Trying Out My New Sony a7 IV at Sunrise Over the Bay

This morning I finally took the new Sony a7 IV out for a real test run. I headed to the edge of the bay near the Oculus campus in Burlingame, one of my favorite quiet spots to watch airplanes line up for landing at SFO. The timing was perfect—low clouds, golden light, and just enough movement on the water to make the scene interesting.

I shot a mix of frames: cargo ships tucked under dramatic clouds, early-morning reflections on wet walkways, and a few airplanes descending over Coyote Point. It wasn’t a complicated shoot—just me, the a7 IV, and the Sony 24–105mm f/4 G OSS, switching between wider landscapes and tighter compression when something caught my eye.

The a7 IV made autofocus easy even against backlight. The sensor pulled a ton of detail out of the clouds and shadows, and the RAW files gave me more than enough room to push the edits later.

I pulled everything into Luminar Neo on my MacBook Air for some quick post-processing. Nothing heavy—just mild color work, a bit of contrast, and cleanup where needed. Neo’s tools made it fast to bring out the warmth in the sky and the texture on the water without getting in the way of the photos themselves.

Here are a few of the shots from the morning:

Cargo ship under morning clouds

Looking north toward the bay trail near Oculus

Plane descending over Coyote Point

Lining up for approach into SFO

It wasn’t a long outing—maybe 30 minutes—but it was a great first run with the A7 IV. The camera handled every lighting change without drama, and the combination of the lens, the RAW files, and Luminar Neo made the entire workflow simple and fun.

If this is what the a7 IV can do on a random November morning, I’m excited to capture some shots in upcoming trips!