Sony Alpha 7S III
Predominantly a video camera, this is Sony’s ultimate hybrid camera for home and semiprofessional content creators
The Alpha 7S series is Sony’s ‘sensitivity’ variant of the Alpha series Full Frame mirrorless interchangeable lens cameras. These are essentially designed for professional video production and hence have to be considered as a video camera that can also capture amazing stills, though at a lower resolution than most still cameras.
Design & Build Quality
The Alpha 7S III is built solid with a magnesium alloy chassis and dust and moisture resistant construction. The body has a matte inish similar to all Alpha-series cameras. The camera is well constructed as any lagship interchangeable lens camera in the market.
Key Features
The 12.1-megapixel Sony Alpha 7S
III uses a 35 mm Full Frame (35.6 × 23.8 mm) Exmor R CMOS sensor and a BIONZ XR image processing engine. The camera features in-body 5-axis Sensor-Shift image stabilisation.
The camera accepts Sony E-mount lenses and uses Fast Hybrid AF, which combines phase-detection and contrastdetection systems. The camera offers a total of 759 phase detection AF points. With APS-C lenses, it offers 285 phase detection and 425 contrast-detection AF points. The AF system is sensitive from EV-6 to EV20 at ISO 100 equivalent. The camera offers focus modes such as AF-A (Automatic AF), AF-S (Single-shot AF), AF-C (Continuous AF), DMF (Direct Manual Focus) and Manual Focus. Focus area options are Wide, Zone, Centre,
Flexible Spot, Expanded Flexible Spot and Tracking. The A7S III offers Sony’s acclaimed Eye AF. The system can detect both human and animal eyes in still mode. Human eye AF allows you to select right or left eye. In movie mode, it can detect human eyes only, once again allowing you to choose between right and left eye. The camera lets you control AF tracking sensitivity, AF subject shift sensitivity and AF transition speed while also allowing you to switch between vertical and horizontal AF area orientations.
The Alpha 7S III uses a 1200-zone evaluative metering, which ef iciently works at light levels from EV -3 to EV 20 at ISO 100 equivalent with an f/2 lens. Metering modes available are Multi-segment, Centre-weighted, Spot, Spot Standard/Large, Entire Screen Average and Highlight. Exposure can be compensated up to +/- 5.0 EV at 1/3 or 1/2 EV steps. Exposure bracketing is available for 3, 5 or 9 frames in continuous and single modes. The camera provides shooting modes such as Auto (iAuto), Program AE (P),
Aperture priority (A), Shutter-speed priority (S), Manual (M) and Movie. Equivalent sensitivity ranges from ISO 80 to 102,400, which is expandable from ISO 40 to ISO 409,600. White Balance options available are Auto, Daylight, Shade, Cloudy, Incandescent, Fluorescent, Flash, Underwater, Colour Temperature (2500 to 9900K), Colour ilter and Custom.
The Alpha 7S III uses an electronically controlled, vertical-traverse, focal-plane shutter along with an electronic shutter based on sensor readout time. Electronic front curtain and silent shooting are available. Shutter speeds range from 30 to 1/8000 sec and , Bulb in still mode, while movie mode offers shutter speeds of 1/4 to 1/8000 sec manually and up to 1/60 in Auto mode. It offers up to 1/30 sec shutter speed in Auto slow shutter mode. The camera features Anti-Flicker shoot. Flash synchronises with shutter at 1/250 seconds or lower speeds.
The Alpha 7S III does not feature a builtin lash but can accepts an external lash compatible with Sony Alpha system via the multi-interface shoe. Flash exposure can be compensated up to +/- 3.0 EV. Flash modes available are Off, Auto lash, Fill- lash, Slow Sync., Rear Sync., Red-eye reduction (on/off selectable), Wireless and Hi-speed sync.
Still images are captured at maximum dimensions of 4240 x 2832 pixels in Raw (14 bit available), JPEG or HEIF formats. Raw can be compressed or uncompressed. JPEG and HEIF images can be captured at Extra ine, Fine or Standard compressions. Raw + JPEG and Raw + HEIF options are available. Drive modes available are Single Shooting, Continuous shooting (Hi+/Hi/Mid/
Lo selectable), Self-timer, Self-timer Continuous, Bracket: Single, Continuous, White Balance bracket and DRO bracket. In continuous mode, the camera can shoot up to 10 frames per second in Hi+ and 8 fps in Hi mode. Self-timer provides 10s, 5s and 2s delay options.
Videos can be recorded in XAVC S or XAVC HS format at up to 3840 x 2160 (10 bit, PAL) 100p or 50p quality. Slow and quick motion provide 1 fps, 2 fps, 3 fps, 6 fps, 12 fps, 25 fps, 50 fps, 100 fps and 200 fps options in PAL mode. Picture pro iles provide options of Black level, Gamma, Black Gamma, Knee, Colour Mode, Saturation, Colour Phase, Colour Depth, Detail, Copy and Reset. Gamma options are Movie, Still, Cine1-4, ITU709, ITU709 [800%], S-Log2, S-Log3, HLG and HLG1-3. The camera is compatible with Rec. ITU-R BT.2100 standard (BT.2020 colour gamut). Dynamic Range
Optimiser can be switched off or set to either Auto or Level 1 to 5.
The Sony Alpha 7S III uses a 0.64-inch, 94,37,184-dot electronic view inder. You can set the inder frame rate to Std: 50fps or HI: 100fps. The main display is a 3.0-inch, 14,40,000-dot fully articulated TFT touch panel. The camera has dual memory card slots that are identical to each other. Both the slots accept an SD/SDHC/SDXC (UHS-I/II-compliant) or a CFexpress Type-A memory card. The device offers four ways to con igure the card slots—simultaneous recording, sort, auto switch media and copy. The camera interface provides wired connections such as mass-storage, MTP, Multi/Micro USB Terminal, Type-C terminal, Multiinterface shoe, Mic terminal (3.5 mm jack) and Headphone terminal (3.5 mm jack) along with Bluetooth (2.4 GHz) and dual band Wi-Fi for wireless connection. The camera has a built-in stereo microphone and a monaural speaker.
The Alpha 7S III is powered by one NP-FZ100 rechargeable battery pack. It offers USB power supply. The camera measures 128.9 x 96.9 x 80.8 mm and weighs 699 g with battery and memory card.
Ergonomics
The Alpha 7S III is a large and thick camera, yet quite comfortable to hold, thanks to the deep and ergonomic grip with a textured inish. The buttons and dials are perfectly spaced for ease of access and the dials are textured or knurled to enhance the grip. The damping is also just about perfect for comfortable operation. The large and bright view inder with customisable
rates lets you choose between high performance and battery conservation.
The Alpha 7S III uses a new menu structure with colour coding for various tabs. These may give a slightly uneasy feeling to most purists out there, but only till you get used to it. The menu is exhaustive, especially with all those movie customisation options, but the colour coding makes it easier for you to navigate through it. The camera incorporates 15 customisable buttons, and you can assign any of the 137 frequently used functions to these.
Performance
The Alpha 7S III is predominantly a video camera and hence the video features assume prominence over still. Let me confess that I am not a video expert. However, I tried to evaluate the camera using the limited video pro iciency that I have. I used DaVinci Resolve 17 to check the footages. We tested the videos at the highest quality setting available for PAL system. The Alpha 7S III was quite fast to focus and tracking performed lawlessly with eye autofocus. The device offers a very wide range of Log formats, which gives much lexibility for those professionals who like to colour grade their footages using LUTs and gamma values.
When it comes to still images, the camera does not provide much resolution, but still provides a credible still image capability. Images were sharp out of the box. Auto White Balance performed very well, reproducing colours true to the original. We tested the images on a Full HD monitor with 92ppi resolution. At 25 percent of the screen size, the images were free of noise up to ISO 25,600. We could observe slight noise at ISO 102,400, but still perfectly usable. At 50 percent enlargement, ISO 102,400 showed a little more noise, but still remained usable. The details were suppressed from ISO 12,800 onwards. At 100 percent view, the images remained completely noise-free up to ISO 6,400 and were absolutely usable up to ISO 25,600.
Value for Money
The Sony Alpha 7S III body retails at an MRP of Rs. 334,990. This is certainly on the higher side, though the camera is a hybrid still and video model.