IV I previously owned: well worth the investment to upgrade. The added new features and the improvements made to previous features must make this the very best in its class.....by a long, long way. Pair it with a Sony GM lens and there are no excuses not to be able to take amazing photos. Thank you Sony!

Back screen and ai distinct improvement. Just needs something akin to Olympus Pro Capture to make it perfect.

This is my first Sony camera after having Nikon for years and using Zeiss lenses. I’m still using manual focus Zeiss, so the AF aspects of this camera don’t mean much to me at the moment. However, the main reason for buying this camera is the superb picture quality you can get from the sensor when paired with a good lens and technique. The pixel shift option using four shots adds a further jump in quality which I like for very large printing. The Achilles heel of this camera, and I understand from other owners has always been a weak point for Alpha bodies, is the overly complicated menu system. My D850 would have taken a fifth of the time to set up as does my friends Canon camera. I had to resort to online videos as the manual simply isn’t up to the task. When switching from one system to another, you have to make allowances for different terminology and layout. However, even taking this into account, it could be made far simpler to set up and to navigate. Try working out how you assign one slot to RAW and the other to JPEG just using the manual! I will deep dive into these menus and get familiar with them as any user should, but as a new user trying to set this up to extract the maximum quality from it, it could be vastly improved and make this camera the absolute best on the market.

i’ve had this camera a few weeks ,i’ve upgraded from an a7iii i take a lot of wildlife and the detail is great , still lots to learn but really happy with it

I switched from Lumix S5 to a7rv after learning about the Sony's new AF and AI features. The camera is an absolute beautiful piece of technology to master and easy to use. It is highly y to anyone serious about taking great pictures without getting bogged with fixing AF issues.

Superb photo quality, Fantastic focus facility and white balance

One of the finest cameras I have used for a very long time. I love everything about this camera and still discovering and trialling all the features. If you are serious about photography and have the passion to invest time and energy, this camera should be your first choice, not your last one.

Sony A7r V is definitely the best camera out at the moment. The new AI system is almost impeccable, great precision very sticky to the subject and the eye recognition is magnificent. My only disappointment is that when you autofocus the quality of the screen and the viewfinder drop, showing some moire and lights bands. I thought it was a issue caused by the anti flicker but it’s not… if can be fixed with a firmware update that would be very appreciated.

I bought this camera two weeks ago. It is ti replace my A7Riii for wedding & portrait work (both studio and environmental). I will also use it for personal pleasure for landscapes. All in all a wonderful camera. I was exceptionally pleased with my old camera but the dynamic range is even better and the AI focusing for weddings is a blessing. Almost impossible to fail. There was rumour about higher resolution, but why? This is enough and on wedding shoots I may be at 50% anyway! Teamed with G master lenses this, to my mind, is the perfect camera for my use. I LOVE IT! Shame about Adobe playing catch up for the new RAW files but worth the wait. Well designed and built. A pleasure to use. Sony broke the glass ceiling with mirrorless DSLR and keep on improving.

I traded the Sony A7r4 for the r5. I am please with the purchase because the additional features and improvements are very useful to me. I like the AI focus and look forward to getting plenty of use from the focus stacking feature.

As a still image wildlife and landscape photographer, I place a high value on this camera's focusing options, tracking capability and full-frame high resolution sensor. The model offers many improvements over its predecessor, not least the new screen and less cluttered menus. But the controls remain familiar and it's easy making the transition from the Alpha 7Riv or 9ii to the 7Rv.

A superb all round camera. Love it. Technically a masterpiece

This camera is definitely worth the upgrade from the A7Riv (which I still own as a second body) especially if you do fast action (often low light) sports photography - the focussing and subject recognition are ace; probably just as good for nature photographers too. Not sure other genres would realise the upgrade value given the high price. However, it came a complete shock to me to find (after a shoot) that this camera is not yet supported by leading professional software (Lightroom/ACR)! Maybe I should have thought about that but I didn't and it would have helped to have known that before I upgraded. I would suggest that if processing raw images is an essential workflow path then wait, it'll come but who wants to faff around with Sony software conversions in the meantime? So, in summary, amazing camera hence the 5 stars but wouldn't it be nice if manufacturers actually cooperated?

This is my fourth R camera and suits my interests perfectly. Each iteration has been an improvement, and in this case for me the highlights are the new tracking, focus bracket, the better menu and the excellent screen. The body is also more robust.

I've only had it for two weeks. It is a flexibly configurable full frame highest resolution camera. It's AI Focusing, All-Axis LCD Screen, Super Viewfinder, New Touch Menu/Screen, Powerful Processor, and 8 Stop Image Stabilisation culminate in a camera that will suit a wide spectrum of photographers. Well done to the listening Sony.

Exceptional image quality when used correctly and with the best lenses and appropriate software. Sharp, clean and impressive looking images – best I've ever seen by a long way. Also, excellent screen and viewfinder. However, the menus are still appallingly bad and completely non-intuitive. For the life of me, I can't find any way of assigning Slot 1 to RAW and Slot 2 to record jpeg's! Plus, the online guide has dark text on a glaringly white background which is bad for the eyes. Please offer a 'dark theme', ie light text on dark background, as in DP Review.

My first digital camera after 50 years of using film. My Leica camera equates to flying a biplane with a joystick; my new camera is like the flight deck of a Jumbo Jet, though magnificent in its simplicity to use. So much to learn and yet excited by its quality.

Purchased mainly for photography, I have been nothing but blown away by the quality...from the build of the camera to the quality of the images I have got out of this, I'm really pleased with the purchase.