hi so you're thinking about potentially picking up a Sony a7 three camera I'm wondering should
I still be doing that it's 2020 this cameras a couple of years old now is it still worth it so
today this video is going to go over some of the reasons that you might be thinking you don't want
to pick this up and I'm gonna address those and then all the great things that this camera still
has going for it so everyone is pretty sure there will be an a7 4 camera coming this year and a lot
of people are gonna think I'll just hold out for the new one but something you have to bear in mind
is the cost and the features do you need some of the features that that camera is gonna have do you
need to spend extra money based off of what you're gonna be using it for in terms of what I think the
a7 4 have maybe it's what I want it to have but I do genuinely think that we will see some of these
features I think we will see a flip screen much like the a 6400 whether it goes up or to the side
I'm not too sure but I think we will see it I also think we will see a slightly higher res screen and
a screen that reads exposure a little bit better something like the screen on the a7 R series I
do think we will see 4k 60 in this camera and I also believe that we'll probably see a 1080 with a
higher bitrate potentially a higher bitrate in 4k as well kind of open then we'll have UHS 2 slots
on both right now and you have the wand but that's not a big deal to me chances are you're quite like
me in that you might not actually need some of those features those are just things that you
would like to see things that you want but you don't necessarily need sometimes I think we're
ready to just get caught up in specs and if you think about it at least for me I can genuinely
do everything I need to do right now with the a 73 and chances are you probably can as well the
other thing to think about if an a7 4 is coming is the a7 3 prices might go down a little bit so
if you're very price conscious maybe wait a little bit longer but honestly is already a really really
low price is the lowest it's ever been I don't see it going any lower personally with how well
it sells it makes no sense for Sony to drop the price even more than it's already dropped
now it's also possible to consider that the a7 3 price might go back up to what it originally
was a 7 4 comes out it's not that much different to the a7 3 and now Sony knows the a7 3 is the
openness continued sell really well boom continue to make that money the other thing to consider is
the a7 s3 could potentially appear this year it's possible who knows it's men who have been out for
the last 2 years but still hasn't come that is a very video centric camera so it's very very
focused on mostly videos and you might see things like hi a bit rates being able to shoot in lower
light things that you might not actually need again the other thing to consider with the a7 s3
if it does come as it's a video centric camera if it's anything like the a7 s 2 that was only
a 12 and megapixel stills camera so if you are a hybrid shooter and you'd like to shoot video and
photo like myself if the a7 s3 is anything like the a7 s - it might be slightly lower megapixels
than something like the a7 3 or even the a7 4 again something to be aware of two years
in terms of camera Tech is a very long time sony comes out with multiple cameras a year so should
you be buying a camera that is close to two years old let me tell you this I still use it for photo
I still use it for video and it still blows me away on a regular basis it's the lowest price
that it's ever been there's more lenses out now than there ever was before I would consider this a
very good time to still buy this especially at the low price that it's at right now another thing to
think about is you're potentially scared off the cost of lenses Sony full-frame glass specifically
is pretty expensive if you're a first-time Sony use or you're coming from Canon or Nikon a Fuji
you're gonna have to invest in some glass in the past few years there's been a plethora of
new lenses for Sony full-frame there's two new Tamron Z 1728 f28 28 275 f28 there's three new
tamarin Prime's that just came out there's a whole bunch of new Sigma lenses that came out and all
are considered budget-friendly options compared to the Sony counterparts even aps-c lenses like the
Sigma 16 mil all work really well on the Sony a7 three so if you are thinking of joining Sony and
you need to invest in a bunch of glass there's never been a better time really to do it you've
heard from Bob down the pub the other day that he was chewing the wedding and he had issues
with that overheating and it turned off you said three videos online of people talking about how
their o-73 overheated as well what you often don't consider is there's the hundreds of thousands of
other people that haven't had issues with their a7 3 and overheating like myself take it from me I've
shot multiple 4k videos back-to-back with this guy for YouTube and never once had an issue with the
camera overheating I shoot a lot of weddings with the a7 3 and contrary to popular belief Canadian
summers are not wintery and filled with snow as she can easily get into the 40's here with so
this can sometimes be sat directly under the Sun in the middle of a field for half an hour and the
blistering hot heat is two shades darker by the end of the ceremony because it's got a beautiful
tan but it still runs perfectly fine I've never had issues with my a 73 with overheating I'm
sweating my balls off the camera is still roaming fine color science on Sony or the a7 3 is bad you
hear this thrown about online all the time and I honestly don't buy into it in any way I've owned
the a6000 the a 6300 and I'll be honest those cameras the color science and those wasn't great
but since the a7 3 came out they completely change the color science and the cameras and
it is so much better you can go online and look at videos where people comparing the US are with
the a7 3 in blind tests where they don't tell you which camera is which and there's a lot of times
where people mistakenly thought that these sony colors were actually any Canon colors that kind
of speaks for itself to be honest with you I often get asked which picture profiles and how I grade
my video and I don't use picture profiles I use a creative style the autumn leaves one it's a little
bit contrasting its desaturate a little bit and I love it and a lot of people always comment that
they love it too that's just baked in straight from the camera that being said if you want to
grade your video you can do that easily there's a ton of picture profiles to shoot from and if
you want to use lights too I recommend cody blues lights they're beautiful they look really nice on
a lot of different a 7-3 footage so don't always buy into the color science side of things I think
5 years ago it was very different to how it is today one thing I will say to you should
be aware of with the a7 3 is the screen quality isn't the best in terms of resolution something
like the USR is 2.1 million dots this is 960 8000 dots having used both cameras I can tell you there
is a big difference the other thing to bear in mind with this screen is it doesn't read exposure
very well this will often show the camera as being overexposed whereas when you look through the UVF
it's completely fine I know you can use histograms but still the screen should work so it's something
you should be aware of is it reason to not buy the a7 3 absolutely not but it's something you
will have to deal with so you should be aware of it now something actually I figured out a little
bit more recently I just picked up an EOS on and XT 3 to start doing some more comparisons with
sony a7 3 and i will say that the software and the general feel of the camera on the a7 3 is a
little bit slower and what i mean by that is just turning the camera on like the time from being
off to turning it on to taking a picture it's substantially longer on the sony than it is on
the xt 3 and on the USR so if you are coming from a different brand to the a7 3 it's something you
should be aware of is it crippling to the point you can't use it absolutely not but it is slower
you know like how you have a new phone and it's fresh out the box and it works great and then that
phone becomes a year old and it's just a little bit slower that's the difference the sony is a
slightly slower one the cannon and the xt3 just seem quicker to use now let's talk about some of
the reasons the a7 3 is still great camera in 2020 some of the features it has that we often forget
has because we just don't use them on a regular basis but they're there and it still makes this
camera fantastic by autofocus I own the a7 3 I do own the USR which is considered the fastest
one out there and I will honestly say I don't buy into that I do believe the a7 3 is quicker
when it comes to autofocus 120 frames per second video that is usable and looks great the reason
they say usable is with the ACC 300 120 frames per second it was kind of mushy it wasn't great on the
a7 320 frames per second video is it's good it looks really nice I'm happy with that 4k video
now yes I know a lot of cameras have 4k video but it also doesn't have a crop which is great
you want to shoot at 16 it's actually 16 it's not 550 like it is on the USR and of course the
4k video is actually 6k that's down sample to 4k which makes it incredibly crispy incredibly sharp
and doesn't do you any justice when it comes to looking yourself and filming in 4k Clear Image
Zoom is one of my favorite features on the a 73 it gives you extra reach with all of your lenses
if you're using a prime lens you know have extra reach with that 2 with little to no quality loss
as well I've talked about this many times before but it's a great feature being able to shoot in
crop mode at the switch of a button on the a7 3 is amazing so by standard all your lenses are gonna
be in full frame if you're using a full frame lens let's say you're using a 16 and you put it into
crop mode or aps-c mode click a barn you can set a button to do it now you have 1.5 times more reach
Lance best thing is you can stack that with why just talked about clear image zoom and get even
further bright monitoring on the a7 3 a feature that not a lot of people know about I've done a
whole video on it before at the click of a button and you can assign it to whichever band you want
you can brighten up your entire image from near pitch black so if you're composing a shot for
an astrophotography shot you can't see how it's gonna look you click this bar and compose your
shot click it again it turns it off back to your regular settings take the picture and you're good
to go you got focus peaking you've got a histogram so all those little extra tools that you sometimes
need for video even for photo as well very useful features focus magnifier so if you need
the absolute most tack sharp image you possibly can or if you're using a manual focus lens and
you need to verify what's in focus is actually in focus you can do that you can zoom right in see
exactly what's in focus again good to go it's not a feature that you'll use often but when you need
to it's really really great to have customizable buttons so you can change all your buttons to
whatever you want you have multiple custom bar and c1 c2 c3 you can change everything really if you
want it to and the ability to have quick settings on your dial on the one and two there so if you're
a hybrid shooter like me to quickly go between video and photo settings different video if you
come from 4k to 1080p to 120 frames per second you can literally just turn the dial there and
have settings assigned to each one really love being able to do that I this now I know it's not
great on the a 73 but if you use a camera that doesn't have it and then you use the a7 3 you'll
notice there is a big difference you can shoot longer exposures for photos you can go hand out
for video if you need to if you need to use in a pinch it's there so I this although it's not
great it has it 10 frames per second draw shooting so if you're shooting sports or landscape well you
wouldn't shoot landscapes at 10 frames per second unless there's like a deer running across the
frame or something but if you wanted to it's there that pared Sony's autofocus was gonna be great so
it has iaf if you're shooting sports or if you are shooting a landscape at 10 frames per second
and there is a deer that runs past it has animal iaf Sony's autofocus abilities and 10 frames per
second draw really great and then dynamic range something I think we often forget about and ie I'm
guilty of this all the time I'll show you an image and a slightly overexposed with the skies a little
bit blown out you can rescue so much from these RAW files bring up shadows usually bring down your
highlights you'll put that image into Lightroom you'll think you've lost everything and you will
have the entire sky completely fine so the dynamic range of the a 73 is really really good very
useful in so many different environments save me a lot of times as well image has been what looks
like unusable but I rescued it as you can tell from why I've just gone over the list is pretty
extensive and that is only some of what the camera has to offer and that's why I still think this is
a great camera to pick up in 2020 if you're thinking about picking one up I do genuinely
think that we get caught up in specs a lot and sometimes we forget what the cameras that have
already been out a while can already do put it this way imagine the a7 3 comes out today the day
you're watching this video and it's at the price it's currently out which is one of the lowest
prices has ever been at before and it has all the features that I just talked about that would still
blow a lot of people away that would still be more than enough of a camera for a lot of people think
about that for a second so there we go hopefully you took something away from that video today I'm
not here to convince you I don't care which camera you buy at the end of the day if you want to buy a
73 or we're gonna buy an XT 3 or you want to buy a new US are they're all great cameras but the
a7 3 is still a great camera in 2020 alright thanks for watching I'll see you next time