Sony Alpha 7S III launched in SA

Sony has launched the eagerly-awaited Sony Alpha 7S III, its latest mirrorless camera, in South Africa. Though some of the company’s decisions about its capabilities may leave photographers torn.

The latest in the A7 series, the camera has a new 12.1-megapixel full-frame sensor along with Sony’s new BIONZ XR image processor, but videographers may be frustrated to find that 8K video recording is missing from this machine.

Its not a bad thing though, considering that South Africans are starting to warm up to 4K technology. Aptly so, the A7S III tops out at 4K 120p with 10-bit 4:2:2 colour depth. That’s certainly not shabby, but it’s not quite the high-end resolution many had been hoping Sony would embrace.

At least your 4K will be flexible. Sony says the A7S III supports All-Intra and MPEG-H HEVC/H.265 coding (XAVC HS), with three colour gamut options – S-Gamut, S-Gamut3, and S-Gamut3.Cine – as well. There’s both S-Log3 gamma curves and HLG (Hybrid Log-Gamma) picture profiles. Via HDMI and an external recorder, the camera will shoot up to 4K 60p 16-bit RAW video too.

For stills, the new back-illuminated Exmor R sensor and BIONZ XR image processing engine – said to be eight times more powerful than its predecessor – now support ISO 80-102,400 (expandable to 80-409,600 for video and 40-409,600 for stills). Sony says there’s around 1 stop of noise reduction in the middle and high sensitivity ranges, too.

On the autofocus side, there’s a Fast Hybrid AF system that combines phase-detection and contrast-detection AF for the first time on an Alpha 7S camera. Real-time Tracking and Real-time Eye AF are supported too, the latter having a 30-percent bump in performance. There are 759 phase-detection AF points, covering 92-percent of the sensor.

For video, AF Transition Speed supports seven settings, for easier rack-focus transitions. There are also five AF Subject Shift Sensitivity settings, while Touch Tracking triggers both Real-time Tracking as well as compose-and-shoot in solo and gimbal modes. You can also use touch-focus during the manual focus mode by either tapping the A7S III’s display or using its Imaging Edge Mobile companion app. There’s Active Mode with 5-axis optical in-body image stabilization.

On the back there’s a vary-angle 3.0-inch 1.44 million dot touchscreen, together with a 9.44 million dot 0.64-inch Quad XGA electronic OLED viewfinder with 0.9x magnification. That’s a world’s first, Sony says, as are the pair of CFexpress Type A media slots – also compatible with UHS-I and UHS-II SDXC/SDHC cards – while HEIF support is a first for a Sony camera.

The Sony A7S III will go on sale in the first week of October, the company says. It’ll be priced at R64 999 body-only.

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Papi Mabele

Papi Mabele has a marketing background, he is a digital marketing expert with extensive experience in launching and building global brands in the emerging markets. Papi is also an avid tech writer, enthusiast and all round tech junkie. As a freelance writer and analyst he has been numerously published in Popular Mechanics (SA), GQ South Africa, Premier Magazine, Driven Magazine, Bloem News, Courant, The Weekly, Enthooze Magazine and PiE magazine amongst others.