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SONY A7 CAMERAS USER REVIEW
THREE’S THE MAGIC NUMBER The Mark III versions of Sony’s full-frame A7 series iron out lots of handling quirks WORDS AND IMAGES ADAM DUCKWORTH
irrorless cameras, such as those in the Sony A7 series, have won over swathes of users thanks to their full-frame sensors, small
The Mark 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 crippled by poor slowmotion, dropping down to SD for fast frame rates. The A7 II was the everyman camera that nobody really fell in love with, while the A7S II was the filmmakers’ choice, thanks to internal 4K recording, fast frame rates, decent codec and great low light performance. Then the A9 came along, with a super-fast stacked sensor to give ridiculously quick frame rates for stills and video, amazing autofocus and much improved handling. On paper it promises so much, but Sony crippled it for video by not enabling it to shoot in any S-Log or HLG gammas. MARK III 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
size, great low-light performance and stunning video footage at affordable prices – certainly compared to cinema cameras. And it’s because of this that filmmakers have tended to put up with their handling foibles and obvious inadequacies in certain areas. Irritants include woeful battery life, single card slots, odd placement of the Rec button, no touchscreen and complicated menus. And if you use the camera for stills as well, then a lack of dedicated AF-ON button, slow frame rates, tricky tethering and slow AF mean things haven’t always been ideal.
joined by a clone A7 III which offers a 24.2-megapixel sensor. This is the ‘basic’ A7 model but one that shares many things with the A7R III, including a body design borrowed from the A9, as well as being significantly cheaper. A video-centric A7S III may well join the duo at some point, but until then the Mark III versions make more sense for shooting video than an A7S II due to the newer tech, speed and useability. In terms of sensors, the R version is the same 42-megapixel unit of the old A7R II, but is now capable of much more thanks to improvements in in- camera processing that also applies
ABOVE There is a rumour of a video-centric A7SIII forming a trio of new cameras.
SONY HAS TAKEN LOTS OF WHAT IT HAS LEARNED FROM THE A9
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JUNE 2018 DEFINITION
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