Why Sony is not rushing with the A7S III

[radneuerfinder]

2 hours ago, Django said:

sony was going back to the drawing boards for A7S3 but it sounds like they are really trying to re-imagine the whole concept to gear it towards videographers. even more surprising, the VP giving praise to the BM P4K. it seems plausible Sony might go that direction with a bigger body/LCD.

Probably a bigger body is necessary to make things possible "beyond expectations". "Creators" and "technology, technology, technology" in mind, what could that be? 4K/60, 10-bit 4:2:2 + X = 8K? BOSS/Olympus/gimbal like image stabilisation? Computational video, with electronic bokeh control, hdr video? Or, to exceed my expectations towards Sony engineering at all - better ergonomics/user interface??

I don't expect Sony to release such sort of camera before 2020. And I don't expect it to be named A7S III.

But in the meantime, why shouldn't Sony release a A7 III with "easy to add 4K/60" 10-bit internal 4:2:2 & a better viewfinder and call it A7S III?

 

[wolf33d]

A lot of people here thought it would be 4K60 8 bit and that no 10 bit would be possible. Now Sony says 4k60 10bit is easy and below what they will release. Interesting.. probably either/combination of those: 

- global shutter 

- raw

- massive ergonomics improvements

- massive sensor improvements 

With the new AF update on A9 being best AF of the industry, this camera will be very exciting for sure. 

[Laurier]

12 hours ago, newfoundmass said:

I think the delay in the A7Siii is obvious: the expectations/market has moved in a direction that outpaced Sony's tech and they're playing catch up. Last year was a huge year. Panasonic was still riding that GH5 wave for most of the year, until they announced their full frame camera. The full frame mirrorless announcements from Nikon and Canon. Nikon and Fuji made HUGE steps in their video capabilities. At the beginning of the year the A7III looked like a real impressive camera (and it still is despite its flaws) but by the end of 2018, not so much. Heck, the GH5s, and all of the new full frame mirrorless cameras even made their low light performance look less impressive: maybe not as good, but definitely in the ballpark. 

In a sense, they're probably not lying by saying that it's simple to add 4K/60p but to DO 4k/60p with their current mirrorless tech probably isn't so simple without overheating. The longer they wait though the bigger the expectations are going to be. It's not an enviable position to be in. At this point they're going to need to release something ground breaking because they've got a lot of companies gunning for them, and they're all very capable foes. 

Sony  have the tech to do it on smaller sensors , they provide the sensors for the GH5s and the XT3.

But the A7 have both autofocus and sensor stabilization, plus a larger sensor in a smaller body .
If you look at the very last sensors they publicly released ( that are not yet in used in consumer grade cameras) the approach is to get a lot of the processing directly on sensor for faster readout and pixel binning .

Beside you have the specs on paper, and what you get out of the camera, from my grading experience, the  image out of a A7s (2014) externally in 8 bits is still more solid that a 10 bits images from a GH5/GH5s(2018) and that from a much older sensor. ( but the rolling shutter is still bad ...)

 

[Mokara]

13 hours ago, newfoundmass said:

No one bought the A7Sii for its stills capabilities, and the same is likely to be true for the A7Siii. It's OK for web publishing, at best. 

If the A7SIII can shoot 8K then it will enough pixels to be a competent stills camera in almost every application.

[newfoundmass]

42 minutes ago, Laurier said:

Sony  have the tech to do it on smaller sensors , they provide the sensors for the GH5s and the XT3.

But the A7 have both autofocus and sensor stabilization, plus a larger sensor in a smaller body .
If you look at the very last sensors they publicly released ( that are not yet in used in consumer grade cameras) the approach is to get a lot of the processing directly on sensor for faster readout and pixel binning .

Beside you have the specs on paper, and what you get out of the camera, from my grading experience, the  image out of a A7s (2014) externally in 8 bits is still more solid that a 10 bits images from a GH5/GH5s(2018) and that from a much older sensor. ( but the rolling shutter is still bad ...)

 

The sensor is just one part. Those other companies have built technology that uses Sony sensors, and allows them to achieve things that Sony itself hasn't been able to achieve, even in their smaller sensor cameras.

Panasonic released a camera that could do 4K/60p in a hybrid camera TWO YEARS AGO. Fuji came along and did the same, and they've shown they're very much taking video seriously. Even in full frame mirrorless everyone has largely caught up, or eclipsed, Sony. That's wild for a company that was so ahead of everyone, for so long. 

4 minutes ago, Mokara said:

If the A7SIII can shoot 8K then it will enough pixels to be a competent stills camera in almost every application.

People really believe the A7Siii will shoot in 8K? ?

[Mokara]

13 hours ago, newfoundmass said:

I think the delay in the A7Siii is obvious: the expectations/market has moved in a direction that outpaced Sony's tech and they're playing catch up. Last year was a huge year. Panasonic was still riding that GH5 wave for most of the year, until they announced their full frame camera. The full frame mirrorless announcements from Nikon and Canon. Nikon and Fuji made HUGE steps in their video capabilities. At the beginning of the year the A7III looked like a real impressive camera (and it still is despite its flaws) but by the end of 2018, not so much. Heck, the GH5s, and all of the new full frame mirrorless cameras even made their low light performance look less impressive: maybe not as good, but definitely in the ballpark. 

In a sense, they're probably not lying by saying that it's simple to add 4K/60p but to DO 4k/60p with their current mirrorless tech probably isn't so simple without overheating. The longer they wait though the bigger the expectations are going to be. It's not an enviable position to be in. At this point they're going to need to release something ground breaking because they've got a lot of companies gunning for them, and they're all very capable foes. 

Not really. The rumor was that there were two A7SIII protoypes, an incremental model and an advanced model. Probably Sony originally had the idea of the incremental model being released in late 2018 with the more advanced prototype being released a year or two later once the rough edges were ironed out. With the imminent release of Canon and Nikon's full frame cameras they probably decided to drop the incremental prototype and develop the advanced one instead. Since that was going to take longer there was a delay. Because they stopped development on the incremental prototype, all of the resources would then go into the advanced prototype, meaning it would arrive soon than they had originally planned.

At least that is how I see it. There is no way they would have started from scratch once they realized the incremental prototype was not going to be advanced enough to dominate they way they want.

3 minutes ago, newfoundmass said:

The sensor is just one part. Those other companies have built technology that uses Sony sensors, and allows them to achieve things that Sony itself hasn't been able to achieve, even in their smaller sensor cameras.

Panasonic released a camera that could do 4K/60p in a hybrid camera TWO YEARS AGO. Fuji came along and did the same, and they've shown they're very much taking video seriously. Even in full frame mirrorless everyone has largely caught up, or eclipsed, Sony. That's wild for a company that was so ahead of everyone, for so long. 

People really believe the A7Siii will shoot in 8K? ?

If it is oversampled (which will be necessary to maintain enough of a competitive position over the opposition), it will need to shoot in at least 6K and probably 8K. That would be the dilemma Sony engineers would have faced - how do you keep that low light performance while at the same time getting enough resolution performance to compete. When you start increasing the pixel count then the camera would become more like the III or RIII, so it would need some differentiating technology, otherwise why bother with a new model?

IMO it will have to be something like 8K, high frame rates at 4K or a global shutter sensor (which is entirely possible, since Sony had lower pixel count global shutter sensors available a year ago)

[Laurier]

53 minutes ago, newfoundmass said:

The sensor is just one part. Those other companies have built technology that uses Sony sensors, and allows them to achieve things that Sony itself hasn't been able to achieve, even in their smaller sensor cameras.

Panasonic released a camera that could do 4K/60p in a hybrid camera TWO YEARS AGO. Fuji came along and did the same, and they've shown they're very much taking video seriously. Even in full frame mirrorless everyone has largely caught up, or eclipsed, Sony. That's wild for a company that was so ahead of everyone, for so long. 

People really believe the A7Siii will shoot in 8K? ?

They just introduced a 8k sensor with 4k 4.4.4 binning on sensor with fast readout.
The sensor is 8k you output true 4k straight out of the sensor ready to encode.

 The A7iii already downsample 6k to 4k  with reasonable rolling shutter.

They also have 8k TV to sell I believe, so that would make sense.
But I would take 4k 60fps without crop/line skipping over 8k .
 
If you look at the XT3 and the GH5s , they don t have sensor stabilization, that make a big difference in heat dissipation, the GH5 is also larger than a A7 camera.
But personally I won t mind if Sony make a bit bigger body to have better specs 

[Mokara]

2 hours ago, Laurier said:

They just introduced a 8k sensor with 4k 4.4.4 binning on sensor with fast readout.
The sensor is 8k you output true 4k straight out of the sensor ready to encode.

 The A7iii already downsample 6k to 4k  with reasonable rolling shutter.

They also have 8k TV to sell I believe, so that would make sense.
But I would take 4k 60fps without crop/line skipping over 8k .
 
If you look at the XT3 and the GH5s , they don t have sensor stabilization, that make a big difference in heat dissipation, the GH5 is also larger than a A7 camera.
But personally I won t mind if Sony make a bit bigger body to have better specs 

The heat comes primarily from the processor working. Panasonic processors are thermally more efficient than Sony's, so they can do more before running into heat issues. Canon's processors have even worse thermal efficiency, which is why they can do less. All of the manufacturer's processors can do what they would need to do for very high spec cameras, the problem is that is smaller bodies without cooling they get too hot and that limits what they can actually do before having to shut down to excessive heat. The more thermally efficient the processor is, the more functions the manufacturer can include. Panasonic has the most efficient processor, so their cameras can do more with a specific package size.

It is all about the thermal efficiency of the processor. The more efficient it is, the more it can do.

[kye]

3 hours ago, Mokara said:

Not really. The rumor was that there were two A7SIII protoypes, an incremental model and an advanced model. Probably Sony originally had the idea of the incremental model being released in late 2018 with the more advanced prototype being released a year or two later once the rough edges were ironed out. With the imminent release of Canon and Nikon's full frame cameras they probably decided to drop the incremental prototype and develop the advanced one instead. Since that was going to take longer there was a delay. Because they stopped development on the incremental prototype, all of the resources would then go into the advanced prototype, meaning it would arrive soon than they had originally planned.

At least that is how I see it. There is no way they would have started from scratch once they realized the incremental prototype was not going to be advanced enough to dominate they way they want.

I suspect you're right.  

I have seen product pipelines before and was surprised at how long a lead-time they require.  IIRC one example I saw was that a company had a development time that was 4 or 5 times the length of their release cycle, so you had 4, 5 or maybe even 6 products in different stages of development simultaneously.  This approach suggests that the incremental and advanced models in development simultaneously concept is quite likely.

We're at an interesting time right now where the Sony A7S3, GH6, and others are due very soon but have no place in the lineup, because for them to provide any substantial improvement to their predecessors will mean they leap over sections of the lineup of cameras above them.  Of course, one aspect to this is that we shouldn't really compare a DSLR form-factor camera with a cinema-camera form factor as they're not really for the same purpose.  Yes they're both cameras, but they're for different end-users to use in different ways in different situations.

I'm surprised that people are surprised about 8K:

• Sharp has a prototype
• we have the sensors
• the data-rates are only double 4K60 and processor speed doubles every 1.5-2 years and it's been more than that since the GH5 was released
• P4K has the media solutions with sufficient data rates and is a third the price of a top-end camera
• the TVs are coming
• and the Japanese are pushing the whole thing as a world-wide technology PR stunt for the Olympics...

[Mokara]

The processors they currently have could likely handle 8k, but they would need a lot of cooling to do it and that is simply not practical in this sort of camera.

[newfoundmass]

On 4/5/2019 at 7:46 PM, kye said:

I'm surprised that people are surprised about 8K:

• Sharp has a prototype
• we have the sensors
• the data-rates are only double 4K60 and processor speed doubles every 1.5-2 years and it's been more than that since the GH5 was released
• P4K has the media solutions with sufficient data rates and is a third the price of a top-end camera
• the TVs are coming
• and the Japanese are pushing the whole thing as a world-wide technology PR stunt for the Olympics...

It's not that we're surprised 8K is coming, it's that Sony has not yet released a mirrorless camera that can do 4K60p, so the idea that the A7Siii will jump straight up to 8K doesn't make much sense. They'd need a massive technological breakthrough to achieve that in a tiny body. Who knows though? Maybe with a 1 minute recording limit?! ?

[thebrothersthre3]

1 hour ago, newfoundmass said:

It's not that we're surprised 8K is coming, it's that Sony has not yet released a mirrorless camera that can do 4K60p, so the idea that the A7Siii will jump straight up to 8K doesn't make much sense. They'd need a massive technological breakthrough to achieve that in a tiny body. Who knows though? Maybe with a 1 minute recording limit?! ?

It might make sense to justify the price difference if it is indeed 3k plus. Its true they've not done 4k 60 yet, but they are a bit behind the times right now. Sony is often front runner tech I feel like. Wouldn't surprise me if they took a large leap to put themselves ahead of everyone. 

[Snowbro]

If they add 4k 60 4:2:2 they can join 2016

[thebrothersthre3]

12 hours ago, Snowbro said:

If they add 4k 60 4:2:2 they can join 2016

If they pull it off in full frame they'll be ahead of everyone.

[Snowbro]

I bet it won't come until next year at this time. Sony will be updating their A7R III this fall and won't want to compete with themselves. Canon will likely release their new flagship hybrid camera then and it will probably have some crazy features, just like the 1DC and 1DX ii had when they released. I think if they make the A7S III have internal (6K Sensor) 4K 4:2:2 10-bit, with the venice color science, they will have an industry leading camera. 

[KnightsFan]

6 hours ago, thebrothersthre3 said:

If they pull it off in full frame they'll be ahead of everyone.

Except z cam! But yeah that would be cool.

[Laurier]

10 minutes ago, Snowbro said:

I bet it won't come until next year at this time. Sony will be updating their A7R III this fall and won't want to compete with themselves. Canon will likely release their new flagship hybrid camera then and it will probably have some crazy features, just like the 1DC and 1DX ii had when they released. I think if they make the A7S III have internal (6K Sensor) 4K 4:2:2 10-bit, with the venice color science, they will have an industry leading camera. 

You can already get most of the Venice color science using the venice Rec 709 lut if you shoot Slog2/3 or HLG
Like  for the Alexa and Reds a lot good amount of the color science is in their log to Rec 709 lut, 
I did a HLG to Venice 709 lut for my A7iii ,using LUTCalc, that work extremely well.

4 minutes ago, KnightsFan said:

Except z cam! But yeah that would be cool.

But Z cam won t have auto-focus and sensor stabilization 

[Snowbro]

8-bit can be hard to convert without it falling apart in some scenarios though 

[zerocool22]

28 minutes ago, Snowbro said:

I bet it won't come until next year at this time. Sony will be updating their A7R III this fall and won't want to compete with themselves. Canon will likely release their new flagship hybrid camera then and it will probably have some crazy features, just like the 1DC and 1DX ii had when they released. I think if they make the A7S III have internal (6K Sensor) 4K 4:2:2 10-bit, with the venice color science, they will have an industry leading camera. 

Thats pretty late. I thought this Nab was already late for the a7s iii. I prob bought one or 2 different bodies by then. They better come swinging with big guns..

[tweak]

2 hours ago, Laurier said:

But Z cam won t have auto-focus and sensor stabilization 

But they will have a real life camera  .