Upgrade path - A7RV or A1

[bronaldo]

Im currently using an A9 with the sony 200-600 (often with the 1.4x TC). I would like to upgrade for a few reasons (in no particular order):

1. Megapixels: I often end up having to crop A LOT, and the A9 doesn't have a lot of room to play with.

2. Bird/Animal eye AF: This is on my mind more and more because I regularly have shots where the A9 focuses on a branch or grass when shooting birds and mammals. I am traveling a lot in the next few months, primarily for photography, and I don't want to go to the Masai Mara and have a bunch of shots that focused on grass and not the animal.

Most of my day to day shooting consists of birds. I will do birds in flight, but not as a primary thing. If I see a tern or kingfisher, I will try to get a shot in flight, but its not a major goal of mine. I will do some landscape and cityscape photography, usually when traveling. I have also started doing some macro, but haven't gotten the hang of it yet.

So, which way do I go? Will I miss blackout free, super high FPS shooting? Are the improvements to the A7RV enough to make up for the lack of stacked sensor for my use cases? For context, a new A7RV is about $4000 CAD less expensive than a new A1. That price difference goes down to ~$1000 CAD if buying used. That difference would be put towards my future 600mm F4 fund, or towards another photography trip.

edit: Thought I would mention that in any situation, I will be keeping the A9 as a second body.

 

[bfs208]

I have both the A1 and the A7RV. The lack of the stacked sensor does not work for me for BIF. I love the A7RV, just not for BIF. I do put the 200-600 on it if I'm just going for perched or swimming birds but mostly I use it for landscapes, seascapes and flower close ups. I use the A1 almost every day for birds in general and BIF.

 

[abc123brian]

I’m not a user of either camera and am more familiar with the A1 than A7Rv, but my understanding is they both have excellent AF tracking and eye detection. They both meet your high resolution requirements as well. So it comes down to whether you want or need the stacked sensor. Will the EVF blackout and using the mechanical shutter bother you? Do you shoot video where rolling shutter will be an issue? Do you often shoot more than 10fps? If so, the A1 would be the better option. If these aren’t important to you, the A7Rv might be a better option. If you aren’t in a hurry, many expect Sony to release an A9iii this year that may increase resolution.

 

[bronaldo]

I think there is a good chance that I will miss blackout free shooting and frame rate. I may try to wait for an A9iii, or price out selling my gear and picking up a Nikon Z8 + some suitable lens or an ETZ adapter.

 

[KimM]

I have the A1. Hands down, the best for action. 51 megapixels. You know there is a BCG member here who has one used for sale. And it would be close to the price of a new A7RV......

 

[DavidT]

Personally I’d get the a1. You did mention macro and the a7R5 I believe has focus stacking. A local shooter here who shoots birds picked one up and he’s getting amazing results but rarely shoots anything flying. Can you keep the a9? If so then maybe the a7 but for me I’d rather give up 9 or so MP and have a camera that can shoot at higher frame rates and a stacked sensor. To me that’s more important but I also shoot a lot of fast moving subjects.

 

[bronaldo]

Personally I’d get the a1. You did mention macro and the a7R5 I believe has focus stacking. A local shooter here who shoots birds picked one up and he’s getting amazing results but rarely shoots anything flying. Can you keep the a9? If so then maybe the a7 but for me I’d rather give up 9 or so MP and have a camera that can shoot at higher frame rates and a stacked sensor. To me that’s more important but I also shoot a lot of fast moving subjects.

I will be keeping the A9 as a second body. I have my first camera, an a6400 that I will be selling + 2 APSC lenses that I haven't touched in a while. Im hoping to offload those for a combined 1500-2000 CAD to help fund the upgrade.

 

[arbitrage]

A1...100%...yes the A7RV has really good AF and better than the A1 in some ways. But it is useless to do action photography with unless you only want to do very short 1-3 shot bursts. ES is a rolling shutter nightmare so you are mostly limited to ~7-8FPS in MS. ES at 10FPS is also slideshow and laggy...really hard to shoot. A7RV has so many quality of life improvements over A1 (like fast card formatting, FW updates from memory cards, customizable right upper dial, DMF via camera for any lens, buttons feel better) but none of those make up for the A1's stacked sensor.

For birds, A1...100%.

 

[arbitrage]

I think there is a good chance that I will miss blackout free shooting and frame rate. I may try to wait for an A9iii, or price out selling my gear and picking up a Nikon Z8 + some suitable lens or an ETZ adapter.

I think A9III is still going to be 24MP but it will have all the A7RV improvements, probably some crazy fast FPS and hopefully some precapture in RAW feature. But if it goes above 24MP I doubt it will go higher than 35MP....maybe not enough for what you are looking for??

 

[bronaldo]

I think A9III is still going to be 24MP but it will have all the A7RV improvements, probably some crazy fast FPS and hopefully some precapture in RAW feature. But if it goes above 24MP I doubt it will go higher than 35MP....maybe not enough for what you are looking for??

My hunch is that a new A9 doesn't go above 33MP, and would likely cost more than a used A1.

 

[bronaldo]

I've decided to hold off and see if the A9III offers something incredible. In the mean time, I will work on composing small-in-frame birds. I think I will be fine for larger wildlife in Kenya. I have come to this conclusion after realizing I had switched to human-eye AF (as opposed to animal-eye AF) when I was doing street photography in London