Is the Sony A7RVI good for sports photography? Yes... and No.

Indexed: 2026-05-22

[00:00:00]Hey, it's PMR. There's been a ton of press on Sony's latest flex with the a7R Mark VI.

[00:00:08]But, is it any good for sports and action photography?

[00:00:11]Let's get into it.

[00:00:17]>> [music] >> So, what I thought I would do is just start out with um something you may not have read much about, and that's read out speed. This is the ability for the sensor to how fast the sensor can read out.

[00:00:32]The faster the sensor can read out, um the better the sports images are because there's no jello or distortion from the scanning of the field. This is where you get bent golf clubs and weird-looking bats that aren't, you know, shaped that way, and balls that can be oblong and things like that. Now, in in um when Sony's at the launch in New York um last week, they really didn't talk about sports at all with the camera because they know that this, you know, the sensor is huge, and it's big megapixel, and it's incredibly fast, and the autofocus is great, but the readout speed's not so great. And so, um what I'm going to do in this video, I'm going to start out talking about the sensor speed, the readout speed of the new a7R VI, and then how it compares to the other Sony bodies out there. Um so, first of all, the the um the speed of the sensor is 17.5 ms. So, what that means is that from the very top of the frame up here, it's scanning really fast. And then when it gets all the way down to the bottom here, that's 17.5 ms. The a7R V, which is a really recent camera that I love, I got one right here, love this camera. It's a little faster. It's actually 14.5 ms. So, the a7R V is actually a little bit better for sports than the a7R VI.

[00:01:55]Um better than that is the A9 and the A9 II, which are combined 6 mil- milliseconds readout speed. And this is why these sports cameras are so good and so popular with AP and anybody that shoots sports photography. It's really cool. The A1 and the A1 Mark II share 3.8 milliseconds of readout speed. So, you can see the difference here. And this is, um, a lot of YouTubers have done videos right now of is the a7R VI going to do Does it going to kill the A1 Mark II sales? And the answer is, no, absolutely not. The A1 Mark II at 3.8 milliseconds is blazing fast and it's going to do a much better job for sports, uh, assignments. Um, but on top of the pile now, on the very top of the pile, is the A9 Mark III, which has a global shutter, which means it captures everything and every pixel in the entire shutter area all at once. And that is zero milliseconds, which no one has matched or bested so far in the camera division.

[00:03:00]Just a couple of the cameras I'm going to mention that are worse than the a7R VI.

[00:03:04]Uh, the Sony a7 III, which is a wildly popular camera, um, is 60 milliseconds, 60 milliseconds. So, um, this is where you really get into seeing how fast the, um, a7R Mark VI is because it's blazing fast compared to the A7 III. The A7 IV and the A7 V share the same readout speed at 66 milliseconds. So, the worst offender in this whole thing are the A7 Mark IV and the a7R V.

[00:03:38]So, if you're kind of shooting some of these cameras, it kind of tells you why you don't see sports photographers too often using them. Now, let's go back to the a7R a7R VI for a second and talk about what you can shoot with it. There are many sports that would work pretty well, I think, with the a7R Mark VI, like football. Football is really pretty slow.

[00:04:01]Uh you know, it's much slower than baseball.

[00:04:04]Um soccer's another one you could probably get away with.

[00:04:08]Um wrestling would be one that could probably work really well. Um taekwondo, jujitsu, karate, not a chance. That's so fast that I just don't think that's going to work. Same with boxing. I think boxing is a really quick, fast, you got to shoot tight.

[00:04:24]And the tighter you get, the more you see the shutter um problems uh with jello effect and the distortion. So, basically, the the um the a7R VI is an amazing camera, and that's why Sony showcased it with wildlife photography and landscape and portraits.

[00:04:42]And these are the areas where that camera really excels. I mean, it's better than anything.

[00:04:47]Um the other thing I'll mention to you about the a7R VI and in general, as it pertains to sports photography, is does it have a role at all in sports photography? And the answer is yes, it does.

[00:04:58]And that's shooting sportraits, athlete portraits, headshots, um anybody that's worth their salt that's working in sports photography is doing headshots and really fine, high-end uh portraits of players in uniform and things like that, coaches.

[00:05:13]Um stadiums, you know, the the the the grand vistas with the super wide lenses and stuff, showing, you know, packed crowds and the and the beautiful grass of you know, the summer ball. Um this is all going to be captured best with the a7R VI, for sure.

[00:05:29]But when it comes to the actual action on the field, really the a7R VI is not the answer. Um so, I think the a7R VI will certainly find a place in my bag, but it's going to be used on portraits more than it's going to be used for sports and stuff.

[00:05:45]So, I hope this helps you.

[00:05:47]You know, please uh comment, question, whatever in the in the comment section below and um thanks for watching.

[00:05:56]>> [music]