NatureScapes.net Forums

Here it is: https://www.dpreview.com/news/342699928 ... ttery-life

I personally am glad to see the resolution stay, hopefully means a leap in Image Quality (they "report" 15-stops of DR). Bigger battery, yay. Faster AF, yay. Touch screen, yay. Dual card slots, yay. 10fps, yay. Joystick, yay. (some of these were reported on Tony Northrup's channel)

Also seems the 400mm prime will be f2.8 E.J. and available for the games next year https://www.dpreview.com/news/993203527 ... aster-lens

Also a new walkaround lens, which was kind of missing from the FE-mount: https://www.dpreview.com/news/022170226 ... g-oss-lens

15 stops of DR is physically impossible with just 14 bit recording, it's marketing mumbo jumbo.  The battery and focus point selection joystick, as well as dual cards and doubling of the frame rate are the big improvements IMHO.  Also the 170 megapixel pixel shift mode for static subjects is a big new feature.

Yes, I read the 15-stops with some cynicism but the the joystick alone makes the camera way more user friendly. Not sure how useful pixel shift will be, anything moving will mean it shall not work, so any kind of wind in a landscape scene will scupper it.

Look forward to the pricing of the 400mm

About $12K would be my guess

E.J. Peiker wrote:About $12K would be my guess

At least. It will be G Master after all

Currently here in Europe the 100-400 is at least 35% more than the Canon, which based on that means the 400 will be around €13 000.... (and that will be a minimum I guess). Will make justifying the switch very difficult for anybody pro or not pro.

One omission that I was looking for in the new release was "Focus Stacking". This can't be that hard to include I would think. Is this something that is up-gradable in firmware?

signgrap wrote:One omission that I was looking for in the new release was "Focus Stacking". This can't be that hard to include I would think. Is this something that is up-gradable in firmware?

Agreed, yes it's absolutely doable in FW but in general the problem manufacturers have with bringing something like this via a FW update is what do you get rid of.  There is very little space left over in the FW flash on the camera for stuff other than bug fixes unless the manufacturer upfront plans on doing some major feature set updates.  The only two manufacturers that I know of that consciously do that are Fujifilm and Phase One.  So it's likely that if they can do it in FW, you might have to give up smething else.  On the older models they have some reserved on board flash for PlayMemories aps - perhaps they left that additional memory in the camera even though PlayMemories appears to be a thing of the past with this camera (and the a9).

Comparison table between a7R Mk II and the new a7R Mk III:

E.J. Peiker wrote:

... The only two manufacturers that I know of that consciously do that are Fujifilm and Phase One.  So it's likely that if they can do it in FW,...

Olympus added focus bracketing and stacking to its EM-5 Mk II (might be EM 1 also) through firmware upgrade.

So E.J. do you feel that the improvements in the a7R III are worth shelling out $3,200 for a new camera while you already have a camera with the same sensor, minus some nice upgrades of the new camera?

signgrap wrote:So E.J. do you feel that the improvements in the a7R III are worth shelling out $3,200 for a new camera while you already have a camera with the same sensor, minus some nice upgrades of the new camera?

Until I can actually test one myself, I would say maybe.  If you have found the AF and frame rate limiting and are annoyed by the way you select focus points, and the battery life then yes.  If on the other hand, you are fine with the a7R2, you aren't going to get a material increase in image quality unless you shoot still life photos where you can use pixel shift.

E.J. your response reflects my thinking at this point. The one area where I see improvements that would help me is in taking indoor photos under poor light; where acquiring focus can be a real problem i.e. people/expressions are continually changing and by the time the camera wants to fire the moment has pasted. I do a lot of volunteer jobs of banquets for various non-profits and getting good timing is hard enough but when the light is low it becomes very difficult at times despite having fast primes. So this area has me looking but I'm waiting to see what the real world results show - waiting to hear your analysis.

A little digging into the 15 stop dynamic range claim reveals that the way they come up with that is only when you use the pixel shift mode which means instead of recording 14 bits of information for each area in an image that is covered by one pixel - you are recording 56 bits since you are recording an R, a B, and 2 G values each at 14 bits. So in that scenario, yes 15 stops is possible. They sure weren't very clear about that and I feel the 15 bit dynamic range spec should have an asterisk with an explanation. As it stands it is very misleading marketing.

In low light shooting, a slow shutter speed will slow down the fps. You may get only 5 fps even if your camera can do 10 fps in good daylight outdoor shooting,

I'm hoping the AF improvements will improve the "AF hunting" and slower AF than my Canon. I was recently in Costa Rica and tried to use my a7rII hand held with the Sony 90mm macro lens and off camera flash for frogs that were slowly moving up plants and sticks and would miss about 25% of the shots due to the AF not locking in. Tried a variety of the various AF settings but still found it tricky. Granted my 1Dx is designed for faster AF action, but I sure would like to see the new a7 be an improvement in that area. So much easier to hand hold for that kind of work than the big ole 1Dx.

Erik, a macro lens will always be slow to focus because of the long focus travel of a macro lens to get to 1:1.

mortsgah wrote:I'm hoping the AF improvements will improve the "AF hunting" and slower AF than my Canon. I was recently in Costa Rica and tried to use my a7rII hand held with the Sony 90mm macro lens and off camera flash for frogs that were slowly moving up plants and sticks and would miss about 25% of the shots due to the AF not locking in. Tried a variety of the various AF settings but still found it tricky. Granted my 1Dx is designed for faster AF action, but I sure would like to see the new a7 be an improvement in that area. So much easier to hand hold for that kind of work than the big ole 1Dx.

You have a combination of a lens not designed for tracking with a camera not designed for tracking there.  The a9 would do much better, probably similar to your Canon but still, macro lenses are simply not designed to do that.   

E.J., where the figures in your comparison come from? Are they Sony figures or an objective third party?

What I like with Sony is that when the A7rII came out we asked for a touch screen and a joystick to help with AF selection. We asked for more battery life. We need two card slots... and these things happen. A7RIII is a very appealing camera for more than just landscapes.

TNeilyb wrote:What I like with Sony is that when the A7rII came out we asked for a touch screen and a joystick to help with AF selection. We asked for more battery life. We need two card slots... and these things happen. A7RIII is a very appealing camera for more than just landscapes.

Didn't get lossless compression of 14-bit RAW files, they obviously weren't listening to that. So it shoots 10fps but only in 12-bit.