SONY A7S III

Sony’s high-end mirrorless hybrid promises to be great for video and capable for stills. Adam Duckworth puts it through its paces www.sony.com £3,800 / $3,500

- Adam Duckworth

With the latest mirrorless cameras aimed specifically at filmmakers boasting incredible video resolution up to 8K, Sony’s 4K A7S III might seem a little lacklustre by comparison. And with just 12.1MP resolution, compared to up to 45MP from its rivals, the specs suggest it’s hardly going to set the world alight for hybrid shooters who want high-res stills and moving images.

To dismiss the A7S III would be a huge mistake, though, as it’s a camera designed for what real-world filmmakers need right now. It offers customisable autofocus with 759 phase-detection AF points, great image stabilisation, and a more intuitive touch user interface. Instead of chasing headlines, Sony has worked on giving filmmakers a camera they need. Although we tested a preproduction camera, we had plenty of time to put it through its paces, and the results were far beyond what the specs suggest – and the chances are that image quality from the finished product will be even better.

Key features

A new Bionz XR processor brings 8x faster performance, which means that a huge range of 10-bit 4:2:2 codecs can be used to shoot video at native speeds up to 120p in 4K. You can go to 240fps in HD, still in 10-bit, all while retaining the use of the advanced autofocus features; no longer is there a limit to the AF working when the more data-hungry settings are used.