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

Grug said:
The vast majority of the hassle comes from the tiny and comparatively flimsy camera bodies of stills cameras.
Click to expand...

Your point is well-taken, mate. :) Thanks for the thoughtful response and photos.

I agree the camera seems ill-suited for that role. But why would one want it there? I see its advantages as:

1. Small size
2. Great autofocus
3. Low cost

Clearly, you dont need the small size and you're not using the autofocus. As to the low cost - look at the lens and everything around the camera. The camera itself becomes a shrinking part of that budget.

Why else use it? Sensitivity? DR? Sensitivity is probably the only place it scores a decisive win, but most projects dont need ISO 16000.

But I suppose if they could figure out a module to plug it into to give it a larger, more rigid body with proper ports and mounting points, it would be cool. That ain't gonna happen.

I'll use it as an A cam on very low-budget narrative, but we also won't be rigging it like that
 
I keep picking up more things that really should be in Sony's "video oriented" DSLR in my opinion.

Custom LUTs - where are they? Pansonic has 'em! So does RED and Blackmagic. Heck, so does a company called FEELWORLD on their $250 high-brightness monitor! But obviously to Sony a $3.5k camera doesn't need 'em.

Why does it have a 3:2 or is it 4:3 LCD flippy video screen? Is it some kind of painful joke to remind us that it really should have a full-sensor-readout video mode (and / or anamorphic like S1H does using a Sony sensor) but they limited us to 16x9 for some insane reason?

Why is the EVF stuck on the center? Detachable like the Fuji GFX prototype would have been fun.
https://www.fujirumors.com/fujifilm...mage-gallery-current-concepts-future-reality/

Nothing on variable ND, I have to buy a separate expensive audio adapter, nothing on lenses... this is a bit sad for an update we had to wait so long for.

I'm sure it makes sense for lots of folks - and if I get the right project I'll buy in a heartbeat - but otherwise I'm saving my money for now!

Bruce Allen
www.bruceallen.tv
 
Looks like you can record HD proxies while shooting a 4K format. That should take the sting off recording H265 for some people
 
There are conflicting reports of the camera overheating in direct sunlight after about 25 minutes. Something we'll have to hear more about. There are different thermal cutoffs you can set in the menu, so it's unclear what the settings were. Ugh I dont want to have to use an external recorder for heatproof recording
 
Bear in mind they will have been pre-production cameras, perhaps even different variants/stages of evolution in pre-production. Until it's on general release in a couple of months time I'd not read too much into those reports, especially (as you mention) it's often unclear what settings were being used by the various testers.

Camera looks pretty good - might get one for gimbal work as a B cam (A cam?) to supplement my FS5...or I might wait for the FS6 or FX6 to see how much transfers across as I'm not a great fan of shooting video with the DSLR form factor. Will probably wait until decent commercial projects start happening again - no point having yet another camera and no paid video work to use them for!

The other thing I'm wondering about is how well (if at all?) Canon lenses might autofocus and additionally help with stabilisation (if IS lenses) via a Metabones (or similar) adapter? Anyone have experience of this with other A7S series cameras?
 
Last edited:
bruceallen said:
I keep picking up more things that really should be in Sony's "video oriented" DSLR in my opinion.

Custom LUTs - where are they? Pansonic has 'em! So does RED and Blackmagic. Heck, so does a company called FEELWORLD on their $250 high-brightness monitor! But obviously to Sony a $3.5k camera doesn't need 'em.

Why does it have a 3:2 or is it 4:3 LCD flippy video screen? Is it some kind of painful joke to remind us that it really should have a full-sensor-readout video mode (and / or anamorphic like S1H does using a Sony sensor) but they limited us to 16x9 for some insane reason?

Why is the EVF stuck on the center? Detachable like the Fuji GFX prototype would have been fun.
https://www.fujirumors.com/fujifilm...mage-gallery-current-concepts-future-reality/

Nothing on variable ND, I have to buy a separate expensive audio adapter, nothing on lenses... this is a bit sad for an update we had to wait so long for.

I'm sure it makes sense for lots of folks - and if I get the right project I'll buy in a heartbeat - but otherwise I'm saving my money for now!

Bruce Allen
www.bruceallen.tv
Click to expand...
Custom LUTs would be nice, but in reality, not like the little screen on the camera is good enough for colors, and if you send out the signal thru the HDMI most quality monitors that would be used in tandem have LUT-support. Less of an issue now than 5 years ago.

Screen aspect ratio I guess is mostly just based on what they could pack into the back, and for menus it doesn't matter much if it is 16:9, 4:3, 3:2...

Variable ND takes up space and cost extra, something that has to be recouped somewhere else. Sony doesn't want to cannibalize their other higher tier cameras.

I think what Sony has done is great with this camera, it is gonna be the low-light champion until they decide to release mark 4 of it. They could easily have crippled it way more and still have it selling like crazy, because simply put all the other camera manufactures have left the low-light competition. Only thing remotely close is Canons old 1080p "scientific" sensor (which they might be upgrading to 4K), and that one is really the definition of "crippled" ("scientific") camera. So good on Sony to actually not just play into their low-light monopoly.

Even if this camera has lots of other great uses, I still feel it is primarily a low-light beast, yeah there are lots of cool bonuses associated with its "low MP-count", like RAW-burst being insane. But I wouldn't buy this camera for photographing sports, not for portrait, not for daytime-landscape, not because it is "bad" at it, but simply because it isn't close in resolution/crop for my needs. For video however it is such a stronger contender, I don't think I lose anything really picking this over A7R 4 in the video department.

I have no plans getting one, but if I would plan a movie or work around "dark/unlit" areas, I would pick it in a heartbeat.
 
All of the lowlight stuff I've seen so far has rather aggressive NR on it and looks very smeary. Would be good to look at the original files but from what I see I think the S1H looks better, more organic in lowlight
 
andykwilkinson said:
Bear in mind they will have been pre-production cameras...

The other thing I'm wondering about is how well (if at all?) Canon lenses might autofocus and additionally help with stabilisation (if IS lenses) via a Metabones (or similar) adapter?
Click to expand...

I'm a little wary of giving them a pass because they might be pre-production. I don''t think Canon or Sony would ship out units to reviewers that might exhibit fundamental flaws. I don't know how much changes between pre-production and production but I wager the hardware performs pretty close to its final form.

In any case, it may not be a huge issue. Someone on this forum (Tom Roper maybe?) said he had a GH5 overheat on him in the sun once or twice. Never happened to me. Rolling continuously in direct sun can be stressful on the machine but also potentially remedied (reflective covering). It may be totally fine for me, but it's something I want to hear more about and then test myself.

As for Canon lenses on Sony - I haven't tried it myself, but everything I've read indicates that, while you can get good photo AF via adapters, the video AF basically doesn't work well. Not as accurate, pulses... In any case, not a comparable substitute for the rock-solid autofocus that I'm buying the A7SIII for.

I have only EF lenses, which was a draw for the R5 (although RF lenses may work a bit better there, too...) I plan on getting a Sony 24-105 for the A7SIII. And then maybe a later a Sony 70-200 f/4 and a Samyang 45 f/1.8. Between those 3 lenses, I would cover 99% of the situations where autofocus would be very helpful. I mean, with the 24-105 alone I would cover 75%+ of those situations.
 
ade4all said:
All of the lowlight stuff I've seen so far has rather aggressive NR on it and looks very smeary. Would be good to look at the original files but from what I see I think the S1H looks better, more organic in lowlight
Click to expand...

I wonder how much control we have over NR. It would be hard to believe that the A7SIII doesn't outcompete the S1H in low-light.
 
ade4all said:
I'm not sure but now the S1H also has 6K ProRes RAW via the Ninja V just released it will be interesting to see how they fair
https://www.panasonic.com/global/consumer/lumix/s/s1h/firmware_atomos.html
Click to expand...

The thing for me is I had an S1. I was fine with those codecs over the S1H. I sold the S1 to get something with good AF. I don't personally anticipate shooting RAW with the A7SIII as the internal codecs are decent. But that's just me. It would certainly be nice to have control over NR in xavc.

Looking at the DPreview video, I could be mistaken but I think the color comes off nicer from the cine2 footage than the slog3
 
Yes the S1H is not a good option for AF but I think the colour and IBIS is much better than what I have seen so far on the A7s3. Was hoping it would have the same colour dna as FX9 but I don't see it in the samples I've looked at
 
ade4all said:
Yes the S1H is not a good option for AF but I think the colour and IBIS is much better than what I have seen so far on the A7s3. Was hoping it would have the same colour dna as FX9 but I don't see it in the samples I've looked at
Click to expand...

The only thing is I didnt like the color out of the previous sony cameras but the people who pay me don't seem to mind. This seems at least as good as those.

Gotta admit, I really wish the R5 didn't overheat so bad. Half a mind to go with that but I'd be stuck with a low-quality processing and probably very limited 4k60 recording times

And yeah the A7S3 ibis is crappy but not a huge priority for me
 
The colour in the R5 is lovely but all the decent hq modes overheat, the pixel binned stuff looks poor to me including the 4k60 so would be useless on a video production as an a-cam.
The Sony and the Panasonic both have strong and weak points but there is still no camera that ticks all the boxes... am probably going to stick with the Fuji XT3 as my hybrid camera as it has great colour, decent 10 bit and the AF is good enough for my ocassional uses. And it's so cheap used right now I can get another one for multi camera stuff
 
Last edited:
Therein lies the rub. HQ 4K from the A7SIII with poor color? Or mushy 4K from the R5 with nice color? The R5 has a crop mode that oversamples and doesn't overheat. So then youre APS-C but you still have the codecs, the color and the AF.

I'm just thinking out loud. I think the A7S3 wins by default for me. I need Canon or Sony AF (or maybe Nikon but their video chops aren't there). Future Sony releases will have similar color and probably less videocentric.

If Canon can't solve the heat on these 2 bodies, it's not going to happen. Maybe with the R1 but that will be like $7k.

There's talk of an upcoming RF video camera. If that were small enough for my Ronin-s, under $5k and had comparable AF I might be interested. That's the only competition to the A7S3 for me that I can think of.
 
ahalpert said:
...Why else use it? Sensitivity? DR? Sensitivity is probably the only place it scores a decisive win, but most projects dont need ISO 16000....
Click to expand...

My doc team has a bunch of Sony Alphas plus the FS5, DVX200, S1, BMPCC4k and 6k, etc. What I wanted was 10 bit 4:2:2, improved dynamic range, no thermal limits, no recording time limit, improved IBIS, clean HDMI out, and maybe ProRes RAW to an external recorder. It appears to deliver on all those, even if IBIS isn't equal to Canon or Panasonic.

The A7SIII plus the S1H are really a significant change. Prior to those there was a good argument for using something like a BMPCC, Ursa, etc. for interviews or narrative work which required the dynamic range and could produce 12-bit ProRes in camera. In that situation the large-sensor mirrorless cameras were relegated to run-and-gun, low light, etc.

With the S1H and A7SIII you now have cameras that can *theoretically* go head-to-head with a BMPCC or maybe even Ursa on dynamic range, have the option of ProRes RAW to a Ninja V, yet retain the portability, stabilization and low light as before. I'm sure these match-ups will be thoroughly tested when the A7SIII is released. IOW the high-end video-centric mirrorless cameras have now improved to handling tasks which formerly required a dedicated video camera.

Of course the camcorders have internal ND, and that remains a significant attraction. But unwieldy as they are, we have screw-on or matte box NDs for the mirrorless cameras and lenses. If the FX6 has internal variable ND and costs $7k or $8k, that would be really nice but is that one feature worth $4k? It will have lots of hard buttons and built-in XLR but my doc team always uses a field audio tech handling the lavs and boom mic, plus Tentacle Sync, so we don't need on-camera XLR that much.

Also with Sony the advantage is you might be able to have a common lens mount which stretches from a A6100 to the FX9. Panasonic might consider switching the EVA-1 successor to L-mount, but I think Canon EF mount is so well ingrained this might not happen.

Re needing extreme ISOs, yes that is uncommon, but certain types of events such as wedding receptions, theater performances, etc. can use that. Also because of longstanding camera limitations we are conditioned to shoot certain things certain ways. E.g, your first approach to a formal interview might be traditional three-point lighting. But if you have an S1H or A7SIII, maybe you could shoot it at night with bokeh lights in the background.
 
ahalpert said:
Your point is well-taken, mate. :) Thanks for the thoughtful response and photos.

I agree the camera seems ill-suited for that role. But why would one want it there? I see its advantages as:

1. Small size
2. Great autofocus
3. Low cost

Clearly, you dont need the small size and you're not using the autofocus. As to the low cost - look at the lens and everything around the camera. The camera itself becomes a shrinking part of that budget.

Why else use it? Sensitivity? DR? Sensitivity is probably the only place it scores a decisive win, but most projects dont need ISO 16000.

But I suppose if they could figure out a module to plug it into to give it a larger, more rigid body with proper ports and mounting points, it would be cool. That ain't gonna happen.

I'll use it as an A cam on very low-budget narrative, but we also won't be rigging it like that
Click to expand...

In this case (as in almost every case), it just came down to money - there weren't the funds to pay for a "proper" camera package, and we had more pressing equipment requirements than the camera (namely lighting, grip and rigging). We also had a number of overhead and gimbal-based shots that were going to be done on an X-T3 on a Ronin-S anyway, so if the A-camera matched perfectly with the B-camera that was going to be a help - Fuji footage and Sony footage do NOT match easily in the grade.
 
I don't understand the low-light of this camera. And there is also a major gap between usability.

In Undone's tests, 6400 was brutally falling apart (why?). He said it's usable (and I "get it"), but it definitely doesn't look like it. And then there was no point of using a higher number until you reached 16000.

I don't remember the a7SII being like this. 6400 was like 100.

IMO, this is an extremely major flaw. 6400, 8000, 10000 are very important numbers to have clean.
 
NorBro said:
I don't understand the low-light of this camera. And there is also a major gap between usability.

In Undone's tests, 6400 was brutally falling apart (why?). He said it's usable (and I "get it"), but it definitely doesn't look like it. And then there was no point of using a higher number until you reached 16000.

I don't remember the a7SII being like this. 6400 was like 100.

IMO, this is an extremely major flaw. 6400, 8000, 10000 are very important numbers to have clean.
Click to expand...
...yet, the A7s3 can do iso150 in slog3.... could be a fair trade off. ymmv.

possible work around to iso16,000...stop down a half a stop on the lens and get an iso12,800 equivelant clean. Seems like it is a good trade off to get both lower iso's in slog, and better performance at crazy night vision iso's. just a thought.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top