The Sony a7 IV just got a refresh, thanks to new firmware. The latest software for the camera, firmware 1.10, improves the eye AF and adds multiple sizes of lossless compression. But, the software isn’t exactly new. Sony released it earlier this year, then pulled it back because of a bug. Now, the firmware update is back.

I updated the Sony a7 IV to firmware 1.10 and re-tested the eye AF and compressed RAW formats. Thankfully, I haven’t run into any odd bugs, but be sure to heed Sony’s warnings and install 1.05 before installing 1.10, if you haven’t already.

I added the following to our Sony a7 IV review:

Downloading firmware 1.10 seems to have improved the eye AF performance, particularly regarding glasses. Earlier, we said the eye AF tended to focus on the corner of thick black frames instead of the eyes. The little green box now stays on the eyes much better than before. Only two things seemed to make the eye AF hit rate drop with glasses. It struggled with glasses when the subject faced towards the side rather than directly faced the camera. The camera also seemed to get fewer shots in focus with partially closed eyes behind glasses.

Without glasses, the eye AF does well in a variety of scenarios, though it occasionally wants to focus on the whites of the eye rather than the iris. The a7 IV had an excellent hit rate with both a stationary subject and a walking subject, and it also did well focusing on the eyelashes when the eyes were closed.

The only time when the eye AF didn’t activate was when one of the eyes was covered. When the subject had hair over half of her face, it wasn’t able to find the one visible eye.

The eye AF on the Sony a7 IV was already good, but firmware updates keep increasing the accuracy and variety of situations where the eyes are recognized correctly.

The latest firmware adds small and medium sizes to lossless compressed RAW. Lossless compressed RAW allows for smaller files with minimal impact on image quality, according to Sony. The impact is instead on developing speed since a lossless compressed RAW has to be compressed, similar to unzipping a zip file.

The small size creates files that are around 18 MB, the medium around 26 MB, the large 42 MB, and uncompressed files are around 69 MB. The new small and medium sizes, however, are going to need a compatibility update from the photo editing software. Both Photoshop and Capture One couldn’t open these files yet, but I suspect they will get support soon. Make sure your photo editor supports the format before shooting an entire event this way and being unable to access photos.