When you use DPReview links to buy products, the site may earn a commission. Photo: Mitchell Clark There's been a lot of talk about the Sony a7 V's dynamic range performance since PhotonsToPhotos released its data on it, showing that it, like the Panasonic S1II, combines the readouts of its low and high gain steps when using the mechanical shutter.
We've had the opportunity to test the dynamic range for ourselves with the studio scene to see how it performs, and we can confirm: it is very impressive.
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To start, this may be one of the most ISO invariant cameras we've seen to date when shooting with the standard, mechanical shutter mode. That means you have a lot of room to preserve highlights by shooting at lower ISOs, then brightening the image in post (a workflow that also translates well to shooting with HDR in mind). In our tests, we saw essentially no shadow cost to an image shot at ISO 400, brightened to match an image shot at ISO 6400 with the same exposure settings.
The results are comparable in electronic first curtain shutter mode, where the two reads of the sensor at different gain modes can be combined after the mechanical second shutter has closed.
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The a7 V's exposure latitude is also very good, so you can dig quite deep into the shadows when processing your Raws. In mechanical shutter mode, it's a bit better than the a7 IV and peers like the Canon EOS R6 III and Nikon Z6III, and roughly on par with the Panasonic S1II.
As expected, its performance isn't as good in e-shutter mode, where it has less time to read out the sensor and therefore can't do it twice, as it can in its mechanical shutter mode. However, its peers' dynamic range performance also suffers in e-shutter mode, so none of the cameras end up with any particular advantage. Of course, the main reason to shoot in their e-shutter modes is to utilize their highest burst rates, where achieving maximum DR performance is less of a concern anyway.
While the a7 V's dynamic range advantage over its predecessor and peers isn't earth-shattering, it'll be exciting to those hoping to exploit the shadows in their images, such as landscape photographers, or those who often shoot to preserve highlights. Be sure to tune in after the New Year for more coverage on Sony's latest camera, including the rest of our studio scene results.
Note: these images were produced using a beta version of Adobe Camera Raw. While they're consistent with other testing that we've seen so far, we'll check to make sure the results are consistent with those produced by the final version of ACR once it's released.
. dpreview.com2026-1-1 18:48
