GEAR SONY A7 TESTS
FIT FOR PURPOSE?
SONY’S NEW
The Mark III versions of Sony’s full-frame A7 series iron out lots of handling quirks
WORDS & IMAGES ADAM DUCKWORTH
M irrorless cameras like the Sony A7 series have won over swathes of users thanks to their full-frame sensor, small size, great low- light performance and stunning video footage at affordable prices, certainly compared to cinema cameras. And it’s because of this, filmmakers have tended to ignore or just put up with their handling foibles and obvious inadequacies. Those gripes are largely to do with the woeful battery life, single card slot, odd placement of the Rec button, no touchscreen andmenus that are very complicated, to say the least. And if you
internal 4K recording, fast frame rates, decent codec and great low-light performance. Then the A9 came along, with a superfast stacked sensor to give ridiculously quick frame rates for stills and video, amazing autofocus andmuch improved handling. On paper it promises much, but Sony crippled it for video by not allowing it to shoot in any S-Log or HLG. Now Sony has taken lots of what it has learned from the A9 and produced a pair of Mark III versions of the A7 series. It’s spearheaded by the 42-megapixel flagship A7R III, and joined by a clone A7 III which offers a 24.2-megapixel sensor. This
use the camera for stills as well, then a lack of dedicated AF-ON button, slow frame rates, tricky tethering and slowAFmean they haven’t been seen as ideal performers. TheMark II versions of the A7 series went further towards what a pro needs, but they still had handling quirks and odd choices of spec. And Sony continued to complicate things by offering three different versions of the camera. The A7R II was high-resolution but was crippled with poor slow motion. The A7 II was the everyman camera that nobody really fell in love with, while the A7S II was the filmmaker’s choice, thanks to
BELOW Handling quirks begone! The A7R III and A7 III are moving Sony’s A7 series of cameras on to greater heights.
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PRO MOVIEMAKER SUMMER 2018
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