The upside of the A7R VI’s sameness is that it should easily slot into a pro’s existing Sony system — it feels the same, it shoots the same, and the files process with the same predictable looks. The only real point of friction is dealing with the new NP-SA100 battery if you already own a bunch of the old NP-FZ100 ones (as I do).

1/22Here are various sample images I shot using the A7R VI, with some extreme crops to show how much resolution there is to use in these huge files. 8 megapixels).

8-megapixel files. Pretty much all current Sony Alpha cameras have exceptional autofocusing systems.

They’re the best in the market, even if recent models from Canon and Nikon are mostly caught up. When I started shooting Sony cameras about five years ago, it drastically changed the way I use autofocus.

I keep my cameras on continuous tracking mode nearly 100 percent of the time now, relying on subject and eye detection to make shooting much easier, especially in high-stress situations like a wedding. The A7R VI’s revised autofocus system is Sony’s latest and greatest, but to me it just felt a touch more “sticky” to a subject’s eye than what I’ve got on my last-gen cameras — nothing monumentally better.

8-megapixel files and being able to shoot them as fast as I wanted, as quietly as I needed. The speedy, stacked sensor minimizes any rolling shutter anomalies to the point they’re not really noticeable, so I shot with the electronic shutter almost the entire time.

I love this freedom, because I can shoot as much as I want during a wedding ceremony or a speech and not disturb the peace. And even when shooting product images for The Verge, having no mechanical shutter slapping up and down in the camera reduces vibrations just that extra bit more — so I can use even slower handheld shutter speeds.

1/8Here are some before and after edits to show a little of pushing the dynamic range. And if I want to be extra fast (or sometimes just lazy) all that resolution means I can crop horizontal files to vertical ones without sacrificing print quality — definitely no worry with web quality.

Or while under pressure at a busy tech event, I can take one picture of a product and make multiple crops from it to show close-up details I didn’t get to capture further. (Yes, I have done this before.

) I’ve already done these kinds of things with my Sony A1, but having more megapixels gives me even more leeway. And this is in a $4,500 camera, compared to the newer version of my camera, which currently costs $7,000.

This is the first of Sony’s R cameras I’ve looked at and thought, “Yeah, this could be my one camera for everything.” ) It does much of what I need from my A1 and A9 III at a higher resolution and a lower price.

There are of course still reasons to go with the A9 III or the A1 II — niche features of a global shutter or a higher flash sync speed — but when it comes to generalist “do anything” cameras, this is it. This is the grail.

A Sony doesn’t have the impeccable handling of a Canon or a Nikon, or the romance of a Fujifilm or a Leica, but what makes the A7R VI captivating are the stone-cold results it delivers. Camera tech is constantly improving, but it will probably be a while before any camera — from Sony or anyone else — is superior enough to justify an upgrade from here.

Photography by Antonio G. Di Benedetto / The VergeFollow topics and authors from this story to see more like this in your personalized homepage feed and to receive email updates.

Antonio G.

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