Sony A7 III is latest in a line of top cameras
On my holidays this year, I noticed a lot of tourists were taking photos with big digital cameras.
Smartphone photography has seen dramatic improvements in usability and image quality in the last decade and as a result, compact camera sales have fallen off a cliff, but there seems to be a resurgence in people’s interest in more pro-level digital cameras.
I’ve been testing the Sony A7III, which Sony says is their basic model in their full-frame camera lineup, but there’s nothing basic about this camera.
Full-frame refers to the size of the sensor and the A7III has a large (36 x 24mm) sensor whereas the biggest smartphone sensors, like that found on the Huawei Mate 20 Pro, is 1/1.7in (7.6 x 5.7mm). Most typical smartphone sensors are even smaller than this right down to 1/3.2in (4.54 x 3.42mm).
I’ve been testing the Sony A7 III, which Sony says is their basic model in their full-frame camera lineup, but there’s nothing basic about this camera.
Of course, the A7 III isn’t an inexpensive camera at €2,300 for just the body, but for a full-frame camera, that has as many features in terms of hardware and software, it can’t be beaten.
I own an A7 II, so this review has my experience using its predecessor.
I received the A7 III with one of Sony’s top-of-the-range lenses, the FE 24-70 f2.8 GM. I also own several other lenses that helped to make a comparison between the A7 II to the new model easier.
The look and overall feel of the A7 III body are very familiar coming from the A7 II, but there are a lot of welcome changes. The larger grip now feels a little better and makes holding the camera more comfortable, especially for longer periods.
There are more dedicated customisable buttons too and the rear LCD is now a touchscreen, albeit with limited functionality.
The body is protected against dust and splashes, as are all Sony FE lenses, although, I didn’t put this to the test on my loan unit.
Using the new camera is similar, but the addition of a joystick, a touchscreen that you can use for touch focusing and more buttons that you can customise makes a massive difference to the overall usability.
There’s now an AF-ON and AEL button instead of it being a single, toggle style button. Also, these can be customised to whatever you want and not just what their names suggest.
The level of customisation isn’t limited to just the buttons, because now you there’s a dedicated ‘My Menu’ where you can shortcut all of your most used menu items into a separate menu.
This makes finding a particular option or feature quick and easy.
Although the A7III is the base version of the much more expensive A7RIII and A9, it shares a lot of the features and body design from the latter.
However, the EVF (electronic viewfinder) isn’t the same resolution and in fact, the rear LCD is a lower resolution to the A7II. That being said, I didn’t notice any difference until I looked at the spec sheet.
I had no problem seeing the screen even in bright conditions and the ability to use the screen for focus and as a method to move the focus point around while using the EVF, more than makes up for the slight drop in resolution.
Unlike all other touchscreens found on competing cameras, you are limited to focus modes and double tapping in playback mode to zoom in and pan around on a photo.
You can’t control the menus via touch, which some will find irritating, but personally, thanks to how customisable the hardware buttons are, I didn’t find I needed to go to the menus too often.
The things that I found the most impressive over the A7 II is that now you can use the incredible Eye AF in continuous AF and not just in single AF.
I tested this in a myriad of scenarios including taking photos of active toddlers — by far the most difficult test for any autofocus system. All I can say is that nearly all my shots got the subjects eye in focus.
This is such an upgrade over the A7II and not easily equalled by any other camera. You also get a larger AF coverage with 693 phase-detection points that cover 93% of the image area as well as 425 contrast AF points.
The A7III’s AF response is up to 2x faster than the A7II and now works much better in low light.
The A7III has borrowed its AF system from the A9 and is leaps and bounds more advanced than its predecessor.
Silent shooting mode is possible thanks to the fact that mirrorless cameras, like the A7III, don’t have a mirror to get out of the way, making a slapping sound.
My A7II does not have this, so I was able to fully appreciate the feature in scenarios where I didn’t want to draw attention to myself.
While in silent shooting mode you can’t use a flash and under certain lighting, you may see banding.
In my testing, I only had this issue once from a cheap LED lamp. You can use this outside as long as you’re not tracking fast action.
Also, silent shooting won’t affect your shutter count, because you’re not using the mechanical shutter.
One thing that isn’t as good as the A7 II is that there’s no proper way of doing time-lapse movies in camera. I got around this by using an intervalometer.
I hope that Sony adds this feature in a future update but it’s unlikely to happen.
The A7 III uses the new Z batteries that seem to last up to three times longer than the A7 II.
This is a seriously major upgrade, but what’s even better is that you can charge the battery in the camera with a USB-C or micro USB cable via a wall charger or power bank while still using the camera.
Other ports include a micro HDMI, a 3.5mm microphone input, and a 3.5mm headphone jack. There’s no pop-up flash, but there’s a standard hot shoe.
Yet another significant upgrade is that there are two memory card slots. Slot 1, supports SD, SDHC, and SDXC memory at UHS-II speeds. Slot 2, only supports UHS-I speeds.
In addition to wired connectivity, the A7 III includes Bluetooth, NFC, and Wi-Fi. I paired my phone to the camera which means it shares GPS location information and embeds this into EXIF of your photos.
There are lots of shooting modes and the now the A7 III can shoot up to 10fps while focusing between each shot. Of course, fast action is all well and good, but image quality is key for most photographers.
The A7 III uses a new 24MP sensor, which is BSI (Back Side Illumination). This improves image quality at higher ISO’s and I could see the difference.
ISO performance is clean all the way up to ISO 64,000 and even ISO 12,800 results in really usable images.
However, you can extend the ISO all the way up to 204,800 and although the results are impressive, colours are washed out and detail lost to noise.
Sony claims that Raw images will give you 15 stops of dynamic range at lower ISO settings, and this certainly bore out in my testing using RAW images and Adobe Lightroom.
Anyone familiar with RAW images and software like Lightroom will be blown away by the amount of detail you can pull out of shadows.
The A7 III is also an incredibly capable video camera with features like 120fps slow-motion (NTSC) or 100fps (PAL), 4K capture at 30fps.
If you’re a pro then you’ll appreciate the included colour profiles, including S-Log2, and S-Log3.
Like the a7R III, the camera also supports HDR capture using Sony’s HybridLogGamma profile.
I’m not a videographer but can say that the video is clean with natural colours and amazing detail.
I also love using vintage lenses, and having in-body image stabalisation is a must.
The A7 III is slightly better now and it makes using these manual lenses even better because you can shoot at slower shutter speeds at lower ISO’s.
As an A7 II owner, I can confirm that the hype surrounding the A7 III is real. This isn’t an inexpensive camera, but when compared to its competitors, it’s relatively cheap when you take into account its sensor size and string of rich features.
In terms of performance, there’s not much out there that can beat it and going from the A7 II to this camera is a night and day difference.
The A7 II still produces incredible results with amazing image quality, but the A7 III beats it in almost every way.
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