At first glance, the Sony A7 V and the Nikon Z8 are both mid-range full-frame mirrorless cameras that are designed to be all-round hybrid stills/video all-rounders aimed at enthusiasts.

They’re very similar when it comes to their core specifications, so we’re bringing you this Sony A7 V vs Nikon Z8 head-to-head comparison to help you choose between the two cameras.

You can also read our detailed Nikon Z8 review to find out exactly what we think of it in much more depth.

Sensor and Processor

These two cameras offer different megapixel counts and also use different sensor technologies.

The Nikon Z8 has a 45.7 megapixel stacked BSI CMOS image sensor paired with the latest EXPEED 7 processor.

The A7 V features a brand new 33 megapixel sensor partially-stacked Exmor RS CMOS sensor paired with the equally new Bionz XR2 processor. This combination primarily offers even greater dynamic range, less rolling shutter and 4.5x faster readout speed than the previous A7 IV.

The A7 V offers 16+ stops of dynamic range, 2 stops higher than the Z8, with shadow noise claimed to be much less than its main rivals.

ISO Speed

The native sensitivity range of the A7 V runs from ISO 100-51,200, which can be expanded down to ISO 50 and up to ISO 204,800.

The native ISO range of the Nikon Z8 is 64 to 25,600, which can be expanded down to ISO 32 and up to ISO 102,400.

Video

The Z8 offers UHD 8K 60p/30p/24p video recording with no crop and 4K up to 120p, again using the entirety of the frame with no crop factor. Also 4K UHD video oversampled from 8K is possible when recording in the 30p/25p/24p modes for even greater sharpness and detail. Internal recording with 10-bit color and 4:2:2 sampling is supported via the ProRes 422 HQ and H.265 codecs.

Note that the Z8 is limited to recording 8K/30p for 90 minutes and 4K/60p for over 2 hours without overheating.

The A7 V offers 4K/120p recording in super 35mm crop mode and 7K oversampled 4K/60p full-frame recording with no pixel binning, plus Full 1080 HD at up to 240fps, with the dedicated Slow and Quick motion mode offering frame rates ranging from 1fps to 240fps at 1080p quality.

It offers the S-Cinetone, HLG, S-Log3 and S-Log2 profiles and additionally supports M-LUT and Log recording with LUTs. There’s a new noise reduction function on the A7 V for the integrated mic which reduces constant background noise.

The Auto Framing feature uses the camera’s AI-based subject recognition technology to automatically crop the frame to keep the subject in a prominent position when shooting movies, even when the camera is mounted on a tripod.

Unlike the Z8, there’s no RAW format video recording available on the A7 V.

Autofocus

The Nikon Z8 has a 493-point phase-detection AF system which includes 405 auto-area AF points, with 100% frame coverage. Impressively it can focus in light levels as low as -9EV when used in the Starlight mode.

Subject tracking works for humans, dogs, cats and birds, the latter even in flight, plus vehicles, including trains, bicycles and motorbikes.

What’s more, if the driver is wearing a helmet, the AF system will lock on to that, ensuring that the most important subject is in focus.

The Z8 additionally recognises aircraft as a subject - either the whole body, front or the cockpit.

Sony has added an AI deep learning processing unit to the A7 V which enables it to recognise more subjects than the previous model, and also greatly improves the detection of humans and animals/birds.

It can recognise a human via its pose as well as its eye and face. So if the person’s head is turned away from the camera, it will still accurately detect the subject as human based on the AI deep learning. Animal and bird detection has been expanded from just being able to recognise the eye to the eye, head and body.

As well as humans and animals, the A7 V is also able to recognise birds, insects, airplanes, and cars/trains. In the latter category, it is capable of focusing on helmets, it can recognise the eyes of some grazing and small animals, and more easily pinpoint the eyes of a variety of bird types as well as recognising bird bodies.

There’s also a very welcome brand new Auto mode which will choose the most appropriate subject mode (although this is slightly slower than choosing the specific mode yourself).

Burst Shooting

The Nikon Z8 offers burst shooting rates which vary from 120fps to 20fps depending on the file format, although 120fps is only recorded at 11 megapixel resolution.

If you choose to shoot full-resolution 45 megapixel JPEGs, the rate drops to a still impressive 30fps, and then down again to 20fps for full-resolution 45 megapixel Raw files.

The A7 V can shoot a 30fps blackout free burst, the same shooting rate as the flagship A1 II. The continuous shooting rate for the mechanical shutter on the A7 V is up to 10fps.

The A7 V’s buffer size with compressed RAW goes to 1000 shots+ and in the compressed 14-bit RAW mode you can get up to 95 images continuously.

Pre-capture is a new feature on the A7 V that has made its way from the A9 III sports camera. When activated, up to 30 frames per second are temporarily stored while the shutter button is half-pressed, and up to 1 second before can be captured once the shutter is fully pressed, providing a degree of leniency for fast-moving action.

The Continuous Speed Shooting Boost is another new function which provides an easy way to quickly engage one of the various burst modes (30/20/15/10/5fps) at the press of a button.

The Nikon Z8 offers a maximum shutter speed of 1/32,000th second when using the electronic shutter compared to 1/16,000th for the A7 V.

Body and Design

The Nikon Z8 is a lot bigger and heavier than the A7 V, measuring 144 x 118.5 x 83 mm and weighing 910 g / 2 lb. 0.1 oz.

The A7 V weighs 695g with battery and memory card and measures 130.3 x 96.4 x 72.3mm.

Both of them can be used with an optional battery grip, if you’d prefer to have a larger body with portrait controls and extended battery life.

Both cameras are fully weather-sealed, as you’d expect from such professional level models.

IBIS

The Nikon Z8 has an in-body five-axis image stabilisation system which provides up to 6 stops of compensation when paired with certain Z-series lenses that also have their own built-in Vibration Reduction (VR) system.

Thanks to a newly redesigned stabilisation unit, the new A7 V offers up to 7.5 stops of in-body stabilisation at the centre of the image and 6.5 stops at the edge, making it one of the more capable Alpha camera in this regard.

Viewfinder

The Z8 has a 3.69m-dot, 0.8x-magnification OLED electronic viewfinder that refreshes at 120fps, perfect for tracking your subject whilst shooting at up to 30fps.

The A7 V has a very similar 3.69m-dot EVF that features 100% scene coverage, 0.78x magnification and a 120fps high frame rate option to help track moving subjects more smoothly with virtually no lag.

LCD Screen

The Z8 has a four-axis vertically and horizontally tilting 3.2-inch, 2,100K-dot touch-screen LCD screen. Whilst not quite as versatile as a fully articulating, vari-angle LCD screen, the Z8’s screen works very well for both portrait or landscape-orientation shooting.

You can tilt it upwards to face you in either mode, whilst still being centrally located which make it easier to compose with than a screen that flips out to the side.

The A7 V has a 3.2-inch, 2095K dot resolution, 4-axis LCD screen inherited from the A7R V and which is unique to Sony. It can be flipped out to the side, rotated to the front, folded against the back of the camera to help protect it, and set to many other positions in-between.

Memory Cards

The Z8 has dual memory card slots, one UHS-II SD card slot and one ultra-high speed CFexpress Type B slot.

The A7 V also employs dual CFexpress and SD card slots in order to support the faster video frame rates. One of these slots can interchangeably use UHS-II SD-cards and faster CFexpress Type A cards and one is only for UHS-II SD-cards.

Battery Life

The Z8 uses the EN-EL15C battery, which provides a CIPA-rated 370 shots using the LCD screen or 340 shots when using the EVF.

The Sony A7 V uses exactly the same large capacity NP-FZ100 battery as the previous A7 IV model, offering a much better CIPA-rated battery life of 750 shots when using the LCD screen and 630 when using the viewfinder.

Connectivity

The Z8 features 5GHz wi-fi and Bluetooth 5.0 support and the ability to operate as a webcam.

The A7 V offers 2.4GHz, 5GHz and 6GHz wi-fi compatibility, 4K/30p UVA/UAC live streaming and it has 2x2 MIMO antennas which provide 2x faster transfer speed than the previous model.

Both cameras can also be powered and charged via a USB connection, which is useful if you’re out and about and have a compatible powerbank to plug the camera into, and both use the newer USB-C variant.

Both cameras have two USB-C ports rather than a single one, though, one faster USB-C 3.2 10 Gbps port for file transfer and one slower USB 2.0 480 Mbps port for recharging.

Price

On launch in mid-2023, the Nikon Z8 was priced at around £3999 / $3999 body-only in the UK and US respectively, but now retails for around £2799 / $3499.

The Sony A7 V has a price-tag of £2799 / €2999 / $2,899 body-only in the UK, Europe, and USA respectively.

Conclusion

Choosing between the Sony A7 V and the Nikon Z8 is very difficult, with the former offering greater dynamic range, more effective IBIS and much longer battery life, and the latter more advanced video recording, faster burst shooting and more resolution.

So what do you think? Would you choose the Sony A7 V or the Nikon Z8? Leave a comment below!

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