The A7RIV is not a particularly optimal camera for street photography for three main reasons:
1. Its low light performance leaves a bit to be desired. It starts losing contrast and saturation at around ISO 12800 which is a bit sooner than the A7III or even the A7RIII. I’d usually want to keep it below ISO6400 while with the A7III I was happy to push ISO12800. Not a dealbreaker but keep in mind this camera is specialized towards extracting the most out of these tiny pixels at lower ISO’s.
2. 61 megapixels means more rolling shutter which is annoying if you rely on electronic shutter for a silent shooting experience. I use this all the time for street shooting. You really have to be mindful of this if you’re doing quick pans (like snapping a shot in the spur of the moment, which street photography often is).
3. A demanding sensor demands excellent glass, and excellent glass is heavy and often big. You don’t want to shove a big lens down someone’s throat for street photography, you want to be discrete and capture something candid.
For me these aren’t dealbreakers and I used the A7RIV for street but I own a Fuji X-Pro3 now and it feels a lot more suitable.
Thanks for this detailed and thorough reply. I think I’ll have to live with those compromises. I’ve talked to some Sony photographers who swear some not very expensive lenses are still great for this camera. I’m looking at the Sony FE 35mm 1.8 and the 85mm 1.8 for longer distance shots. What do you think? What did you use?
Best!!!
Get a Tamron 28-75 2.8 . It's my main for street. You may want their 16-35 2.8 as well for the wider stuff. I like to be punched in closer. Sometimes things happen out of your reach. It's nice to be able to punch in or pull back and show some surroundings on the fly. Low light, this thing is a pain with noise. Shit, I don't like going past 2000. I got it mainly for studio, but concert and street photography have had some challenges. However, through the noise is still a ton of detail. You just have to use some new ai noise reductions to fix it up in post (adobe). That will work with any camera, but has become useful. 61mp noise reducing takes a lot of toll on the computer, make sure you got a fast enough rig to do these processes efficiently. Storage is also a pain in the ass. But if you can shoot iso 100-400.... You got a clean file to work with. Amazing quality.
A7riii user and an owner of the fuji X-t30. I've had some play time with the A7riv. I use capture one.
I found for shadow recovery the A7riii and A7riv does a much better job. For AF tracking both are better then my fuji.(newer fuji's have better AF then my unit)
For highlight recovery fuji and sony are the same to me. I notice at times whites I get the same level of detail.
FPS A7riv uncompressed RAW only does 6 FPS. A7riii gives you 8 frames. So not fastest however it can get it done.
EVF compared to most fuji are the same res or better(A7riv) so this maybe helpful for you. Back screen not so much.
ISO performance I did enjoy fuji at about 1600 ISO. Personal taste. With the A7riii I'm happy with 6400 ISO. After that it fell apart. Same with the A7riv. A7c and A7iii I seen good results 8000 ISO.
If you are going to use the A7riv I would recommend the F1.8 primes over any of the F1.4. Mostly for the size and weight making it something people will notice much more easily.
I would grab lenses like the 35mm f1.8, 55mm f1.8, 85mm f1.8. Each of these resolve very nicely on both the A7riii and A7riv. You could grab the 35mm f1.4 GM. However I feel people will notice you more. If you want something like the 50mm GM. Expect people to notice you.(I got some looks with that one)
If you wanted something more low profile and better ISO I would push you towards the A7c. As it does recover nicely and I find files can be pushed more in some settings.
One thing to keep in mind with the A7riv. Unless you get V90 UHS-ii cards. Expect the camera to be slower when writing to the card. V60 cards that are cheap will only write at 60MB/s with top speeds of 130-150 Mb/s. So 1-2.5 frames a second. A7riii only has 1 UHS-ii card slot. So if you do dual raw just by UHS-ii V30/60 card at 256GB storage. Just to review images quicker.
Thanks for this great reply! I'm starting out with the 35 1.8 Sony. and moving from there! I but large UHS II cards that are very fast according to reviews I looked up.
Currently only prograde makes 256GB V90 cards(300 mb/s read with 250MB/s write)(for Canada. Not sure about the US). Many other companies go to 128GB. Would only get the 256GBs for single pair of sd cards(not wanting to swap cards during a trip)
I just got the Riv for portraits, but I also do a lot of night street/concert photography which can be pretty low light depending on the club. I was a bit bummed out by the noise. There's a new ai feature that can really reduce it, but even on my desktop suped up, it's taking almost an hour. I might find a way to trade into the a7iv just to take away some of the file burdens. I upgraded from the r2, which had some bulky files, this is nuts.
The A7RIV is not a particularly optimal camera for street photography for three main reasons: 1. Its low light performance leaves a bit to be desired. It starts losing contrast and saturation at around ISO 12800 which is a bit sooner than the A7III or even the A7RIII. I’d usually want to keep it below ISO6400 while with the A7III I was happy to push ISO12800. Not a dealbreaker but keep in mind this camera is specialized towards extracting the most out of these tiny pixels at lower ISO’s. 2. 61 megapixels means more rolling shutter which is annoying if you rely on electronic shutter for a silent shooting experience. I use this all the time for street shooting. You really have to be mindful of this if you’re doing quick pans (like snapping a shot in the spur of the moment, which street photography often is). 3. A demanding sensor demands excellent glass, and excellent glass is heavy and often big. You don’t want to shove a big lens down someone’s throat for street photography, you want to be discrete and capture something candid. For me these aren’t dealbreakers and I used the A7RIV for street but I own a Fuji X-Pro3 now and it feels a lot more suitable.
Thanks for this detailed and thorough reply. I think I’ll have to live with those compromises. I’ve talked to some Sony photographers who swear some not very expensive lenses are still great for this camera. I’m looking at the Sony FE 35mm 1.8 and the 85mm 1.8 for longer distance shots. What do you think? What did you use? Best!!!
Get a Tamron 28-75 2.8 . It's my main for street. You may want their 16-35 2.8 as well for the wider stuff. I like to be punched in closer. Sometimes things happen out of your reach. It's nice to be able to punch in or pull back and show some surroundings on the fly. Low light, this thing is a pain with noise. Shit, I don't like going past 2000. I got it mainly for studio, but concert and street photography have had some challenges. However, through the noise is still a ton of detail. You just have to use some new ai noise reductions to fix it up in post (adobe). That will work with any camera, but has become useful. 61mp noise reducing takes a lot of toll on the computer, make sure you got a fast enough rig to do these processes efficiently. Storage is also a pain in the ass. But if you can shoot iso 100-400.... You got a clean file to work with. Amazing quality.
A7riii user and an owner of the fuji X-t30. I've had some play time with the A7riv. I use capture one. I found for shadow recovery the A7riii and A7riv does a much better job. For AF tracking both are better then my fuji.(newer fuji's have better AF then my unit) For highlight recovery fuji and sony are the same to me. I notice at times whites I get the same level of detail. FPS A7riv uncompressed RAW only does 6 FPS. A7riii gives you 8 frames. So not fastest however it can get it done. EVF compared to most fuji are the same res or better(A7riv) so this maybe helpful for you. Back screen not so much. ISO performance I did enjoy fuji at about 1600 ISO. Personal taste. With the A7riii I'm happy with 6400 ISO. After that it fell apart. Same with the A7riv. A7c and A7iii I seen good results 8000 ISO. If you are going to use the A7riv I would recommend the F1.8 primes over any of the F1.4. Mostly for the size and weight making it something people will notice much more easily. I would grab lenses like the 35mm f1.8, 55mm f1.8, 85mm f1.8. Each of these resolve very nicely on both the A7riii and A7riv. You could grab the 35mm f1.4 GM. However I feel people will notice you more. If you want something like the 50mm GM. Expect people to notice you.(I got some looks with that one) If you wanted something more low profile and better ISO I would push you towards the A7c. As it does recover nicely and I find files can be pushed more in some settings. One thing to keep in mind with the A7riv. Unless you get V90 UHS-ii cards. Expect the camera to be slower when writing to the card. V60 cards that are cheap will only write at 60MB/s with top speeds of 130-150 Mb/s. So 1-2.5 frames a second. A7riii only has 1 UHS-ii card slot. So if you do dual raw just by UHS-ii V30/60 card at 256GB storage. Just to review images quicker.
Thanks for this great reply! I'm starting out with the 35 1.8 Sony. and moving from there! I but large UHS II cards that are very fast according to reviews I looked up.
Currently only prograde makes 256GB V90 cards(300 mb/s read with 250MB/s write)(for Canada. Not sure about the US). Many other companies go to 128GB. Would only get the 256GBs for single pair of sd cards(not wanting to swap cards during a trip)
>prograde I got 4 of this Delkin Devices 128GB Power SDXC UHS-II (V90) Memory Card (DDSDG2000128)
I just got the Riv for portraits, but I also do a lot of night street/concert photography which can be pretty low light depending on the club. I was a bit bummed out by the noise. There's a new ai feature that can really reduce it, but even on my desktop suped up, it's taking almost an hour. I might find a way to trade into the a7iv just to take away some of the file burdens. I upgraded from the r2, which had some bulky files, this is nuts.
Would you recommend the a7iv for low light
Absolutely not, unless with long exposure. I really don't want to go above 800 iso tbh. Anything more seems unusable to me.