Sony a7 III discussion

[sandro 93]

20 hours ago, TheRenaissanceMan said:

Thinner dies in the OLPF I'm guessing. Better s/n, less precise color discrimination. The A7III also does a lot of NR, so look at detail rendering between the two as well.

seems like the details is there, that's the thing

[Walter H 17]

On 11/28/2018 at 3:37 AM, sandro said:

I saw a comparison between a73 and z6 and noticed the sony wins hands down in low light performance. I wonder what sony does differently considering they're both full frame and have the same MP.

Can you link to this? Curious.

[thebrothersthre3 308]

On 12/30/2018 at 7:50 AM, Walter H said:

Can you link to this? Curious.

Looking at the image comparison tool on DPreview RAW stills look exactly the same. With jpegs the Nikon Noise Reduction make the image less detailed, less noisy too. The Sony has more grain but its much more detailed and looks quite a bit better. Not sure how video differs from stills. 

[sandro 93]

On 12/30/2018 at 1:50 PM, Walter H said:

Can you link to this? Curious.

I think it was this. Sorry it was the z7 

 

[Dave Del Real 21]

Okay, so not to derail the thread, but on my A7III when downsampling in post from 4K to 1080p, the image looks terrible. Soft and aliasing. When I had the GH4 the downsampling was great. It retained details very well.

I've tried SLog2 and HLG3 but right now using Cine4 - getting the same soft result for all profiles (when downsampling in post). I do have Detail set to -6 but I think that shouldn't matter. 

What gives? Am I doing something wrong?

Oh, and I've tried in FCPX, Premiere Pro, and Resolve. Premiere Pro seemed to give the best results out of the three but I had to use Unsharp Make at 50 and Sharpen at 20. Just doesn't seem right. Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

 

EDIT:
The 4K is amazing. I mostly shoot and deliver in 4K but there are times I want to shoot 120FPS. I'm a bigger fan of downscaling than upscaling so I thought that shooting 4K and downsampling to 1080 to match the 1080 120FPS would be the route to go. I'm thinking now that maybe I should just try to get away with shooting slo mo as 4K 30 with 120 Shutter and slow in post as much as possible without making the footage choppy... if only it had 4K 60...

 

 

[Dave Del Real 21]

Update:

So retried in Resolve. I noticed my settings were incorrect on the first try, so I adjusted my input and output scaling and set zoom to .500 and bingo, it worked much better. The downsampling algorithm must be really good in Resolve. FCPX and Premiere Pro still look wonky (must be a Quicktime thing) but if it works in Resolve, I'm okay - and yes, I used Spatial Conform to "None" and set to 50% scale in FCPX and in Premiere Pro I right clicked the clip in the timeline and selected "Set To Frame Size." Again, same lame results in those two NLE's. Davinci Resolve it is then.

[Laurier 56]

Testing the A7iii in anamorphic setup in exterior condition, some quick run and gun test shoots but I m very happy with the result .

A7iii ( full frame mode ) + Ninja V + Cinelux ES + Rectilux HCDNA + Russian Primes.

 

 

[Mark Romero 2 198]

On 1/7/2019 at 6:53 AM, Laurier said:

Testing the A7iii in anamorphic setup in exterior condition, some quick run and gun test shoots but I m very happy with the result .

A7iii ( full frame mode ) + Ninja V + Cinelux ES + Rectilux HCDNA + Russian Primes.

 

 

I like this.

Skin tones remind me of my D750.

[Dave Del Real 21]

On 1/7/2019 at 7:53 AM, Laurier said:

Testing the A7iii in anamorphic setup in exterior condition, some quick run and gun test shoots but I m very happy with the result .

A7iii ( full frame mode ) + Ninja V + Cinelux ES + Rectilux HCDNA + Russian Primes.

 

 

 

Was this shot in SLog2?

[Laurier 56]

13 hours ago, Dave Del Real said:

 

Was this shot in SLog2?

No It was HLG3,

I find Slog2 too much of pain to use ( tho the Aces implementation is great ) , and in interior shoots I tend to get colored noise on white walls .

Also my 95mm variable nd is from Schneider ( you don t have a lot of options at that size ) and they don t allow a massive light reduction ( In order to maintain high IQ apparently), so a base Iso of 800 is too high in exterior with this setup.

[Inazuma 897]

hey guys, here is a behind-the-scenes type music video I made earlier last year for my friend's band. I decided to shoot it with a mix of a Hi8 cassette camcorder and the Sony A7III with a mixture of profile settings 

Lenses

Sony 50mm f1.8, Sigma 17-35mm f2.8-4, Tamron 28-75mm f2.8

I hoped to do more with this band but they're quite on-off with different band members coming and going

[webrunner5 1,861]

Interesting concept. I think you pulled it off very well. Proof that you don't need an expensive as heck camera to get the job done. I like it. 😀

[wolf33d 549]

Sony just announced a major firmware update with continuous Eye AF tracking, animal Eye AF and finally.... intervalometer!!

[Trek of Joy 441]

Shot a MOS spot in Toronto for VISIT FLORIDA with the a73 and a6300. Unfortunately I couldn't edit the piece as I've been traveling for other shoots. The pink scarf is a little hot in the YT upload for some reason. Lenses were the 16-35/4 and the Tamron 28-75, all handheld or on a monopod. All shots used the a73's brilliant AF/face detection and it only drifted out of focus once, then it smoothly locked on the talent again. We shot all day in the cold - about 15f to 25f - over the course of two days gathering over two hours of interview footage. The camera was on my monopod, slung over my shoulder the entire time we walked around. I never put it in the bag as I needed to be ready to shoot the moment someone agreed to talk to us. I changed the battery once. After walking the streets for about 6 hours and gathering over 90min of footage it was down to 9%. The second day I did everything on one battery. Love the Zed battery and the a73. Almost everything is the a73, there are a couple cutaways that were shot with the a6300. I'll post some gear porn shots of the camera with a smallrig cage and my wireless setup soon.

Cheers

Chris

Edit: Everything was shot 4k 24p, not sure of the PP, it may have been EOSHD Pro Color.

 

[Trek of Joy 441]

A few BTS shots. I used to live in Alaska, but walking around in the cold/wind all day while trying to operate a camera was tougher than I remembered. Living in a sub-tropical zone and spending a lot of time chasing sun while traveling around the world has left me with no tolerance for the cold.

Chris

[heart0less 83]

Great video!

Love the BTS shots, it's always nice to see how other work.

[Trek of Joy 441]

15 minutes ago, heart0less said:

Great video!

Love the BTS shots, it's always nice to see how other work.

Thanks, its a pretty simple setup, just a smallrig cage and wood grip with a sennheiser wireless on top - sometimes on a monopod, sometimes handheld. Everything else was in my backpack.

After shooting this, there are a few things I would do different, but the a73 was exceptional and the Sennheiser G3 produced some great sound despite some really noisy streets - super impressed with their handheld mic. There may be another shoot like this coming up in a different cold city so I may have another chance to fix some of the mistakes of this shoot. But the powers that be are happy so I'd call it a success.

Chris

[RRM Group 0]

Hey guys, I currently have a FS7II, A7RIII and A7SII, but am looking to upgrade the A7SII to an A7III. The reasons are reliable autofocus, the same battery type as my A7RIII, 12 more megapixels when using it as a second photo cam to my A7RIII when doing photoshoots and the ability to shoot 4K in the APS-C crop mode. The joystick, touchscreen, My Menu, etc., are all things I love about my A7RIII that I'd also love to have in this cam as well.

There are a few things that make me nervous about upgrading though. My main concern is the HD quality. Since I use 60p fairly often for slow motion on certain projects (like filming wildlife), and since I use 120p every now and then, I've been spoiled with the HD quality of the A7SII. I've read online that the A7III's HD is pretty soft. I'm curious to know if any of you have noticed the softness, or if it's really not that bad. I had an A6500 for a while and the HD quality was horrible compared to my A7SII, so I sold it. I'm hoping that the A7III isn't that bad.

My next concern is the motion cadence issue that was talked about several times in this thread. Several people mentioned that the motion cadence in this camera isn't the best, so I'm wondering today if more people have noticed this or if it's been improved somehow though firmware updates. In addition to the motion cadence, I've read up on how the full frame 24p 4K is somewhat stretched. Has that bothered any of you when using this camera?

My last concern is the EVF. I know it's not as good as the one in my A7RIII, but is it at least as good as the one in my A7SII? I want to make sure it's not a hinderance when shooting.

I appreciate any help I receive on this matter. I really like my A7SII and have had it for three years now, but the lack of usable autofocus, poor battery life, missing APS-C 4K and lower megapixel count are starting to effect my every day shooting. I don't want to step up to the A7III to fix these problems, however, if it's going to negatively effect my video quality. If you're an A7SII shooter who's picked up an A7III, I'd love to hear your thoughts. Thanks!

[aldolega 272]

I've only shot with an A7SII once, but HD resolution is important to me too, and I was also initially skeptical of the A7III, so hopefully I can help.

My benchmark for good HD quality was my GH4, which looked pretty great IMO in both its 200mbps All-I and 100mbps IPB modes. I film stuff with lots of camera & subject motion and detail, so I would use the All-I mode if I was moving the camera a lot, or the IPB if it was a simpler pan or tilt (IPB is sharper at lower motion levels but degrades as motion increases; All-I is less sharp than IPB's max, but stays consistent despite motion).

After the GH4 I went to the G85, and the lower 28mbps HD was definitely softer than the GH4's HD, unless it was an almost static shot. One of my only disappointments with that camera though- price, IBIS, and the slight color and ISO improvements over the GH4 outweighed the HD quality dip for me.

I was all set to go to the GH5, which by all accounts has pretty stunning HD resolution, when the A7III was announced, at 50mbps in 1080p60, and 100mbps in 1080p120. Bitrate isn't really an absolute measuring tool though: there are plenty of cams that can pack tons of detail into even less, and Sony says its encoding is two-pass vs. everyone else doing one pass, so it seemed totally possible that it could be fine. And bitrate is only part of the equation anyways: how the cameras are reading the sensor in HD mode is the real key here.

I wanted FF for photos, and AF for video, and I had been tolerating the G85's HD pretty well, so I went for it, and I'm mostly happy. Its HD is better than the G85 to my eye, but not quite up to the GH4, although the 96p was garbage on the GH4 so having 120 that's at least decent (and not cropped) kinda helps balance things out I guess. I haven't shot with an a6300/6500 but from what I've seen online, their HD is pretty awful, and the A7III HD is definitely better.

These two videos from Max Yuryev helped put my mind mostly at ease, hopefully they will play at the relevant bits:

So, a little worse than the A7SII, but better than all the other Sonys, especially the a6500. Personally the AF and better rolling shutter alone outweigh that small difference with the A7SII, not to mention all the other improvements, but it's still kind of a personal call to make.

Motion cadence, I find it fine, but I shoot mostly at a (gasp!) 30p base, not 24p, so I am probably not the best judge of this.

The 24p stretch thing was like 1% I think? Not even noticeable unless you're A/B'ing identical shots back and forth. And I believe one of the firmware updates has fixed it anyways?

Oh, and here's a handy tool over at DPReview, for comparing video res between cameras. Doesn't tell you how it performs with motion, of course, but it's something.

https://www.dpreview.com/reviews/image-comparison/fullscreen?attr29_0=sony_a7iii&attr29_1=sony_a7sii&attr29_2=sony_a6500&attr29_3=sony_a7riii&attr72_0=1080&attr72_1=1080&attr72_2=1080&attr72_3=1080&normalization=full&widget=602&x=-0.48927038626609437&y=-0.17768028516588977

[liork 99]

The EVF is same or a little better (because of optics) in A7III.