Sony A7S III Photo & Video Review
One camera that has received much praise for videography and cinematography is the Sony A7S III. I would like to review this camera in terms of its videography potential, as well as its surprising ability as a street photography camera, which was not its intended use case.
To start off, like many people, I bought the camera purely as a cinematography tool. It had all the features expected of a camera at the time of its release, although it was very expensive, even now on the used market. Yes, it had a relatively low megapixel sensor at 12 megapixels, but it could shoot 4K up to 120 FPS in full frame at full 10-bit, making it one of the most capable cameras in its class, and even in some cinema line cameras. This same sensor technology has been repurposed in the Sony FX3, FX6, and the Sony ZV-1.
For me, as a videography camera, it complemented my Sony A7C. My Sony A7C had originally been my primary camera, and this meant that it became my secondary camera with the A7S III replacing it as my primary camera. I primarily use the A7S III for freelance work, including corporate shoots, weddings, and tech events. It also found its way into shooting some YouTube videos when I had it available and wasn't just using my A7C.
It was easy to adapt to the high performance ceiling of the A7S III. The ability to shoot 4K up to 50p, or 60p, in full frame with no crop was initially amazing and quickly became expected. Occasionally needing to go up to 100 FPS, or 120 FPS in NTSC territory, meant that I had the best package possible in a camera of this size and weight. The Sony A7S III was the first camera I owned that enabled me to shoot 10-bit while also having a computer capable of editing 10-bit color. Playing around with S-Log3 in 10-bit and grading this footage in DaVinci Resolve was a lot of fun.
However, I quickly returned to shooting in S-Cinetone indoors, as I found it provided a more naturalistic color profile that I preferred over the color profiles I could create with S-Log3 in 10-bit. In terms of autofocus, sound inputs, and manually adjusting audio levels, it is comparable to the Sony A7C. There isn't much that stands out compared to the A7C, which is expected since they were released around the same time. Likewise, the in-body image stabilization, apart from when using electronic active mode, had comparable stabilization to the A7C in my experience, having used both extensively side by side.
One feature I took for granted for a while was that this was my first full-frame camera with two SD card slots. However, to get the most out of this camera's video features, you need much faster SD cards with higher writing speeds to record your information. You may have heard about the capabilities of the Sony A7S III as a cinematic beast for a relatively small amount of money and in a compact size.
Now, I would like to discuss what stood out to me about the A7S III, particularly its ability as a photography camera. Yes, 12 megapixels may seem low compared to the current state of photography cameras, which can have 33, 42, or even 60 megapixels, with some medium format cameras reaching 100 megapixels. Thus, 12 megapixels may feel almost unusable. However, 12 megapixels was quite normal not even 10 or 20 years ago, and when you shoot with some 12-megapixel or 16-megapixel cameras, you quickly realize how little resolution you need for photography. For me, the A7S III exemplified this. I was able to get as much as I wanted from the images. While I couldn't crop too much to obtain a usable image, there were still some nice shots.
One of the main reasons I love the A7S III for photography is the ability to close the back of the camera and shoot through the EVF. This camera has the same high-resolution EVF as the Sony A1, which was Sony's flagship at the time. Having this 9.7K EVF at my fingertips while shooting street photography made this camera a joy to use compared to many photography-centric cameras. This feature stood out to me during the last year I owned it, and I believe it should be more highly invested in for any new cameras, whether from Sony, Canon, Fujifilm, Nikon, or other brands.
If you are considering the Sony A7S III primarily as a hybrid camera and not just a video camera, and you are deciding between the A7S III and the Sony A7 IV, the video features of the A7S III should outweigh the photography features of the A7 IV. Twelve megapixels is more than enough for all social media. If you are publishing your own images online or shooting for clients, unless they specifically require high-resolution printing, the A7S III will deliver everything you need.
It is important to remember that people are accustomed to the standard on iPhones, which has been 12 megapixels on the main camera. People post those images without questioning the resolution. When you add the professional look of high-quality lenses to the Sony A7S III with that expected resolution, it will still stand out compared to a smartphone photo. This is something worth considering. Think about how you compose and shoot images with different lenses compared to resolution. If you compose an image with a nice lens in an interesting way on the A7S III at 12 megapixels, compared to shooting on a high-resolution camera with a poor lens and bad framing and lighting, people will likely prefer the lower resolution image.
One drawback I want to discuss regarding the A7S III, compared to some of Sony's other cameras, is the inability to shoot in crop, Super 35 mode in 4K. This is an interesting issue. I have become accustomed to this feature on the Sony A7C, and I currently use it on the A7C II. The A7C allows cropping in 4K to Super 35 mode, as well as clear image zoom. The Sony A7S III still has clear image zoom, which allows you to zoom in by up to 1.5 times in 4K with seemingly no loss in video quality. However, the ability to switch to Super 35 mode is not available on the A7S III, and I would assume the FX3 and ZV-1 as well.
The reason for this limitation is that there isn't enough resolution on the 12-megapixel sensor to provide a 4K image when cropping in at 1.5 times. 4K is 8 megapixels, so theoretically, you would need at least 16 megapixels to crop that much further. For example, the A7C has 24 megapixels, which enables this feature. The A7C II has 33 megapixels, so there is no problem there. But with the 12 megapixels of the A7S III, we are unable to do this. However, if you are shooting in 1080p HD, you can still crop in by Super 35 by 1.5 times, and clear image zoom provides an additional 2 times of zoom on HD because the camera can render a usable 1080p image cropped in further than it can with a 4K image.
I hope you have enjoyed this retrospective review of the Sony A7S III. It is a camera I truly enjoyed using, and I didn't sell it because I disliked it. I found myself swapping between cameras too often and wanted to downsize my kit. I sold the two cameras I owned at the time, including the A7S III, and opted for the A7C II instead. I did this to get the best of both worlds: the cropping ability of the A7S III and the compact size of the A7C line, along with the updated color science of the S-Cinetone from the A7S III and the 10-bit color. The slight improvement in image resolution didn't bother me much.
Still, I believe the A7S III is one of the best mirrorless cameras you can buy for video, if not the best. There are rumors that Sony will not continue the A7S line, which would be disappointing to me and many others. It seems they want to replace it with the ZV line and the FX line. It feels like they currently have three different lines of cameras doing very similar things. However, the A7 alpha line is my favorite, so I hope we see an A7S IV. The A7S III might have been the pinnacle of what that line could achieve.
What we will see next in the next wave of improvements on Sony mirrorless cameras is likely to be very good, as we haven't seen significant changes in the last four years. The A7S III was ahead of its time, and it still holds its own today. I will be back with many more camera reviews on this blog. Of course, check out my YouTube channel under my name, George Holden. If you wish to support this blog and my independent writing, do check out the store. You can pick up my photography presets, which include three different film simulation preset packs that are among the best available, as well as camera guides, such as my Sony RX1 Street Photography camera guide.
