Anyone get a A7siii yet?

Chris Johnston

Chris Johnston

Veteran
Correction "A7Siii" not sii


Just curious... I ordered one in mid Sept, BH said they were supposed to start shipping 24th of Sept. Mine is still back ordered. Just curious how many they shipped...(or had in stock TO ship.)
 
I pre-ordered mine a couple minutes after sales went live at B&h on launch day and they shipped it to me sept 24
 
Interesting comparison between A7Siii, Venice 6K, and the ARRI ALEXA Mini LF. I managed to pick the Sony straight away. It doesn't have that very slight hint of "greeness" that is characteristic of Arri's color signature. You only have to look at the LOG shots and see that in the grey T-shirt at 3.37... plus I saw that tell-tale in some of the earlier 709 LUT'd shots. Being pretty overcast no real idea of how the highlights rolled but overall considering the price the A7S III looks like to be a winner especially at its price point.

Chris Young

 
I happen to watch this video as well. I thought it was very informative in quite a few ways. 1) These high end cinema cameras do not look earth shatteringly better when they are 'out in the wild'. They just look like a good mirrorless camera. 2) The A7sIII looks very good in comparison outside of some color attributes. This makes me wonder if the color inconsistencies can be remedied via custom LUTs. But the overall takeaway is that the A7sIII is a great choice for folks like me who would never purchase a Venice or anything Alexa.

Gerald Undone just released a great video about working with the A7sIII's different profiles. Worth a watch for anybody who might own the camera.
 
I've used the A7III which in many respects is similar to the A7SIII. My biggest complaint wasn't the color or image quality, it's the complicated user interface. I'm coming from a full sized "pro-sumer" camcorder, where the camera is easy to hold, it has the right amount of physical buttons that are clearly labeled, built in ND filters, xlrs, etc. Most of my user experience problems would extend to all mirrorless cameras, but I think Sony is even more complex.

Let's take all the custom buttons and the ability to assign them different functions. Great until you're in the dark or can't remember what custom button you've assigned the feature you need. I'd rather have a white balance button than assigning it to custom button C7 that has a trash can icon and double as the delete button during review mode. The functions also can change depending on whether you're in video or photo mode ( C1 in photo mode could be focus area but in video be iso). So why are there so many custom buttons and why would you want to use them? It's because the menu is so complex that you'll do anything to avoid going in there.

Then there are a lot of caveats you have to remember. Depending on what format you're recording some features are disabled. Some important features can't be assigned to function buttons or are unavailable in certain modes. Or "little" gotchas like you can't change a setting while your recording. Even though I've heard the menu has been improved its still complicated with strange terms and lots of sub menus that are not easy to navigate like your phone. Even to review video you've shot is cumbersome. You can't scrub through it like you would with your phone, you have to use these vcr buttons interface from the 80s.

No doubt it's possible to grow accustom to these inconveniences and get great video, its just I'm not a fan of the Sony A7 user experience.
 
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Sony has some of the best customizable functions out there. Panasonic too. Canon has a lot of settings, but doesn't offer as much as the aforementioned.

I guess it all depends on how your brain is wired as there is no doubt it can be confusing for some if you're coming from a traditional camera body.

What's better than flicking a switch in the dark to have a certain setting/function change? Not much. But there are only 1-2 switches on cameras, and the rest are buttons like on the mirrorless', and your memory should work the same in both cases.

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FWIW, with Sony's buttons those examples above are all the weaker points of the system if you choose to use it that way. Because you can have matching commands in both still and video modes.

And white balance can be assigned to any other button on the camera that is comfortable for the user.

Some of the features like no face-tracking AF in HFRs runs across the entire industry. Some don't even have AF at all. I guess it's due to the processing load (but it magically gets better each year in every new model).

I'm sure the 4K/60p is a typo as there is audio in 1080/60p. No audio in HFR modes is also common in cameras but some models are starting to record it.

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I think it's very fair to not be a fan of the user experience, but I think the above had to be pointed out as Sony has done a really good job with providing you options and I would rank their button customizability very high (which is separate from how they choose to make and arrange their menus).
 
I believe there is audio in 4k120? I didnt realize face tracking turned off. I'll have to test it all.

"4k 120 on the A7S III supports autofocus and audio recording" https://www.cameralabs.com/sony-a7s-iii-review/

Re:differences with high end cameras, I feel like the major differences are in form factor and rigidity/connections/controls etc.

And generally regarding IQ I feel like the differences are marginal or relate to edge cases, such as that last bit of DR, a little bit extra RS speed, color fidelity at the edge of the exposure range, etc. All of which may have an impact sometimes but not most of the time

As for the menu - it has gotten super easy to use. Probably 2nd only to BM menu. Touch screen is nice. You can put your favorite functions in a custom menu or on the function menu that has 8 options that can overlay on the lcd screen while shooting. The stills menu controls are hidden in video mode. Yay yay yay
 
Some of the particulars either have changed between models and there has been improvements. My point is that lots of custom buttons and feature choices add complexity and impact the ease of use for me. I no longer have the camera so I'm speaking from memory. But take a simple thing, recording a live event and you need to adjust the audio levels. I believe they can only be accessed in the menu, but while you're recording you can't access the menu. On a camcorder there is a physical dial to set the levels.

I remember the A7iii wasn't easy switch between slow motion and regular video. You had to setup separate profiles on the mode dial because slow motion needed to be at 1080p. These are things that if you're just renting the camera for the weekend was a lot to fool around with.
 
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Peter C. said:
Some of the particulars either have changed between models and there has been improvements. My point is that lots of custom buttons and feature choices add complexity and impact the ease of use for me. I no longer have the camera so I'm speaking from memory. But take a simple thing, recording a live event and you need to adjust the audio levels. I believe they can only be accessed in the menu, but while you're recording you can't access the menu. On a camcorder there is a physical dial to set the levels.
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The audio levels can be assigned to a button too.

I had mine assigned to the bottom arrow and then I used the control wheel to increase or decrease the sound.

Click bottom arrow --> spin wheel.

It actually ended up being faster than on anything I ever used in my life because of where the thumb is when holding/using the camera and how quickly you could drastically change levels with the wheel.

And yeah - all my comments are about the a7III as I don't have any experience with the a7SIII...but that's why I add thoughts to these kind of posts because a lot of certain impressionability comes from simple user error or not spending enough time with the camera. I've seen this for 10+ years.
 
Bassman2003 said:
Gerald Undone just released a great video about working with the A7sIII's different profiles. Worth a watch for anybody who might own the camera.
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Yes I watched this video as well. In fact I downloaded it as it has a fair bit of information in it. A lot of what he is proscribing for the A7Siii applies to the A7iii. I have come to that conclusion over the last year or so while coming up with 'out of camera' settings for the the 7iii.

Chris Young
 
Another thing that I like when comparing the A7sIII and the Canon's is that the little things the Sony might not be as strong in are more software based. Where the Canon's issues are more in hardware. Therefore Sony might be able to really improve this camera going forward - better color, better IBIS utilization etc... And the files are way easier to edit compared to the Canon's.
 
Bassman2003 said:
Another thing that I like when comparing the A7sIII and the Canon's is that the little things the Sony might not be as strong in are more software based. Where the Canon's issues are more in hardware. Therefore Sony might be able to really improve this camera going forward - better color, better IBIS utilization etc... And the files are way easier to edit compared to the Canon's.
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Hmm...better IBIS? I thought that WAS hardware-limited

Re:color - I think the best option (which may or may not be a solution depending on your needs) is to record to a Ninja V and bake in a LUT. I think that there's loads of color information to work with, but Sony doesn't beautify the skin tones and palette in-camera like Canon does. For my purposes, I think I might be fine with in-camera color. There are only a couple or maybe even just one color matrix that looks good to me out of the box, but that may be enough, and then there's s-log3 for when I can grade.
 
Well, I say IBIS because the "normal" mode does not have a huge number of stops of improvement compared to other systems and maybe they have some room for some gains through optimization. I say maybe though. So maybe not... I have seen a few folks writing in comments about how much room there is to push and pull the footage in post. Great to have flexibility. That is what the video community has always been asking for - enough information to customize without degrading.
 
From what I've read, there may not be as much wiggle room for IBIS in E mount because the mount has a smaller opening that was originally designed for APS-C. so I'm not expecting an improvement there. That being said, the "Active" Steadyshot EIS seems to bring the performance roughly up to par with Panasonic IBIS, more or less. I dont notice any weirdness when using it and I plan on using it any time I'm not worried about introducing a slight crop (1.1x I think) and possibly reducing detail slightly.

I haven't done a lot of s-log3 tests yet because I was primarily concerned with getting good SOOC. But i think the image will be very malleable and if you want maximum flexibility, you can record 12-bit ProRes RAW to a Ninja V which should be really cool
 
Yeah, I have read both sides of the E-mount/IBIS debate. I thought the mount was limiting but others have said it is not. I have been impressed with the active SS as well in YouTube viewing and just normal IBIS will probably be fine for careful handheld and gimbal help.
 
I just realized I ordered my cam with a 160 gig type A card because I wanted to be able to use any framerate/ codec at any time, but I forgot to order a card reader for type A cards... Say good by to another $120 and 4 weeks... duh
 
Chris Johnston said:
I just realized I ordered my cam with a 160 gig type A card because I wanted to be able to use any framerate/ codec at any time, but I forgot to order a card reader for type A cards... Say good by to another $120 and 4 weeks... duh
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Meh. I'm skipping cfexpress-a for now and continuing to use my SD cards. If someone requests all-I 4k60p from the A7SIII I will buy the cards
 
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