Introduction
The a7R III is Sony’s latest high resolution camera, which carries over many of the improvements found on the company’s flagship a9. The 42.4MP sensor itself hasn’t changed from the Mark II, but virtually everything else wired into it has. This allows for faster burst shooting, improved autofocus and higher quality 4K video. Some important user interface and ergonomic changes, inspired by the a9, have also made the transition.
Same sensor, better performance
The a7R III uses the same full-frame 42.MP BSI CMOS sensor as its predecessor, though improved readout circuitry lowers the already low read noise, improving dynamic range.
Sony promises a slight improvement in rolling shutter, but not to the level as the a9, so the a7R III didn’t earn the ‘Anti-distortion shutter’ designation.
While the hybrid autofocus continues to offer 399 phase-detect points, there are now 425 contrast-detect points, up from 25 on the a7R II.
From a9 (hardware)
Several items found on the body a9 have thankfully migrated to the a7R III. They include its brilliant 3.69M-dot OLED EVF with incredible contrast and resolution, a joystick for selecting an AF point, an AF-On button and a flash sync port. (The a7R III flash sync speed is 1/250 sec.). Also added is the a9’s ‘C3’ button to the left of the ‘Menu’ button on the camera’s back, and the ability to assign a button to ‘Protect/Rate’ in Playback. This should make it much easier to quickly select images from bursts in camera. Bursts can even be grouped during playback for faster image viewing and selection.
The rear thumb dial on the back plate of the camera has been updated as well from the Mark II to be heftier, with better haptic feedback and less accidental input – just like the one on the a9.
On the memory card front, the Mark III now has two SDHC card slots instead of one on the Mark II. One of the slots supports UHS-II media while the other sticks to UHS-I.
From a9 (firmware)
There are some nice improvements on the software side, as well. Sony says that autofocus is up to two times faster than the Mark II. Low light performance is now rated down to -3 EV with a F2 lens, meaning the a7R III should offer similar low light AF performance to the a9 – a stop better than the Mark II. AF algorithms have been refined, with more ‘tenacious’ subject tracking and improved Eye AF. We’re hoping this means that Eye AF is more prone to stick to your original subject (per the a9), rather than randomly jump between detected faces as with the a7R II. Eye AF is still laggy when shooting bursts though, much like the original a7R II.
Also new is the helpful Touchpad AF feature, which lets you use the LCD to move the focus point while your eye is to the viewfinder. Movement can be absolute (you’re picking a point on the frame) or relative (to the current focus point). You can also restrict the active area to certain parts of the screen. Our first impression is that Touchpad AF seems rather over-sensitive, jumping almost uncontrollably around the screen.
While Sony didn’t make a big deal about it, the a7R III should also inherit the a9’s Improved JPEG color and noise reduction. Today, Sony’s JPEG engine renders some of the finest detail we’ve seen amongst cameras, even at high ISO. But JPEG color still remains a point of contention.
From a9: Battery!
For both stills and video shooters, perhaps the biggest news is that Sony has found room for the larger NP-FZ100 battery used in the a9. This required a complete redesign of the body, including a slightly modified grip, but it means a huge boost in battery life. If you’re using the LCD, expect 650 shots per charge (which is the ‘official’ CIPA number), and 530 shots with the EVF. Compare that to the 290 shot CIPA rating the Mark II received. Color us impressed.
An optional battery grip, the same VG-C3EM model as the a9 uses, doubles battery life, so you’ll get up to 1300 shots.
Entirely new
There are a couple of things that are a7R III ‘originals’. The first is a redesigned low vibration shutter mechanism, which allows 10 fps bursts without the risk of ‘shutter shock.’ It also allows for the 1/250 sec flash sync mentioned earlier. With the proper strobes, you can even get up to 10 fps shots with flash – something even an a9 won’t do (it’s capped at 5 fps with flash, since that’s its maximum mechanical shutter rate).
The camera has two USB ports. The first is USB 3.1 with Type C connector (found on modern smartphones and newer Apple laptops), which allows tethering and battery charging. A more traditional micro USB jack is available which supports existing remotes and external battery packs.
Responding to user feedback, Sony has added the ability to enter the menus while the camera is writing to a memory card. YES!
Video
Better processing means improved detail and lower noise in both full-frame and Super 35 crop mode 4K. The real standout footage, as before, should be the Super 35 4K, since it’s oversampled.
The AF algorithms in video have also been improved and are more resistant to refocusing off to the background. That’s a huge improvement over the Mark II, and means many casual users can leave the camera in complete auto AF area mode (‘Wide’) with Face Detection on and expect precisely focused 4K footage.
If you’re looking for a simple ‘tap-to-track-subject’ mode a la most other manufacturers, you’re still out of luck. The camera unfortunately still has the old outdated ‘Center Lock-On AF’ mode, which you’ll have to turn on to enable ‘tap-to-track’ functionality. Once it’s on, you can tap anywhere on the screen and it’ll put a box around your subject and track it. It doesn’t work as well as Lock-on AF modes in stills in our experience, and it’s still unfortunate that you have to engage this mode to get ‘tap-to-track’ – a functionality you’d just expect out of the box by default. Furthermore, you’ll have to remember to turn ‘Center Lock-on’ off when you switch back to stills mode, since it’s not a mode you’ll ever want to be used and can be accidentally triggered by a touch of the touchscreen.
New video functionality
This one is kind of huge: there are now separate function button configurations for stills and movie modes. By default the movie mode functions are set to ‘As in Stills mode’ but this can be edited, per button, to ensure you have access to the settings you need for both situations. We’ve been asking for this for a long time, as video needs often differ drastically from stills needs, so this is a welcome change. We’d still like to see totally separate settings banks for video vs. stills – where each mode remembers your last used settings – but this is a start in the right direction.
The a7R III now supports S-Log 3 / S-Gamut 3, which offer even flatter profiles to make use of camera’s full dynamic range. Also new is support for Hybrid Log Gamma (HLG), which allows you to view wide dynamic capture on HDR displays, without any post-processing required. Newer displays allow HDR capture to appear less ‘flat’, since HDR displays have a wide range of tones they can reproduce. The ‘flat’ log capture is automatically expanded to the full capability of the display so your high contrast capture look high contrast on-screen, without blown highlights or blocked shadows.
HDR display of HDR capture will become increasingly important in the stills world, as it is already in the video world, so we’re glad to see Sony taking this new movement seriously in even their prosumer cameras.
Multi-shot mode
This mode, similar to that on Olympus and Pentax cameras, shoots four uncompressed Raws, which must be later processed in Sony’s Imaging Edge software to combine them into a .ARQ file, which can then be adjusted. Both Olympus and Pentax do this in-camera.
The benefits of Multi-shot mode are an increase in color resolution (since each pixel has its own red, green and blue value) and a reduction in noise and softness, since there’s no demosaicing needed and since you’ve taken 4 images in place of one. The latter you can do by stacking images from any camera for a nearly ~2 EV noise or dynamic range benefit, but the benefits of not needing to demosaicing are specific to these sorts of multi-shot modes that can use sensor shift to shift the sensor in the precise movements needed to remove the effects of the Bayer color filter. You won’t realize these gains unless you post-process, though.
There’s at least a 1 second delay between shots while the camera waits for the sensor to settle. This delay means that this feature will not work well with moving subjects. You can change the delay to anywhere between 1 and 30s.
What’s missing
There are a couple of things that we would’ve liked to have seen on the a7R III. They include lossless compressed Raw, more use of the touch panel (for adjusting settings, as an example), in-camera Raw conversion and support for downloadable PlayMemories apps.
The lack of PlayMemories apps may be of particular concern to landscape photographers using such apps for timelapse or gradient filters, and for those that use apps like ‘Sync to Smartphone’ to automatically download all JPEGs from camera to their phones and online photo storage services. This is a trend, starting with the a9, we’d really like to see Sony reverse.
Overall, though, the a7R III is an impressive package, and one that we’re eager to spend more time with.
Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)
