Japanese technology company Sony Corporation on Wednesday expanded its wildlife and sports photography portfolio with the launch of a new full-frame mirrorless interchangeable lens camera, called the ‘Sony α7R III’ in the US photographic market. The new Sony α7R III has been launched in the US with a price tag of $3,200 (approximately Rs. 2,07,350) and will be made available for purchase in the US via all Sony authorized dealers starting from the next month. Besides this, the company has also introduced two new lenses namely FE 24-105mm f/4 G OSS lens (SEL24105G) and Sony G Master 400mm f/2.8 lens. The FE 24-105mm f/4 G OSS lens has been priced at US$ 1,300 and will be available for purchase in the US market starting from the end of November 2017.
The new Sony α7R III is specially designed for serious photographers and professional enthusiasts as the new compact mirrorless body comes packed with several new features and smart equipment such as 35mm Full-Frame 42.4 MP1 Back-Illuminated Exmor R CMOS image sensor, Sony’s updated BIONZ X image processing engine, 399 phase-detection AF points and 425 contrast AF points, 5-axis optical in-body image stabilization, 10 fps continuous shooting, and a high-luminance 3.69M-dot QVGA OLED electronic viewfinder for extremely accurate, true-to-life detail reproduction.
Sony α7R III Specifications and Features:
The new Sony α7R III comes equipped with a 35mm Full-Frame 42.4 MP1 Back-Illuminated Exmor R CMOS image sensor with a new front-end LSI that effectively doubles the readout speed of the image sensor. The CMOS sensor comes combined with an upgraded BIONZ X image processing engine for high-speed response and improved continuous shooting performance. The company claims that the updated BIONZ X processing engine boosts data processing speeds at up to 1.8 times faster than the company’s previous α7R II model. The full-frame CMOS is designed to offer high ISO results and is also capable of shooting at a high number of fps (frame per second).
The new Sony α7R III camera offers various capabilities like continuous shooting at up to 10 frames per second, accurate AF/AE tracking for up to 76 JPEG/RAW or 28 uncompressed RAW images and has a maximum electronic shutter speed of up to 1/8000 – 30 seconds. The new electronic shutter operates silently without any mechanical noise to prevent disruptions when shooting wildlife, sports, or events in a quiet environment. The Sony α7R III also comes with 5-Axis shake-reduction system built into the body. This feature is the five-axis image stabilisation system which helps in capturing the best scenes and subjects even during pitch and yaw, horizontal and vertical shift, and roll by as much as 5.5 shutter steps. To reduce the risk of vibration and image blur, there’s also a new low-vibration shutter.
The another highlighted feature in this camera is its top light sensitivity technology. The Sony α9 has a very high sensitivity range of the image sensor which goes all the way up to ISO 102,400, which should make it possible to capture images in next to no light without generating annoying noise. The standard ISO range is ISO 100-32000. Sony claims the new camera will have 15EV stops dynamic range at low sensitivity settings. The Sony α7R III features a really impressive autofocus system with 399 focal-plane phase-detection AF points that cover approximately 68 percent of the image area in both the horizontal and vertical directions. Apart from this, there is also 425 contrast-detection AF points, a huge increase of 400 points compared to the Sony α7R II model. This advanced system delivers much quicker AF acquisition in low light conditions, while tracking performance, which is now 2 times more accurate as before. The Eye AF feature is also 2 times more effective as it previously has been, and is available when using company’s A-mount lenses.
“Additional improvements in focusing flexibility include AF availability in Focus Magnifier mode, focal-plane phase-detection AF support when using A-mount lenses, an ‘AF On’ button, a multi-selector or ‘joystick’ for moving focusing points quickly, flexible touch focus functionality and much more,” the Japanese company says.
Talking about the video recording, the Sony α7R III is capable of shooting videos in 4K UHD (3840 × 2160) resolution and full HD (1920 x 1080) resolution videos at 120fps at a bit rate of up to 100mbps. The camera features HLG (hybrid log gamma) support for an Instant HDR workflow with compatible Sony television. It allows HDR compatible TVs to playback beautiful, true-to-life 4K HDR imagery. S-Log2 and S-Log3 are also available on the α7R III for increased colour grading flexibility. Other notable features of the camera are its Slow and Quick motion video modes for shooting super slow-mo movies.
On the back, the new Sony mirrorless camera sports a tilt-adjustable 3-inch LCD touchscreen display with 14,40,000 dots resolution. By the versatile tilt mechanism, a user can easily position at any desired angle for effortless shooting in high and low angle photography. Apart from this, the display also supports WhiteMagic technology that improves viewing in bright, outdoor conditions. The Sony α7R III has a 1.3 cm Quad-VGA OLED colour Viewfinder with approximately 3,686k dots. The optical viewfinder offers 100% field coverage for focusing and framing, and comes with 0.78x magnification that offers a wide and bright view of the frame to easily track and compose subjects. The camera has a weather-sealed magnesium alloy body which means light rain or extreme temperatures will not harm the camera.
Connectivity options offered by the camera include built-in Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.1 Low Energy, NFC, a microphone jack, a headphone jack, a USB 2.0 High-Speed port, a USB Type-C (USB 3.1 Gen 1) port and a micro HDMI port. The camera has dual slots for convenient data management, one for SD cards and one for SD/Memory Stick cards. Lower card slot supporting UHS-II type cards. The same still or movie data can simultaneously be recorded to both cards, or the user can choose to separate RAW / JPEG or still images/movies.
The new Sony α7R III camera also supports the uncompressed 14-bit RAW format. Images can be recorded as 14-bit Raw files, in both single or continuous shooting modes. On the battery front, the mirrorless digital camera is fuelled by an all-new NP-FZ100 Lithium-ion rechargeable battery that is rated to offer 2.2x more battery life than the previous Sony full-frame models. The company claims that the camera is able to capture up to 650 shots on a single charge. Dimensionally, the Sony α7R III measures at 127 x 96 x 74 mm and weighs 657 grams.
