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Sony A7RVI
  
 
EB-1
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p.72 #1 · Sony A7RVI


A full third more pixels does not mean as much when you have the full frame image, but every pixel matters more when you are reach limited and crop. Plenty of lenses are able to resolve adequately in the center and moderate r values. 300/2.8, 400/2.8, 500/4, 600/4, etc, come to mind.

EBH
Jul 02, 2026 at 03:14 PM
Jack Flesher
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p.72 #2 · Sony A7RVI


EB-1 wrote:
A full third more pixels does not mean as much when you have the full frame image, but every pixel matters more when you are reach limited and crop. Plenty of lenses are able to resolve adequately in the center and moderate r values. 300/2.8, 400/2.8, 500/4, 600/4, etc, come to mind.

EBH

Can you perhaps show an example please, of where say the 300/2.8 (or any that you own) resolution limits, meaning show about how far away from center in the frame the optical cutoff occurs using the highest res camera you own? From there we should be able to interpolate how much usable croppability could be gained.


Jul 02, 2026 at 03:34 PM
gdanmitchell
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p.72 #3 · Sony A7RVI


Jack Flesher wrote:
Sigh... So far my detractors here have yet to show an example of where a 50mp image failed and a 67mp image succeeded due to the extra pixels. You've posited lots of theoretical situations and shared a lot of diatribe to try and support the claim, but nothing yet as a clear example to support the claim -->



Jack, while I may disagree with you at times (respectfullyl), I don’t count myself as a “detractor.”

However, I do want to respond to that request.

I don’t think that there is a way to show the example that you ask for using electronic files presented in the forum. (And I don’t think that comparing 200% crops or, more appropriately, identical sections of images from the two sources would show much useful information either.) There are other issues, too, including the reality that no one is going to have both a 50MP and a 67MP camera with them, taking side-by-side photographs of the same subject, and thus able to provide you with the example you ask for… even if it exists.

I think it is also a bit disingenuous to make the threshold that one image “failed” and hte other “succeeded.” I think you know that when looking at something like this it is a matter of small improvements and incremental advances.

The fact is that few people are going to see the difference between a 20 x 30 print from a 50MP source and a 20 x 30 print from a 67MP source. But that’s a tricky argument since few would see the difference between 36MP source and a 50MP source or between a 24MP source and a 36MP source.

In the same way that some photographers feel that an incremental improvement in readout speed or burst rate is significant to their photography and thus look for the tool that provides that optimal performance… other photographers feel that incremental improvements in resolution are significant to them and look for tools that provide it.

That doesn’t affect your decision. If a 50MP camera with better speed is right for you, then you should get that by all means. If one feels that the higher MP option has value and the extra speed isn’t so relevent, one will make a different choice.

As I wrote earlier, today either camera is likely both fast enough and provides enough resolution for the great majority of photographers… so it is even possible that for them cost is the determining factor.
Jul 02, 2026 at 05:46 PM
aboutthelight
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p.72 #4 · Sony A7RVI


I don't post here much and I never post photos anymore. I have 2, A1 ii's and have owned them since release day. I had the A1 before that. I was interested in a higher megapixel camera and purchased the A7R6 and took it with me while scouting for an upcoming workshop in Nome, Alaska. I used the new camera in a variety of bird photography situations and it performed flawlessly. The autofocus on fast flying and extremely close Long-tailed and Parasitic Jaegers was fantastic and the photos are extremely sharp and detailed. I used it on close range Red-throated Loons, Red-necked Grebes and Red-necked Phalaropes swimming around on tundra ponds. Again the shots are highly detailed and noticeably more detailed than the A1 ii images when viewing on my Mac Studio 5k monitor. I don't ever get into the weeds of autofocus calculations and how big can you print. And I don't think there is any one tool that is right in all situations. For me the A7R6 is a fantastic addition to my bird photography tools. I will not hesitate to reach for it when I need it. I used it in Alaska with my 600 f4, 300 2.8 and 50-150 and the results and performance with all three lenses was exactly what I was after. I know this is a gear forum but cameras are about more than their specs.


Jul 02, 2026 at 06:18 PM
DWOfPaul
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p.72 #5 · Sony A7RVI


Jack Flesher wrote:
Part of my earlier point was we are already at a crossroads where many lenses aren’t up to current sensors and a majority aren’t up their own systems largest sensor; and thus at some point (and perhaps now?) it’s a zero sum game.

This gets extremely complicated. Imaging systems are a combination of lens MTF and camera MTF, with 1.0 being as good as reality for a given frequency. The more MP a camera sensor has, the closer they get to reality, and the higher the MTF a lens has, the closer it gets to reality. In an ideal world, you get 1.0 (camera) x 1.0 (lens) = 1.0 (reality). Now let's take a high frequency like 50 lp/mm. If your camera can't capture that fine level of detail, it does not matter that your lens is transmitting it. 0.0 (camera) x 1.0(lens) = 0.0 MTF for that frequency.

A lens resolving a higher frequency than a camera sensor can also cause artifacts such as Moire. This alone may be a reason to want sensors that can outresolve our lenses.

In the longer term, we might even benefit from extremely high MP sensors that can be used to make lower resolution output. For example lets say most of us are happy with 50mp sensors. If we could make 200mp sensors, then we could use 4 sensor pixels to represent one pixel in the final image, basically getting rid of the artifacts demosaicing causes and possibly helping increase things like high ISO performance and dynamic range.

Also, Sony targets 100mp cameras when designing GM lenses. I have not heard of people complaining about how GM lenses perform on high MP cameras. My impression is most people seam to be more than happy with GM, G, Sigma Art, and Voigtlander apo lenses on their Sony a7rIV/V/VI cameras.
Jul 02, 2026 at 06:41 PM
duncangr
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p.72 #6 · Sony A7RVI


Like me he thinks the autofocus is better than the A1M2 !
Jul 03, 2026 at 06:12 AM
EB-1
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p.72 #7 · Sony A7RVI


DWOfPaul wrote:
Also, Sony targets 100mp cameras when designing GM lenses. I have not heard of people complaining about how GM lenses perform on high MP cameras. My impression is most people seam to be more than happy with GM, G, Sigma Art, and Voigtlander apo lenses on their Sony a7rIV/V/VI cameras.

GM lenses are certainly not all the same, but I agree that many will be fine at 100MP at least away from the edges.
Considering that FF cameras had 16.7 MP in 2004 and 50MP in 2015, it's quite a slowdown in development to just now be getting to 67 in 2026. The conversion to MILS with crazy FPS and now the global IT shortages may limit the speed of progression, but we'll get to 100MP and beyond eventually.

EBH
Jul 03, 2026 at 09:26 AM
 


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Steve Spencer
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p.72 #8 · Sony A7RVI


EB-1 wrote:
GM lenses are certainly not all the same, but I agree that many will be fine at 100MP at least away from the edges.
Considering that FF cameras had 16.7 MP in 2004 and 50MP in 2015, it's quite a slowdown in development to just now be getting to 67 in 2026. The conversion to MILS with crazy FPS and now the global IT shortages may limit the speed of progression, but we'll get to 100MP and beyond eventually.

EBH

We may get there eventually, but the slow down has nothing to do with the capability of building higher MP sensors. Sony has had built a 40 MP sensor for Fuji for several years. If they kept this pixel density for a FF sensor it would be a 91 MP sensor. Sony clearly could make a sensor with the pixels from that APS-C sensor and just make it FF, but they must have decided the market isn't there for it.

Similarly, Canon has had a slightly smaller APS-C sensor with 32.5 MP, and if they built a FF sensor with those pixels it would be an 82 MP sensor. Canon could certainly do that as well, but must have decided the market isn't there for it yet.

So both Sony and Canon clearly could build higher MP sensors, but neither company has decided to do that and Nikon and Canon haven't even built a camera with a sensor with more than 45/50 MP. It seems to me that the companies could build such cameras, but they just haven't decided to do so. It will be interesting to see when and maybe if they ever do.
Jul 03, 2026 at 10:30 AM
gdanmitchell
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p.72 #9 · Sony A7RVI


EB-1 wrote:
GM lenses are certainly not all the same, but I agree that many will be fine at 100MP at least away from the edges.
Considering that FF cameras had 16.7 MP in 2004 and 50MP in 2015, it's quite a slowdown in development to just now be getting to 67 in 2026. The conversion to MILS with crazy FPS and now the global IT shortages may limit the speed of progression, but we'll get to 100MP and beyond eventually.

EBH

I think several things affect the seeming slowdown in the rate of MP increase in sensor.

1. When we were looking a 3,4, 6, 8 MP sensor, the improvements from higher pixel dimensions were more obvious, at least to those who were doing somewhat serious photography. My first serious DSLR (but not my first digital camera) had 8MP. The difference between that and the following generation of 12-16MP sensors was rather visible.

That’s no longer the case, Sensors with 36, 40, 50, 67MP continue the incremental improvement in resolution capability, but they have reached a level where further improvements (which will come and will be worth having) make smaller and smaller differences. To put it simply, going from 6 MP to 12 MP was a much bigger deal than going from 30MP to 60MP.

2. Along similar lines, back when sensors were, say, 12 MP, a 10 MP or 20 MP increase in resolution seemed pretty remarkable. And it was, given both the starting point for the comparison and the percentage differences. But today, producing an improvement of similar mathematical magnitude would require going from 60MP to 120MP!

Against this backdrop, a 10MP or 20MP increase just doesn’t make as much difference as it use to.

So why get a 67MP Sony sensor camera? If you have a 50MP or 60MP camera, the increase in resolution alone is almost certainly not a good reason to upgrade. No one will ever see any visible evidence of a difference between a 60MP sourced print and a 67MP sourced print in anything like normal situations. (Yes, on a test bench you could measure a difference.)

But cameras do age and need ot be replaced, and eventually when we need ot upgrade it makes sense to get the camera with the greatest capabilities for the photography we do. So these increments improvements that we see (like a 67MP sensor) continue to make long-term sense.

And sensor resolution is not the only metric for camera performance. Other capabilities also improve over time: operational speed, readout speed, AF performance, low-light performance, between noise control, and so on.
Jul 03, 2026 at 10:56 AM
Jack Flesher
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p.72 #10 · Sony A7RVI


Steve Spencer wrote:
We may get there eventually, but the slow down has nothing to do with the capability of building higher MP sensors. Sony has had built a 40 MP sensor for Fuji for several years. If they kept this pixel density for a FF sensor it would be a 91 MP sensor. Sony clearly could make a sensor with the pixels from that APS-C sensor and just make it FF, but they must have decided the market isn't there for it.

Similarly, Canon has had a slightly smaller APS-C sensor with 32.5 MP, and if they built a FF sensor with...Show more →

If you do a little math, you quickly understand why. And yes, it goes to my earlier point. To render a sharp pixel, a lens needs to resolve at minimum, 1.4x higher than the pixel pitch. If we take the new A7Rvi, it has 3.7u pixels. That equates to 270 pixels per mm; or 135 “pairs” per mm. So if high contrast line pairs are drawn at 135/mm AND perfectly aligned with the sensor, it can theoretically resolve to that level. Unfortunately they rarely will align perfectly which causes them to straddle and thus the basic explanation as to why we require more resolution from a lens to render them on that sensor. Using 1.4x —and math tells us 2x is better— you need a lens capable of resolving 189 lpmm in order to fully utilize the resolving power of that sensor. There are very few lenses that can come close, and none of the current GM lenses will. The 135/1.8 GM is one of the best tested, and IIRC it achieved just over 90 lpmm. And hence, even a 50mp sensor would out resolve it. Oh, and one more thing, at 135 lpmm a lens is already diffraction limited before f4. So now the practicality of going even bigger comes into play.

Again folks, camera sensors today already exceed lens limits, especially for practical photographic use case scenarios.

PS. Next we haven’t even discussed the techniques required to achieve that level of resolution; hand-holding and IBIS/OS won’t do it, so pull out the optical bench…

Edited on Jul 03, 2026 at 11:25 AM · View previous versions
Jul 03, 2026 at 11:09 AM
rob_ww
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p.72 #11 · Sony A7RVI


I have been wondering why Sony went for a 67Mp sensor since it is no doubt obvious to them as it is to us that the small increase is not a compelling reason to purchase a new camera.
What else is it about this sensor, and indeed the whole A7R6 package, that made them choose to use a new Mp sensor?
Jul 03, 2026 at 11:18 AM
Jack Flesher
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p.72 #12 · Sony A7RVI


rob_ww wrote:
I have been wondering why Sony went for a 67Mp sensor since it is no doubt obvious to them as it is to us that the small increase is not a compelling reason to purchase a new camera.
What else is it about this sensor, and indeed the whole A7R6 package, that made them choose to use a new Mp sensor?

Because they can and it aids marketing, even if only as a differentiator. We have on this very forum several folks that claim more MP is always better for the added croppability, while it’s only a few and they’re already cropping less than perfect pixels, it may be enough benefit for them. Faster read speeds would be a good one, more DR for those who want it another. AF performance improvements another. Better control and menu UI another. There may be several excellent reasons to buy an A7Rvi, but the added pixel resolution alone isn’t logically one of them.

To be clear, there’s nothing wrong with cameras being continuously upgraded, we all win through that. My only point has been not falling for the MP hype alone as a good reason.


Jul 03, 2026 at 11:34 AM
PatFurey89
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p.72 #13 · Sony A7RVI


I would pay more for the flagship DR and technology to be in say a 33mp camera. The file size for multi-day wedding coverage shooting multiple a7r6 is a lot. I am really hoping they will announce mRAW in a future firmware update.


Jul 03, 2026 at 11:54 AM
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