![\"A7](\"https:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/a7III_badge_al.jpg\"){kind=icon}
<\/a>If you\u2019re not familiar with my reviews, I review from a real world shooting perspective. You won\u2019t find lens charts or resolution numbers here. There are plenty of other sites that cover those. I review products on how they act for me as a photographic tool. I am not a videographer, so my reviews concentrate on the still imaging capabilities of a camera.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n The A7 III is based on the same physical platform as the A7R III and the A9, which are themselves an iteration of the previous A7 II body style. If you’ve used the A7R III, the A7 III is effectively the exact same body in outward appearance, save for the model badge and the non-locking mode dial. When compared to the A7 II, the changes are subtle in appearance, with the A7 III looking largely indistinguishable from its older sibling at first glance. Look a little deeper, however, and you’ll see many changes that provide a solid improvement in handling over the previous body style.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The A7 III is still constructed of predominantly magnesium alloy, with the rear of the camera constructed of high-strength polycarbonate. The camera is a fair bit heavier than the A7 II at 650g, and it’s a decidedly solid little camera. The most obvious change from the A7 II is the deeper hand grip. The A7 III’s grip is only a few millimeters deeper than that of the A7 II, but that difference translates to a notable increase in comfort and control.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The top and front controls are all placed identically to the A7 II, with the shutter and first two customizable buttons within easy reach of your index finger.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The rear of the camera has a redesigned thumb rest, which my thumb nestled comfortably into immediately. The rear controls are all within easy reach, and are identifiable by touch alone. The haptics of the two command dials and the rear four way dial have been improved quite a bit since the last generation, with strong detents that prevent accidental movement during shooting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n These changes add up to a camera that is more comfortable to hold for an extended period of shooting, and provide a more secure grip on the camera. I’m glad Sony didn’t reinvent the camera, as the A7 II already had rather good handling, but the mark III series has upped the game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The A7 III joins the A9 and A7R III in featuring dual SD Card slots. Like its brethren, the A7 III only has one slot that can utilize the ultra-fast UHS-II cards, but even so, it’s a welcome feature. I’ll delve deeper into the dual card slots in the performance and features sections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The A7 III has an array of ports for extending functionality, which are found behind three plastic flaps on the left side of the camera. Behind the flap near the front of the camera sits the microphone input jack, which is great for video shooters. The top rear flap hides the headphone jack and mini-HDMI port, while the bottom rear flap hides the two separate USB ports. The A7 III can be charged and connected using either mini-USB or USB-C, and having both ports on here is a really nice touch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What’s not a nice touch is that the A7 III does not come with a battery charger. So, you’ll need to charge the battery in the camera over USB or shell out $80 for Sony’s charger (or less for a third party one.) Now, first let me say that I love being able to charge via USB in the camera. It’s really convenient, and means that you often don’t need to carry a bulky charger if you want to travel as light as possible. However, without a dedicated charger, there are three big down sides.<\/p>\n\n\n\n First, it takes a long<\/em> time to charge the new, larger FZ100 battery in the camera…around 4.5 hours for a full charge. Second, you can’t use the camera untethered and charge a battery at the same time. Third, the included cable is a micro-USB cable, not a USB-C cable, which means to charge you will be using the lower of the two ports on the camera.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Unfortunately, as you can see on the image below, the flap actually partially obscures the Micro-USB port on the camera when you set the camera down, so if you want to charge the battery with that port, you need to either bend the flap out of the way under pretty high tension, which will almost certainly break it off eventually, or you will need to lay the camera on its back or balance it on the lens in order to charge. If you don’t plan on buying an external battery charger, do plan on buying a USB-C cable to charge without this annoyance. It’s ultimately a minor irritation, but it makes me wonder if they actually tried to charge the battery before finalizing the flap design.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sony has settled nicely into a familiar control system on the A7 bodies, and the A7 III refines the controls of the A7 II rather than reimagines them. As mentioned in the ergonomic section, the front and top of the A7 III is functionally identical to that of the A7 II, with a front control dial that is useful for changing aperture or shutter speed, a large soft touch shutter button with a surrounding power switch, and two programmable buttons that sit above the shutter release. The final control is the now ubiquitous PASM dial for setting the camera mode. The PASM dial is unchanged from the A7 II with one exception: The ‘S&Q’ setting replaces the panorama setting that was present on the A7 II. The S&Q setting is where slow-motion or ‘quick-motion’ (timelapse) settings are for video.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The rear of the camera is a bit different from the A7 II, but is effectively identical to last year’s A9 and A7R III. The most prominent new control is the focus joystick, which allows for quick movement of the focus point and can be pressed to move the focus point back to the center position. This is a huge improvement on focus point selection from the Mark II series bodies from Sony, and makes moving focus points in the field significantly faster and easier. The focus joystick replaces the two way switch that was present on the A7 II, but to make up for this loss of effectively two function buttons, Sony has added an AEL button (that is also programmable) and an AF-ON button (again, programmable) at the top of the back panel, while the C3 programmable button has moved to the left side of the camera near the Menu button.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The traditional four way control dial sits below the joystick and has four programmable buttons and a programmable dial (which I set to control ISO). In all, there are 10 total programmable buttons, three dials and the extremely useful Fn button, which opens a quick menu allowing access to twelve functions of your choice for quick access. Needless to say, the camera can be set up to fit the needs of any shooter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The menus provide access to literally hundreds of settings, and the sheer number of settings available can be quite daunting. Sony upgraded the menu system a bit with this latest generation of cameras, but the functionality is still largely the same, and it can be a challenge to remember where many settings sit. Things are grouped a bit more logically than on the II series bodies, so that’s a welcome change, but hopefully Sony will continue to improve the organization and ease of use of the menu system. They have made one very nice improvement in this area, and that’s the addition of the ‘My Menu’ section, which allows you to select menu items for quick access. It comes in pretty handy, and I’m glad to have it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n One other very nice feature that the A7 gains from the A9 and A7R III is the Recall Custom Hold function, which allows you to set a specific set of shooting parameters and assign them to a custom button. When holding this button, the camera will switch all settings to that mode. When you release the button, everything goes back to how you had it. I set my camera up to assign Aperture Priority with Auto ISO, zone focusing, AF-C and 8fps burst mode. If I’m shooting still subjects and suddenly want to shoot a burst and track action, I just need to hold the C3 button and shoot away…everything switches and I’m shooting bursts with C-AF. You can set up as many as three buttons for different settings, though I think that most will only set one or two.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Overall, the A7 III’s control system is a very nice refinement of the A7 II’s already fairly robust control scheme. It makes the camera more natural to operate and helps this generation of Sony cameras blend into the background better than those that came before it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The A7 III’s Electronic Viewfinder (EVF) is a 2.3 million dot finder with an expansive 0.78x magnification. The panel is the same resolution as the one in the A7 II, but the optics receive the same bump that the older A7R II received when it was released. While the resolution of the A7 III’s finder doesn’t match the upgraded 3.4 million dot finder in the A7R III, I find that it still looks quite good, and the large bump in magnification from 0.71x to 0.78x is a very welcome upgrade. The view is clear and absolutely huge. Unlike the A7R II’s viewfinder, however, the A7 III’s EVF maintains a clear view when using the magnifier for critical manual focus. The A7R II’s view became quite soft when magnifying the EVF image, but the A7 III maintains a nice crisp view. It would be nice to have the even clearer EVF that is included in the A9 and A7R III, but I suppose costs need to be cut somewhere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The rear screen of the A7 III gains limited touch functionality, but in a cost-saving measure actually has a slight downgrade in resolution. The rear screen’s 921,000 dot resolution is a reduction from the A7 II’s 1.2 million dot screen. The screen is 3″ in size and can tilt up a bit more than 90 degrees and down by 45 degrees. The screen is a touch screen, but the touch implementation is quite limited at the moment. You can touch to select your focus point, and also double tap to zoom in while reviewing images, and then pan using the touch screen. However, menus can’t be operated by touch, and even a simple thing like swiping between images in playback mode isn’t supported. Still, it’s better than nothing, and it’s nice to see Sony finally start putting touch screens in most of their cameras. The rear screen is a bit of a letdown as far as quality is concerned, though…it’s middling resolution could be overlooked, but it’s also a bit dimmer and has fairly poor dynamic range, such that evaluating wide gamut scenes on the rear screen is somewhat inaccurate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Perhaps the A7 III’s biggest upgrade from the A7 II is the autofocus system. When the A7 II was released, I praised its autofocus system as being one of the better ones in the mirrorless space at the time. However, after using the A7 II for nearly three years, some of the warts began to show with that system, and autofocus on mirrorless has come a long way. Upon release, the A7 II was OK at tracking motion, but certainly not excellent. It struggled at times in dimmer light, and it lacked the ability of later cameras to combine continuous autofocus and facial \/ eye tracking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n With last summer’s A9 release, Sony showed that mirrorless autofocus could truly be world-class, crafting what is likely the best AF system on any mirrorless camera, and putting the A9 on par with the best autofocus systems on ANY camera. In perhaps the biggest shock at announcement time, the A7 III inherits most of its autofocus DNA from the A9.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The A7 III has the same 693 phase detect AF points as the A9, albeit with a slower sensor readout. These AF points cover a whopping 93% of the image frame. Additionally, 425 contrast detect autofocus points help manage the excellent algorithms for face and eye detection while providing exceptional accuracy. The slower sensor readout doe<\/em>s<\/em> have an impact on the AF system, and as such, the A7 III isn’t quite up to the astonishing speed and accuracy that is featured on the A9. However, it is still very, very good.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In single shot autofocus, the A7 III locks very quickly and very accurately in most any light, with only minor slowdowns in very dim light. It’s a massive upgrade from the A7 II in lower light. Where hunting would occur with the earlier camera, the A7 III locks focus confidently and swiftly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Continuous autofocus is also quite good on the A7 III. Lateral action is a breeze, and the A7 III can maintain accurate AF with this type of motion without breaking a sweat. In the more challenging motion toward the camera, the A7 III also does a very nice job, with around 90% accuracy on subjects moving towards the subject at reasonable focus distances. However, at very close focus distances (around 2.5m and closer), the slower sensor readout makes accuracy in this range far less predictable, while the A9 handled this situation without complaint. The change in motion is just a little too fast and the change in focus distance too far for the A7 III to maintain a solid lock on fast moving close objects. Those situations aren’t the norm, though, so in most real world situations, you’ll find no issues whatsoever.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Like with the A9, the standout feature of the A7 III’s autofocus system is the excellent Eye AF. EyeAF will find the nearest eye on your subject and track it, even in motion. The result is great accuracy for portrait or event work, as the EyeAF works very well in continuous AF, tracking the eyes even as a subject moves across the frame. It just ‘sticks’ to the eye. Honestly, it’s a revolutionary feature that leaves DSLR systems in the dust for ease of use and accuracy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While the A7 II never felt like a high performance body, I did feel that it had good performance, and was a relatively low lag body. The A7 III, however, makes the A7 II feel slow. Shutter lag is dramatically reduced from the A7 II, with extremely low lag and a quick, crisp shutter actuation. General operation of the camera is quick and sure, and doesn’t leave you waiting on the camera in most situations. Only if you’re a little quick on the image review button after snapping a shot will you have to wait a very short time to allow the file to be written to the SD card.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The A7 III receives a big boost in continuous shooting performance over its predecessor, with the camera able to shoot at 10 frames per second for over 110 compressed RAW files before the buffer fills. While the 10fps burst mode is certainly nice to have, I think most will opt for the slightly slower 8 frame per second mode when shooting action. When set to 10 fps, the camera will not show a live view, but rather a 10fps slide show of the previous image taken. This is fine for bursts of relatively stationary action, but it isn’t great for those where you’re tracking motion. At 8 fps, the camera shows a live view with minor blackout at each shutter click, and allows you to naturally follow the action. The large buffer ensures that you will always be ready for more shooting as well. In a nice touch, the camera can shoot at the same speeds when using the electronic shutter as you can with the mechanical shutter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sony’s two card slots sit behind a nice locking door in the hand grip. Like most cameras with dual card slots, you can choose how the files are written to the cards. You can have the second card as an overflow card, where the camera will begin using it once the first card is full; you can have the card set for backup use, where the same data is written to both cards. And you can have RAW written to one card and JPEG to the other. As one who shoots RAW+JPEG on Sony cameras (mainly to allow for WiFi transfer, which I’ll discuss on the next page), I choose this last option, with RAW files written to the first slot and JPEG to the second slot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In many cases, it does pay to pick up a (rather expensive) UHS-II card for your new camera if you don’t already own one. The A7 III writes files to UHS-II cards dramatically faster than with older UHS-I Class 10 cards. I tested the burst rate with two different cards to determine both how many shots at 10fps in compressed RAW could be taken in a single burst, as well as how long it would take to write that full burst to the card. The results are as follows:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sandisk Extreme Pro UHS-II (300MB\/s): 111 frames, 24.8 seconds total (13.7 seconds to write buffer after it became full)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sandisk Extreme Pro UHS-I (95MB\/s): 84 frames, 31.9 seconds total (23.5 seconds to write buffer after it became full)<\/p>\n\n\n\n As you can see, having a UHS-II card not only allowed for nearly 30 more frames to be shot before slowdown, but once the buffer was full, it cleared nearly twice as fast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n However, when shooting with both cards in the camera, and writing JPEGs to the slower card in slot II, write times are slowed down to match the UHS-I speeds. A 10 fps RAW+JPEG burst could rattle off 78 frames before the camera slowed down, which then took 36.5 seconds total (including the burst), which is 28.7 seconds to clear the buffer. There was no difference when using two UHS-I cards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As such, if you write data to two card slots simultaneously, you entirely lose the benefit of the faster card slot. It is somewhat baffling why Sony would only equip one of the two slots with UHS-II capability. However, the huge buffer nullifies this issue for most people, as the only time I ever filled the buffer and had to wait a few seconds before shooting again at full rate, even when using both card slots, was when I was intentionally testing how big the buffer was.<\/p>\n\n\n\n With the third generation of full-frame mirrorless cameras (The Mark III bodies + A9), Sony removed their PlayMemories app store. This decision isn’t all bad. The PlayMemories app store and app functionality was hard to use, clunky to access and generally a royal pain in the butt to set up. I don’t really miss this implementation. However, the apps that were available from PlayMemories provided some really useful functionality, including advanced remote shooting, intervalometer functions, and certain really useful special effects things such as the Smooth Reflections app, which could be really useful for long exposure photography.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In their place is, mostly, nothing. There’s no intervalometer function in the camera, despite most rival cameras from Fuji, Panasonic and Olympus having this feature built in. There’s no replacement for Smooth Reflections. There is<\/em> remote shooting still available, but it isn’t what we had before, so let’s start there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Like all recent mirrorless cameras, the Sony A7 III has Wi-Fi connectivity, and in a less common and very welcome addition, it also has Bluetooth. This comes with all the usual functionality including image transfer, GPS location tagging and remote shooting. However, remote shooting is different from earlier cameras, and not nearly as good.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Prior Sony cameras utilized remote shooting via an app from the PlayMemories store, and now the functionality is included with the core camera features. The connection and feed is really well done, with a high resolution view of what the camera sees, and one that is very low lag. Camera settings can be changed on the fly, and the shutter release works well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But in an absolutely baffling decision, you can’t touch on the remote screen in order to change the focus point. In fact, you can’t change the focus point at all<\/em> in remote shooting, which is just inexcusable. With face detect active, you can generally take shots of people without too much trouble, but otherwise you are left without option. It’s not a smart decision, and I really, really hope Sony updates this feature via firmware update to add the tap to focus functionality from their previous remote shooting app.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Thankfully, the other wireless features are implemented much better, and a large part of that is due to the addition of bluetooth. Once you’ve paired your phone with the camera over bluetooth, connecting to the camera becomes a much easier affair than previously. The camera basically turns on and stays connected to your phone. Transferring images? Start the wireless transfer on your camera and open the app. Then you can just tap connect and you’re there…the bluetooth will negotiate the Wi-Fi connection for you. No more digging into WiFi settings or the like. Like previous cameras, you can also tap your phone to the NFC icon on the grip and the transfer will start automatically.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I do have one issue with how wireless image transfer is handled, however. If you shoot RAW+JPEG on different cards, like I do…when you review the images and zoom in, it will show the corresponding JPEG for the focus check. However, if you transfer images, it will only transfer the low resolution image that’s attached to the RAW file. In order to transfer the full resolution JPEG, you need to manually change the playback slot to slot 2, then transfer the image. You have to do this every time you turn on the camera. I’m hopeful for a firmware update that would allow the camera to send the JPEG of the browsed RAW file without switching slots. Again, one of those things that I don’t think they had photographers try out before finalizing the software.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Of all the wireless features, GPS tagging gains the most from the use of Bluetooth. Once your phone is paired and you’ve turned on ‘Send Location Data’ in the app, the camera will automatically connect to your phone to get GPS data for image tagging. It’s fast and seamless, and makes syncing GPS data faster and easier than ever. I will say that my phone (OnePlus 5T) did require being unlocked before it would establish the connection, so when I turn the camera on, I unlock my phone, it automatically connects, and I can relock the phone and put it in my pocket. From my understanding, most phones shouldn’t require this unlock step once you’ve turned on the location sending option, so I’m not sure what on my phone requires unlocking. Even with that small extra step, Geotagging is still massively easier than it is on any other camera I’ve tried. The best part is that the bluetooth connection is very low power, and as such, turning on geotagging doesn’t appreciably drain the battery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The A7 III is the sixth full-frame Sony camera to feature in-body image stabilization (IBIS). Like previous iterations, the IBIS will work with both native lenses and adapted lenses, including old manual focus lenses. The IBIS in the A7 III is a 5-axis stabilizer, and uses all 5 axes on non-stabilized native lenses with electronic contacts. As some of the correction requires focus distance information that is passed in the EXIF data from the lens, manual lenses without electronic contacts will only gain stabilization in 3 axes of movement. Optically stabilized lenses keep the optical IS for two of the axes of motion, while the IBIS will stabilize the other 3.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The IBIS in the A7 II was rated by Sony at 4.5 stops of stabilization. While I found it less effective than advertised, it was still good for around 2-3 stops in my experience, which was a nice boost, though not at the level of the outstanding IBIS featured on Olympus cameras. With the A7 III, Sony says the camera is capable of 5 stops of stabilization. While I still got nowhere near the advertised 5 stops, I did find the IBIS slightly better than that on the A7 II. I could reliably get 3 stops of stabilization on longer lenses, and a bit less on shorter lenses. If you want to give the IBIS a bit of help, it pays to turn on the electronic shutter, which eliminates any vibration from the mechanical shutter mechanism. With electronic shutter on, I got perhaps an extra half stop to a stop of stabilization.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While the IBIS is still nowhere near the eerie stability of Olympus cameras, it’s still a very nice feature to have and one that enhances usability of the camera in handheld situations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While many of Sony’s other cameras have had electronic shutter for a while, the non-R A7 series was left without it until the A7 III, and I am extremely happy to finally have it on the ‘basic’ A7 line. The A7 III’s electronic shutter allows for truly silent shooting, and also allows you to save some wear and tear on the mechanical shutter. Unlike some earlier implementations, the RAW files maintain their 14-bit depth when using the electronic shutter as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Electronic shutter works very will in the majority of shooting situations, but there are a few cases where you will want to switch over to the mechanical shutter. First, under fluorescent or LED lights, which fluctuate at 60Hz in North America and 50Hz in Europe, banding can be seen in the image when shooting at higher shutter speeds. I didn’t find it an issue at moderate or longer shutter speeds, but the sensor readout and high shutter speed can capture those fluctuations in intensity that are ignored by our eyes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Second, you won’t want to use the electronic shutter for fast moving action or when panning the camera. Unlike the A9, which had a fairly fast electronic readout of 1\/160s…pretty close to the movement of most mechanical shutters, which are around 1\/250s. The A7 III has a more typical readout that is much slower, and as such, rolling shutter artifacts can manifest themselves somewhat easily if there is fast movement. The result will be a skewing of the image, resulting in diagonal warping around the moving area. For casual movement that would be present for event shooting, this type of motion wouldn’t be really problematic. For sports or dancing or other such fast moving subjects, you’ll want to make sure the mechanical shutter is used.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Finally, flash sync isn’t possible with the electronic shutter, so you’ll need to switch to mechanical shutter when using flashguns or strobes. Speaking of the mechanical shutter, the A7 III’s shutter sounds amazing. It’s a far tighter, sharper snap than on the A7 II, and with the reduced shutter lag of this camera, it just feels right<\/em>. It’s a minor thing, but worth mentioning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I normally don’t have a full section on battery life, but the A7 III has gained the newer FZ100 battery that first debuted on the A9 and subsequently has moved to Sony’s Mark III lineup. The new battery is a bit more than double the capacity of the older FW50 battery that was in previous A7 series bodies. That should mean you get double the battery life on the A7 III, right? Well, CIPA puts the rating of the A7 II at slightly more than double as you’d expect, and I found the battery to last at least that long, and in many cases much longer. If shooting a lot of action with long bursts, you’ll be able to go well over 1,000 shots, and possibly as high as 2,000 shots. For more typical deliberate use, 600-700 shots seems about right, though I was trending towards the high end of that range.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The new battery fixes one of the big issues of most mirrorless cameras, and battery life is now excellent. I would think most shooters would have a very hard time draining an entire battery in a single day, and draining two would be hard for most anyone. Like most cameras, I’d recommend having at least one spare battery, lest you be caught without power and unable to shoot while charging the battery, but I would wager that almost everyone will be OK with just two batteries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The A7 III, like all Sony cameras, lacks any sort of in-camera RAW conversion capability. As nearly every other manufacturer now has this built in, allowing for on-the-fly creation of JPEG images with minor adjustments to exposure, white balance and more, the omission on Sony’s latest cameras is glaring. I shoot RAW+JPEG with my Sony cameras not because I want JPEGs for all the images, but solely because I can’t create JPEGs later in the camera. With dual cards it’s not much of an issue any more, but I’d still rather have in-camera RAW conversion to tweak settings and only output JPEGs of images I want to transfer to my phone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Since the A7 II, Sony has made some tweaks to the Auto ISO capabilities, and the A7 III now has one of the most robust implementations of this feature. The Auto ISO feature selects a shutter speed based on your settings and will increase or decrease ISO to maintain proper exposure. Earlier implementations of Auto ISO from Sony based the minimum shutter speed on the focal length of the lens, but also had a minimum shutter speed of 1\/60s that would be used for adapted lenses or any shorter focal length lenses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n With the A7 III, Auto ISO can be tweaked to taste, by setting a minimum shutter speed manually, or by having it be more or less aggressive based on focal length. Setting Auto ISO to ‘standard’ will select a shutter speed equal to the typical rule of thumb for handholding of 1 \/ focal length. Setting Auto ISO to ‘slow’ or ‘slower’ will allow for longer shutter speeds, of one stop and two stops (respectively) slower than the rule of thumb. Likewise, ‘fast’ and ‘faster’ will be a full stop or two full stops faster than the rule of thumb.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If those don’t cover your needs, you an also manually set any minimum shutter speed from 30 seconds up to 1\/8000s. These changes, along with the ability to use manual mode with Auto ISO and exposure compensation, make this implementation of Auto ISO nearly flawless.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The A7 III retains the focus peaking abilities of previous cameras, which can help with manual focus. Focus peaking accuracy is hit and miss in my experience. It works fine at apertures like f\/2.8, but wider apertures require a bit more precision than the focus peaking system can provide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The zebra stripe exposure warning system is still here as well, though I do wish it would provide information on clipped highlights in the RAW file rather than in the JPEG that would be created in camera.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The A7 III gains an all new sensor for the first time since the original A7 in 2013. The sensor in the A7 and A7 II was certainly capable, but technology marches onward and sensor quality has fallen behind the times a bit. The A7 III receives an all-new 24 megapixel backside illuminated full-frame sensor that promises better dynamic range and lower noise at higher ISO. The native ISO range on this camera is ISO 100 to 51,200, with expanded ISOs to 50 on the low end and a whopping 204,800 on the high end. So how does this new sensor perform? Very, very well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Formal testing of the A7 III sensor has revealed enormous dynamic range, and in my real-world shooting, that bears out. The camera is capable of capturing an extremely wide range of tones, with bright highlights and deep shadows still holding detail. The bias of the RAW files is for the shadows, which is worth noting, as highlight headroom is about the same as on the A7 II, at around 1-1.5 stops. However, the shadows on the A7 III show the true improvements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I found I could push low ISO files around 4 to 5 stops in the shadows and still retain outstanding detail and low noise in these areas. Pushing shadows hard on the A7 II still yielded some detail, but noise became overwhelming fairly quickly. The A7 III files, when pushed hard, remain extremely clean, and the result is outstanding flexibility in post. The shot above shows some of this malleability. The city was backlit for this shot, just past dawn, and the light was actually pretty boring – no great morning light due to the way the clouds were positioned, and the original file had the entire bottom of the image in deep shadow, with a light, largely featureless sky due to the wide dynamic range of the scene. The A7 III took the pushing of the shadows and pulling of the highlights with ease. While this shot is nothing to write home about artistically, it showed to me the flexibility of these files.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The color response of the A7 III is a little different than the A7 II, and features some nice improvements. Overall, I found color to be natural and clean. Skin tones are improved from the A7 II, and portraits are very natural looking to my eye. Of great benefit to color processing in RAW are the new profiles from Adobe in the latest Lightroom Classic CC, which provide wonderful curves and color response for portraits, landscapes and everyday shooting of all sorts. There’s great color depth and the overall tonality is beautiful. I have been really pleased with the overall look to the images I’m getting from this camera.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The A7 III is still a 24 megapixel sensor, and a such lacks the incredible detail possible with an ultra high resolution sensor like that on the A7R III, but I think that 24 megapixels is really a sweet spot for most photographers. It’s plenty of detail for prints up to 30″, and can be pushed to 40″ or so without too much degradation. While the 42 megapixel sensor in the A7R III provides detail for larger prints and a bit more cropping headroom, for the vast majority of photographers, they’ll be better served by the smaller file sizes and still excellent detail possible with the A7 III.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Aside from the same resolution, however, I have found the A7 III to yield generally sharper and more detailed images than my A7 II. The anti-aliasing filter in the A7 III is rather weak, and also only filters in one direction, so there’s just a touch more detail in the frame on the A7 III, and that extra crispness really is visible when viewing the images at full size.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The bigger improvement, however, is in noise control. The A7 III produces remarkably clean images at higher ISOs, with pure noise response being about a stop better than the A7 II. However, I find the actual improvement in image quality to be even a bit better than that, as detail retention is notably better at higher ISOs, and the A7 III has a remarkable ability to resist color shift as sensor gain is increased. As such, even though ISO 204,800 is effectively unusable due to the sheer amount of noise, even at this utterly absurd ISO, the colors are absent any notable shift (though saturation is quite a bit less).<\/p>\n\n\n\n For the first time ever, I found myself looking at a dark situation and thinking, ‘Oh, it’s only ISO 12,800…that’ll work.” Images are extremely clean to ISO 1600, show some fine grain noise at ISO 3200, and still retain outstanding detail and moderate noise at ISO 6400 and 12,800. Higher ISOs certainly show a fair bit of grain, but I wouldn’t hesitate at all to use up to ISO 51,200 for small prints and web use. ISO 102,400 can be used in a pinch if you absolutely need to get a shot, but it’s not going to be really useful for much more than an ‘I was here’ sort of capture. ISO 204,800 really exists solely so that Sony can say that the camera has it. It’s a sea of noise at this ISO and really isn’t usable for any serious work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you want a more detailed noise comparison with the A7 III and A7 II, check out my comparison between the two<\/a>, featuring 100% crops and an in-depth discussion on the noise handling capabilities of this new camera.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Long time readers of my site will know that one of the things I found worst about the original A7 was the JPEG engine. That original camera had fairly high compression at lower ISOs and terrible smearing and artifacts at higher ISOs. Sony made big improvements with the Mark II series of cameras, and the A7 III shows even further improvement, such that I now consider the JPEG images out of the A7 III to be quite excellent. At lower ISOs, detail is outstanding, and color and tonal rolloff is very pleasing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At moderate ISOs like ISO 1600, the JPEG engine does a pretty good job at balancing noise and detail. Even at high ISOs like ISO 12,800 and 25,600, the camera produces pretty good JPEG images, though there is definitely some detail softening at a bit of a blotchy appearance to the noise as the ISOs climb. The above image is a straight out of camera JPEG at ISO 3200. For a full size version click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you’ve browsed the web for reviews of the A7 III, it’s possible you’ve read about situations where the A7 III (and the a7R III, and the A9, and the A6000, and the A6500….and the Olympus E-M1, and…..) can produce ‘stripes’ in images in specific situations. I actually noted this in my review of the Ibelux 40mm<\/a> f\/0.85 on my a6000. It’s an artifact that can display in certain circumstances from a reflection off the Phase-Detect AF masks that are used on the on-sensor AF system. DPReview <\/a>noted the situations, along with several fixes that are available if you should encounter this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On paper, this sounds like it could be a very serious issue. Well, in my experience so far with the A7 III, after several thousand frames taken, I have encountered the striping issue on exactly zero of my images. I’m not saying it doesn’t exist…I know from my experience with other PDAF sensor cameras that it can appear from time to time, but even using a lens like the 85mm f\/1.8 in backlit situations, I was unable to induce it. My conclusion? It’s not something you’re likely to see often. In fact, it’s likely that you will hardly ever see it. If conditions do conspire to induce it in an image of yours, know that the fixes are pretty quick and easy. However, I wouldn’t worry about it. The benefits of on-sensor PDAF massively outweigh the extremely small percentage of shots that are likely to suffer any visual artifacts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As I mentioned at the start of the review, I am not much of a videographer. I certainly don’t do any professional work for video, and my experience in video shooting and production is significantly more limited than on the stills side. As such, please take any comments that I make in this section with a grain of salt, and look to some other reviews for a more in-depth look at the video quality of this camera.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I will, however, give you my thoughts on the video modes that I have had a chance to use. The A7 III is the sixth Sony full-frame camera to feature 4K video recording, and does so at 30, 24 or 25 frames per second at a 100Mbps data rate. It can also shoot 1080p and 1080i HD at framerates between 24 and 120 frames per second. Unlike some previous iterations, the A7 III’s oversampled 4K footage in full frame is of very high quality, while some earlier Sony cameras suffered a bit in full-frame mode, and had better video in the cropped Super 35 mode.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the few video clips I’ve taken, I was very impressed with the image quality. The dynamic range and noise control in videos is outstanding, providing very pleasing tonal qualities with very low noise, even in dim indoor environments. Videos produce excellent detail. There is SLog recording available as well for those videographers who grade their footage in post, while most casual shooters will stick to the built in profiles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The A7 III has HDMI out, headphone out and microphone inputs, allowing for a competent video rig to be assembled. For my uses, the video capabilities on the A7 III far exceed my standards, but as I’ve said, take a longer look at a few other reviews, such as Gordon Laing’s excellent review at CameraLabs<\/a> and DPReview’s video review<\/a> with Chris Niccolls and Jordan Drake for a more in-depth look at the video capabilities of the camera.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While the A7 III is by no means a flawless camera, it gets so much right that any minor flaws are extremely easy to live with. There are some annoyances, such as the lack of an external battery charger and the removal of the PlayMemories Apps without proper replacement for interval shooting and some limitations in remote shooting. The dual card slots are nice to have, but it would be even nicer if both could write at UHS-II speeds. There’s still no in-camera RAW conversion capability, and while the A7 III gains a touch screen, Sony put in a mediocre panel to use for this functionality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But when you look at the positives, the list of them is extremely long and varied. The A7 III gains one of the very best autofocus systems in any camera, with nearly the same capabilities as the more expensive A9. The EyeAF functionality is outstanding, and the overall responsiveness of the camera is on a very high level. The new image sensor sees gains in almost every area, with outstanding low-light performance and excellent dynamic range and color response. Add in the excellent Sony feature set, improved ergonomics, the focus joystick, an expansive viewfinder, 10 fps shooting and a deep buffer and the A7 III becomes that rare beast: a jack of all trades that is a master of most.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When you look at the whole package and the modest $1,998 price tag, the A7 III also becomes an exceptional value. A $2,000 camera is not cheap by any means, but it is extremely affordable when considering the enormous capabilities and feature set of this camera. Sony is going to sell millions of these, and with good reason. It’s an extremely capable camera for any type of shooting, and while Sony regards this as its ‘basic’ model, the truth is that it’s the camera in the Sony full-frame lineup that most everyone should be considering.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Those who print huge or crop a lot may lean to the A7R III, while those who demand high speed silent shooting, slightly better continuous AF and ultra-high speed 20 fps shooting will lean towards the A9. For everyone else, the A7 III will more than satisfy. It’s an exceptional camera, and one that will give most shooters all the camera they will need for years to come.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Click on an image to enlarge.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n The Sony A7 full-frame mirrorless system has now been around for 4.5 years, and while the original A7 was replaced after just a year on the shelf, the A7 II has had much greater staying power. That model was announced in November of 2014, and has enjoyed a nice stay as the ‘basic model’ in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7405,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"cybocfi_hide_featured_image":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[376,273,71,9,8,181],"class_list":["post-7396","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reviews","tag-a7-iii","tag-camera-review","tag-full-frame","tag-mirrorless","tag-review","tag-sony"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/a7III_badge_al.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p28RGq-1Vi","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7396","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7396"}],"version-history":[{"count":41,"href":"https:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7396\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12636,"href":"https:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7396\/revisions\/12636"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7405"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7396"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7396"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7396"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Body and Ergonomics<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
<\/a><\/a><\/a>Operation and Controls<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
<\/a><\/a>Continue: Viewfinder, Autofocus and Performance<\/a><\/h4>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Viewfinder and Rear Screen<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
<\/a>Autofocus<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
<\/a><\/a>Performance and Dual SD Card Slots<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Continue: Key Features<\/a><\/h4>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
I’m going to do something a bit different here and instead of starting this page discussing some of the key features of the A7 III, I’m going to begin by talking about some missing features.<\/p>\n\n\n\nRemoval of Sony PlayMemories Apps<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Wi-Fi and Bluetooth<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
<\/a>In-Body Image Stabilization<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
<\/a>Electronic Shutter<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
<\/a>Battery Life<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Other Things of Note<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
In-Camera RAW Conversion<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
Auto ISO<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
<\/a>Focus Peaking and other features<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
Continue: Image Quality and Movie Recording<\/a><\/h4>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Image Quality<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Dynamic Range and Color<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
<\/a><\/a>Detail and Noise<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
<\/a>JPEG Image Quality<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
<\/a>A Note on the ‘Stripe Issue’<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
Video<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Continue: Conclusion and Image Samples<\/a><\/h4>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Conclusion<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Pros<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
\n
Cons<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
\n
Image Samples<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a>If you enjoyed this review, check out my other reviews in the Review Index<\/a><\/h5>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"