Sony a7C II vs a7 IV: Which Camera SHOULD You Buy?

[Music] Jared poen fronos photo.com and this is a comparison between the Sony a74 and the Sony A7 C2 now in this video I'm going to help you decide which one might be the right one for you depending on what you looking to do with your photography or videography now keep in mind at the time of recording this this a74 has been out for almost 2 and 1/2 years at this point and the A7 C2 has been out for just a matter of months they're always replacing cameras every couple of years so take that into consideration when you're making your decision now on top of that I've used both of these cameras in the real world and we've linked that down below so you can see my use in the real world with both of these cameras so how this video is going to work I'm going to go down a list of the features and functions tell you what is exactly the same between both of these cameras and where the differences lie so that you can better make a decision deciding on which way you want to go so let's start with the image sensor so the image sensor inside of the a74 as well as the A7 C2 is exactly the same you have a 33 megapixel full-frame BSI camos sensor which is powered by a bion's XR processor which is the same one that you find in Sony's Flagship at the time of recording this Sony A1 the sensor in both of these cameras is fantastic 33 megapixels is plenty whether you're going to sh weddings Sports landscape nature Wildlife it doesn't matter 33 megapixels is a beautiful sweet spot it is a really nice sensor that's going to help you get nice results for your Stills as well as videos now one thing I like to do in these videos is give check marks to the camera that I feel does something a little better now in this case being that they both have the same exact sensor I'm giving nobody a check mark because nobody gets the advantage there at least in this situation now moving on let's talk about the native ISO it's also exactly the same between both of these cameras it goes from 100 on the low end up to 51,200 natively and expandable up to 24,800 now generally speaking you're not going to go much past 51,200 and honestly I don't go much past 12,800 at this point unless I need to be in one of those super low light situations and I don't have a fast glass or a fast piece of glass to compensate for that but you have a pretty nice ISO range between both of these so I'm going to go ahead and give one check mark to Sony for having nice ISO now continuing on to frame rate which is also exactly the same between both of these cameras we'll get to some of the differences and help you figure out which one is right for you soon you get 10 frames a second both in electronic and mechanical shutter with both of these cameras six frames per second when shooting in uncompressed or lossless compressed raw now as you can tell I'm the I shoot raw guy if you want to show the world that you shoot Raw go to store. fronos photo.com and pick up your ioot raw shirt and just wait to see what comments you get when you're walking down the street but with that being said I like to shoot the best quality raw file as possible I used to shoot a lot of uncompressed stuff now if you're going to shoot uncompressed with this camera 6 frames a second if you're going to shoot lossless compressed it's also 6 frames a second or if you dumb it down and you shoot the compressed raw format which I don't recommend doing you're actually going to get 10 frames per second that's a lot more now that's one of the downsides to these cameras when you compare it to some of the Cannons out there which we're not going to do right now but I figured I would mention it that some of them like the R8 gives you something like 40 frames per second with the electronic shutter because Canon has slightly faster electronic shutter readout speeds now with that being said if you're going to shoot with the electronic shutter look at this example of when I was shooting hockey the boards in the stanions in the background are not supposed to be bending over one way or or the other they're supposed to be straight up and down that is an issue if you're going to shoot fast moving subjects or not even that fast moving subjects with electronic shutter what I was doing is I was panning and following the subject and there is no reason that the background should warble as much as it does you just do not have a super fast readout speed when it comes to using the electronic shutter now there's no Pro or con to either of these because they both do exactly the same thing you will find yourself shooting mostly in mechanical shutter the only time you're going to want to not shoot in mechanical shutter is if you need to be dead silent and if you're going to shoot silent just be aware you might get some banding or Boe if you're shooting fast moving subjects or depending on the lighting situation that you're in now moving on to the mounts of these cameras it is a Sony e-mount that means you can use all Sony glass that says Sony e-mount you can also get lenses from Tamron and sigma so there are a ton of great options even from third parties that allow you to spend less less money but still get quality pieces of glass speaking of quality pieces of glass check out Allens camera.com if you're looking to purchase any of these cameras or any lenses or accessories now it's time to get into something a little bit different and it's something that kind of upsets me a little bit let's get into Focus points you've got 759 phase detect AF points with 94% coverage you've got real-time tracking which includes human animal Birds insects cars as well as trains with the a74 now in terms of the A7 C2 you have basically the same exact autofocus except for the addition of a dedicated AI processor that AI processor wasn't out at the time that the a74 came out when the A7 R5 came out from Sony it added that dedicated AI processor and man did that autofocus get better the autofocus is better with the A7 C2 even though you have basically the same exact setup with both of these cameras and this one just so happen happens to be smaller the autofocus is going to be better with this one because of that AI processor now that doesn't make the a74 a bad autofocusing camera I find that it lags behind ever so slightly at least compared to the A7 C2 but it all depends on what you're photographing I was able to photograph Sports without a problem and you will be able to do everything without a problem but if autofocus is the main determining factor for you well then the check mark is absolutely going to the A7 C2 now like I said earlier this is a couple of months old this is 2 and 1/2 years old you can just guess that in the future when an a75 comes out that you're going to end up having the new dedicated AI processor let me jump in here real quick because I want to show you this photo taken with the Sony A7 C2 and edited with fro Pack 4 starting with thick followed by saltwater taffy Kaleidoscope copper tone c41 as well as Brooklyn but all new to fro Pack 4 we've got adaptive presets for the first time X1 X2 X3 and X4 I'm using X3 to enhance the eyes with one click I come over here click on the mask I'm going to zoom in so you can see this click on Iris and boom I can tweak the eyes to taste you don't want to go over the top you just want to be subtle to make it look natural but also my all-time favorite preset from fro pack one Skittles with one click looks amazing so look if you want to speed up your raw workflow give yourself a great starting point or edit on your phone in Mobile these presets work in Mobile we created 14 all new custom Lightroom presets that you can check out right now at fronos photo.com pac4 while you're over there you can play with the sliders to see the befores and The Afters and if you decide to pick them up right now they are currently on sale or if you want to get the Grand Slam bundle that includes frow Pack 1 2 3 and four and of course comes with Skittles you can do that as well now let's get back back to the video now let's move on to burst rates AKA how many shots in a row you can get the a74 will give you 828 raw files when using the CF Express type A cards the A7 C2 will give you 44 raw files because it only has one UHS 2 SD card slot it's not redundant you have two card slots inside of the a74 one of them is just dedicated to being an SD card slot and the other one can be an SD card slot or a CF Express a card slot now if you're looking up pricing for CF Express a cards you're going to notice that they are pretty expensive when you look to purchase those depending on what size you go with honestly they're really expensive at the time of recording this most likely you're going to get away with using just really good SD cards look at somebody like prograde or SanDisk those are the type of cards that I like to use you also have cards from Sony they make tough cards they're going to work very well inside of this camera now one of the reasons I like having two card slots is I like to shoot redundant what that means is whatever is being saved to card one is also being saved to card two so that means all of your raw files will go from will be on one and be on two when you shoot it redundant and the same thing applies when you're shooting video now you don't have redundancy in the A7 C2 because you only have one card slot if that is a deal breaker for you that you demand or need to have two cards because you shoot weddings or you don't want to I mean you never want to lose your files and knock on wood I'm knocking on wood I'm knocking on my forehead that hopefully doesn't happen too often but just make sure you use good memory cards because the last thing you want to have happen is a bad memory card failing and you lose everything and that's also why we shoot redundant so we're going with two check marks for two card slots in the a74 now moving on to the max shutter speeds cuz we do have something different with both of these cameras here the a74 will max out at 1 18,000 of a second in both mechanical and electronic now the A7 C2 will be 14,000 of a second with mechanical and 1 8,000th of a second when you go into electronic it's a shame that both of these cameras don't go to 16,000 of a second with electronic shutter like some of the competitors do but I do suspect in the future an a75 might go a little bit higher now what this means is if you're using faster glass in brighter situations you might have to stop down from 1.2 to 1.4 or 2.8 in order to compensate for all of that bright ass light coming in so in this case I'm not giving a I'm not giving a check mark to either of them fine you know what Stephen just said hey what about the four well technically it's better because it's 1 8,000th both ways so we're going to give it 1 8,000th of a check mark now let's move on to video because a lot of people like to shoot Stills as well as video and you're going to realize that this is basically the same thing just with some new additions in the a7c 2 you will get in both of these fullframe 4K UHD video up to 30 frames per second at 10bit 422 which is over sampled from 7K you can get cropped super 35 4K up to 60 frames per second fullframe 1080p up to 120 frames per second unlimited record time which is huge these days no overheating SL log 3 and S cotone you have Focus breathing compensation and a digital hot shoe for wireless audio that is the same for both of these now the difference is that the a7c 2 has the addition of Sony's AI based autof framing video mode and USBC streaming in 4k up to 30 frames per second that's just because it's newer and it's something they've added to the latest generations of their cameras the autof framing feature is pretty cool if you're going to photograph or video yourself it's going to move it around and zoom in on you just a little bit and just follow you around it's a really cool feature but to me it's not one of the main selling points that you would buy one over the other the big selling points are the fact that you get unlimited record time no longer are you limited to 2959 and you could just keep going and you shouldn't run into overheating issues moving on to image stabilization because you have Ibis built into both of these cameras the a74 gives you up to 5 and 1 half stops of stabilization with Ibis you also have an active mode stabilization which is going to crop in slightly on your image to give you a little bit extra stability now the A7 C2 has up to seven stops of stabilization with Ibis and it also has active mode stabilization seven is better than 5 and 1/2 which means 1 and A2 Stars I mean check marks if my math is correct five six and a half seven yes one and a half check marks one of the biggest differences you're going to find between both of these cameras is when you're looking through the viewfinder the a74 has a 3.68 million do evf with 120 frames per second refresh rate and the A7 C2 has a 2.36 million do evf with 120 frames per second refresh rate now you're not going to notice much of a difference in say image quality with the 3o something the 2 point something it's the size it's the size that matters in this case size absolutely does matter don't tell my lady friend that but yes Size Matters here because the viewfinder is one it's in the middle of the camera where I think viewfinder should be on a camera like this and two the A7 c2s has it off to the left hand side which gets in the way for someone like me who's a left eye shooter because my nose gets more in the way it's a smaller viewfinder it's harder to get your eye up in there especially if you're someone who wears glasses I don't shoot with glasses I wear glasses but I shove my eye super deep in there and it's much harder to see the viewfinder with your eye when you're using the A7 C2 it's not a deal breaker you get used to it but I just need you to be aware that the view finder is larger on the a74 than it is on the A7 C2 so we are giving a check mark to the a74 in terms of the screens on the back of these cameras exactly the same a 3-in 1.03 million dot VAR angle touchcreen where you can touch everything meaning you can control the menus from there you can flip it out you can rotate it just understand that the evf is going to be higher quality when you're reviewing your images or video than the 1.03 million dots on the back of this camera I'm not a big fan of the screen this is something they need to update at some point so no check marks there now for those of you who are going to be shooting Flash The Flash sync speeds are different between these cameras the a74 gives you 1 to 50th of a second flash sync whereas the A7 C2 gives you 1 160th now it's not a big difference but it's a slight difference so we have a slight check mark here on the a74 let me quickly jump in here and say would you like me to send you a free guide to capturing Motion in low light situation if you said yeah just head on over to fronos photo.com look for this Orange Box put your name email address in it hit send it I'm going to send you that guide for free let's talk about the batteries in these cameras you have really good batteries from Sony it is the same battery the npfz100 you do have USB charging available with both of these now the a74 has the ability to allow you to add a vertical grip which means you can slide an extra battery in there you can shoot vertical and change all of your settings and hold on to the camera much easier if you have larger hands now the A7 C2 which is smaller does offer a grip option for $150 but it's a dumb grip because it doesn't do anything other than extend the grip I liked having it on the camera but it doesn't give you any benefit Beyond just making the camera feel a little better in your hands for that reason we're going with another check mark for the a74 now let's move on to the weight as you could imagine here the a74 is larger than the A7 C2 and weighs in at 1.45 lb lb or 658 G the A7 C2 is 22% lighter at 1.13 lb or 54 G why is it smaller and lighter well well look at it it's it's it's not on a diet it's just more compact they basically took everything that's in this and improved it a little bit but squeezed it into a much smaller package with the trade-offs that I talked about they did go with a larger grip than they did have with the a7c originally and the a7c 2's grip feels much better in the hands the a74 feels really nice in the hands as well especially when you add the grips to both of them they both feel very nice if you're someone who has bigger hands and you want to have a beef of your camera the a74 is going to be the one for you if you're someone who just wants to take something smaller maybe travel around then the A7 C2 might be the better option for you now one of the most important things is talking about price the a74 is $249 $98 where the A7 C2 is $2,198 that's like $298 39 that's like $300 difference it's crazy because I feel that you're getting better features or you actually are getting better features with the newer camera but it's smaller and it doesn't have the two card slots but it does have the AI processor for autofocus whereas the a74 doesn't I do suspect that in a matter of a year or so that the A7 74 will be replaced with an a75 that will get basically the same features maybe an updated sensor and processor but at that point that will be a better option it's just interesting that this one is less expensive but in my opinion slightly better in certain situations now if you're starting out as a photographer today and you want to be a wedding photographer you want to shoot Sports this is a great allaround catchall type of camera you can add a great amount of lenses to it it may not be the fastest shooting camera in the world at maximum of 10 frames per second with mechanical and Silent or mechanical and electronic there are other options from other manufacturers that allow you to get more frames per second with the electronic shutter but in this case if you are looking to be in the Sony ecosystem this is a very good starting point now if you're someone who's traveling around you you are looking at maybe do I buy a Fuji X100 or a smaller Fuji to travel with because you like the size of it I would say don't even look at the Fuji because this is an incredible option to take around with you around the world it's going to give you great results and just understand the trade-off is the basically the one card slot not two if you can get past that then this is going to be a fantastic camera for the same things that the a74 is going to be a fantastic camera for I'm going to leave it there what do you guys think which one of these cameras is the right one for you let me know down below and I thank you guys very much for watching Jared poen fronos photo.com see you

Channel: Jared Polin

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Id: gfBFAWsIy9c

Length: 19min 3sec (1143 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 17 2024