A7r3 announcement tonight

[shadowblade]

https://www.sonyalpharumors.com/sr5-sony-will-announce-new-a7riii-today/

No indication regarding sensor performance or frame rate yet, but it will have dual slots.

Also a 400/2.8 is due to be announced at the same time.

[BernardLanguillier]

https://www.dpreview.com/news/3426999280/sony-a7r-iii-promises-faster-bursts-better-focusing-and-longer-battery-life

No increase of resolution contrary to the rumors spread by some here.

I hope we can now agree that there is going to be an a9r that will be more expensive and offer a higher resolution?

Cheers,
Bernard

[shadowblade]

https://www.dpreview.com/news/3426999280/sony-a7r-iii-promises-faster-bursts-better-focusing-and-longer-battery-life

No increase of resolution contrary to the rumors spread by some here.

Cheers,
Bernard

There'll be a high-resolution version. It just isn't clear what the name will be (and it never has been). The A9 could just as easily have been released as the A7s3 - after all, the A7r3 also has the dual slots, battery and AF system of the A9.

The A7r3 is, quite clearly, a direct competitor to the D850. Similar (slightly less) resolution, and similar (slightly faster) frame rate. No focus stacking, but it has pixel shift. It's no longer a resolution-focused, non-action camera, but a general-purpose, action-capable body which leaves room at one end for the speed-focused, low-resolution A9, and at the other end for a high-resolution, slow-shooting body.

It will live or die by its AF performance. The coverage is certainly good (68% coverage by area means PDAF points reach 82.5% of the way to the edge on average, which covers all the points you'd actually want to focus on) and accuracy is almost guaranteed, but the main question is speed and tracking ability.

If it focuses and tracks well (matching the D850, and in the same ballpark as the A9/1Dx/D5), it would be a great wildlife and field sports camera, particularly combined with upcoming superteles (maybe that's why the 400 f/2.8 was announced at the same time). If it doesn't, it'll just be another camera theoretically capable of a fast frame rate, but with no good way to use it.

A fast-focusing A7r3 would make a great companion to whatever high-resolution body Sony decides to release.

I'd be much more interested in a 500 f/4 or 200-400 f/4 than the 400 f/2.8, but, if Sony can design one and make it focus well (and 400 f/2.8 is a classic for field sports), then you can just as easily do it with the other two.

Where is Canon in all of this? Performance-wise, the 5D4 is a pygmy compared to the D850, and likely to this one too.

[Kevin Raber]

Photos and specs on the home page.  More coming.

[BernardLanguillier]

Where is Canon in all of this?

Who?

Cheers,
Bernard

[madlantern]

I wonder what the 15 stops of dynamic range actually translates into in real world usage? How about it compare to the D850 at ISO64 or the 33x44 medium formats, such as the GFX?

[shadowblade]

I wonder what the 15 stops of dynamic range actually translates into in real world usage? How about it compare to the D850 at ISO64 or the 33x44 medium formats, such as the GFX?

I think that's 15-16 stops on completely still subjects, due to the pixel shift mode. But that's not usually applicable, since most things aren't completely still. Even slight movement of leaves or ripples can introduce artifacts.

I'd prefer if pixel shift were implemented such that, instead of taking a full exposure at each position, it moved many times between the four positions, averaging out any subject movement as motion blur rather than as artifact. Or even as an option to move half a pixel in each direction, to quadruple the effective resolution and sensor area.

You can manually increase the dynamic range without using pixel shift anyway, by taking multiple exposures and averaging them. This reduces the shot noise component and increases the overall SNR. By doing so, you can reveal details in deep shadows that would ordinarily be hidden by the photon shot noise. Read noise remains the same, but is a relatively small component in Exmor sensors.

[Paul2660]

The new Pixel shift is interesting.  As a former Pentax K1 user I can appreciate the advantages.  I am curious if Sony allows hand held use of the pixel shift mode or if you need to stay on a tripod.

The other issue will be conversion support.  LR never got the K1 pixel shift good at all, they made one pass and that pass was terrible.  No motion in subject matter could be accommodated, where as Iridient Developer, Silkypix, and rawtherape all can handle slight motion and do a good job on the files, however I don't prefer any of their workflows.  C1, never attempted to support the pixel shift on the K1, (wonder if they will now make an attempt on the Sony since they have their separate version dedicated for Sony). 

The end results are very good for the K1, however Sony seems to be doing a different method as from reading the early reviews, they seem to be going for a larger output file, unlike Pentax.  This is more along the lines of how Olympus does their shifting.   Pentax pixel shift produced a very clean image, which also had more detail, needing less sharpening, but the output size was the same as a single image in actual resolution. 

It will be interesting to see the early reviews on this feature.

Paul Caldwell

[HywelPhillips]

Looking very good to me.

If the touch screen AF is half-way decent when shooting video that's already worth the price to me. Makes a huge difference for use on a hand-held gimbal.

I'd been holding out for a Canon dual-pixel AF in a small body with 4K, but looks like they're just plain not going to do that any time soon.

The 42 megapixel sensor in my A7RII is already pretty much at the sweet spot for me, so if they've upgraded all the readout and back end with what they've learned from the A9, it really sounds like the best all-rounder for my shooting scenarios.

Good work, Sony.

Canon- time to stop crippling your cameras. I have lots of Canon lenses but the only Canon body I now regularly use is a bottom-end consumer dSLR modded to remove the IR filter. The lenses see more use on my RED and Sony.

Hywel

[davidgp]

The new Pixel shift is interesting.  As a former Pentax K1 user I can appreciate the advantages.  I am curious if Sony allows hand held use of the pixel shift mode or if you need to stay on a tripod.

Not sure about the quality, but I read that it takes between half a second between pictures to reset the sensor for this mode (which is curious, since it is able of faster frame rate), so I will say it is more prone of movement thant the other implementation of Olympus or Pentax, although we will have to wait for independent tests.

Also, it requieres an external software to build the RAW file that it is going to be provided by Sony. So the workflow it is a more tedious if you want to use Lightroom, Capture ONE...

[hogloff]

The new Pixel shift is interesting.  As a former Pentax K1 user I can appreciate the advantages.  I am curious if Sony allows hand held use of the pixel shift mode or if you need to stay on a tripod.

The other issue will be conversion support.  LR never got the K1 pixel shift good at all, they made one pass and that pass was terrible.  No motion in subject matter could be accommodated, where as Iridient Developer, Silkypix, and rawtherape all can handle slight motion and do a good job on the files, however I don't prefer any of their workflows.  C1, never attempted to support the pixel shift on the K1, (wonder if they will now make an attempt on the Sony since they have their separate version dedicated for Sony). 

The end results are very good for the K1, however Sony seems to be doing a different method as from reading the early reviews, they seem to be going for a larger output file, unlike Pentax.  This is more along the lines of how Olympus does their shifting.   Pentax pixel shift produced a very clean image, which also had more detail, needing less sharpening, but the output size was the same as a single image in actual resolution. 

It will be interesting to see the early reviews on this feature.

Paul Caldwell

Makes sense that Sony's pixel shift matches what Olympus is doing since Sony owns a chunk of Olympus.

[Paulo Bizarro]

Who?

Cheers,
Bernard

They have been busy introducing great lenses, lately some unique TSE ones. As is tradition for them, they take more time to respond. But respond they will, with the Tokyo Olympics around the corner in 2020. Their pro camera release cycle is more on the order of 5 years, whereas Sony needs to be more agressive to capture the market.

No doubt they are being agressive, and closing the gap in lenses. No more excuses of "they don't have sports lenses".

[davidgp]

Hi,

I think it is a good upgrade of the A7r II, it keeps its strong points, very good 42 megapixels sensor, and tackles all the "problems" A7r II, basically AF speed, speed in general, bettery, double cards... etc... (don't worry, someone will find something to complain...). Of course without reaching the level of framerate of more expensive A9...

If the higher megapixel mosnters happens, I suppose it will be next year as an A9r.

I'm not waiting for that... now my time is to watch second forum markets for a nice A7r II to upgrade my A7 II

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

Also, it requieres an external software to build the RAW file that it is going to be provided by Sony. So the workflow it is a more tedious if you want to use Lightroom, Capture ONE...

Makes one wonder about the Sony limited version of Capture One ...

Cheers,
Bart

[nicocornet]

Do you guys have any experience with pixel shift technology in landscape photography ? what about long exposure nightscapes ? scratching my head between this A7R3 or waiting for a potential higher A9R...

[DougDolde]

The new Pixel shift is interesting.  As a former Pentax K1 user I can appreciate the advantages.  I am curious if Sony allows hand held use of the pixel shift mode or if you need to stay on a tripod.

The other issue will be conversion support.  LR never got the K1 pixel shift good at all, they made one pass and that pass was terrible.  No motion in subject matter could be accommodated, where as Iridient Developer, Silkypix, and rawtherape all can handle slight motion and do a good job on the files, however I don't prefer any of their workflows.  C1, never attempted to support the pixel shift on the K1, (wonder if they will now make an attempt on the Sony since they have their separate version dedicated for Sony). 

The end results are very good for the K1, however Sony seems to be doing a different method as from reading the early reviews, they seem to be going for a larger output file, unlike Pentax.  This is more along the lines of how Olympus does their shifting.   Pentax pixel shift produced a very clean image, which also had more detail, needing less sharpening, but the output size was the same as a single image in actual resolution. 

It will be interesting to see the early reviews on this feature.

Paul Caldwell

From DPReview.  I'd say it is pretty useless

New to the a7R III is a multi-shot resolution mode that, much like the system in recent Pentax DSLRs, shoots four images and moves the sensor between each shot, so that each pixel position in the final image is captured with a red, a blue and two green pixels. This cancels out the side-effects of the Bayer color filter array, meaning that full color information is captured for every pixel. This has a noise benefit both from capturing multiple shots of the same scene, which helps average out the noise, while also reducing the additional softness and noise that usually comes from the demosaicing process.

However, unlike the system Pentax uses or the earlier, 8-shot process used by Olympus, the a7R III cannot assemble the final images in-camera. Instead four Raw files must be processed using a freely downloadable image processing application for PCs that Sony will offer. The camera must also wait either 0.5, 1, or 2 seconds between shots for the sensor to settle, which is likely to exacerbate the problems of subject movement between the first and last shot.

[davidgp]

From DPReview.  I'd say it is pretty useless

New to the a7R III is a multi-shot resolution mode that, much like the system in recent Pentax DSLRs, shoots four images and moves the sensor between each shot, so that each pixel position in the final image is captured with a red, a blue and two green pixels. This cancels out the side-effects of the Bayer color filter array, meaning that full color information is captured for every pixel. This has a noise benefit both from capturing multiple shots of the same scene, which helps average out the noise, while also reducing the additional softness and noise that usually comes from the demosaicing process.

However, unlike the system Pentax uses or the earlier, 8-shot process used by Olympus, the a7R III cannot assemble the final images in-camera. Instead four Raw files must be processed using a freely downloadable image processing application for PCs that Sony will offer. The camera must also wait either 0.5, 1, or 2 seconds between shots for the sensor to settle, which is likely to exacerbate the problems of subject movement between the first and last shot.

Probably only interesting for people doing studio photos of static subjects or art reproductions...

[Eric Brody]

Specs are now out and the A7RIII and D850 have many similarities in the areas important to me, resolution, handling, and did I say resolution for fine detail. A bit of time will be needed to see if the D850 "autofocus stacking" feature, quite wonderful at least according to Lloyd Chambers, is more or less important than the "pixel shift" 169MP, feature of the Sony. I've pre-ordered the D850 but currently have only three manual focus lenses (PC-E 24,45,85) should it arrive any time soon. The A7RII sorely tempted me a year or so ago when I rented it to compare to my Fuji X T-2. I kept the X T-2 since for my relatively small prints, the differences were not worth the expense of a brand shift. I suspect the D850 and A7RIII will bring up the same issues.

I am a firm believer in mirrorless cameras though. This has caused me to question the wisdom of investing in the Nikon system... again. The sweet spot of a lightweight body (the Sony qualifies as does the X T-2) and the smaller lenses that go with a smaller (APS-C) sensor have made for an impressively small and lightweight package for hiking. For close to the car and indoor studio work, the weight issue evaporates in favor of the image quality argument. It will be fascinating to see how these issues work out in the workplace and in the marketplace. I'll likely bide my time. Perhaps by then the Nikon full frame mirrorless camera will have appeared. What's a gear freak to do?

[Craig Lamson]

Who?

Cheers,
Bernard

Where is Canon?   Still banging the out many thousands of dollars of paid work, day in and day out, using that outdated 5Ds.   Some of us don’t need to chase.....

[BernardLanguillier]

Where is Canon?   Still banging the out many thousands of dollars of paid work, day in and day out, using that outdated 5Ds.   Some of us don’t need to chase.....

There is little doubt that great pictures can be taken by talented photographers with Canon equipment.

Just like great pictures can still be taken with film cameras today.

Cheers,
Bernard