Sony A7SIII = $3500, 10-bit 4K120p internal, 16-bit 4K60p RAW out

[ahalpert]

Sonyalpharumors has "confirmed" 3 official specs for the A7SII "successor":

1. world’s highest resolution new 9.44 million dot EVF (QXGA resolution)
2. passive (noise free) cooling system
3. UHSII card support

So far so good. It's supposed to shoot 4K60p full-frame in 10-bit 4:2:2 with great AF at minimum, but it's all rumors.

Rumor has it that Sony will unleash the beast later in July, giving them a chance to factor in the R5/R6 specs and price and probably undercut them. It's shaping up to be an exciting July!

[Imamacuser]

I look forward with anticipation, but I'll believe it when I see it. Even if they announce it in July, it might not ship for 6-months or more, and even then we might have to wait months for firmware updates to enable all the features. It would be nice if it could output Prores RAW over HDMI, and on that note, I really wish Panasonic and Sony would lets us record in Prores, Cineform, and DNxHR.

[Run&Gun]

Sonyalpharumors has "confirmed" 3 official specs for the A7SII "successor":

1. world’s highest resolution new 9.44 million dot EVF (QXGA resolution)
2. passive (noise free) cooling system
3. UHSII card support

So far so good. It's supposed to shoot 4K60p full-frame in 10-bit 4:2:2 with great AF at minimum, but it's all rumors.

Rumor has it that Sony will unleash the beast later in July, giving them a chance to factor in the R5/R6 specs and price and probably undercut them. It's shaping up to be an exciting July!

Doesn't matter what Canon shows as the final specs of the R5 & R6 next week. These cameras aren't just whipped-up on a whim. Sony can't sit there and watch the event and then say, "we're gonna do this, this and this to best them". If Sony has a camera, most of the hardware specs have been locked-in for a long time.

[ahalpert]

Well, the price can be tweaked on a whim. Or maybe they just decided it was better to announce last.

Surely some hardware specs are independent - like the EVF could probably be switched without changing much else about the camera.

Or maybe they'll just make a development announcement and the engineering isn't worked out yet

[John Brawley]

Sony has a camera, most of the hardware specs have been locked-in for a long time.

Totally. ID is locked. Hardware is locked. And these are all ASIC based so it’s pretty difficult to tweak features in firmware too. All they can tweak is the price.

JB

[puredrifting]

I'm just amazed at how late Sony is to the party. Old Sony would have never let that happen.
The best they can do is to possibly be at parity with Canon and Panasonic on specs, right?

[ahalpert]

I'm just amazed at how late Sony is to the party. Old Sony would have never let that happen.
The best they can do is to possibly be at parity with Canon and Panasonic on specs, right?

What amazes me more is that they can't achieve parity with Canon on the C500mk2. The FX9 has no 6K recording, it has a slight crop in 4K 60fps, and of course no internal RAW.

On the mirrorless side of things, Sony is now defending its turf like Canon used to. Dragging its feet on upgrades and specs.

But Panasonic still has no phase-detect AF or no-crop 4K 60fps in FF cameras.

Only Fuji has ticked all the boxes so far, but in APS-C not FF.

So for me, I envision either an R5, R6 or A7SIII in my future. I just don't know which one. And I think there will be little reason to upgrade any of them for several years at least (mercifully).

[docmoore]

I'm just amazed at how late Sony is to the party. Old Sony would have never let that happen.
The best they can do is to possibly be at parity with Canon and Panasonic on specs, right?

Disruption is the great equalizer ... and who knows the internal stresses at Sony ... supply chains, perceptions of expectations that
may have been formed in a vacuum ...

When all of your manufacturing chain and design team is geared to a historical element that was successful ... you may be at risk
of falling to the bottom of the heap ... side-swiped by something better, faster, more in line with current expectations.

Before long we will have a clue ... but really UHS II SD cards do not bode well for an Enterprise Class Starship ... just sayin ...

[DLD]

Sony manufactures around 70% of all photo-video sensors. A7S is a drop in the bucket for them.

PS. UHS II works fine with H265

https://havecamerawilltravel.com/pho...test-sd-cards/

[ahalpert]

Before long we will have a clue ... but really UHS II SD cards do not bode well for an Enterprise Class Starship ... just sayin ...

Well, Kirk's Enterprise was Constitution-class and Picard's was Galaxy-class. But your point is well-taken, and the proper reference might have confused some of these humans.

That being said, we basically knew there would be no internal RAW video recording on the A7SIII. Even if there were, some of these UHS-II cards top out at about 2Gbps write speeds, enough for canon RAW lite. The slower ones top out at 800Mbps, enough for all the codecs on the FX9 I believe.

I think the CFexpress is probably more useful on the stills side of things. I certainly won't mind migrating my SD cards over.

But if it's a sign that Sony is only hoping to compete by offering a more budget-oriented product, I dont think that's a good sign. Especially since the R6 will probably be cheaper.