GoKawiilis a reviewer covering laptops and the occasional gadget. He spent over 15 years in the photography industry before joining The Verge as a deals writer in 2021.
It wasn’t long ago that shooting with a super high-resolution camera meant making serious sacrifices for the sake of all those megapixels. Enter the A7R VI.
Sony’s latest flagship high-res camera is a 66.8-megapixel spec monster. In addition to its modest bump in resolution from the last-gen A7R V, it uses a new sensor and processor that unlock nearly any kind of shooting — from sports and action to usable 8K video. It’s a huge departure from years ago, when high-resolution cameras were slower, noisier, and more specialized as a result of all those megapixels.
The A7R VI’s fully stacked sensor and new Bionz XR2 processor allow it to shoot full-resolution bursts at up to 30 frames per second without any viewfinder blackout. And that faster sensor means there’s little downside to using the electronic shutter full time, meaning you get truly silent shooting for any moment you want to be stealthy. The A7R VI also has 8.5 stops of in-body image stabilization, dual USB-C ports (because why not), and Sony’s new AI-based autofocus system.
The A7R V was pretty quick, shooting 60-megapixel images at up to 10 frames per second with its mechanical shutter, but the A7R VI pumps out its 9984 x 6656 resolution RAW files lightning-fast. And these files are huge. They average about 60 megabytes in lossless compressed RAW format, so that one-second burst of 30 shots can soak up 1.8GB. Wild.
I already use a pretty high-res Sony camera that shoots fast: the original A1. I pair it with the even faster but much lower-res A9 III for my wedding photo gigs. But even though I’m used to Sony’s speedy shooters, the A7R VI’s over-the-top resolution and flexibility really impressed me. In the past, super high-res cameras were reserved for studio work, but the A7R VI blows away any reservations over using a camera with 60-plus megapixels of resolution on just about anything: landscapes, sports, action, photojournalism, street photography, portraits, etc. It. Does. Everything.
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