It’s been around two years since the Sony a7cR came out. And in my mind, I still consider it to be one of Sony’s best cameras. And they could’ve made it even better if they only just gave it a joystick and updated the autofocus algorithms to make human detection all that much better like they did with the Sony a1 II. But when you edit the RAW files under 1600 ISO, the images can be something really magical.
Here’s the updated text from our Sony a7cr review. If you want to read the entire review, please see it here. It’s an excellent camera and fairly priced.
Raw File Versatility (Updated April 2025)
Sony’s best RAW editing happens in Capture One and not really inside of Lightroom. In fact, the Sony a7r V – which has pretty much the exact same sensor – has raw files that give me much better looking edits in Capture One when comapred to Lightroom. The same goes for the Sony a7c R. What I really have to tell people is that as long as you get the exposure in the ballpark, you can get really great photos.
It was just yesterday that I was watching the BBC’s new wildlife photography special. And in it, the photographers in some way or another all talk about underexposing the images and then bringing them back in post-production. Canon, Sony, and Nikon these days all tend to want you to do this. Panasonic Lumix, Leica, and Fujifilm all tend to cater instead to the photographers who want to nail the exposure in-camera. To that end, the latter three operate like the most versatile slide film you’ve ever worked with. That also means that you tend to get better colors. In contrast, the big three companies shoot more like negative film where you’ve got to really work with the image in the digital darkroom. But unlike film, you don’t need to give it more light — you need to give it less light if you’re below ISO 1600. Above that you just need to nail the exposure and hope that the RAW file versatility holds up without introducing too much noise.
This is where Lightroom takes the advantage — Capture One’s high ISO noise editing has been awful for years.
To be fair, Sony’s RAW files under ISO 1600 are a great canvas to make beautiful images. But man, do they require a lot of work.
The Sony a7cR is no exception to this rule.
Sony’s RAW files typically want you to underexpose the scene to get more details from the highlights and then edit the images in post-production. This feels a lot like the Leica Monochrom cameras with how their sensors work. And I don’t necessarily like doing that. But if you’re used to editing and working with Sony files, then you’ll be just fine doing this. For me, the less time I spend in front of my 27′ iMac, the better.
The exposure issue here is especially the case with the Sony a7c R, though, because the maximum speed of the mechanical shutter is only 1/4000th. So you’ll obviously need to stop the lens down or lower the ISO. But considering how the typical Sony shooter uses their cameras in aperture priority, you might forget this.
At the moment, the only other cameras on the market that have a 60MP sensor are Leica’s M11 and SL3. Truly, I have to say that Leica is doing a better job. I mean, go look at my review of the SL3 and you’ll see what I mean. I sat here in awe of the images I shot. It starts with how the colors and rendered and then seeps into how the editing is done. You can get much nicer-looking photos with far less work with the Leica M11 and Leica SL3 than you can with the Sony a7cR. And I don’t know why that’s the case.
To edit a Sony file to look really good, I often feel like I’m working to tweak a file to look like an HDR of some sort. But with Leica, I don’t do that at all. And if you’re editing according to a Histogram, the Sony files take a lot more work in the highlights, contrast, whites, blacks, and color channels.
Even after a long time away from the Sony a7c R, I still believe that this camera is one of the best Sony has made.
Let me put this into very clear terms: time is money. When I’m done with a shoot of any sort, that’s probably already three hours of my day or however long I’ve been hired for. If I were paid $1,500 for those three hours, I would get a very big return on the investment. But if I have to go home and spend another four hours editing, then I’m only getting $1,500 for seven hours of work. That’s cutting the ROI into more than half — and we still aren’t even thinking about my costs and the thing every small business owner dreads: taxes. This sounds asinine, but so many photographers are tricked into doing this. And that’s why so many of us use presets to speed up workflows and use assistive AI tools to cull the images. But typically, I’m shooting far fewer frames than the modern photographer, and I star-rate my images in-camera. Many times over, there are situations where presets just don’t work – even the ones that the Phoblographer sells don’t work for every situation, but we’re working on that.
In general, I have to spend more time with Sony RAW files to get them to look good than I do with Canon, Nikon, Leica, Panasonic, or Fujifilm. And if that’s what I have to do, then I’m losing time when time is money. When this is the case, I just wouldn’t bother shooting Sony.
Sony’s higher-end cameras, like the Sony a9 III and the Sony a1 II, are ones where I don’t have issues like this all that much. I’ve been a long-time Sony shooter, but I haven’t liked the Sony a7r series since the Sony a7r III. For the next camera, Sony really needs to hit it out of the park.
All I’m saying is that I wish I didn’t have to do as much with my RAW files when shooting Sony, and that they added more razzle dazzle back into their lenses. If Sony made their RAW files look more like their incredible JPEGs, I’d be so sold.
