Sony A7CR
The ability to travel light with a full frame camera is great, but the main benefits (high resolution and shallow depth of field) tend to put the weight back on. Over the last few years, Sony and Samyang have been making some of the lightest cameras and lenses of their class. So, how light can we get some of the best image quality and subject isolation?...
A7CR + Sigma 85mm f/1.4 + 135mm f/1.4
Specifiations
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Sensor:
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AF points:
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2023 (Sept)
$3,000
Full Frame CMOS
61mp
8fps / 36 shots
11.7 (14bit)
1/160th
1/15th
30s - 1/4,000th
30s - 1/8,000th
693 (93%)
Yes (7 stops)
4kp/60
4:2:2 / 10bit
100 - 32,000
0.7x / 2.4m / 120hz
3" / 1.03m / Flip out
SD
515g
USB-C (+ power)
440 (NP-FZ100)
Competition
Sony's A7CR (and A7CII) are not quite the lightest full frame mirrorless interchangeable lens cameras (FF MILCs), but they do include a lot more important features than any other camera in this weight class.
Once you combine these small cameras with the lightest fast portrait lens, it mostly pushes the weight above what the Sony kit would be, while lacking a lot of key features.
Here is a feature breakdown of all the lightest full-frame cameras currently available, and the lightest fast portrait lenses that they have access to...
The ageing Sigma FPL is the only other lightweight camera with a high resolution sensor. Actually, it is the lightest camera of this type, period. However, it suffers badly from cutting too many corners to get its weight down. Both Panasonic and Sigma's light full frame MILCs are similarly problematic, to the point where I would not recommend any of them. Nikon do their usual thing here, pretty good on features, while somehow managing to be super heavy and have terrible battery life. Canon is the clear runner-up here. Their R8 is extremely light for what it is, and their lenses are pretty light too, it just lacks IBIS.
Sony 90mm f/2.8 Macro | f/2.8, 1/200th, ISO 125
With great subject isolation and extreme sharpness, fast 135mm lenses are great for portraits, details, friendly wildlife. Traditionally these were a rather heavy and expensive, but modern mirrorless designs have managed to help out in both areas. Samyang have the lightest lens in every class, and the cheapest 135mm f/1.8. It is only available on Sony E-mount, so it's fortunate that you can combine them with the best specified lightweight cameras.
Below is a list of the fast 85mm and 135mm lens that Sony cameras have access to. Nikon and Panasonic have only four options in this range, while Canon has only two! That would have been one, but they just brought out a new 85mm f/1.4. We could call it three by counting the 85mm f/2 as an f/1.8, and four if you count the old unofficial Samyang 85mm f/1.4, but that's still shockingly poor for choice compared to the list you see below.
85mm f/1.8's
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272g - Samyang (2025)
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371g - Sony (2017)
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371g - Meike (2022)
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380g - SG Image (2025)
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385g - Yongnuo (2022)
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437g - 7Artisans (2024)
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452g - Zeiss Batis (2015)
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484g - Viltrox (2019)
85mm f/1.4's
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509g - Samyang II (2023)
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540g - Sirui (2025)
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568g - Samyang (2019)
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580g - Kase (2025)
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630g - Sigma (2016)
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642g - Sony GM II (2024)
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701g - Meike (2023)
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800g - Viltrox (2024)
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820g - Sony GM (2016)
135mm f/1.8's
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772g - Samyang (2022)
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950g - Sony GM (2019)
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1210g - Zeiss (2007)
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1255g - Sigma (2017)
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1300g - Viltrox (2025)
135mm f/1.4's
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1420g - Sigma (2025)
You can probably tell by the samples, but the Samyang 135mm is my favourite lens with the A7CR. It is easily capable of resolving the 61mp resolution, has beautiful bokeh, is extremely reasonably priced and is by far the lightest lens in its class, making this an extremely lightweight setup for what it is capable of!
Samyang 135mm f/1.8 AF | f/2.0, 1/160th, ISO 2000
Image Quality
This is the highest performing full frame sensor that Sony has in terms of resolution and dynamic range, but it suffers from a slow scanning speed because of it. This is less of an issue on the A7RV since you can use the fully mechanical shutter to avoid any issues. Unfortunately, here you're stuck with the problematic EFCS only shutter. This presents a problem when shooting shallow depth of field images in strong sunlight. Anything above 1/1000th shutter speed will effectively cut the bokeh in half, resulting in poor looking out of focus rendering in general. If you want to shoot a fast lens in strong sunlight, you're stuck using ND filters or suffering with issues from one of the only two shutter types available on this camera. This presents the biggest issue with any fast lens that requires very large filters. The worst of which being the Sigma 135mm f/1.4, with its 105mm filter thread!
61mp eats storage space and is overkill for most scenarios, but its ability to crop when paired with a high resolving lens is seriously impressive. Here are two of my favourites...
135mm f/1.8
The Samyang 135mm f/1.8 is in the god-tier for resolution, which is especially impressive given it costs around €700 and weighs only 772g (1.7lbs). The zoomed in image above is a 3.8x crop, equivalent to a 514mm f/6.8 lens, and the results are still stunningly sharp at only four megapixels. That might not sound like a lot of resolution, but I will let you be the judge of the image quality and subject isolation. These animals can be difficult to shoot in dark conditions like this, so the faster aperture you get here keeps the iso down to a more reasonable level. An expensive f/4 telephoto lens would have been around iso 10,000.
135mm f/1.4
Now, you will never beat the Samyang lens on value for money or weight, but if you want to max-out the levels of extreme sharpness and subject isolation, the new Sigma 135mm f/1.4 Art (below) is for you. With the same 3.8x crop, we get a 514mm f/5.3. Not only is this lens superior to the Samyang 135mm (above), but it's sharpness, focusing, CA and out-of-focus rendering are even better than the Sony 135GM. The small amount of mechanical vignette (corner cats eye bokeh) that it has, goes away almost entirely at f/1.8. That alone is an insane level of performance, since the 135GM's mechanical vignette doesn't go away until f/4! The only downsides of this lens compared to the Sony 135GM is its weight (1.43Kg) and minimum focus distance (110cm), compared to 950g and 69cm respectively, on the Sony. The bar for high-end mirrorless portrait lenses, has been raised to crazy levels over the last decade, but this one manages to achieve a level of performance that makes other modern 135mm lenses jealous!
There are three other 135mm f/1.4 lenses that I know of; The $47,000 Leica cine version, the rare medium format Noritar version and the Mitakon Speedmaster. All of which are manual focus only and weighed around 3KG. This Sigma version is not a light lens by any stretch of the imagination, but it's around half the weight of the manual focus versions, while delivering blisteringly fast autofocus and a relatively short minimum focus distance.
Sigma 135mm f/1.4 Art | f/1.4, 1/320th, ISO 400
Pre-Processing
All the images you see in this review have been pre-processed through DxO PureRAW 5. I have been extremely impressed by how faithfully it removes noise and sharpens detail. I tried Adobe and Topaz' denoising algorithms, but was not impressed by their fake, painterly filter looking detail. Using DxO is like getting a massive camera upgrade, so it easily justifies the cost in my opinion (I'm not sponsored). The only downside is the A7CR files processed by DxO come out to 140-160MB each, ouch!!
Sony 90mm G | 100 image stack @ f/2.8
Focus Stacking
Being able to focus stack on a Sony camera, finally, is fantastic, and it's especially great with a high resolution sensor and an autofocus lens. Like the previous animal shots, the focus stacked macro (above) is a 3.8x crop. This detail is phenomenal. The only thing I wish for here would be the ability to set an end distance (like I could on the decade old Samsung camera) rather than just steps.This was one of the first subjects that I found to test the feature, but researching it on Wikipedia found some fascinating info.
Shutter & Silent
Being used to the Sony A1 I tried to use this camera in electronic shutter mode at first, but the 1/15th scan speed is pretty much unusable on the A7CR. I was getting frequent geometric distortion from rolling shutter. Fortunately, the A7CR's shutter sound is pretty nice and quiet. The issue of bokeh distortion above 1/1000th shutter speeds (due to the EFCS shutter) is also annoying. That doesn't happen often to me with animals, but it does stop me from shooting bokeh panos reliably in sunlight. Unfortunately, there is no full mechanical shutter on the A7CR. I really wish Sony had put their 50mp stacked sensor into this chassis (A1C?). If they removed the shutter entirely, they could cut down weight even further. It most likely will happen, but my guess is it won't be any time soon.
Controls
Sony managed to squeeze in a surprising amount of controls to the A7CR (and A7CII) body. There are a total of 4 dials here that you can customise to do whatever you want. The only big omission from the larger bodies is the joystick, but since you have a touch screen, I don't see this as a huge issue. You get pretty much the same amount of buttons as the A6700, since this body is almost identical in size. Actually, the grip here is slightly smaller than the A6700.
Samyang AF 135mm f/1.8 | f/2.0, 1/320th, ISO 500
Body
I appreciate how tiny the A7CR can be on its own with a small lens like the 40mm f/2.5 G for travelling, but I also really like the flexibility of being able to add the official grip extension (GP-X2) when using bigger lenses. It combines really nicely with the Smallrig thumb grip (see top of this page) and neither accessory adds much to the weight.
It's fascinating to see how far things have come in the twenty-one years since the first full-frame digital cameras. Funnily enough, I recently picked up a Canon 1Ds (2002) for my "retro DSLR collection". Playing with these two cameras together feels surreal! For less than one third of the size and weight, you can now get a high resolution full-frame camera with a viewfinder, flip-out screen and in-body image stabilization (IBIS). What we would have given for this image quality and compactness, back in 2002!
Auto Focus
The A7CR AF system is pretty advanced, including various subject tracking modes. I especially appreciate the combined bird and animal autofocus mode. If you're coming from a DSLR, even a pro one, this will blow your socks off. However, if you have used one of the professional Sony bodies (A9 - A1II) then you might feel a bit disappointed in the sheer focus speed. It would have been nice if Sony had given the higher resolution models a little boost in AF speed compared to the cheaper models, but unfortunately they're exactly the same as the base models.
Speed
The A7CR is not the fastest camera. Its 61mp sensor was never going to allow a small camera body to channel that much data. That said, 8 frames per second is really not too bad either, and the buffer will let you keep doing that for over four seconds. Not class leading, but good enough for a casual shooter that wants to try some moderately demanding situations. This is what professionals had on the fastest film SLRs in 1995, or the fastest digital SLRs from 2007, and I guarantee you they praised those cameras for their abilities at the time.
Penalties
Compared to the A7RV, the A7CR has a few aspects that could stack up to make it either a miniature marvel, or a huge disappointment. For me, it's mostly the former, due to how much I value lightweight gear, don't use the EVF and can generally work around its limitations.
If you're someone who really appreciates a bigger, comfortable grip, uses a viewfinder most of the time and values faster redundant memory, then you will probably not be a fan of the A7CR. The viewfinder on the A7CR is pretty depressing to look at because of its dynamic range, resolution and size. If you just need it occasionally to frame something up in difficult lighting, you might not care too much, but for others it will sap their creative spirit. One other thing to note is that the A7RV has a fully mechanical shutter mechanism that goes all the way up to 1/8000th, so there is no worrying about disgusting bokeh rendering in harsh lighting.
Successor Wishlist
With the A7CR's slow sensor readout making silent shooting almost impossible and the physical shutter cutting the bokeh in half in bright conditions, I would love to see Sony's 50mp stacked sensor in a body like this. If they were to do this, I would also love to see a grip closer to the one used on the A9III, but otherwise keeping the general shape of the A7C range. It would cost more, but Sony could still easily position it away from the Sony A1II, so it doesn't affect those sales.
Samyang AF 135mm f/1.8 | f/1.8 1/1250th, ISO 100
Another thing that I would change would be the grip extension. The GP-X2 (for the A7CR) is great, but it could be smaller, while providing a more ergonomic grip and including an Arca Swiss plate on the bottom. Here is the spec I would give an A1C:
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New compact body [470g]
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Deeper, wider & more contoured grip
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Removable 6m-dot 0.85x EVF [40g]
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50mp stacked sensor (from A1)
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No physical shutter (electronic shutter only).
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15fps compressed burst (10fps lossless)
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75 shot buffer
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1/16,000th max shutter speed
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1 CF-Express A card slot +
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Internal memory for redundancy (128GB?)
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Pro AF system
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New Tilt/Flip screen (from A7RV / A1II)
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4k 60fps 10-bit open gate (no crop)
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Improved grip extension (flared + ARCA Swiss) [70g]
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Front custom button (C5)
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Optional thumb grip (not hot shoe) [5g]
Sony 90mm G | 100 image stack @ f/2.8
Bokeh Panos
The last thing I wanted to cover, before getting to the conclusion, is the Bokeh Panorama technique (A-K.A. The Brenizer Method). It involves stitching multiple images (with the same settings) to achieve a wider angle image with otherwise impossibly shallow depth of field. This is not only fun, but allowing you to capture shots as wide as you like drastically opens up the versatility of this lens.
I love this technique because it demonstrates what you can do with lightweight gear, and this is pushing that as far as technically possible with a full frame camera at the moment.
Final Thoughts
The performance this camera delivers for its size and weight is impressive, but you still need to be aware of the limitations from it's slow scanning sensor. Silent shooting is out of the question for most scenarios, and the EFCS only shutter also has its problems. However, if you can work around that, it's superb! The A7CII is a better option for most people because the sensor scanning speed is not so terrible. When Sony updates these two models, I would still like to see a semi-stacked sensor in the A7CIII and the fully stacked (A1) sensor in the A7CRII. OMG, I hate this naming convention!!
I do love this camera body for how small and light it is, but also how flexible it is with the grip extension. Sony has managed to squeeze in a lot of great features into this camera. The most impressive is which is the In Body Image Stabilization (IBIS) which every other light full frame camera cannot seem to fit. You get 7 stops of stabilization in this model, which may not be class leading, but it's really damn useful in a pinch.
I hope that Sony bundles an improved grip with the A7CIII. This one is much better than previous versions, but I think it could bulk up the grip at the side, to improve handling, while including an arca-swiss plate on the bottom as well. They should also make their own thumb-grip that doesn't require losing the hot-shoe.
The new Sigma 135mm f/1.4 lens might seem like an odd balance with the A7CR, but the results are fantastic... as long as it's not too bright.
Shooting squirrels is an absolute joy with this camera. When you get back home and open an image that has a lot of fur in-focus, pixel peeping is just brilliant, and things get even better when you throw them into DxO PureRaw first.
Extra Wildlife
Would you like to see some more squirrel photos?...