Sony’s smallest full-frame mirrorless shooter, the A7C, priced for October launch in South Africa

Sony announced its new Alpha-series camera with the A7S III in September this year. It is a video-focused mirrorless thats to take over the vlogging world (there’s a lot of that about). But, in the finest tradition of the late Billy Mays, “But WAIT, there’s more!” The Sony A7C, a full-frame mirrorless from the Japanese company, hopes to redefine what you think of when you hear the word ‘compact’.

Making light of it

Sony claims that the A7C is the smallest and lightest camera of its type (full-frame mirrorless, in case you forgot) in the world and at 124 x 71.1 x 59.7mm and just 501 grams, they might be right. That’s not a whole lot of space for an interchangeable-lens camera. Even so, in order for that claim to be true you’ll have to be using Sony’s new 28-60mm f4-5.6 zoom lens made specifically for this snapper. It takes up just 45mm of space when not in use.

Canon’s EOS M200 is smaller and lighter but it’s toting along an 24.2MP APS-C sensor compared to the 24.2MP full-frame sensor found here. And, to be fair, this camera looks a lot like Sony’s APS-C efforts. There’s not much space on the body but the A7C manages to include a suite of physical controls on top, with a hot shoe just above the lens. There’s an electronic viewfinder in the top left of the rear, an area dominated by a 3in LCD panel that, yes, can totally be manipulated in all sorts of interesting ways.

What Sony’s camera can do… depends on you. But it’s got a lot of capability, with an ISO range of up to 51,200, shoots images at up to 10fps (with autoexposure) and video at 4K (30fps) to 1080p (120fps), and features Sony’s excellent image stabilisation tech. The fact that it doesn’t take up much space seems to be the main selling point, though, as you can get comparable features from other Sony cameras that… may just wind up being cheaper.

The Sony A7C launches in South Africa this month, with pricing for the body-only version clocking in at R40,000. If you’re in the market for its 28-60mm kit lens as well, expect to pay R45,500 for the hardware. Sony’s new FE 28-60mm F4-5.6 zoom lens (which is needed for that ‘smallest and lightest’ claim) will land in January next year. Pricing for that one, which Sony bills as “…the world’s smallest and lightest form factor in a standard zoom lens”, isn’t known yet.