The Sony A7c II is an A7 IV in a smaller form factor

Aug 29, 2023 by John Aldred Add Comment

Sony has officially announced the new Sony A7c II (buy here) mirrorless camera. The successor to the Sony A7c (buy here) brings it with some significant upgrades, including a higher resolution 33-megapixel full-frame sensor.

If that sensor sounds familiar, there’s a 33-megapixel full-frame sensor inside the Sony A7 IV (buy here). The Sony A7c II seems to be pretty much a Sony A7 IV in a smaller body, just as the A7c was an A7 III in a smaller body.

The Sony A7c II offers some nice advantages over the A7c. It shoots 10-bit 4:2:2 internally, with bitrates up to 600mbps (you’ll need a V90 card for this), 4K up to 60fps (when using Super35 crop, 30fps for full-frame) and 1080p up to 120fps for some 4-5x slow motion.

It features S-Log3 and S-Gamut3.Cine gamma curves to capture more than 15-stops of dynamic range, bringing it more in line for easy editing with footage from Sony’s higher-end cinema line cameras. User-created LUTs and presets can also be saved into the camera for monitoring purposes while shooting.

As with the original Sony A7c, the Sony A7c II is aimed primarily towards vloggers. It’s a smaller, lighter camera, for easier single-handed use. Extending this is the A7c II’s auto-cropping features to keep the subject in a prominent part of the frame, even if the camera shifts a bit while moving with it.

With 7 stops of vibration-stopping power, the A7c II’s 5-axis IBIS looks very impressive on paper. But it’s also designed for static content creation use plugged into your computer. Mount it on a tripod, connect a USB cable and your computer sees it like any other webcam or USB capture device.

The release of the Sony A7c II suggests that we might be seeing a larger A7 V coming at some point in the next year or so. The original Sony A7c was released in September 2020. At the time, the main A7 body was the A7 III with a very similar feature set to the A7c. 11 months later, in October 2021, the A7 IV was released.

Now, we see the Sony A7c II in August 2023, which boasts a very similar feature set to the existing A7 IV. I think for a lot of users, the A7c II will be more suitable than the A7 IV, particularly for vloggers, travel and street photographers.

Given the time gap between the releases of the A7c and A7 IV, I think we can probably expect to see an A7 V by August or September next year, if not sooner, as A7 IV sales decline and higher spec demand from users increases.

The Sony A7c II is available to pre-order now for $2,198 and is expected to begin shipping in October 2023.

Filed Under: Gear Tagged With: Camera Announcement, Gear Announcement, sony, Sony A7C II