- So October 2015, Sony releases the a7S II
and the world goes crazy because it was a small,
compact mirrorless camera, relatively affordable
that could just destroy any camera in low light.
And for years we here at LNG, we're using the a7S II
as our daily driver camera, until we switched to our reds.
Even 'til recently, nothing has really beaten the a7S II
in terms of low light flexibility and performance,
until today, because Sony after five long years
has finally announced the a7S III.
So let's begin.
Funny thing is it's July 2020 right now,
and cameras are just coming out left and right.
We have the Canon R5 at the beginning of the month,
we have the Black Magic URSA 12K that's coming
and shipping in September, and then this camera.
Okay, this box is a very nondescript.
So I assume that this is not what you're going to get
when it comes to factory packaging.
This is a, I think a prototype model.
And then they also sent along one of their tough
64 gigs Sony SD cards
because the data rates on this thing are insane.
And we will get into that in a second.
Sony was gracious enough to send us a couple
lenses for testing.
I believe I requested a 2470 F2.8 and a 35, 1.4.
Andy, are you ready?
- [Andy] Oh yeah.
- Let's see.
This is basically a camera box.
We have a little HDMI like table block thing.
Not interesting.
Okay, oh, you know what?
I'm not gonna take care of it at first.
I'm going to go through the rest of the box
and then I'm going to take the camera out.
So let's see what else in here.
We have a power plug, a type C cable,
'cause this camera has type C, which is amazing.
We have a battery.
What else?
We have a charger.
I can't take that for granted.
Fuji didn't include a charger in their camera.
So like thank you, Sony for not being crazy
and including a charger properly.
A camera strap, which no one uses.
And is everyone ready for this?
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Wow, I have our original a7S II right here
and you can tell right off the bat that the grip
has increased in size quite a bit,
which I appreciate, 'cause again, on the a7S II,
the grip was always a little bit on the small side.
It was better than the a7S I.
But besides that, I mean, when you look at the top
of the camera, they haven't changed that much.
There's a dedicated record button on the top of the camera.
Look at this, top of the camera, dedicated record button.
Look at the record button that was on this camera.
It was on the side and it was like mushy and weird.
I always remapped it to the shutter button
just because that's way better.
So on the back of the camera,
you can tell they haven't drastically changed anything,
but they have added very nice additions.
The dial that's on the a7S II,
which is like under the top of the camera,
is now just like completely exposed.
Again, the little things like this,
where you can just kind of reach this dial from any angle.
That's nice.
Then the height adjustment of it makes it easier to access.
They've also added a joystick and the a7S III
has a touch screen.
If you've been watching me unbox anything
on short circuit recently,
you'll know I am a very big fan of proper flip out screens.
I think that was one of the biggest downfalls of the a7S II,
is the monitor on the back of the camera
was just not very flexible.
You could do certain things with it,
but it was just a pain to use.
If you were able to build the camera up,
if you were okay with that kind of setup,
it was way nicer to always add your own monitor
after the fact.
They have fixed that and they added a proper
flip out display.
Look at that, full articulation.
Canon has been using this screen design for awhile,
Fuji followed suit.
I was really happy when I saw that,
and I'm also really happy that somebody he's doing it.
These doors are nice.
This door is not perfect,
but the doors on the a7S II,
they just kinda like flop there.
Like they were so annoy, and they also flopped down.
So then whenever you had something that like,
whenever you had a cage or something near the camera
on the side, it would get in the way
because you just have these like two things hang there.
Like I would love to have just cut these off.
I should have just cut them off.
Okay, so IO wise, we have a microphone jack,
a headphone jack, type C nice.
And then a micro USB and a full size HDMI.
Now HTMI is not perfect, but when you compare it
to the micro HDMI that was on the a7S II,
I am very thankful that Sony made this adjustment.
While I would have still preferred SDI,
ultimately, this is still a mirrorless camera.
It's a compact camera.
I bet that there's a version of a camera that one day might
exist that will have SDI in this form factor.
You could argue that the Komodo is that camera,
not quite the same thing, but guys,
this HDMI port can output 16 bit raw.
There isn't even an external recorder that can fully
record 16 bit raw yet.
I'm sure they'll come, but it's nice that Sony
has designed this with the future in mind.
And so when reporters come out that can
take in that output, that's great.
One of the coolest things that I saw in the spec sheet
for this camera, and now that I'm finally seeing it
in person I'm really excited about is that this camera has
dual SD card slots, but not just dual SD card slots.
It has dual CF express type A/SD card slots.
You could have two SD cards or one SD card,
one CF express type A or two CF express type A.
That's a lot.
Can someone come up with a better name for that card type,
then CF Express type A?
That essentially gives you the option to have two SDs,
two Cfs, or interchange the two.
Okay, let's talk about the sensor.
There it is, full frame, 12 megapixel sensor,
but it's significantly improved.
The processor in the camera is eight times faster
than the one in the a7S II.
And the pixels themselves are larger,
which just allows better dynamic range, lower noise,
higher low light performance overall.
And Sony has also done a lot of work
on the actual sensor itself.
They've basically changed the order
in which they layer the sensor,
which allows them to read data off the sensor faster.
So when they pair that with the faster processor
in this camera, you get the ability to have fatter codex
because this camera can record
up to 600 megabits per second.
The ISO range on this camera, the maximum ISO is 409,600.
You would never use an ISO that high.
The fact that the sensor is capable of doing that
is in itself amazing.
I would have to admit that compared to other touchscreens
on cameras that I've used, this feels not bad.
The one thing I don't like right off the bat though,
is that the menu button is the back button.
So you have to press menu to go back.
It's not preferred to do that though.
I would have loved a back button like right here
around the joystick area or the control dial area.
The menu seems to also have improved significantly though,
because again, if anyone has used a Sony menu,
like the a7S II, this menu is a bit of a nightmare.
Let's put a lens on this guy.
So Sony sent the 35 1.4.
This lens does not have image stabilization,
but thankfully the camera itself
has five stops of image stabilization.
Let's put in one of these tough SD cards.
Unable to use memory card slot one, huh, why?
So we out the SD card issue we were having.
We can't shoot at the highest bit rate 4k
that this camera can shoot at,
but we can still shoot at 4K,
and I want to just do a quick focus test.
Gianno is sitting behind the camera,
so he's going to walk towards me.
I'm rolling now.
That looks pretty good.
It looks like in terms of auto-focus,
the R5 has quite the contender with this a7S III.
There's Andy.
Lens case.
Andy, lens case.
And there's very little hesitation.
I just have to press and it goes for it.
I've had the camera on for about five minutes now
and I was just rolling, maybe three different clips
just now and I can feel the camera is warm.
Sony has stated that this camera can roll at 4K 60 FPS
for a full hour with no overheating whatsoever.
You're generally not rolling one single clip
for an entire hour.
So in theory, even as the camera starts to warm up,
it should never overheat to the point
where it turns itself off.
S Log three typically has a minimum ISO,
for example, the FX nine, when I was using the FX nine
in S Log three, the minimum ISO you use on that camera
is a thousand.
So even with the built in ND,
I needed more ND if I wanted to shoot it like F2, F 1.4.
So I'm going to choose S Log three on here,
and let's see if you're limited by ISO at all.
Guys.
What?
I'm at ISO 160 in S log three S gamut cine.
That is awesome.
So you get the full benefit of S logs dynamic range
and color profile with no downside,
because now you have the choice to use whatever ISO you want
from 160 and up, that's amazing.
The rolling shutter that plagues the a7S II
is not visible on the a7S III.
The rolling shutter, I'm going to roll the camera right now.
And I'm just going to like, shake it.
Again, this is not a realistic use of a camera.
You would never do this,
but it does show you how good the rolling shutter can be.
And I'm holding this handheld,
not really being that careful about how steady I am,
and it's pretty good guys.
Knowing what the a7S II's rolling shutter looked like,
even off of the EVF, this is significantly better.
They fixed all the tiny little issues
that were plaguing this camera.
Like if you do travel vlogs and you wanna throw your
camera out the window to get the scenery
that's flying by, it doesn't have to look diagonal
the entire time anymore.
How great is that?
It would be a disservice to you guys
to not show you some footage,
and we'll even try to include a download link
so that you can see the clips for yourself.
Even though this SD card can't record at the highest quality
4K that this camera offers,
we are still with a 128 gig card
only going to get an hour and 47 minutes of 4K
off of this camera as it is right now.
But the nice thing about that one hour and 47 minutes of 4K
is that you could shoot it all in one clip
because yes, this thing has no limit on the record time.
So for anyone who has owned an a7S II,
who still uses an a7S II, who wants a B cam that's small
for an FX nine or even maybe a Venice in certain situations,
Sony's finally delivered, five years later.
Great auto focus, image stabilization,
faster, better, low light, full frame sensor,
15 stops of dynamic range,
and a body that is not much bigger than their other cameras
in their lineup.
Good job, Sony.
I'm excited to review this, but for now,
I'm really stoked that after five years,
this camera is finally here.
So I hope you guys enjoyed the video.
If you have any other questions about the a7S III,
I will hopefully, we'll answer them in the review.
Let me know in the comments, if I should do a review on LTT.
I probably will regardless, but you know,
let me know if you think it's a good idea.
See you guys later.