Hands-on with the Sony a7 III

Hands-on with the Sony a7 III

Last week Sony introduced its newest mirrorless camera, the a7 III, at an event in Las Vegas. Sony is positioning the a7 III as the 'basic model' in its line of full frame cameras, alongside the a7R III ('ultimate resolution') and a9 ('ultimate performance') models.

However, Sony explains that 'basic' doesn't imply that the camera isn't full-featured; in fact, the company says it's applying the 'basic' moniker in an attempt to raise the bar for minimum features and performance photographers should expect from any full frame body.

Whether or not you consider any $2000 full frame model 'basic,' it's difficult to argue that Sony hasn't packed a lot of features and performance into this camera at a relatively aggressive price point. Let's take a look.

Body

The most obvious change to the a7 III is the adoption of Sony's third generation mirrorless body design, which brings the camera in line with its contemporary siblings, the a7R III and a9. We've found this design to be very usable on those other models, so we're excited (though not surprised) to find it on the a7 III as well.

The updated body also includes the larger grip that has made other recent Sony cameras much more comfortable to handle, especially when using larger lenses. That larger grip also leaves room for Sony's improved 'Z-type' battery (more on that in a moment).

The updated body also includes the larger grip that has made other recent Sony cameras much more comfortable to handle

In addition to the larger grip, the new body includes dual card slots, something we typically associate with premium models. It's worth noting though that only one of the card slots supports UHS-II type SD cards, meaning the slower card slot will be the rate limiting factor if writing to both cards simultaneously. This isn't a huge issue though if you're writing Raws to one and JPEGs to the other.

Sony claims that the a7 III includes a similar level of weather sealing found on the a7R III and a9, but the body feels noticeably lighter than the a9. That's actually quite welcome, but make of that what you will in terms of weather resistance.

Body

The new design also means that the a7 III has an identical control layout to the a7R III and a9, including the same highly customizable buttons and the AF joystick we've really come to like (aside from the fact the AF point isn't illuminated when you move it, often making it near-impossible to see where your AF point is). There's also dedicated AF-ON and AEL buttons, fine-grained controls that make it possible to switch all your AF settings with the press of a single button, and even the ability to customize how images can be rated during playback.

Photographers using multiple Sony bodies should find it seamless to switch between cameras. About the only outward difference we could spot is the lack of extra top plate dials for Drive and AF modes found on the a9.

Battery

Like the a9 and a7R III, the a7 III uses Sony's new NP-FZ100 battery. This larger 'Z-type' battery more than doubles battery performance relative to its predecessor, and is rated to deliver 610 shots per charge when using the viewfinder, or 710 shots when using the LCD screen – the most of any mirrorless camera to date.

The a7 III delivers the best battery life of any mirrorless camera to date

We've been impressed by this new battery in both the a9 and a7R III, cameras that are arguably more power hungry due to their higher end specifications. In our limited testing so far, we've had great experience with the battery on the a7 III as well, routinely exceeding expected battery life during extended shoots. If you're considering an upgrade from the a7 II we're confident that you'll appreciate this improvement. To give you an idea of how much battery life to expect, we shot three full days of stills and video on two batteries alone, never recharging a single night.

Sensor

The a7 III uses a newly developed 24.2MP backside illuminated sensor, with an ISO range of 100–51,200 (expandable to 50–204,800 when shooting still images). Possibly of greater interest than the raw ISO numbers, Sony claims this sensor is capable at capturing 15 stops of dynamic range when used at base ISO, something we look forward to testing.

What the a7 III's sensor doesn't have is the fast readout speed found on the a9's 'stacked CMOS' sensor, which can scan the full sensor in about 1/160 sec. In contrast, the a7 III's electronic shutter takes about 1/18th of a second, which is much slower. This means that while the a7 III can shoot silently using electronic shutter, moving objects may show some distortion thanks to the effects of rolling shutter.

Image stabilization

As with Sony's other recent mirrorless cameras, the a7 III includes a sensor-based 5-axis image stabilization system. At 5.0 stops of stabilization, the a7 III matches the a9's performance in this area, but comes up a bit short compared to the 5.5 stops Sony claims for the a7R III. To put this in context, the a7 II was rated at 4.5 stops. Numbers aside, when shooting the camera we found the a7 III's stabilization system to be very effective.

Autofocus

Autofocus performance may be one of the most exciting things about the a7 III. Based on the AF system from the a9, Sony claims to have doubled AF performance relative to the a7 II. The camera includes 693 phase detect AF points with 93% frame coverage, supported by an additional 425 contrast detection AF points.

The camera also includes Sony's excellent Eye AF feature, which is very effective at locking focus to the eye nearest the selected AF point. In our limited testing, we found Eye AF on the a7 III to perform more or less on par with the a9. In contrast, Lock-On AF performs similarly to the same feature on the 7R III, drawing a box around the whole subject it means to track, rather than looking for an area of similar color and distance to follow. You can see real world examples of these AF modes in this short video we created.

EVF and LCD

The a7 III uses the same 2.36 million dot OLED viewfinder as its predecessor, resulting in a 1024 x 768 image. That's a lower resolution EVF than the one found on the more expensive a7R III, however viewfinder magnification does increase to 0.78x (up from 0.71x) in order to match the a7R III's larger view.

The vertically tilting, 921k-dot rear LCD gains a touchscreen interface similar to Sony's other third generation mirrorless cameras. It's still not what we'd describe as a class-leading touchscreen experience, but it's more useful than no touchscreen and certainly a move in the right direction.

Performance

For a camera that is essentially Sony's 'basic' full frame model, the a7 III has enough muscle to keep up with all but the most demanding shooters. It employs the same 'Front End LSI' pre-processor that enabled many of the features and speed improvements found on the a7R III, and that's reflected in the camera's performance.

The a7 III can shoot up to 10 fps, using either mechanical or electronic shutter, with continuous autofocus and autoexposure tracking. During burst shooting, the buffer can accommodate 177 JPEG, 89 compressed Raw, or 40 uncompressed Raw images, and the camera's Function and Menu buttons, image playback, and image rating capabilities remain available while images are being written to the memory card.

Also included is an anti-flicker setting, which adjusts the timing of the mechanical shutter to avoid exposure mid-flicker (note that it won't do anything to reduce banding when using electronic shutter).

Video

Sony's mirrorless cameras have historically performed well when it comes to video, and the a7 III continues that trend. The camera can shoot at resolutions and frame rates up to UHD 4K/30p using an oversampled region of the sensor and downsizing in-camera. When recording 4K/24p (and 25p) the camera captures a 6K region of the sensor, while 30p recording uses a roughly 5K region of the sensor and results in a mild 1.2x crop.

The camera can shoot at resolutions and frame rates up to UHD 4K/30p using an oversampled region of the sensor and downsizing in-camera

There's also support for Sony's S-Log2 and S-Log3 gamma profiles, as well as a Hybrid Log Gamma setting for direct playback on HDR TVs. Internal recording maxes out at 8-bit 4:2:0 color at data rates up to 100 Mbps, while external recording via HDMI enables 8-bit 4:2:2 color. It's worth noting that 8-bit data may be a limiting factor when using HLG and S-Log 3 it provides a limited number of values to cover a wide dynamic range.

If slow motion is needed, the camera can also record at up to 1080/120p, which it does using the full width of the sensor. For Super 35 shooters, there are options to use a Super 35 region of the sensor when shooting as well.

No more PlayMemories

In line with other recent Sony models, the a7 III doesn't provide support for Sony's 'PlayMemories Camera Apps.' While probably not a deal breaker for most photographers, dropping this support means there's no way to add additional functions – such as an intervalometer for time-lapse photography – to the camera.

Price and availability

The Sony a7 III is already available for pre-order with a price of $1999, and a version that includes the FE 28-70mm F3.5-5.6 kit lens is available for $2199. The camera will ship to buyers in April.

We're expecting a fully testable camera soon and will be looking at all aspects of its performance in detail, and whether it lives up to the promise of its expectations.

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