Stripped to the bare bones: a Sony A7CR teardown

The Sony A7CR houses a whopping 61-megapixel sensor in a compact, full-frame body with most of the features of its big sibling, the Sony A7RV.

The Sony A7CR was announced on August 29, 2023, and released later in September alongside several products, including the Sony A7C II mirrorless camera and FE 16-35mm F2.8 GM II Lens. Sony has many full-frame cameras that are compatible with our Kolari Magnetic Clip-in Filters for Sony E-mount, including this new camera release.

According to Sony’s press release, the featured highlights of the A7CR include a compact size for mobility, improved autofocus, advanced video performance, operability and connectivity, and an environmentally friendly design. Among other features, the A7CR has a dedicated ‘AI’ processing unit, 4k video up to 60p or oversampled 4k from APS-C crop, and a single UHS-II SD card slot.

First, we tackled the baseplate of the camera. We removed seven screws, which allowed us to remove the tripod plate cover.

Here we opened up the battery door and unfastened one silver screw.

We removed one black screw next to the tripod mound bracket, as well as a silver screw holding down the bottom of the dust cover.

Four screws were removed on the port side of the Sony camera.

Underneath the LCD screen, we removed two screws.

Using a scalpel, we carefully removed the vinyl covering to expose the diopter screw. We carefully unfastened that screw and set it aside.

The tripod mount bracket was removed.

On the top panel, we dismantled the flash bracket assembly to gain access to a hidden silver screw. This screw holds down the top panel to the body of the camera.

We carefully peeled back the right-hand grip cover and removed five silver screws. 

There was another silver screw below the Sony logo. 

We needed to gently pull the rear panel away from the body of the camera here to access the ribbon cable connection. Using tweezers, we carefully unlatched the ribbon cable to sever the connection.

Next, we disconnected all the ribbon cables that were attached to the circuit board. We needed to take our time with this, as the latches are thin and brittle.

We extracted a black screw after removing the ribbon cables. It seems like this part held the top panel and circuit board in place.

A hidden silver screw on the top panel was removed.

Here, we pulled the top panel away from the camera body.

The camera’s EVF is held down with a single screw.

Next, the dust cover assembly needed to come off. Once we unfastened a silver screw located within the top left of the camera, we were able to pull the port cover assembly away from the camera.

With all of the other items removed, we could finally remove the circuit board itself. Four screws hold down the circuit board.

The circuit board mounting plate was held down with five silver screws.

Carefully peeled back the heat transfer tape from the frame.

The camera’s sensor was held down with three screws. We removed them carefully as to not disturb the shims on the sensor post.

According to our lead camera technician, the Sony A7CR can be rated as a 3/10 in terms of difficulty, with one being the least difficult and ten being the most. It’s a lot easier than the A6000 and A7 series cameras, so it comes as a DIY-friendly camera to disassemble.

Thank you for reading. If you’re interested in more camera teardowns, we feature a new one every month.