A full-frame body and an APS-C body, in the same bag, for a month
One is better once the light goes. One is the one we kept picking up. The sensor decided less of it than we expected.
We carried the Sony A7 IV and the Fujifilm X-T5 together for a month: same cards, same trips, mostly street and family, some video. Neither won the way a spec comparison says it should.
Full frame wins where the light runs out
Indoors in the evening, the A7 IV is about a stop and a half ahead before noise starts showing, and its autofocus holds a face walking toward you in a way nothing smaller quite matches. If you shoot events, dim rooms, or anything that moves unpredictably, that gap is the whole argument.
The smaller body is the one you actually carry
The X-T5 is light enough to go out with no plan, and the dials mean you set it without a menu. A camera in your hand beats a better camera at home, and over a month that showed up as several hundred more frames from the smaller body. Its files also needed less editing, because the color it produces is already the color we wanted.
- The card matters more than either body. A slow one turns a burst into a 3 second wait, and it is the cheapest thing in the bag.
- Both shoot good video, and neither is a camcorder. An hour of continuous recording at a long zoom is still a job for one.
- Lenses outlive bodies. Budget for the glass first and the sensor second.
Buy the body you will carry, then spend what is left on the lens and a card fast enough to keep up with it.
Tom Vance
Reviews editor
Lives with everything for a week before writing a word about it. Believes most gear is judged too early and returned too late.
