The Sony a7V is here, and every camera brand has opinions. This one is a comedy sketch rather than a review: I play all of them, sat around a table, roasting Sony and each other about open gate, RAW, fans, crops and who has spent the most money buying a cinema camera company lately.
It’s the first video I’ve made like this, and if you want the follow up, they all came back for the a7R VI.
The Cast
Canon is a Texan, which is the accent I can do without thinking about it, being from Texas. Canon’s position is that IBIS adds wobbles, real filmmakers don’t need it, and nobody needs open gate or anything above 4K. Canon has also never had a crop, thank you, and would rather not discuss overheating.
Sony is in a gamer bedroom with a Best AF trophy on the desk, insisting the a7V is a very competent camera that people are going to love, while everybody else stares at it. Sony’s actual line, delivered completely straight, is that they’re here to give you what you need, not necessarily what you want.
Panasonic has open gate, has a fan, and has definitely fixed the overheating with a firmware update. Kinda.
And the iPhone turns up in an Apple Store with a gimbal and a Mac Pro, because of course it does.
Fuji only makes medium format and APS-C and cannot help it that nobody wants full frame. Nikon has RAW, all the flavors of RAW, on account of having gone out and bought a whole cinema camera company. Blackmagic has RAW too, as long as you like ProRes RAW, and will not be drawn into a BRAW versus RED RAW argument. And Leica is very old, keeps talking about great-grandpa Ernie starting the company in 1869, and suggests Sony simply dig under the couch cushions and buy ARRI.
The Actual Complaints
Underneath the jokes, this is a genuine list of what the a7V does not do, and it’s the reason the sketch works at all.
- No open gate. This is the one filmmakers have been asking for the longest, everybody else has now shipped it, and Sony did not include it.
- No internal RAW.
- Maxes out at 4K. It does 4K 120, which is genuinely great, and it doesn’t crop at 4K 60. But 4K is the ceiling.
- No fan, so we’re back to talking about recording limits and heat.
- Micro HDMI, in 2025.
- The same body as the a7R V, which came out three years ago, with the finger grip shaved down slightly. That’s the update.
People have been waiting on this camera for four years. The joke that lands hardest is the one about Sony delaying it a month to add every feature the competition had just shipped, and still arriving with less.
Whether that matters depends entirely on what you shoot. If you want the camera anyway, it’s here at B&H. And the a7S IV is going to have to do considerably more than this.
Tell Me How To Do This Better
I’d genuinely love feedback on this one as a format. Do you like the characters? Which are your favorites, and which need work? And how are the accents, because those are hard and I may end up dropping them entirely. Except Canon’s. That Southern drawl comes out rather naturally.
If you want more from me that isn’t a sketch: my Filmmaker Gear Guide is free here, my color presets work on every camera, and I have deep dive courses for the a7S III and the FX3. My audio cables are here.