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A Birder and Wildlife Enthusiast's Review of the Sony A7V

Hawk In The Lens

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Sony released their newest mid-range hybrid camera, the Sony A7V. I have used it for a few months now and wanted to share how I've liked it for birding and wildlife filming and photography.

Sony A7V on Amazon:
https://amzn.to/4s8pWug
Sony A7V on BHPhoto:
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produc...
These are an affiliate link and I get a small percentage if you use my link at no extra cost to you. It's a great way to support me!

Have any more questions about the Sony A7V? I would be happy to try and answer them if you drop me a comment. Just note I am a passionate birder and wildlife enthusiast so I might not know every little detail about the Sony A7V. I plan to make more videos in the future featuring the camera so subscribe and watch for those!

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0:00 Introduction
1:00 Camera Body Overview
4:56 IO and Ports
6:08 Video Performance
7:25 Focusing In Video Mode
8:50 Stabilization
11:44 External Audio
12:09 Other Video Considerations
12:37 Battery Life
13:50 Photography Features
15:58 Pre-capture
16:58 Focusing in Photo Mode
17:53 Quirk With Lightroom
18:31 Conclusion

20 Comments

@TechnologyHive 1 month ago

I like the photos I saw in this video. They seem more like what my eye would see in the field. I appreciate photo art, but I think a lot of photographers edit their photos so heavily that the natural look to the subjects goes out the window. Thanks for sharing btw!

@edcAdventures. 1 month ago (edited)

worth its price:
1 AF
2 Battery life
3 Overall Photo and video performance
4 Pre-capture

i only wish it was 42mp

@slowbirding 6 months ago

Sony gets so many things right with their cameras and you nailed them all on the head. Great photo and video examples throughout!

@navajoson 5 months ago

Really well done video.

@florian.nolting 5 months ago

Great video! I also had the mechanical shutter active on my previous owned A7IV because I liked the haptiv feedback but switched to using the electronic shutter now on the A7V mainly because of the burst rate and pre-capture and I'm really happy with it!

@Kestrel933 6 months ago

Timely video, Hawkin! Just earlier today I again got seriously annoyed with the feature of my camera that I call OuttaFocus, so I‘m in the market for something new. Re: you asking! yes, a video abt how you set up the programmable buttons and how you then use them in the field would also be nice!

@mauriciolee7349 6 months ago

Thank Hawkin for this INTERESTING review of shooting wildlife photo & video with the Sony A7V.

@alonteach 5 months ago

thank you for a great informative video

@synaptik24 6 months ago (edited)

As a a7iv user I've had it in pretty bad rain and snow a few times and it's been just fine, take precautions obviously but, I would think the a7v would also hold up. Also using weather resistant lenses

@picl17 5 months ago

Hi, thank you for the review. Which lens better suit for headtop youtube videos on less light.

@WhatEvenIsYoutube 5 months ago

Do you know if the 4k 120 is still oversampled even though it’s cropped? Maybe it over-samples that crop area?

@dr.alanmarcus4741 6 months ago

Thank you very much for your review of the A7V. I have also recently purchased this camera for birds and BIF photography. If you could please do a YouTube video discussion your setup settings for birds. I am particularly interested in your photo mode settings. Jan Wegener recently published his setup on YouTube with an accompanying ebook that was extremely informative. I am sure your experience and settings would be very valuable. 😊

@Vtellen 6 months ago (edited)

They added the support for compressed raw

@ArtVandelay-ImporterExporter 2 months ago

What lens is in the video?

@shauryataneja6251 6 months ago

Very informative video - do you shoot log for wildlife?

@determinedskeptic 6 months ago

A7V + 200-600 is a dream!! Love mine...but not being able to shoot Compressed-HQ or regular Compressed (because of no editing software recognizing it) kinda sucks a bit.

@mark.physique9119 6 months ago

Cool! Thanks for this! How do you like the cropability of this camera? I’m doubting between this camera and a used A1 mk1 😬 the A1 would be my choice if video AF was better

@thaddeevaldelievre895 4 months ago

Thanks for nice video! I’ve noticed lots of missed photos on a7riii with 400-800 lens of animals are very far away- 150-200 yards out, even with single point AF. Have you noticed this being a problem with this camera?