
Sony’s A7 III is a $2,000 full-frame mirrorless camera - jseliger
https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2018/2/26/17056162/sony-a7-iii-camera-price-specs-release-date
======
mastax
My perception from reading tech sites has been that Sony's cameras have been
really good for 5-10 years. I expected that it's one of the few Sony
businesses which has been doing well recently. Looking at financial
statements, that's not the case - the unit's been declining since 2012 (the
earliest I looked).

Competition has been stiff, even smaller companies like Pentax, Fujifilm and
Sigma have made great cameras. The lock-in effect from Nikon and Canon lenses
and accessories is strong (and those companies have also made great cameras,
of course). Also the whole segment is in decline due to smartphones (Sony's
semiconductor business has grown a lot - I assume due to smartphone camera
sensors).

Anyway, it was an interesting exercise. Financial statements are really
accessible and it's good to check your assumptions with data from time to
time.

~~~
caycep
they sell sensors or manufacture them for some of these other companies - I
think the Fuji X-trans is manufactured on a Sony fab?

~~~
trm42
About everybody else but Canon uses Sony sensors and fab. Canon still designs
their own sensors and ATM they seem to be losing the sensor tech race to Sony.

------
e40
The only thing that gives Canon and Nikon momentum is lenses. People with a
huge investment can't easily jump ship.

I stopped using my 5D3 a couple of years ago when I bought an A6000. I added
the A6500 + 70-300mm G lens for sports (son does crew). The equivalent lens
for my 5D3 would have been very, very expensive (300mm * 1.6 is 480mm, so the
Canon 500mm is the closest and it's ~$5,000).

~~~
bufferoverflow
You can with the modern $400 Metabones adapter. It's cheaper than selling all
the lenses and buying new ones.

~~~
grecy
..Thanks for the info, I'm reading specs on that now.

Do you know if you loose a stop or two of aperture like you do with a doubler?
i.e. if the lens is f/1.8, will it still be that mounted on the Sony?

~~~
ISL
No loss, except perhaps some vignette (for lenses whose optical path might
partially clip because of the smaller E-mount flange). The adapters pass
through/translate the electronic signals and set the proper flange distance.
Nothing more.

~~~
dharma1
I've done this (using full frame lenses with a speed booster) but have to say
native Sony lenses are often really good, and half the size/weight of full
frame lenses.

Also autofocus doesn't always work or is slow with the speed booster

------
piinbinary
I looked over the images in DPReview's sample gallery [0] and I'm astounded by
the noise performance. I'd consider printing an image taken at ISO 3200 or
maybe even 6400 with that camera. For context, I don't think I would print an
image above ISO 800 from my current camera (Canon 7D).

[0] [https://www.dpreview.com/samples/9120111657/sony-a7-iii-
samp...](https://www.dpreview.com/samples/9120111657/sony-a7-iii-sample-
gallery)

~~~
jcims
What happened on the woman's face here - [https://2.img-
dpreview.com/files/p/TS4000x6000~sample_galler...](https://2.img-
dpreview.com/files/p/TS4000x6000~sample_galleries/6769434587/5655951041.jpg)

Zoom in

~~~
mamp
This appears to be an artefact that occurs with silent shutter mode in some
cases. Regular shooting mode doesn't have this problem. I've read about this
but I don't know the cause.

------
ironjunkie
Mirorless is becoming the new normal, and I love that Sony is pioneering this.

I own a 6000 and 6500 and they are both amazing for the pricepoint. I have
been looking to invest into their full frame offering for a while now.

------
mattbierner
I’ve been shooting a Sony NEX-7 for years. Amazing camera. The great thing
about e-mount (and mirrorless in general) is that you can stick almost any old
manual lens on the thing with the proper mechanical adapter. Gives you an
enormous back catalog of 50 years worth of gear to play around with, much of
it reasonably priced ($5 bargin bin lenses are often the most fun too, so
don’t bother lusting after Leica). The MC and MD Minoltas are my personal
favorites lines, along with the Olympus OMs. One of those is a good, cheap way
to get your feet wet

------
twic
This is a lovely bit of kit, and if i had stacks of spare money, i would
absolutely buy one.

But. What is this for? if you want uncompromising image quality in all use
cases, the A7 is competitive with Canon and Nikon, but not clearly superior.
If you want the compactness that mirrorless can bring, Micro Four Thirds'
smaller sensor enables very significantly smaller lenses, requiring only the
sacrifice of low-light sensitivity. It think it falls between those two
stools.

Mind you, i say that as a Micro Four Thirds owner. Perhaps i'm biased. Still,
if i was going to add an expensive big camera to my arsenal, i'd probably jump
all the way to medium format!

~~~
hengheng
Depth of field changes by the equivalent of one stop from full frame to aps-c,
another from aps-c to micro four thirds. Thus, a f/2.8 zoom on mft shoots like
a f/5.6 zoom on full frame.

Now if there only were fast full frame lenses for Sony E ...

~~~
PuffinBlue
Proper conversion maths is:

Focal length x crop factor

Aperture x crop factor

ISO x crop factor squared

This is a general statement. Something like ISO performance can be affected by
engineering if the sensor (BSI vs old tech for instance) but based on the
underlying physics the above holds true.

------
maxxxxx
I have too much money in Fuji so I won't switch. But the A7iii looks really
good. Sony's lens line up is a little thin but if they can convince Tamron and
Sigma to make lenses for their mount they may be unbeatable.

~~~
PuffinBlue
Sigma just dropped a whole line of FE primes along with the announcement of
the a7iii.

The lens line up is pretty good now.

------
patrickg_zill
For still photography only, it is bested at the same price by the Pentax K1
mkII.

Pentax has 36mp to the Sony 24mp, and not only the current lenses made by
Pentax and 3rd parties for the K mount, but the entire K mount and M42 legacy
lens system is easy to use as well.

Maybe I am just an old neckbeard, but the electronic gimmicks Sony has added
don't impress me nor do I believe that it will improve a person's photography.

Still, if doing a mix of stills and video, the Sony wins out with superior
video.

------
Jack000
amazing camera. Would have been perfect if it had 10bit log like the GH5
though.

~~~
bufferoverflow
Or even raw. I'm surprised so few cameras offer raw video support, but they
all have it for the photos.

~~~
tetrep
Could it be a bandwidth issue? I remember reading about 120fps 4k video on an
Android phone being limited to only a few (real-time) seconds because there
wasn't enough I/O bandwidth to stream the video to storage so it had to stream
into a specialized hardware buffer that was relatively small and expensive.

~~~
bufferoverflow
Modern SD cards go up to 300 MB/s for writes. That should be enough. Even if
you dump the pixel data with zero compression.

8-bit pixels: 1920x1080x30 = 62.2 MB/sec

14-bit: 109 MB/s

Even UHD in 8 bits should work.

~~~
kurthr
I think if you're Raw spatialy down-sampled you'll want RGB and not Bayer
under-sampled so triple that. No SD is reasonably over 250MB/sec and they are
all 64GB. Even at FHD 30Hz you'll only get 30sec of 8bit (not really Raw)
video on your insane SD card.

[https://havecamerawilltravel.com/photographer/fastest-sd-
car...](https://havecamerawilltravel.com/photographer/fastest-sd-cards/)

~~~
bufferoverflow
No, that makes no sense. Why would you store debayered data when you can store
the original with the same exact results?

~~~
kurthr
You realize that Bayer data counts every column and row whether R G or B,
right? Half the pixels (21Mpix) are green and the other 2 quarters are R and
G.

So if you're going down to FHD (2kx1k) from 42Mpix (8kx5k) you have already
lost massive ammounts of resolution (and noise). Bayer FHD would be SPR (sup-
pixel rendered) and even lower resolution (1/3 RGB e.g. 1080 lines of 1920
RG/BG alternating columns) than most JPEG FHD (natural scene) not suitable for
video compression much less Raw. That would be silly.

If you don't down-sample the data somehow you can't even get it off the CIS
which are limited to ~2-5Gb/sec. Since most reasonable image sizes are large
enough you can see color at full resolution we typically use RGB at FHD,
compressed or not. Alternately, you can go to 4:4:4 to 4:2:2 or even 4:1:1 in
Yuv (YCbCr), but that's not Raw or anything like it.

------
walrus01
quick note: the 24-105 full frame E mount lens is $1300.

~~~
lowmagnet
That's a G (master) lens with OSS. The equivalent would be the 24-105 f/4L IS,
which is $200 less.

~~~
imjk
I believe the OP is correct: [https://www.amazon.com/Sony-Frame-24-105mm-
Standard-Zoom-Cam...](https://www.amazon.com/Sony-Frame-24-105mm-Standard-
Zoom-Camera/dp/B076V9P58R)

That is not a G Master lens. The G Master lenses are quite a bit more
expensive. I don't believe Sony even makes a 24-105 G Master:
[https://www.sony.com/electronics/g-master-
lenses](https://www.sony.com/electronics/g-master-lenses)

Either way, the quality of all Sony native E-mount lenses are amazing.

------
saiya-jin
Bodies are uber cool (and that comes from a guy shooting stars and nature with
Nikon D750 every weekend), but Sony lenses portfolio is pathetically small at
this moment. You know, the other half of the whole quality equation camera.

Where is cheap all-around high quality 24-120? Cheap and yet superbly sharp
20mm 1.8 or better? Yes, you can find some, but cheap ain't part of
description.

Size and weight isn't everything (otherwise everybody would be shooting with
cell phones or gopro-likes). I don't mind my 2.5kg setup when backpacking for
weeks, I don't mind it when hiking/ski touring. I know what I get in return.
For climbing/skiing/paraglide gopro is anyway much much better.

Also, you can't cheat physics and have big sensor complemented by lightweight
tiny lens and expect good result. Now if Nikon would come up with these
electronics in in their FF D line, I would take it even if they would weight
the same.

~~~
ipsum2
> Also, you can't cheat physics and have big sensor complemented by
> lightweight tiny lens and expect good result.

Noob here, how does it work with traditional 35mm film cameras, or the Leica
digital full frame bodies that have small lenses then?

~~~
matwood
Fixed focal length lenses are also easier to make. My Nikon 35mm is
inexpensive, light, and takes great pictures. The downside is I have to zoom
with my feet.

------
jimmies
I like how the article talks about the price and the specs but has no real
shots. Maybe price and specs are what makes it appealing to people but not
shots? ;-) Crazy high price, full frame, interchangeable lenses, BIONZ,
megapixel, yada yada, no sample shots.

Although cameras with interchangeable lenses are not obsolete yet, I think
innovations through software has been so phenomenal. The economy of scale has
never worked so well. In many cases, the iPhone/Pixel with that tiny cheap
camera sensors could do a good of a job as the bulky lenses and sensors of the
$2k one. It's so ridiculous to me that cool stuff such as the bokeh effect or
different lighting conditions or green screen effects can be
computed/simulated to a believable degree in software. It still absolutely
boggles my mind that my pixel in 2016 blew my Sony 2012 mirrorless camera away
in terms of performance when shooting at nights (and in daylight when compared
to using the kit lens).

I think if this trend continues, it's not long before interchangeable lenses
cameras become in the same bin as tube amps, hi-def lossless mp3 players,
handmade watches, film cameras, and nice turntables. These niches appealing to
a very few and demand a crazy price (and maybe they have real merits), but you
know that ship has sailed.

~~~
meowzero
I'm not sure about that. Smart phones still can't match APSC sized sensors in
low light (and probably not even M43 either). They also can't change lenses if
you need a different perspective. Also, for studio work, they need a way to
trigger the lights. Right now, it's using hotshoe trigger. You also need a way
to save to SD cards, not just to the internal HD, and a way to import the raws
to a computer. And no, snapseed isn't usable for a professional that shoots
1000's of photos per session. If you add all that up, it basically becomes a
bulky, mirrorless camera.

~~~
packetslave
While I agree with everything you said, there are companies like Moment that
are doing some very interesting things with add-on lenses for smartphones.
I've been having a LOT of fun with their macro and wide-rectilinear lenses on
my iPhone X. Their 60mm tele is nice too when you add it to the iPhone's tele
lens, giving you 4x optical zoom. It won't replace my 5Dmark4 any time soon,
but you can get some _really_ nice photos.

