The Sony A7 III is the world's best full-frame mirrorless camera ever created.There is nothing this A7 III can't do, and do amazingly. The A7 III is a brand-new, cutting-edge camera with exactly the same performance, features and quality — or more — as Sony's other two top full-frame cameras from last year, the A7R Mk III and A9, except that this A7 III sells for half the price! This A7 III runs in complete silence with full autofocus at 10 FPS!
Silent shooting opens many new worlds where photography was previously prohibited or inappropriate. If no one knows if you're shooting, you can shoot anything anywhere. In silent mode you can be blazing away at ten full 24 MP frames per second, even in raw with the A7 III's huge buffer, and no one will notice. By comparison, every single frame in the "quiet" modes of the pro Canon 1DX Mk II and Nikon D5 are so loud that I can hear them echo off the neighbor's houses. Pro DSLRs are the loudest cameras of all.
The images from this A7 III are the sharpest pixel-to-pixel JPG images I've seen from any camera. Sony never specifies if it has an anti-alias filter or not, but it's obvious to a trained professional looking at the camera-original samples at ISO 100 that there is none. Bravo, Sony! These are all shot at the default sharpening settings.
The only real difference between this A7 III and the more expensive models from last year is that this A7 III runs at "only" the same 10 FPS as the A7R Mk III, not the 20 FPS of the A9, and has exactly the same 24 MP resolution of the A9, not 42 MP like the A7R Mk III.
Even better than either of those older cameras, this new 2018 A7 III runs from ISO 50 all the way to ISO 204,800 in its silent mode, which is the only way I ever shoot any of these cameras. The A7 R III only goes to ISO 102,400 in its Silent mode, and the A9 only goes to ISO 25,600 in Silent. There's no restriction on slowest shutter speed in Silent mode in Continuous shooting with the A7R Mk III or this A7 III, but the A9 can't shoot at anything slower than 1/8 of a second.
Oh yes - this A7 III has more rated battery life than any other Sony mirrorless camera,ISO 204,800 is ten times beyond insane, and the images and colors are still bright and bold, not all muted and crummy like other cameras at these beyond-insane ISOs. ISO 204,800 on this A7 III looks at least as good as ISO 51,200 did on the old A7S II, Sony's previous hyper-ISO leader.
This A7 III has the superior full-frame phase-detection AF system of the 20 FPS A9, not the lesser AF system of the A7R Mk III. This A7 Mk III has two card slots just like the A9 and A7R Mk III and retains all their features and image processing tricks.
It offers facial recognition autofocus over the entire frame, not just in the center of the picture like full-frame DSLRs. Autofocus is essentially instantaneous with the right lenses, and even with good consumer lenses it can track fast-moving targets in the dark at night. Presuming you activate face recognition in a menu, the A7-3 instantly recognizes faces, focuses on them and tracks them as they move around. It works flawlessly.
Running silently at 10 FPS at 24 MP is all I need for anything. Feel free to spend double if you want more pixels or more frames per second in the A7R Mk III or A9, but this A7 III loses nothing over last year's top cameras. This A7 III is a newer camera with fewer quirks than either of the A9 (limited performance in Silent Mode) or A7R Mk III (not quite full-frame AF).
This A7 III leaves thousands of dollars in your pocket so you can afford the top Sony lenses you deserve to take advantage of the A7 III's high performance.
While old-guard Canon and Nikon drop features from their less expensive models to try to get you to pay more because you're already invested in their systems, Sony is trying to wipe Nikon and Canon off the map by selling an absolute top-level full-frame camera at half the price of similar Nikon or Canon cameras. Sony is actually trying to make a camera so good we can't afford not to get it. For instance, the Canon 6D MK 2 lacks facial recognition for viewfinder shooting so its AF and exposure are relatively poor for people pictures, and it only runs at a very noisy 6½ FPS, and Nikon's D750 also only runs at 6½ FPS, and not at all silently.
The Sony A73's images look great in every light and are always sharp and well exposed under very difficult and active conditions.
The AF system is magical; I never have to select sensors or systems manually; it just focuses and I can shoot.
When photographing people the A7 III has an instantaneous and clairvoyant ability to find and just focus on faces and track them as they move. If you're a people or event photographer, the A7 Mk III is going to make your life much simpler; you'll never have to manually select AF areas again. It's that good. Of course it has eyeball focus where it finds eyeballs as well as faces.
The new A7 III is a joy to shoot. Once set up, everything just goes smooth, and the pictures look great. Better than DSLRs, you never need the rear LCD for anything; the electronic finder works for menu setting, playback and zooming-in on both playback and shooting!
Many buttons are programmable, and you can program them to do just about anything.
Sony has been the world's top maker of image sensors for many, many decades — long before digital cameras. The A7 III is so good and so inexpensive I'm starting to wonder if they're just trying to do anything to get us to buy their full-frame sensors, exactly as Kodak used to sell their cameras below cost just to get us to buy more film!
Design:
The a7 III feels a lot like the a7 II and a7R III in the hand. It measures 3.9 by 5.0 by 2.5 inches (HWD) without a lens, and weighs about 1.4 pounds. Its grip and body design are the same as you get with the a7R III. I find it quite comfortable to hold, even with a larger zoom like the FE 100-400mm. The body is protected against dust and splashes, as are all Sony FE lenses.
In addition to the body-only option, Sony is offering the a7 III in a $2,199.99 kit bundled with the FE 28-70mm F3.5-5.6 lens. The 28-70mm is one of oldest lenses in the series. I would have liked to see another bundle with the newer, more useful FE 24-105mm F4. The 24-105mm is a $1,300 lens, however, so I imagine the pricing of a kit would be prohibitive for many buyers.
Handling isn't that much different from the a7 II. You still get the EV dial on top, along with programmable C1 and C2 buttons, and Mode dial—it's not a locking dial like the one on the a7R III. The shutter release, which is forward the C1 and C2 buttons, is on top of the handgrip, slightly lower than the rest of the top plate, and set at an angle. The On/Off switch surrounds it. The grip has a command dial, accessible using your right index finger. Its rear counterpart is slightly offset from the EV dial and is easily turned with your right thumb.
Image Quality:
The a7 III uses a new sensor, one that is similar in design to the 24MP sensor used by the a9, but not identical. The a9's sensor is a stacked design, which puts memory right on the chip in order to deliver instant readout and its 20fps capture capability. The a7 III doesn't do that. It is a BSI—Back Side Illumination—design, like the a9 and high-resolution a7R III. This type of sensor cuts the distance between its surface and light-sensitive area. The practical effect is that you get superior high ISO quality compared with sensors that put put circuitry in front of the light-gathering area rather than behind it.
- Completely silent in Silent Mode, but this mode isn't on by default. See How to Set Silent Mode.
- Two card slots.
- Magnificent electronic finder: always big, bright, sharp and wonderful in any light. Super-bright in daylight, and dims perfectly indoors and at night.
- Hybrid AF system uses phase-detection for speed and contrast detection for ultimate precision and accuracy.
- Battery life seems almost unlimited.
- Solid mostly metal construction.
- Even the regular mechanical shutter only moves at the ends of exposures. There's never any need for a special vibration-free mode; it always works this way. Suck on that, LEICA!
- Excellent high ISO performance.
- Facial recognition works well, but only after you find it and turn it on.
- In-finder 2-axis level works great for keeping horizons and vertical lines as they should be.
- In-camera, as-shot automatic lens vignetting, lateral chromatic aberration and distortion correction.
-Almost any lens of any brand or age can be adapted to work - but with no lens corrections.
- Stereo microphone built-in.
- 3.5mm powered Mic and headphone jacks.
- Can extract stills from video, in-camera after it's shot. In other words, shoot 4K video and you can pull-out 8MP stills shot at 30 FPS.
-Bluetooth & NFC.
- If you set it to record to two cards simultaneously as I do for backup, it locks-up and won't shoot if you remove either card or either card fills or has an error. It should just shoot to either card that has space, not leave you dead in the water if one dies; that's the whole point of this mode.
- Sony's usual disorganized menu system.
Conclusions:
After a few days of use, my impressions of the Sony a7 III are overwhelmingly positive. It has things that other full-frame cameras at this price point don't dream of, including a BSI sensor design, 4K video capture, and 10fps capture. The body is solidly built, with dust and splash protection, and the battery life absolutely kills what you get with the a7 II.
The autofocus system is excellent, and the coverage area is larger than you get with any camera aside from the a9. Even top-end SLRs like the Canon EOS-1D X Mark II and Nikon D5 don't cover as wide an area.
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