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

joema said:
Yes. It's interesting the 12-megapixel Nikon D3S was released in October 2009, and professionals managed perfectly well with it. Even the D4 (released on Jan 2012) had "only" 16.2 megapixels.

The D3S was $5300 USD in 2009, which is about $6280 today.

If you're a non-professional hybrid shooter, I don't see a hard-core video-centric camera like the S1H or A7SIII as being the best choice. If those are the people with 60-megapixel envy, those cameras aren't designed for them. If you're a non-professional enthusiast *video* shooter, those cameras are great. If you're a professional hybrid or photo-oriented shooter, you'll own more than one camera, which means one can be a high-megapixel photo-oriented model.

IMO it's as if Sony released a new 60 megapixel photo-oriented camera and as a videographer I complained it had rolling shutter on video, and could not do full-frame non-pixel-binned 4k/120 at ISO 409,000. There are tradeoffs to fully optimize the design for a certain use.

There's a valid point whether the A7SIII video design goals could have been met with a higher-megapixel sensor. If so no ILC manufacturer has done it, so with current technology the answer seems to be no. There would be issues with sensor scan time, CPU, thermals and power consumption. You could argue the S1H does OK but only needs phase-detect AF to be perfect, so why couldn't Sony have made an S1H clone with PDAF. Maybe rolling shutter isn't that big a deal, and the solution to heat is a fan. I guess Sony could have done that, and I'd have liked having Super35 crop mode.

But as a videographer I feared the A7SIII would either be crippled or not sufficiently video centric. I was hoping it would be more like the S1H, and it is (while not a clone). Another example: up to the last day before release, the rumors said micro-HDMI, but it ended up with a full-size HDMI port. It will even have ProRes RAW capability to Atomos, just like the S1H. It is very close to the best possible ILC video-centric camera at that price point, given current technology.
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I agree. People like to complain. There were 2 reasons for the lower resolution sensor. First: bigger pixels perform better in low light. Second: (more importantly) in order to do 120, 60, 4k, raw, 10bit, it takes a lot of processing power and generate HEAT. Each mirrorless camera has chosen how they will handle heat:
Sony: lower pixel count sensor
Panasonic: Larger camera, line skipping, cropping, or was it pixel binning?
Canon: Limit the time, let it over heat. Win win for them, it gives you a just a taste, if you want a video camera buy their cine line.
 
Peter C. said:
This is true but it's also true we undervalue what we don't know or understand. From her standpoint catching errors in the medical field saves lives, while we run around filming stuff and arguing which new camera is better...
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I broadly agree with you, but there are definitely some areas that are richly rewarded while doing little to benefit society or even having a negative effect.

Consider investing - in theory, investors are rewarded for correctly allocating capital to the industries and companies that yield the greatest economic growth.

But in practice, if you can trade stocks a split second faster than the rest of the market, you can generate huge profits while having no impact on the health of the society.

Finding accounting errors for hospitals may benefit society. Or it may help increase the profits of an institution that is trying to make more money by saving fewer lives.

In any case, we're only salty about it because it stings to see people buy awesome hardware if they dont even know how to use it
 
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Peter C. said:
This is true but it's also true we undervalue what we don't know or understand. From her standpoint catching errors in the medical field saves lives, while we run around filming stuff and arguing which new camera is better...
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I don't know if tracking down billing errors actually saves lives, but it makes hospitals more money, which I guess could possibly extrapolate to possibly saving more lives?
I think it probably just gives bigger bonuses to hospital adminstrators but I am a cynic ;-).

I've often wondered if I should have forsaken the creative outlet that production is for a "boring" job that made me a lot of money. If ultimately my life would have been happier. Always worrying about making enough money and where the next gig is coming
from gets old. Traveling the world, shooting documentaries and other content doesn't get too old, I've enjoyed that but as I near closer to retirement AGE (I don't have a pension, I can't retire) I reflect back on all of the decisions I made that led me to here.

I have three friends my age or younger who have all retired early. They all had boring, administrative, but challenging jobs. All are now receiving decent, if not rich pensions, while I am trying to launch two new businesses to keep from
going bankrupt during the Pandemic. If you are young, like Abe, think carefully about the life choices you make. The answer isn't always clear but worrying about money your entire adult life is not fun.

Anyway, back to the A7 SIII and your regularly scheduled programming about if Abe is going to spend a boatload of money on a camera and all new lenses he doesn't really need during a Pandemic ;-)
 
puredrifting said:
I've often wondered if I should have forsaken the creative outlet that production is for a "boring" job that made me a lot of money. If ultimately my life would have been happier. Always worrying about making enough money and where the next gig is coming
from gets old. Traveling the world, shooting documentaries and other content doesn't get too old, I've enjoyed that but as I near closer to retirement AGE (I don't have a pension, I can't retire) I reflect back on all of the decisions I made that led me to here.
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I think that if a person is pining after a "boring" job because of all the fancy cameras they could have bought with the money...the boring job is not for them.

But it's true - retiring sounds nice/inevitable. I'm trying to start saving for that now (at least, after we have a house). My goal is to always live an inexpensive existence and at least be secure in that. Some would call that losing and then declaring victory.

Anyway, back to the A7 SIII and your regularly scheduled programming about if Abe is going to spend a boatload of money on a camera and all new lenses he doesn't really need during a Pandemic ;-)
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"Boatload" is such a relative term. Clermond and Sam were saying you shouldn't worry about a $5k price difference between cameras if you'll use it for 4 years. This is a camera (with accessories and 24-70mm lens) that would cost me under $5k total. The only question is if I can use it for 4+ years, and I think the answer is yes. I don't know if I'll buy a boatload of lenses for it, but one lens + adapting my EF lenses is good enough for now.

"Need" is also a relative term. I'm shooting a wedding tomorrow where I could really use the A7SIII, especially since I already sold my S1 and am relegated to flying the GH5 on gimbal. Hopefully it won't be too dark. I could use the A7SIII right now, just not as frequently as in a normal year. But unless I go bankrupt or exit the industry in the next year or two, it will be a fine investment IMO.

A number of my clients own an A7SII and show no indications of needing to upgrade (shudder). So, with the legit codecs and excellent autofocus of the A7SIII, I think I could use it until I need to deliver 8K (shudder).
 
puredrifting said:
I don't know if tracking down billing errors actually saves lives, but it makes hospitals more money, which I guess could possibly extrapolate to possibly saving more lives?
I think it probably just gives bigger bonuses to hospital adminstrators but I am a cynic ;-).

I've often wondered if I should have forsaken the creative outlet that production is for a "boring" job that made me a lot of money. If ultimately my life would have been happier. Always worrying about making enough money and where the next gig is coming
from gets old. Traveling the world, shooting documentaries and other content doesn't get too old, I've enjoyed that but as I near closer to retirement AGE (I don't have a pension, I can't retire) I reflect back on all of the decisions I made that led me to here.

I have three friends my age or younger who have all retired early. They all had boring, administrative, but challenging jobs. All are now receiving decent, if not rich pensions, while I am trying to launch two new businesses to keep from
going bankrupt during the Pandemic. If you are young, like Abe, think carefully about the life choices you make. The answer isn't always clear but worrying about money your entire adult life is not fun.

Anyway, back to the A7 SIII and your regularly scheduled programming about if Abe is going to spend a boatload of money on a camera and all new lenses he doesn't really need during a Pandemic ;-)
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I might have misinterpreted her job duties. In the legal world, forensic accountants can be as used to give evidence of financial wrong doing. The intrinsic value of many jobs including our own could be debated. There is a great inequity and I am in a similar position. Freelance/contract/self-employment in the US have little safety net for retirement. Its very easy to get underpaid, spend too much on gear, or not save enough for retirement. Doesn't help to second guess yourself. We do what we're good at whether that get compensated well or not.
 
I will check the above video out. This camera can look very nice and it can look very old school ordinary for a small camera. I am wondering what the people who have good looking footage are doing compared to the others?

This example has a lot of diverse looks which all look nice:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvcOr_jE3OU


This example is not to my liking and also has some of the "very present look" I can't stand. Wonder what it is? Maybe they are editing in 60p for smoother slow mo with some interpolation? I don't dislike 60p as I shoot a lot of sports but at times it reminds me of the 240Hz setting on new TVs. Though seems like it is not the camera as plenty of examples do not have it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJDgxe3fz3s
 
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Bassman2003 said:
This example is not to my liking and also has some of the "very present look" I can't stand. Wonder what it is? Maybe they are editing in 60p for smoother slow mo with some interpolation? I don't dislike 60p as I shoot a lot of sports but at times it reminds me of the 240Hz setting on new TVs. Though seems like it is not the camera as plenty of examples do not have it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJDgxe3fz3s
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I think there are a lot of things wrong with that video. I played it at 0.25x speed on youtube and it was basically holding a frame every several frames. There were also signs if interpolation here and there. I think either they did some strange time remapping or something was wrong with their export to youtube.

The shutter speed also seems pretty high like they shot the whole thing slomo, possibly with a less than 180-degree shutter angle, and played back some of it real-time or close to real-time.

Then, judging by how the highlights look, it was either overexposed or graded too bright. I dont like the color job either
 
Regarding 240fps - I read on the Sony website that it is a fairly low resolution drawn from the sensor. Great to see the mode without a crop but they had to make some provisions for reading out the huge sensor so quickly. Philip Bloom said he thought it was the best he has worked with. Upscaling is so good these days combined with good codecs probably results in quite nice images in the end.
 
Bassman2003 said:
I will check the above video out. This camera can look very nice and it can look very old school ordinary for a small camera. I am wondering what the people who have good looking footage are doing compared to the others?

This example has a lot of diverse looks which all look nice:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvcOr_jE3OU


This example is not to my liking and also has some of the "very present look" I can't stand. Wonder what it is? Maybe they are editing in 60p for smoother slow mo with some interpolation? I don't dislike 60p as I shoot a lot of sports but at times it reminds me of the 240Hz setting on new TVs. Though seems like it is not the camera as plenty of examples do not have it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJDgxe3fz3s
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Goes to show operator and situation make a big difference. The first video is filmed in beautiful locations. Also notice it is never filmed under direct sun, it's overcast conditions, partly cloudy when the sun is behind a cloud, or during the golden hours of sunrise/sunset.

The second video is in a less appealing environment and to keep out of the sun its heavily shaded streets, that is too flat and dark. The exposure is inconsistent, you have shots with bright background then too dark closeups. Then she wearing a white tutu has been over exposed and looks like they tried to recover the what was left of the highlights but it has lost all detail... add to what Alapert said. All of that leads a less than spectacular results.
 
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ReelFilmGeek said:
Dang, I mean I expected that from the little sample videos shown on release and from YouTubers, it was noticable for sure. It's still useable for some stuff I shoot but a bummer it won't replace the fs5/Odyssey 7q for high speed.
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Maybe it would look better if they gave it to us from an APS-C crop. I doubt they'll bother though
 
The 240fps footage from Gordon Lang's review and Philip Bloom's looked decent. Nothing that stood out as bad. But there is no room for enlarging in post.
 
ahalpert said:
Maybe it would look better if they gave it to us from an APS-C crop. I doubt they'll bother though
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I think this will come, it's just a matter of time: definitely in 5 years we will have that, but in 1 month it's totally unlikely, so, somewhere in between. Hopefully in 6-12 months (and hopefully with >20 Mpix).
 
Does anyone have experience with either the sigma 50 art for Sony or the Tamron 28-200 for Sony?

I'm contemplating these 2 as my starter cover-all-my-bases Sony lens kit
 
I dont have experience with those specific lenses but in general, you're going to want Sigma over Tamron. Tamron used to be considered a "mud" brand. While they have
imnproved a bit, Sigma has shot to the top, often more desirable than OEM brand lenses with their ART lineup. That feat is kind of incredible for a third party lens brand.
 
puredrifting said:
I dont have experience with those specific lenses but in general, you're going to want Sigma over Tamron. Tamron used to be considered a "mud" brand. While they have
imnproved a bit, Sigma has shot to the top, often more desirable than OEM brand lenses with their ART lineup. That feat is kind of incredible for a third party lens brand.
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Sigma doesn't offer a superzoom. The other superzoom offering is the Sony 24-240, which seems to be optically inferior to the tamron by a long-shot. I've owned and enjoyed the tamron 18-270 for Canon APS-C for 6 or 8 years and while it's not as sharp as a lesser-range zoom or a prime, it's a pleasing image and it's your only option if you need to instantly go from wide to super-telephoto
 
Not to sound repetitive but super zooms SUCK! Study a little about optical engineering you will see that all zooms are a physical and engineering compromise, that's why primes are better, just less convenient.
From an optical engineering background, each lens design is a study in compromise, to achieve a price point, a build standpoint, an image degradation standpoint. The more elements in a lens, the worse the
performance, that's why a $100 50mm prime is sharper than a $2k zoom at 50mm. Super zooms have terrible pincushion distortion on the wide end and dim, CA filled images on the long end.

For someone as engaged with creating the best possible image as you, I can't imagine that you will ever be satisfied with any super zoom. I've owned a few Nikons, a few Canons and I always sell them off
because they just suck. And most aren't cheap either. Just change lenses and shoot with a pair of real zooms or better yet, a 3-4 lens set of primes. Other than a select few, I am trying to stop using zooms
because even the better quality ones just don't compare to even my cheap primes in sharpness and in speed and size/weight.
 
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