Thoughts on the Sony A7R III

[MWright222]

After the pricey Sony A9 came out I wondered what would happen with the Sony A7 series. I think the Sony A7R III turned out to be a great alternative to the A9 and given the upgrades and price ($3,200) it seems like a reasonable deal (relatively). What this means to me is the Sony a7R II price is lower and more affordable. I did have a lot of envy when people rushed for the A7R II, but if I recall it was orignally priced around $3200. Now the prevailing price for body only is around $2,300. For me....and I stress the "for me" part, the Sony a7R ii makes so much more sense. At a certain point the tech upgrades are wasted on me for the type of photography I do. In addition my eyes are not good enough to pick up on (appreciate) the improvements. Pixel count becomes over kill for my purposes for example. I love the idea of the internal lens stablization and it is very useful....but on many occasions I use a tripod and not always just to eliminate camera shake. Bottom line is that the A7R II has the best cost/benefit ratio for my purposes. I also have come to believe the good lenses may have more to offer than good cameras. If money were no object then sure I would opt for the A7R III....or....if you want to sponsor a "go fund me" page, I will go for the A9.

[Lucille]

the A7R III will compliment all my other bodies, I am curious to see the pixel shift on my car photography.

[Steve]

I was looking forward to pixel shift.....but after reading it seems more suited to studio type work than landscape

Does not work with bracketing
Does not working for long exposure or movement like clouds or water in Composition..
Pixel shift not supported in LR or PS yet....have to use Sony imaging suite and that is real slow.

So am a bit disappointed to be honest....but I have my a7r2 and am very happy...so not to worried about a7r3

[Panza]

From hearing the reviews about the Canon 5DmkIV, Pixel shift is barely good enough to change the focal point from the eyelash to the eye. I doubt pixel shift is a game changer for Sony.

The new battery pack and dual SD card slots on the other hand ... the A7R has always been a bit too much for me, but the A7 has been a perfect compromise between price and performance. I'll wait for the A7iii while you all play with the A9 and A7R/SmkIII.

[leuius]

I'll wait for the A7iii while you all play with the A9 and A7R/SmkIII.

I'm in the same boat. I assume the next A7iii will be 24Mp and inherit some of the technology of its bigger brothers for focusing speed, battery, ergonomics, etc. If the features are a good fit for the price, that maybe my jumping point into full-frame. As it is I am still very happy with APS-C but all the good lenses are on the full-frame side so if I bite the bullet and add new (FE) lenses, might as well get the sensor size that matches.

Waiting for spring time, hoping the next A7* comes by then. But I will still have to look at glass first... the Sony "market" is becoming more interesting on that front.

Regards,

[Jay]

I was looking forward to pixel shift.....but after reading it seems more suited to studio type work than landscape

Does not work with bracketing
Does not working for long exposure or movement like clouds or water in Composition..
Pixel shift not supported in LR or PS yet....have to use Sony imaging suite and that is real slow.

So am a bit disappointed to be honest....but I have my a7r2 and am very happy...so not to worried about a7r3

Yup, I totally agree about the pixel shift technology so far based on what I'm seeing... The rest of the camera improvements are pretty darn awesome though as well, but not necessary needed by many however... I can see the A7iii being a huge seller for sure when it comes to the average enthusiast. The a7r III is for the Pro Market I would say, so a lot of the features are not necessarily needed by the masses. IQ is already killer. The IQ of my now ancient A7r is still absolutely stunning for example, so if anything lenses are needed for my purposes. The killer AF is nice to have, but if you don't need it, it's worthless to you as the user. Even the A7r focuses fast enough for most photography at the end of the day...

All that being said, of course I still want the A7r III

Jay

[Steve]

lol..if you gave me an a7r3 I would not say NO....lol
I just wish that the sensor was slightly "upgraded" as that would really push foks and peaople like myself with an a7r2.

I have a gm Lens and its amazing the quality of them build and optics wise is awesome.

I can't wait for next years astro season...so I can really compare it against my normal astro 1.4 lens.

[leuius]

I just wish that the sensor was slightly "upgraded" as that would really push foks and peaople like myself with an a7r2.

Developing sensors must be hugely expensive so it's in Sony's interest to have as much volume on these parts as possible. It works in user's favor too as it allows the fab to reduce cost and help Sony be more competitive by keeping it's cost low (the price decrease on the A7R2 is probably justified by a corresponding internal cost reduction, parts commonality helping).

The real value added in the A7R3 "sensor" is the associated electronics/processing, via the "front-end" coprocessor and probably faster/more energy efficient Exmor main processor. We are seeing the benefits of Moore's law. Combine this with a larger battery and you get more mileage (faster focus, deeper buffer, more efficient noise processing, etc) out of the same excellent sensor.

I see the A7R3 more as a competitive move against Nikon D850 and preemptive strike against eventual/foreseen Canikon full-frame mirrorless than for Sony's established base. It's still an upgrade but most Sony non-pros may skip this step. But it's very interesting to Canikon user prospects who are running out of patience.

I have been on the digital full-frame sideline for awhile and the A7R3 appears to be a worthwhile investment but I would still like to see what lower-end alternative Sony will come up with for this newer generation of camera (i.e. A7m3). In the meantime, I can't help but wonder about a future APS-C A6700. The A6500 is already fast enough but that is probably where a new sensor (BSI, with integrated memory... A9 style) is likely to show up next, with associated new processor (same as A7R3). That would really be interesting for IQ, operating autonomy (read "battery-life") and general features/speed. In the electronic leapfrog game, Sony is playing all fronts: sensor, main processor and co-processor. Components are developed in parallel and implemented incrementally in various chassis based on when a certain technology is ready. Each step helps the next generation and the new offerings help Sony's keeping its cash flow alive while working on newer products.

Component-wise, the RX1, RX10, RX100, A6000 and A7/A9 are technologically inter-related, each step pushing the others forward. Timing-wise, look at how/when they are released to maintain a constant evolution, plugging market "holes" and to keep money flowing.

My view only.

[Wally]

I have been stuck in England, due to ongoing eye exams and cancellations, otherwise I woud have been in the Canaries ages ago. I have bad circulation / reynauds ,and in this freezing weather, I am not out taking pics much. Anyway, going home, on the 13th, so that will change matters. As regards the pics, well it turns out that Bossy Bessie just loves the A7R lll, with the 35 mm f1.4 for her food photography, so she uses the jpegs from that, on the different food forums. However, we are still trying to figure out , how to get to the raw files.
I did download the free trial , of that O1 or whatever, and after fighting with it for half the free trial time, and not yet found a way to import photos into it, I gave up and deleted it.
Now Im trying this new Sony Imaging Edge, but so far, not found any " Import " links. So I cannot acces my photos, despite clicking on the " Photos " thing, however, clicking on
" Desktop " I can see the few pics , I have there, but surely I do not have to put my whole photo library onto the desktop , to use it ?
We are both hoping Adobe will post an update for the RAW files soon. Then we will be able to make a better comparison.
Cheers
Wally

[leuius]

However, we are still trying to figure out , how to get to the raw files.

Hi Wally,

Take a look at Capture One (from Phase One). Documentation states that A7R3 is supported. They introduced a new version (11) recently also but I haven't had the time to try it out yet.

Best of all, the "Express for Sony" variant is free, while the "Full for Sony" variant is way less expensive than LR; and better too in my opinion.

Stef

[SPtheALIEN]

I tried some longer (30 second) exposures with Pixel Shift to see what types of artifacts I would get in a scene with water. To be honest, it's minimal. The clean up is similar to what I would do to astrophotography. The increase in detail is not trivial at all. As for support for PSMS, it's likely not going to happen in Lightroom, as it's a vendor-specific feature (similar to what Canon did with the focus shift).

[SPtheALIEN]

Here are some examples of how clean and contrasty the shots came out: http://www.spencerpablophotography.c...ulti-Shooting/

Note that it is straight out of camera.

[Jay]

Developing sensors must be hugely expensive so it's in Sony's interest to have as much volume on these parts as possible. It works in user's favor too as it allows the fab to reduce cost and help Sony be more competitive by keeping it's cost low (the price decrease on the A7R2 is probably justified by a corresponding internal cost reduction, parts commonality helping).

The real value added in the A7R3 "sensor" is the associated electronics/processing, via the "front-end" coprocessor and probably faster/more energy efficient Exmor main processor. We are seeing the benefits of Moore's law. Combine this with a larger battery and you get more mileage (faster focus, deeper buffer, more efficient noise processing, etc) out of the same excellent sensor.

I see the A7R3 more as a competitive move against Nikon D850 and preemptive strike against eventual/foreseen Canikon full-frame mirrorless than for Sony's established base. It's still an upgrade but most Sony non-pros may skip this step. But it's very interesting to Canikon user prospects who are running out of patience.

I have been on the digital full-frame sideline for awhile and the A7R3 appears to be a worthwhile investment but I would still like to see what lower-end alternative Sony will come up with for this newer generation of camera (i.e. A7m3). In the meantime, I can't help but wonder about a future APS-C A6700. The A6500 is already fast enough but that is probably where a new sensor (BSI, with integrated memory... A9 style) is likely to show up next, with associated new processor (same as A7R3). That would really be interesting for IQ, operating autonomy (read "battery-life") and general features/speed. In the electronic leapfrog game, Sony is playing all fronts: sensor, main processor and co-processor. Components are developed in parallel and implemented incrementally in various chassis based on when a certain technology is ready. Each step helps the next generation and the new offerings help Sony's keeping its cash flow alive while working on newer products.

Component-wise, the RX1, RX10, RX100, A6000 and A7/A9 are technologically inter-related, each step pushing the others forward. Timing-wise, look at how/when they are released to maintain a constant evolution, plugging market "holes" and to keep money flowing.

My view only.

Excellent input and breakdown of the Sony technology evolution Where do you think they will go next with sensor technology? Faster, more MP, or perhaps some kind of organic material is finally going to show up??

I can't help but wonder about an APS-C sensor sized RX10 type camera like the old school Sony R1?

Jay