There are a few ways to look at Photons to Photos PDR results for the Sony a7RIV compared to cameras like the a7RIII and GFX, but I would say that the a7RIV is proving that we are reaching the limits of what a Full Frame sensor can capture. Yes, the a7RIV is 61MP compared to the a7RIII’s 42MP, but it only outperformance the a7RIII at low ISO. Once the ISO starts to go up you are probably better with the Sony a7RIII, which has a similar sensor to the a7RII, but big AF performance gains.
When comparing the Sony a7RIII/a7RIV to the GFX50S and GFX100 we can see that the larger GFX chip gained a decent amount of PDR performance pretty much across the board in addition to doubling the megapixel count compared to the GFX50S sensor. I believe this is the reason why Fujifilm decided to skip full-frame and move to an even larger sensor because as the generations go on the performance gap should widen quickly with Full-Frame remaining where it is without a breakthrough like BSI.
If we take price into consideration the topic becomes even more tricky, because the Sony a7RIII is currently $1,000 less than the a7RIV and it will likely fall to around $2,000 in the not too distant future. If this happens than APS-C is going to have to come way down in price to compete. If we compare the Sony a7RIII to the GFX100 or GFX50S it is around 1/4 the price of the GFX100 and around 1/2 the price of the GFX50S at this time, which is a really incredible value.
At this time Sony is the only company that can take on Canon and Nikon and they seem to be winning the battle, but if Nikon and Canon pull a Sony and release a larger sensor for their big mirrorless mount than things could get more competitive fast. The possibility is why I believe Sony will start building a medium format system soon because I think they will need it to compete in the coming years.
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Sony a7RIV: B&H Photo / Amazon / Adorama
Sony a7RIII: B&H Photo / Amazon / Adorama
Fujifilm GFX100: B&H Photo / Amazon / Adorama
Fujifilm GFX50R: B&H Photo / Amazon / Adorama
Fujifilm GFX 50S: B&H Photo / Amazon / Adorama
