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

ahalpert

ahalpert

Major Contributor
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!
 
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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.
 
ahalpert said:
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!
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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.
 
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
 
Run&Gun said:
Sony has a camera, most of the hardware specs have been locked-in for a long time.
Click to expand...

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
 
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?
 
puredrifting said:
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?
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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).
 
puredrifting said:
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?
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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 ...
 
docmoore said:
Before long we will have a clue ... but really UHS II SD cards do not bode well for an Enterprise Class Starship ... just sayin ...
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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.
 
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After shooting with it for a month, I wrote a decent sized article about the FX9.
https://www.hdvideopro.com/gear/cameras/hands-on-review-sony-pxw-fx9-digital-cinema-camera/

It wasn't made to compete with the C500 MKII. The no internal RAW didn't surprise me and I don't think the FX9 buyer gives a crap
about RAW. The no 6K recording did surprise me a bit but then again, to me, 6K recording is a handicap, not a desirable feature.
My years shooting 1080 with native 4K cameras like the C100 MKI and 300 MKI gave me a lot of respect for downsampling video. The FX9 4K looks great.

If I was in the market for a new camera (Thank God I'm not!), it would undoubtedly be the C300 MKIII over the FX9. The C300 MKIII checks every box for me, I think it's
in it's own way, a better value proposition than the C500 MKII or the FX9. But that's just me. And if I was being given them, I would be thrilled with either the C500 MKII
or the FX9, I really like them both. But if I was writing the check, C300 MKIII all the way.
 
Wow great review puredrifting. I was drooling by the end of it.

I mean, the reality is that the FX9/C500mk2/C300mk3 are all crazy great cameras.

Sony finally has great SOOC colors. The variable eND and dual ISO sound like amazingly flexible tools.

It's just those little things - slight crop on FF 60fps, no internal RAW - that advantage the Canon. (Though the Sonys have always had the advantage of "EVF" built on and more shoulder-mount friendly.)

But I've read FX9 buyers complaining about no internal RAW on dvxuser so I know that someone misses it.

No chance that the A7SIII will have eND. That would be amazing. But the SOOC colors, the great AF, the awesome low-light performance...

I think it's going to be really hard for them to get me to upgrade again after I buy into the current generation of cameras
 
Just read this EVF resolution comparison online and I'm left with questions...

Does the A7SIII need such a high-res EVF (especially with only 2K resolution imaging piping in)? What is the opportunity cost of the EVF? Where are they saving money elsewhere to put in a more expensive EVF? And are they doing it just to claim a "most" somewhere over canon because canon trumps them on all the other specs? (And as an aside, I like a good EVF but I rarely use them on the mirrorless body)

"Here’s a comparison of how some of the current model full-frame mirrorless cameras stack up.

Sony A7S III – Expected 9.11 million pixels
Panasonic S1 – 5.76 million pixels
Panasonic S1R – 5.76 million pixels
Panasonic S1H – 5.76 million pixels
Sony A7R IV – 5.76 million pixels
Canon EOS R5 – Expected ~5 million pixels
Canon EOS R6 – Expected ~5 million pixels
Canon EOS R – 3.69 million pixels
Nikon Z6 – 3.69 million pixels
Nikon Z7 – 3.69 million pixels
Sony A9 II – 3.69 million pixels
Canon EOS RP – 2.36 million pixels
Sony A7 III – 2.36 million pixels
Sony A7S II – 2.36 million pixels
Sigma fp – No EVF, but it has an addon to turn the 2.1 million pixel LCD into one.

9.11 million pixels would be a big step up, even from the 5.76 million pixel Panasonic’s and Sony A7R IV. And compared to the 2.36 million pixel found in the A7S II, there would just be no comparison at all."
 
I believe it is 9.44 million dots ... 4 per pixel in Sony RGB implementation per the past.

Still going to be a great EVF.
 
Now I'm confused.

Yes, it's dots and not pixels. But the other cameras should be listed in dots and not pixels as well.

So how do they compare, in fact?
 
Here we go. It's 3 dots per pixel, not 4. The A7Riv EVF has but 5.7 million dots.

The A7SIII will, in fact, kick the butt of the previous Sony EVFs:
PSX_20200704_191230.jpg
 
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puredrifting said:
After shooting with it for a month, I wrote a decent sized article about the FX9.
https://www.hdvideopro.com/gear/cameras/hands-on-review-sony-pxw-fx9-digital-cinema-camera/

It wasn't made to compete with the C500 MKII. The no internal RAW didn't surprise me and I don't think the FX9 buyer gives a crap
about RAW. The no 6K recording did surprise me a bit but then again, to me, 6K recording is a handicap, not a desirable feature.
My years shooting 1080 with native 4K cameras like the C100 MKI and 300 MKI gave me a lot of respect for downsampling video. The FX9 4K looks great.

If I was in the market for a new camera (Thank God I'm not!), it would undoubtedly be the C300 MKIII over the FX9. The C300 MKIII checks every box for me, I think it's
in it's own way, a better value proposition than the C500 MKII or the FX9. But that's just me. And if I was being given them, I would be thrilled with either the C500 MKII
or the FX9, I really like them both. But if I was writing the check, C300 MKIII all the way.
Click to expand...

Nice review, Dan. Your frame grabs look great... In your opinion is the FX9's color science significantly better than the FS7's?
 
ahalpert said:
Here we go. It's 3 dots per pixel, not 4. The A7Riv EVF has but 5.7 million dots.

The A7SIII will, in fact, kick the butt of the previous Sony EVFs:
View attachment 139542
Click to expand...

Well perhaps ... but the graphic you display shows pixels .... not dots ... so 9.44/3 dots/pixel ... may be 3.15 pixels.

Sony has always put low display EVFs on the S series ... to keep the frame rate high.

Anyone's guess at this point ... may be close to the a7R III from your graphic.

Not that it is that important ... most doing video rely on the LCD or an external monitor ... without waveforms, false color, it will be hard
to monitor exposure ... hopefully they will give magnification during filming or so enhanced way to guage focus. Peaking for 4K is too inaccurate.
 
docmoore said:
Well perhaps ... but the graphic you display shows pixels .... not dots ... so 9.44/3 dots/pixel ... may be 3.15 pixels.
Click to expand...

The graphic I display is inaccurately labeled. It should read dots, not pixels. And the resolution is listed in the lower section where you can see it is less than QXGA for all of the previous Sonys.

I agree it is not THE key feature. But as I predicted, it is already sparking headlines like, from Petapixel: "Sony A7SIII to have world's best EVF"

Let the marketing mindgames begin!

"What, do you want 8K RAW that you'll never use? Or the world's. Best. EVF. Ever."

Lol
 
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