Sony on Thursday night launched its new camera, the Alpha 7 IV or A7 IV. The new Sony camera is a successor to the A7 III, company’s popular entry-level full-frame camera from 2018. Sony claims to have improved the photographic capabilities on the Alpha 7 IV while also bringing some good video capabilities, making it a good overall hybrid camera. The new Sony A7 IV features a 33-megapixel full-frame back-illuminated Exmor R CMOS sensor.

The new sensor has an ISO sensitivity range of 50-204,800 and dual native ISO, with the second step kicking in at ISO 3200. Sony claims the sensor has a dynamic range of 15 stops. The sensor is coupled with the latest generation BIONX XR image processor, the same one found in the flagship Sony Alpha 1. Sony says that the camera can shoot at 10fps with AF/AE tracking and a larger buffer size compared to its predecessor.

The autofocus system uses 759 phase-detection AF points with real-time tracking of objects. There is also real-time Eye AF for tracking people, birds, and, animals in both stills and video. The other upgrade on the Alpha 7 IV is the ability to record 4K videos using the full width of the sensor. The image is downsampled from 7K down to 4K for all frame rates including and below 30fps.

The camera can also do 4K at 60fps. However, it can only do so in Super 35mm mode, which crops the image and does not use the full width of the sensor. The camera can also record videos in full 10-bit depth and 4:2:2 color sampling as well as XAVC S-I intra-frame recording.

The new features on the camera include AF Assist mode which supports focus transitions when using autofocus, Focus Map which visualises depth of field with colors on screen and a new Breathing Compensation feature, which crops the image slightly on Sony lenses that have a focus breathing issue so that the field of view remains constant even if you move focus from end to end.

The camera features a flip display, 3.68-million dot EVF with 1.6x the resolution and dual card slot with one supporting SD and the other either SD or CFexpress Type A cards. The camera is priced at $2500 (Rs 1,87,168) for body-only and will be available in December 2021. A kit version with Sony’s FE 28-70mm F3.5-5.6 OSS zoom lens will also be available for $2,700.