I was really interested to see what Sony changed and improved between the original Sony a7C and the newer a7C II. Three years of development separate the two cameras, and the new one is also more expensive – but is it justified? The full comparison below will help you decide.

I should get it out of the way right now that there are two areas where the original Sony a7C has an advantage over the a7C II: buffer capacity and battery life. The buffer differences, in particular, are pretty significant – the a7C II has less than half the buffer capacity of the a7C when shooting in RAW. The underlying reason is that Sony is pushing more data through the a7C II’s pipeline, since it has a higher-resolution 33 megapixel sensor.

Other than that, all the differences favor the newer a7C II, and some of them are pretty major. I already mentioned the higher-resolution sensor, which is a nice addition for landscape photography. (So is the focus bracketing feature if you plan to make focus stacks.) But Sony has also dramatically improved the camera’s video capabilities, and perhaps most importantly, its autofocus system.

The a7C II uses Sony’s BIONZ XR processor that has a dedicated, ai-powered, subject-recognition feature. For wildlife photography especially, the a7C II will have a much easier time locking onto subjects and tracking them across the frame. To me, this outweighs the smaller buffer and makes the a7C II a better camera for photographing fast-moving action.

Finally, I want to mention that the Sony a7C II fixes two of the more annoying problems with the a7C. First, the original a7C does not have a front command dial, while the a7C II does – making it easier to change exposure settings in the field without jumping into a menu. Second, the a7C has a seriously tiny electronic viewfinder with just 0.59x magnification, like looking through a peephole. The a7C II’s viewfinder is a much more respectable 0.70x magnification, which is much better for careful composition.

In short, Sony improved upon the a7C significantly with the a7C II. I wish they had found a way to add a second memory card slot and keep the buffer larger, at which point the a7C II would be nearly perfect for the price. But it’s still a very good camera, and if you’re deciding between these two head-to-head, I would only get the a7C if you find a particularly good deal.