Assuming same used price and your lens selection would be pretty much the same going forward, why would you pick the A7R over the A7RV? I only see the smaller size as a plus but maybe there are other things. I want to get back into Sony but want it to be a equal or better camera than my Canon R5. Also thought maybe the A7RIV as prices are falling, but don't think it's equal to the Canon R5. I would probably keep the Canon and RF 70-200 f2.8 and sell my other lenses.
I moved from an R5 to a A7RV. Only things I miss from the R5 was the file sizes, colors, and mechanic shutter shooting speed. Assuming we're talking R5 mk1, the Sony is miles better in autofocus. It was like night and day for me.
Be aware that the Cr only does 1/4000 of a second, which I find annoying low and a deal breaker when shooting primes in bright sun. Ask Gemini or Claud or something to compare the abilities and differences of the two.
Size is the only advantage to the A7CR. I understand AF is similar. IIRC, A7RV has a couple frames per second faster framerate, like 10 vs 8 fps. A7RV has 2 dual use card slots, the A7CR, 1 SD slot. Finally, A7RV has a better EVF.
The 33mp A7Cii does have notably better high ISO noise characteristics, for whatever that’s worth in your search. It is my goto travel and street body for that reason as well as looking more like an older P&S camera than a pro digital camera — attracts way less attention, especially with a smaller prime attached.
Get an a7cr in your hands and try it if you can. I've owned it twice and love the idea of the size of it, but then when it comes to actually using it I'm not as thrilled. For me specifically I like having a nice EVF, joy stick, and good button sizes where I can use it with gloves (I wanted to take it skiing with me). Having said that I still look longingly at that small size
I've gone back and forth on this question a couple times. As you intend to buy used, there is no price advantage for either, so here's how I'd sum it up:
Image quality - same
A7Cr advantages - Size and weight (this is quite significant, in my view)
A7Rv advantages - better EVF, better rear screen articulation, two card slots & can use CFe cards (faster buffer clearing if you're shooting fast), joystick & more buttons, can use battery grip.
Seabassius wrote:
Get an a7cr in your hands and try it if you can. I've owned it twice and love the idea of the size of it, but then when it comes to actually using it I'm not as thrilled. For me specifically I like having a nice EVF, joy stick, and good button sizes where I can use it with gloves (I wanted to take it skiing with me). Having said that I still look longingly at that small size
Good point. I did have to add a Houge base-grip to my A7C2 to make it handle more naturally.
I like A7CR's form, I think it's matters alongside the size, no EVF pumb on top, smaller EVF eyecup. A7CR with small lens fit into my EDC sling, A7RV is not. The low resolution screen, which is articulating didn't work for me, migrated back to A7RIVa for tilting high resolution LCD, also prefer to have joystick, full mechanical shutter with 1/8000 speed. I miss the form factor of the CR though (in case of A7RIVa the AI subject detection and better IBIS also, but not make a drastic difference to me).
I've extensively shot with the A7RV and have purchased and sold the A7CR twice.
There seem to be a lot of A7CR fans out there, so my opinion might not mean very much.
I could never become happy the very low resolution EVF and LCD on the A7CR and found it to be annoying. The lack of eye-cup made it challenging to shoot in sunny or backlighted conditions and the aftermarket cup I purchased was a kluge. I like fast lenses and the EFCS, only, on the CR was not great for bokeh at fast shutter speeds. The low maximum shutter speed sometimes necessitated ND filters. Also, I'm simply not comfortable with one card slot.
I typically shoot the A7R5 with an L-bracket. When traveling I take it off and the camera is comfortably small and light. I've replaced the A7R5 with the A7R6 and I am now a super-happy camper. With complete certainty, there is no third A7CR in my future, but my mind is open for a potential A8CR.
I'm with @Seabassius on the A7cx handling. If I want a small camera I have several RX100's or an NEX5T. While the cr may be smaller than your Canon, its not a small camera and it still requires full frame size lenses. I kept my A7cr (paired with either the 35ZA or 40G) for a week. Never jelled with it; its not small in my book, the evf is mediocre and inconsistent with the pricing of the body, the flippy lcd is a pita for street shooting/quick deployment, it feels quite chunky in hand, mount a zoom and you'll want an acessory grip and the design is blah (I am a photographer, looks do count). On the other hand, if you want a high pixel count in a FF edc then maybe its worth it for a slightly smaller size. I assume there's plenty of people thrilled with the camera, so there's 2 sides to the discussion.
In theory the A7CR is great. I sold my A7Rv to purchase one, but the 10 year old EVF ruined things for me. The A7RV and VI are already small compared to many cameras. I bought small 90mm,40mm,17mm lens and repurchased what I consider one of the best Sony lenses, the 24mm GM. I thought that this would make a great travel selection, but soon after purchase I took another system altogether on vacation and my wife used the A7CR/40mm. The other system was medium format and in hand felt much better than either the A7CR, or A7Rv. The other system was amazing, so I sold the A7CR. I suspect that the A7CRii will have a much better technology EVF..probably five year old technology, but that should be a welcome improvement. We are headed overseas soon. My wife complained that the 40mm didn’t work in even moderately cramped spaces, so she will take the A7Rvi and the 24-50mm f/2.8G. This small zoom balances better on the slightly larger camera. If you don’t shoot BIF, the A7Rv is an amazing camera.
A7CR is a great concept by the way. With additional grip bulkier high resolution lenses have better handling (GM primes), detaching the grip it becomes an excellent EDC camera in 26MP Mraw with cupcake lenses like G series or Zeiss 35 2.8. I only wish it came with 2.1M tilting screen for my waist level style shooting.
Although not quite there, one seems close to being able to get a used A7CR and A7Rv for the price of an A7Rvi..
I kind of considered either (from an A7Riv - I like mine, but wouldn't suggest someone buy one these days given the A7Rv or A7CR prices, especially used.)) then dove into the A7Rvi. I have an A6700, too. As mentioned, the size is the selling point for the A6xxx or A7C types. Not everyone likes them. Perhaps grip/handling or finder are the biggest negs for some.
The A7Rv has a number of things the smaller ones don't. Some added controls, speed, two slots, "bigger" for handling bigger lenses (yeah , we know, put your hand under the lens.) and majorly better evf. If one wants to really keep size down, using smaller lenses, etc., then the A7CR offers that. It is smaller and lighter and packs differently. Perhaps, for some, more than just looking at specs and gear pics may suggest.
I've put my 28-200 on the A6700 a few times. It may be at the almost too big lens point. OTOH, I wandered around a wild animal park with the A6700 and 70-350 and I got the feeling I was enjoying it more than quite a few folks with bigger cameras and lenses. Others could easily have a different idea of the lens point suggesting the larger or smaller bodies for their own uses.
'There seem to be a lot of A7CR fans out there, so my opinion might not mean very much.'
This is the reason that it does. The oft-mentioned buy-sell-buy-sell cycles indicate that the body is what people want but it's not quite there. How much extra would it have cost Sony to use the a7rv EVF? How much would that unit add to gross weight?
The RX1 external unit for the hot shoe weighed 26 grams. We might surmise that a similarly mounted high res unit might add 100 grams, possibly they could also leave the built in unit as is. 615 grams is still a very light camera, and you could still use it without the better EVF if desired. But they haven't done that..
I wrote a review last year on DPR about A7CR.
Overall my conclusion was I'd recommend A7CII instead for following reasons:
-Significant cheaper
-Low resolution screens better suited for 33MP sensor for checking critical focus, and manual focusing.
-Compact lenses are good on 33MP pixel level, but most of them suffers edge softness and especially some level of field curvature which is clearly visible on 60MP.
-Since EFCS only, higher shutter speed (over 1/2000) has significant effect on background blur, A7CII's sensor readout speed is twice as fast as CR's, it's a huge difference when you have to rely on E-shutter preserving bokeh.
Aug 11, 2026 at 03:14 AM
Steve Spencer Offline • • • • • • • Upload & Sell: Off
I replaced the A7r V with the Canon R5 II, so perhaps my experience will be helpful to the OP. First, I didn't consider the A7CR because I used the A7r V mostly in full mechanical shutter mode and the A7CR does not have a full mechanical shutter. There are times when I want to shoot at higher shutter speeds and wide apertures with moderately fast moving subjects (like my son) and there really isn't a shutter mode that works on the A7CR. If you select EFCS then the bokeh will be affected at fast shutter speeds and a wide aperture. If you select the electronic shutter you will get movement distortion if the subject is moving even moderately quickly with the A7CR or the A7R V. The solution is using full mechanical shutter (or a different camera with a faster sensor scan speed) and the A7r V can do that and the A7CR cannot.
The Canon R5 has a pretty fast sensor scan speed, about the same as the new A7r VI, which allows use of the electronic shutter (and totally silent shooting) with electronic shutter mode. The Canon R5 II has even faster sensor scan speed, so I can't comment on what you can and can't do with the R5 electronic shutter, but the extensive thread on the Sony A7r VI should be a really good guide to what can and cannot be done with the faster sensor scan speed.
Personally, I also like the Canon ergonomics a lot better. The slightly bigger body, without adding weight, fits my very large hands better. I also love the top LCD to see easily camera settings without using the back LCD which on both cameras I keep hidden facing the camera body.
There are some notable advantages of the A7r V, however. It obviously has more resolution. It also has a higher resolution EVF, which was great in use, although in practice I actually prefer the Canon R5 II even though it has a bit less resolution as it is smoother and blackout free (the latter feature is quite important to me). That said both EVF's are great just in different ways. I do prefer the movement of the back LCD on the Sony A7r V. I miss the third direction of movement when using the back LCD on the Canon.
I do think the primary spec that is different is the Sony A7r V has more resolution but a lot slower sensor scan speed. If you are happy using the mechanical shutter for all or almost all your shooting it is a great camera.
The faster sensor scan speed of the Canon R5, however, opens up using the electronic shutter for a lot of your shooting and for many people almost all their shooting and that may be more important to some folks than the increased resolution. Both cameras are really very capable and could serve you well.
Of course the systems are different and that can make a big difference as well. Sony has more lenses and particularly if you want to use third party lenses that basically is hardly available at all on the Canon RF system (although there is a huge availability of Canon EF mount lenses that can be easily and very capably adapted that often make great alternatives to 3rd party lease). For me one important difference is that the Canon system has great focus aids for manual focus lenses and that really allows for me a lot better use of the manual focus lenses that I use for the majority of my shooting.
To the OP, I think the question really is what would you want in the switch that can't be provided by the Canon R5? If you need the extra resolution or you prefer the Sony system, or the Sony ergonomics then switching could make a lot of sense. That said keep in mind that if you use the electronic shutter much you will be taking a big step backwards and you might want to wait until you can afford a Sony A7R VI when you won't have to take this step backwards.
For me, its..
- A7CR for casual, non-critical, travel shoots or as a backup camera.
- A7R4/5/6 for events, and when manual or larger (>500g) lenses are used.
- good to own both..
Steve Spencer wrote:
There are times when I want to shoot at higher shutter speeds and wide apertures with moderately fast moving subjects (like my son) and there really isn't a shutter mode that works on the A7CR. If you select EFCS then the bokeh will be affected at fast shutter speeds and a wide aperture. If you select the electronic shutter you will get movement distortion if the subject is moving even moderately quickly with the A7CR or the A7R V. The solution is using full mechanical shutter (or a different camera with a faster sensor scan speed) and the A7r V can do that and the A7CR cannot. ...Show more →
I don't find this a huge deal. I set shutter speed in S 1/1000-1/4000, depends of the movement speed and distance, and the camera select the correct aperture. I prefer higher aperture for moving subjects anyway for sharper results because critical focus. Also I don't care mutch about ultimate bokeh quality when shooting fast moving subjects, for slower motion or still the E-shutter in CII should be adequate.
Aug 11, 2026 at 08:55 AM
Steve Spencer Offline • • • • • • • Upload & Sell: Off
Lukacs wrote:
I don't find this a huge deal. I set shutter speed in S 1/1000-1/4000, depends of the movement speed and distance, and the camera select the correct aperture. I prefer higher aperture for moving subjects anyway for sharper results because critical focus. Also I don't care mutch about ultimate bokeh quality when shooting fast moving subjects, for slower motion or still the E-shutter in CII should be adequate.
Yup, different people have different perspectives on this issue. It is a big deal to me. Also keep in mind that unless you have a lot of light if you shoot at shutter speeds of 1/1000 to 1/4000, then unless you crank up the ISO which has its own IQ penalties, then you will be shooting at a wider aperture. So stopping down at those shutter speeds often just isn't an option and you will have to deal with either movement distortion or degraded bokeh in a lot of situations.
