Sony Alpha A7S III Mirrorless Digital Camera

So, thinking about buying a new camera or upgrading from the previous version of the Sony A7S II and buying Sony Alpha A7S III. So one of the reasons that I had to upgrade the A7S II to the A7S III is the autofocus because the autofocus on this camera is freaking fast.

The A7S III is one of the Top Mirrorless Cameras on the market in 2021 and 2022. The A7S III is a camera for professionals looking to shoot high-end projects.

A7S III is one of the most sought-after cameras of the moment and not only for its photography features but for its video. A7S III will be a good response to the Canon R5 it will be the best camera of the moment to record videos.

I’m talking about a small camera, light, comfortable, water-resistant, and dust-resistant, with a flip screen, and a full-frame sensor.

If you are one of that who was waiting for the Sony A7S III I’m happy to say that Sony has fixed all the issues which we were facing with the previous models even though they redid the strap holder.

This is my in-depth review of the A7S III a high-end full-frame mirrorless camera made for videographers.

So, these days technology has improved so much that you’ll find all kinds of cameras on the market with so many fancy features for less money.

Sony Alpha A7S III Body

A7S III has a full-size HDMI connection, a MicroUSB connection, a USB Type C to charge the camera directly, use a power bank to make a direct data transfer.

The location of the record button is redesigned and easier to control, in the upper part, there are two minijack connections, one for headphones to be able to monitor the audio and the other to be able to put a microphone and improve the audio input in a short time.

Sony had fixed some staff in this camera they placed the mic jack in such a way that now the cable doesn’t obstruct the screen while doing vlogs which still happens with other brand camera models.

So, this camera has a full-size HDMI port no more loose connection because of the micro HDMI port and the biggest change is the vari angle LCD screen we all were dying to have on Sony cameras.

A7S III Screen

A7S III has a screen that supports proper touch screens unlike other models like the Sony A6400 and Sony A6600 where you can only set your focus while touching.

A7S III Menu

So, on the A7S III, you can access and enable/disable settings because sony has changed its camera menu they have redesigned their camera menu new menu is far better and easy to understand.

A7S III Autofocus

the autofocus of the A7S III line offers slow light performance compared to its predecessor has introduced a new flawless autofocus system that’s so fast and reliable.

the Sony A7S III compared to its predecessor has introduced a new flawless autofocus system that’s so fast and reliable.

It has the best AF capability, and best focus tracking just one touch on the screen and you will see the differences.

A7S III has 759 focus points by the phase and 425 by contrast covering between all 92 percent of the size of the sensor. The focus on the eye is fast enough and precise and to complement all these improvements with respect to the autofocus.

The A7S III provided 7 speed adjustments and offer greater control on drive speed which in turn will give you a very smooth and cinematic focus pull effect.

Tracking

When it comes to tracking autofocus is pretty stellar it’s really accurate it’s quick to recover. If it ever misses as hot you can easily put this camera on a gimbal and just forget about it.

ISO Sensitivity

Base ISO is E and goes all the way up to 102,400 and from 40 to 409,600 in extended. This shoots 12 megapixels just like the previous version A7S II but they are different in the pixels because A7S III has much larger pixels.

This camera reaches ISO 409 thousand and I think realistically speaking you can easily use up to ISO 51.200 that the amount of digital noise introduced is perfectly acceptable in any professional situation.

the A7S III actually has a native ISO of 640 and 12 800 which is actually a really nice improvement from the previous A7S models actually needed you to have your camera at 3200 ISO or 1600 ISO to records-log and the 12800 ISO looks just as clean as the 640.

A7S III Stabilization

the A7S III does have in-body stabilization but it also has software stabilization using the Sony catalyst software.

With its active mode, the A7S III has the best stabilization among all Sony cameras. Maybe not like Panasonic, or Canon R5 but this camera is 8 x faster than the old Sony A7S II because of new processors.

A7S III Storage Type

the A7S III has dual card slots which are great but if you only have one card in the camera when you recording it will show you a warning.

A7S III comes with a cf express card a professional card with a much larger compact size similar to the sd cards that will be able to handle the right speeds of 600 megabits a second.

You’ll need this when you’re shooting in the new 4K S&Q setting. The previous generation the Sony A7S II used two cards as states s of guache S 2.

There are actually four card slots in this camera, there are two SD and there are two CF Express slots.

Sony designed these slots in a way that you can either use 2 USH II SD cards or 2 CFexpress A-type cards. They are actually smaller than SD cards but their read and write speeds are very high.

A7S III has 2 different types of storage but you only need CFexpress for the 4K 120p S&Q model. So, Sony made another video format in such a way that all of these can be recorded on SD cards, unlike the Canon R5.

If you want to record 8k you need to buy a CF Express card for that which you will need to spend some funds.

You can record simultaneously on both cards at the full quality because in this way you can save your data in case of card failure.

A7S III has a relay recording option which means you can swap one of your cards without stopping recording. It means if one card gets full you can change it without stopping the camera recording.

In comparison with cameras like Canon R5 the moment you open its storage card door the camera will shut off and stop you from catching your best moments.

A7S III Viewfinder

A7S III has an Oled technology electronic viewfinder with 10 million points which we do not miss anything. Also, offers a wide and bright vision with X gea resolution and has a refresh rate of 120 hertz.

A7S III has got 9.44m dots OLED EVF which is the best among other predecessors. When it comes to video cameras the lesser megapixel the better the camera performs.

A7S III Sensor

the A7S III is a full-frame mirrorless camera into two types ( R ) means the resolution of the sensor and the ( s ) means the sensitivity of the laser sensor for videos Sony uses less resolution sensors but with greater sensitivity.

you can literally feature 10-bit 4:2:2, 4K, 120 frames a second 10 frames per second for an hour straight and this camera will not stop, the Canon R5 also does 4K at 120 and it has better colors but has severe heating issues.

It features a 12-megapixel sensor which has a low-resolution sensor but that’s enough because this is really a video-first camera and if you want to shoot a lot of slow motion.

the sensor is an Exmor R CMOS Sensor with BS structure, that is, backside illuminated, 5-axis mechanical stabilization system of the sensor. It has a resolution of 12.1 megapixels, not a very high as you expected.

So, you can imagine that if the sensor has only 12,1 megapixel resolution but it has a full frame size, that is, a good sensor size equivalent to 35 millimeters.

A very high iso up to 409 1600 and to move all the information that this super sensor captures we need a processor that is up to the task.

So, for this situation, Sony launches a processor that is guaranteed to be up to 8 times more powerful than the previous generation.

the combination of the sensor and the processor on the A7S III improves the dynamic range by up to 15 points, these two elements promise to improve the speed of operation.

So Sony has A7S, A7S II, and Sony A7S iii, so all these cameras have lower megapixel sensors which allow them to let in more light and belong as top-of-line cameras for Sony.

In my experience, more megapixels in a video camera can decrease its low light performance as well as its dynamic range.

Image Quality

the image of the A7S III leads to 4K 24 frames per second which is the same resolution and frame rate as the Pocket 4K.

Processor

A7S III has an all-new processor, it’s eight times faster than the previous generation A7S II. You can choose up to 10-bit 4:2:2 120 frames a second with this new faster processor.

Shutter

it has got a high-quality durable shutter assembly which can easily go to 500000 shutter cycles.

Video Features

A7S iii can record 10-bit video and you can use S-log3, the base ISO for Slog 3 is 640 if you use S-log3 on A7S III, you will get the colors with the cinema line cameras like Venus or Sony FX9.

the A7S III has 10-bit color you can easily manipulate your colors to look cinematic without any loss of image quality.

this camera features 12-bit raw using an external encoder so if you want to use something like the atomic-5 the atomist ninja to get raw video out of this camera that is a lot of horsepower in a small camera for this price range.

A7S III can record up to 4K 120 at 10bit 4:2:2 in an external recorder as well as in both the cards which means you would be able to create 3 copies older.

Sony made improvements at the codec level with a codec X VCS 1 or link of 500 megabytes in addition to that new high compression codec offers a 4k video output at 60 frames per second of 16 bits in raw format and all this with internal video recording at 422 d bits.

Battery Type

A7S III uses a sony FZ100 battery which provides great performance and is one of the best so you’ll get great battery life out of this camera.

Sony A7S III Release Date

A7S III is released in July 2020 it comes almost five years after the A7S II making it one of the most long-awaited upgrades in the A7 series.

Weight

the body weight is 700 grams, which is not done precisely because of this ergonomics, especially heavy in the hand, but it is a very balanced and comfortable camera to use. The body is constructed of magnesium alloy and it is weather sealed.

Sony Alpha A7S III Price

let’s talk about the pricing it’ll cost around $3500 just for the body and if you are willing to invest that amount of money it’s better to have professional lenses and expect to make a return on investment.

So, the A7S III is a camera for taking videos, pictures, and very good photos but if you are thinking of buying one camera to take pictures for $3500 you can buy cameras that will give you more features than this one.

Why Should You Buy Sony A7S III?

If you’re primarily focused on video it also performs excellently in the video mode it has detailed footage with good color and low light performance but it does lack a lot of the video functions that the FX series of cameras have.

Advantages

• Record 4K 60p until its battery dies
• heavy files that work nicely in All-ii
• used h.264 codecs for All-ii format
• With new XAVC HS format in h.265 has lighter files with better quality than h.264
• Sony camera models didn’t work very well with external monitors
• no recording limit shooting in 24 or 30 frames a second
• frame a 3-inch diagonal screen with million and a half points
• ability to capture gyro meta data

Disadvantages

• 1-hour time limit shooting in 60 frames a second
• 30 minutes limit shooting in 120 frames a second

Conclusion

In comparisson with the Canon R5 and the Canon R6 Canon cameras feels better in terms of menus physical bodies and color science.

But the A7S III gives you so much features more horsepower it’s slightly cheaper for this price.