Canon guy rents Sony A7 III, some quick impressions

I shoot with a 5D4 and 5D3 now. I've been curious about Sony, and the advantages of mirrorless in general.

So I rented a Sony A7 III for a few days this past week, and two different lens adapters to compare their performance, the Sigma MC-11 and the Metabones V, since I would be shooting with my own Canon L lenses (24-70mm f/2.8 II and 70-200mm f/2.8 IS I)

I took the Sony for two nights to an event that involved shooting blues bands in (mostly dark) small venues, basically bars, so a good test of low-light performance and continuous focus, since many of the performers move around a good bit.

What I liked the best about the Sony:

-- That sensor and its dynamic range; I was pleased with how much I could recover from shadows on a couple of underexposed shots, and noise seemed less and cleaned up better. In general the metering system did a good job of handling exposure. I shot uncompressed raw files, and many looked great right out of the camera, which surprised me since I had never touched a Sony before. I shot manual most of the time, with ISO in the 6400-12,800 range.

-- I liked seeing the exposure reflected in what I saw in the electronic viewfinder.

-- I also liked the camera's size and handling better than I thought I might. It was lighter, and the improved grip feels right. Other ergonomics were okay, but I think the placement of the control wheels for aperture and shutter speed would take a little getting used to. Not a deal-breaker, though. The smaller Sony body was not as out-of-balance with my Canon lenses as I'd thought it might be.

-- The movable back screen is nice for Hail Mary overheads and low-angle shots. Its resolution seems a bit lacking to me, not as sharp as the 5D4.

The function menus, while a bit differently organized than Canon's, were not as bad as I'd been led to believe.

Things I didn't like so much:

-- The lag sometimes in the EVF. When shooting, it's fine, but if you pull the camera away from your eye for a minute between shots, then raise it again to grab a shot, it first presents you with a quick flash of the last frame you shot -- then starts showing you what you're pointing at. I had to shoot something that was happening blind once or twice because of that, so for sports this could be a real problem. Also at high frame rates the EVF can't seen to keep up, blanks out a bit.

-- Focus with adapted glass: While it went better than I expected, as I was shooting I thought it was going badly. What I saw when previewing the images on the back screen looked a bit soft. In post, when I first opened the raw files they didn't seem to "pop" like a good, sharp Canon exposure does. But once processed, they looked better. I still don't think as many were as tack-sharp as I usually get when shooting with my 5D4.

-- Using the adapters: The Sigma worked better for me than the Metabones. The MB would hunt for 4-5 seconds almost every time before finally finding focus. The Sigma didn't. So I used the Sigma most of the time.

I didn't shoot any video. I rarely shoot much with my Canon, so that's not something I looked at.

Will I buy a Sony? Not right now, I'm still happy with my 5D4 and too invested in EF Canon glass. I will probably wait to see what Canon's next camera moves are. But I fear that if Canon comes out with anything that's close to the A7 III specs, it will cost a lot more than Sony's current price of $2K. I have to say the A7 III offers a lot for that price.

But if I could get a transplant, and put that Sony sensor in my 5D4, I'd be all in.

A fair comparison. I shot canon from AE-1 to 5diii. When it was time to upgrade it was a choice of the 5d4 or a R. I knew what the 5d4 would be like so a friend and I shared the bill and rented a R and a7iii.

I was glad we rented or I would have just bought the R and stuck with my "its all about the glass narrative" We sent the R back early and both bought a Sony. I bought the a7iii and he bought a used a7riii.

I also was expecting much worse for the menus. While not as easy as the Canon there are so many custom button choices on the a7iii that you rarely have to go back to the menu once its set up.

I would say is you took the camera in the most challenging situation for a mirrorless body. That was great idea but also keep in mind that you were shooting a Canon lens, through a sigma mount on a Sony camera That alone says a lot for state of camera's for today. Especially at a time where canon is trying to get rid of third party glass with the new rf mount.

I agree about it being the most challenging situation, extremely low light and often with subjects that moved a lot. And the adapted glass frankly surprised me by how well it worked, I was expecting a much worse outcome.

A more-challenging situation would be shooting action sports from sideline access and in marginal light. And that's why I think we'll continue to see, for the near future anyway, the sports pros still shooting with their familiar tools, pro-level Canon and Nikon bodies, big fast (expensive) lenses, but with some Sony A9s sneaking in there more and more with Sony glass. They may be mistaken for Canon shooters from a distance, though, since Sony has gone the big white lens route like Canon. I don't think electronic viewfinders perform quickly enough yet for such an environment. But it's still fairly early in the development of mirrorless tech.

Eager to see where Canon and Nikon take it, and how Sony counters their efforts.

A great time to be interested in photography.

Here's a shot from the first night with the Sony:

f8andBeThere wrote in post #18799641
Here's a shot from the first night with the Sony:

Hosted photo: posted by f8andBeThere in
./showthread.php?p=187​99641&i=i90159181
forum: Sony Digital Cameras

Nice work. I think in that scenario the you did good to get that clean of a shot with canon glass. The advantage in that area is definitely with the mirrored cameras. The 5d4 would have excelled in that area. but its really hard to compare that camera to the a7iii because it is the entry level full frame for sony which is made to compete against the 6d2. The 6d2 would also might have done better in low light but in virtually every other area the a7iii will smoke the 6d2.
I compared it to the 5d4 and the R, if it were not for wanting to go mirrorless and the eye AF I would have bought the 5d4, the R was pretty much a turd IMO. Now I am in the process of selling off the canon glass to go native sony mount lenses like the tamron 28-75 which is a awesome lens. The AF is just so much better with native mount that I may even sell off my 135 f2

I went form a full Canon setup (5DIII, 5DIV, plus about 8 lenses, most of them L) to Sony and native Sony lenses. I shoot mostly real estate and weddings, two very different genres.

I first got a beat-up A7R years ago for just for my real estate photos (partly because of the image quality, and partly for the up-tilting LCD screen so I don't have to kneel any more to take the interior shots.) I still shot everything else with my Canons at that point. Then I went A7RII, and then when the 3rd generation A7 models came out with joystick and dual cards, plus much heftier batteries, I switched to all Sony; A7III and A7RIII, and mostly Sony lenses.

My favorite Canon model was obviously the 5DIV (I owned probably 12 Canon bodies through the last 10 years). The Sony A7III and A7RIII however gives me an even higher keeper rate, the Eye AF is wonderful, and the dynamic range, although pretty solid on the 5DIV, is even better on the Sonys. High ISO is close between the Canon and Sonys. And video capabilities are also superior in the Sonys.

And this gets me to something else I wanted to comment on. The 6DII is actually a little bit inferior in low light to the Sonys. They are close, and again, it's not like you can take a specific shot with one but you cannot with the other. But just by looking at DPreview's studio comparisons, even at the normalized view mode, the higher the ISO the farther the A7III pulls ahead of the 6DII.

I switched from 2 5D4 to 2 A7III, used adapted Canon glass for about 2 months, I personally had much better results with MBV vs MC-11, except for the 16-35 f/4L IS that would lock up on the MBV. I ended up selling all my L glass and went to all Sony glass and in very happy! I'm going to sell one of the A7III now to get an A9.
It's weird that you had that issue when looking in the EVF, was the last picture displayed on the rear LCD when you did that?

71sbeetle wrote in post #18803465
... It's weird that you had that issue when looking in the EVF, was the last picture displayed on the rear LCD when you did that?

I don't think it was. When I rented the camera it was not displaying a preview on the rear screen of the last shot made, and I did not change that setting. This happened to me several times in the EVF, and I'm pretty sure enough time had elapsed since the last shot that any two- or five-second preview would have disappeared.

But it could have been some setting that I changed, I don't know.

f8andBeThere wrote in post #18803502
I don't think it was. When I rented the camera it was not displaying a preview on the rear screen of the last shot made, and I did not change that setting. This happened to me several times in the EVF, and I'm pretty sure enough time had elapsed since the last shot that any two- or five-second preview would have disappeared.

But it could have been some setting that I changed, I don't know.

That's odd! I just checked both of my A7III neither one does that, I take a picture, wait a little bit, bring the EVF back to my eye and it shows up directly in maybe half a second

71sbeetle wrote in post #18803509
That's odd! I just checked both of my A7III neither one does that, I take a picture, wait a little bit, bring the EVF back to my eye and it shows up directly in maybe half a second

Well, that was my experience. I only had a couple of days with the camera. It very well could have been something I was doing wrong, I don't know. I suppose I could have been previewing the previous photo on the back screen before raising the camera to my eye, but doesn't seem like I would have done that several times. Possible I guess.

Does yours do this right after previewing on the back screen?

f8andBeThere wrote in post #18803522
Well, that was my experience. I only had a couple of days with the camera. It very well could have been something I was doing wrong, I don't know. I suppose I could have been previewing the previous photo on the back screen before raising the camera to my eye, but doesn't seem like I would have done that several times. Possible I guess.

Does yours do this right after previewing on the back screen?

I'm checking right now
So, I take a picture, then I use the rear LCD and press play, I see the picture I just took, bring the EVF up to my eye, I see the preview in the EVF now, it doesn't go away until I half press the shutter
I just tried pressing play to preview, half press (and tried by pressing play a second time) to get rid of the preview, bring the EVF up and it doesn't show a preview at all.
You had it auto switch from rear LCD to EVF right? I just want to make sure I am using the same settings

71sbeetle wrote in post #18803525
... You had it auto switch from rear LCD to EVF right? I just want to make sure I am using the same settings

Pretty sure that was the setting it came to me from lensrentals with. I ran through the whole menu to review and familiarize myself with it, only changed a few like saving raw and standard stuff. Sounds to me like I must have previewed them myself by hitting the display preview button, since it didn’t do this to me in the EVF every time. Just found it weird.
I did like the EVF’s main feature, showing exposure like in live view.

f8andBeThere wrote in post #18803639
Pretty sure that was the setting it came to me from lensrentals with. I ran through the whole menu to review and familiarize myself with it, only changed a few like saving raw and standard stuff. Sounds to me like I must have previewed them myself by hitting the display preview button, since it didn’t do this to me in the EVF every time. Just found it weird.
I did like the EVF’s main feature, showing exposure like in live view.

Yes I think that's one of the best perks of mirrorless! Except when you're shooting with flash lol. I had a rental from them a couple of weeks ago when my A7III was at Sony Pro Support it babe with all the settings reset to factory which I believe had the 2 second image review option but it sounds like yours was off if it didn't show you after taking a shot. I just sold my 2nd A7III, A9 time!

Last night I sold my entire Canon gear collection (2 body's and 9 L lenses) to the local camera shop for all new Sony A7 III camera and Sony lenses. #neverlookback