Sony A7R III announced with 4K HDR

[wolf33d]

2 hours ago, Trek of Joy said:

Yes seriously. I have the R2, the R3 is the same sensor. The $1500 hit I'll take to "upgrade" for the revised body/speed (which I really like) and some RS improvements while keeping the same sensor and no better IQ in s35 mode (best IQ on both) - yes this gives me pause since there will be a new sensor coming soon. I also have the S2, if the S3 recycles the same sensor I'll pass again.

I'm in full hold mode anyway with the looming CaNikon mirrorless, love the d850, just don't want to go back to anything with a mirror.

Cheers

What I am saying is holding because there is a new one coming when the latest version just released weeks ago is not reasonable. 
Holding because you are happy with your camera and do not need A7RIII is perfectly fine. 

I am with you on the CaNikon. Imagine a D850 but mirrorless with IBIS and good PDAF, and 4K60p... Would be great. Not gonna Happen though. At best it will be a D850 mirrorless (no good AF for video, no IBIS, no 4K60p). Same with the canon will be a 5DIV mirrorless. 
Hopefully I am wrong. Excited to see what they have on the table. 

 

[Dave Maze]

After three weeks with a7Riii I think I will hold off as well on OWNING it. (I get to keep the cameras I review for a while before returning them to Kinotika). 

All the things I love about it are in the new body, handling, and autofocus. 

The main thing its lacking for me is good low light ability. If the a7Siii comes with all the things I love about this plus better LL performance.....PRAISE GOD. a7S3 will be the ticket man. SO so nice. 

[Dave Maze]

But honestly, the rolling shutter performance on the a7Riii is so great I don't know if the S3 will have such good RS performance. Also, you get S35 4k on the a7Riii which the S3 can't natively do without the weird zoom thing Sony does

[Inazuma]

Yeh i totally get you guys. Im holding off on the a7r iii and iv right now because the sony a18 is right around the corner! 

[tellure]

3 hours ago, DaveAltizer said:

But honestly, the rolling shutter performance on the a7Riii is so great I don't know if the S3 will have such good RS performance. Also, you get S35 4k on the a7Riii which the S3 can't natively do without the weird zoom thing Sony does

Having the ability to toggle in and out of Super35 while maintaining 4K resolution is an awesome feature, especially now that the quality / rolling shutter difference between FF and S35 is much smaller.  And finally we can bind it to a custom button.  It's basically like having an additional 50% zoom on all your lenses, which is HUGE.  I was shooting on the FE 24-70mm 2.8 last month and having an equivalent 24-105mm 2.8 with the touch of a button was awesome.

I just hope they eventually allow us to toggle between FF/S35 WHILE recording.. it is such a bummer to have to stop the record, toggle, then resume.

[Don Kotlos]

Yeah the FF/S35 + clear zoom gives you an amazing range. Plus you can use anything from medium format to c-mount lenses. 

4K 60p and low light will be great, but for me the only factor to get the A7SIII over the A7rIII is if they use the same fast readout as A9 when taking pictures. Having a silent camera without a rolling shutter is truly groundbreaking but they f*cked up with the A9 by omitting PP. 

@tellure Don't be afraid to use the clear zoom... You can use that during recording, but I wish they could make the transition smoother. But you can get a remote to make it smooth :

 

[Dave Maze]

I tested @maxotics mirror setup and really like it! By gaff taping the mic on the corner of the evf it turns into a really lightweight setup for people who need to film themselves. Really great! 

 

[JurijTurnsek]

It seems reasonable to expect the rolling shutter improvements to trickle down into the A6500 replacement, along with other A9 goodies. Should be an exciting, but pricey, camera.

[JordanWright]

The taped microphone idea is so genius, as simple as it is 

[Inazuma]

Do you not get a lot of handling noise and noise from the IBIS when taping the mic to the camera?

[Don Kotlos]

21 minutes ago, Inazuma said:

Do you not get a lot of handling noise and noise from the IBIS when taping the mic to the camera?

Yep, I used velcro in order to filter out most of the vibrations. Its much easier to detach/reattach as well... 

[Dave Maze]

On 10/25/2017 at 6:30 AM, Andrew Reid said:

Personally guys, I won't be buying one.

You can bet the A7S III will blow it away for video.

And the competition is huge... D850, GH5, Leica SL in particular.

You still aren’t going to buy one? It’ll resell well when the a7Siii comes out. 

6 hours ago, Don Kotlos said:

Yep, I used velcro in order to filter out most of the vibrations. Its much easier to detach/reattach as well... 

Great trick! I’ll try that. What cable and wind screen are you using ?

[Don Kotlos]

4 hours ago, DaveAltizer said:

You still aren’t going to buy one? It’ll resell well when the a7Siii comes out. 

Great trick! I’ll try that. What cable and wind screen are you using ?

The cable I made. I couldn't find one with such a flat connector so I cut one up, soldered the wires and epoxied everything together. 

The wind screen I got from ebay. The dimensions were 40x12mm (length x opening) but you can go with 13mm. Can't find the one I ordered but it was something along these lines:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/10pcs-Pack-Handheld-Stage-Microphone-Headset-Windscreen-Foam-Mic-Cover-40x12-mm/252005425736?epid=1362261739&hash=item3aacb1a248:g:I2EAAOSw~gRVikqe

[timepresent]

On 12/22/2017 at 7:41 PM, DaveAltizer said:

The main thing its lacking for me is good low light ability. If the a7Siii comes with all the things I love about this plus better LL performance.....PRAISE GOD. a7S3 will be the ticket man. SO so nice. 

Dave,

You said in an earlier post the camera is "fine in low light" -- how would you compare it to current a7Sii?

I looked at a7riii quickly and it seemed miles ahead of the gh5 with lowlight... I was considering to get the r3 to replace BOTH the a7sii and gh5 and add a gimbal camera with that wicked AF and add a stills camera

Thanks!

[no_connection]

Anyone have any good low light tests? While this one suffers from youtube compression it does show some extreme temporal noise reduction. Also some pretty noticeable amp glow in full frame mode.

 

 

[Trek of Joy]

On 12/22/2017 at 10:25 AM, wolf33d said:

What I am saying is holding because there is a new one coming when the latest version just released weeks ago is not reasonable. 
Holding because you are happy with your camera and do not need A7RIII is perfectly fine. 

I am with you on the CaNikon. Imagine a D850 but mirrorless with IBIS and good PDAF, and 4K60p... Would be great. Not gonna Happen though. At best it will be a D850 mirrorless (no good AF for video, no IBIS, no 4K60p). Same with the canon will be a 5DIV mirrorless. 
Hopefully I am wrong. Excited to see what they have on the table. 

 

I wouldn't say I'm happy with the camera - but it produces great images. The A7R2 is obnoxiously slow, no touchscreen, moving the focus point around is a PITA, battery life could be better, can't toggle FF/s35 mode (something I do a lot) and so on. Like I said, the R3 addressed every complaint I have about the R2, but its the same sensor and no IQ improvements outside of slightly better FF video. The operation/body improvements are nice, but after tinkering with one for awhile I'd rather get another lens than eat $1500 for the upgrade. I'm coming from the perspective of a A7R2 user, so for me its a reasonable decision despite the newness of the camera.

[Dave Maze]

On 12/25/2017 at 7:52 AM, Trek of Joy said:

I wouldn't say I'm happy with the camera - but it produces great images. The A7R2 is obnoxiously slow, no touchscreen, moving the focus point around is a PITA, battery life could be better, can't toggle FF/s35 mode (something I do a lot) and so on. Like I said, the R3 addressed every complaint I have about the R2, but its the same sensor and no IQ improvements outside of slightly better FF video. The operation/body improvements are nice, but after tinkering with one for awhile I'd rather get another lens than eat $1500 for the upgrade. I'm coming from the perspective of a A7R2 user, so for me its a reasonable decision despite the newness of the camera.

1080p 120fps video, amazing AF for video, and the ridiculous rolling shutter performance are enough for me to justify a $1500 upgrade. Thats just me though. I need AF every day and sometimes I hand hold selfie shot stuff and having good rolling shutter performance is so important. 

[Trek of Joy]

40 minutes ago, DaveAltizer said:

1080p 120fps video, amazing AF for video, and the ridiculous rolling shutter performance are enough for me to justify a $1500 upgrade. Thats just me though. I need AF every day and sometimes I hand hold selfie shot stuff and having good rolling shutter performance is so important. 

That gets you into used a9 territory as they're down in the $3400 range. The a9 tops the a7rIII in every way outside of stills mp, and its AF much better. Its just missing the PP's, but I've never had issues with the standard color profiles as long as you don't blow highlights. The oversampled FF 4k is flat out gorgeous on the a9. The zero blackout EVF makes everything else look like crap in comparison, including sports DSLR's. Personally I'd go in that direction over selling my a7r2 for the r3. Everyone is different.

Cheers.

[Matthew Hartman]

On 10/26/2017 at 1:38 PM, kidzrevil said:

Yup. 10 bit is overrated unless you are doing heavy grading i.e. vfx work. 8bit is more than plenty especially since the way people generally grade is by slapping a curve on the image and adjusting the levels. That is not an extreme grade by a long shot LOL. People are getting caught up in the more is better thing  so much they forget 8bit is an imperceptible 16.7 million shades of color and not 64 colors in a crayola crayon box

Tell me more. Because as someone who is stuck with an NX1 right now I really need a sanity check here.

Everyone is raving and ranting about 10bit this and 10bit that and it all sounds really legit and makes me feel like I'm way behind the curve, no pun intended.

I'm not going to denie that if I push my NX1 4.2.0 grade too far all sorts of artifcating and banding happens. The NX1 uses a distribution codec, although its HEVEC @180-200 Mpbs so it's holds up reasonably well as long as I don't get too extreme, which I don't really need to as I'm not creating the next Batman blockbuster. And I do have a 2.5k 10bit 27" Benq monitor, so I can actually see where 8bit breaks down. 

I'm actually looking for reasons to stay with the NX1 instead of getting caught up in gear aquisition syndrome. The ergonomics and ease of use for the camera is exceptional and it's native S-Line glass as good as any Sigma Art series lens I've ever seen. It has a 6.5k sensor that produces some pretty detailed full readout 4k and below, 120fps@1080. It has some redeeming factors that make it hard to give up.

But everyone is jumping on 10bit/HDR, I'm feeling a bit left behind and anxious. Also, some third-party manufactures have dropped the brand for obvious reasons. Thank you Fotodix and Rokinon for not! 

But then part of me feels like my efforts and resources would be better spent in trying to find external ways to produce better highlight rolloff with my existing kit, because I'm starting to understand what makes up a "creamy image". I'm looking at some Tiffen diffusion filters right now.   

Possible future contenders for me:

Ursa Mini 4.6k

Kinfinity Terra 5k

Used RED of some variety. 

Possibly the latest Sony mirrorless

However, going with most of these options I'm looking at upgrades to a lot of my current accessories, which are rated for a much lighter rig. 

Not going with the GH5. I do not want a micro 4/3 sensor at the end of the day. I'm fine with super35 and full frame and I don't want to have to rely on speedboosters to get better shallow DOF and ISO performance. I feel like Panasonic should focus on releasing a bigger sensor than doing tricks to improve ISO on a smaller one.  

 

[thefactory]

4 hours ago, Trek of Joy said:

That gets you into used a9 territory as they're down in the $3400 range. The a9 tops the a7rIII in every way outside of stills mp, and its AF much better. Its just missing the PP's, but I've never had issues with the standard color profiles as long as you don't blow highlights. The oversampled FF 4k is flat out gorgeous on the a9. The zero blackout EVF makes everything else look like crap in comparison, including sports DSLR's. Personally I'd go in that direction over selling my a7r2 for the r3. Everyone is different.

Cheers.

I shoot with the a9 for photos and quickly shot some video at night out side of the camera shop I hired it from. I was impressed with the image. It’s such a shame that the best image they have is a stills camera that has crippled video features. I hope the give this thing PP after they release a7siii. 

Second hand in Australia I have seen the a9 for cheaper than the a7riii.