So I did indeed rent the Sony A7iii this past weekend. As you may recall from my last post, I wondered if a weekend with the A7iii might put my mind at ease about which camera to keep moving forward - my Nikon Z6 or the Sony A7iii.
Do I now have the sense of clarity I need? Read on.
When it came to renting the camera, I wound up getting the “one day” weekend rental from Looking Glass Photo in Berkeley. While it costs $150 a day for the camera body and the lens, Looking Glass, like many good photography shops, will let you pick up the camera on a Friday and return it on Monday for the one day price.
One thing which immediately surprised me, and made my comparison to the Z6 tough, is that the rental came with f/2.8 24-70mm G Master lens. This is a faster, higher quality lens that what the Sony A7iii kit might come with (f/3.5-5.6 27-70mm OSS lens). So for sure the better glass is going to return better photos.
How good is the lens? Well, consider this G master lens runs $2,198 - while the camera body itself runs $1,998.
One of the major factors that originally drew me away from the Sony A7iii were its ergonomics. The camera “felt” more like a gadget than a traditional camera. And the grip is just a tad smaller than the Z6, making it difficult to find a “home” for your pinky. One can make up for this by purchasing the Sony $350 vertical grip, but I could not rent one for the weekend, unfortunately.
But the worst design element I found was the front and rear control dials which, among other things, control changes to the aperture and shutter speed. Instead of the big, substantial dials you find on the Z6, the Sony’s are thin, “Ritz-cracker-edged” dials that are functional, but not as obvious and easy to maneuver.
What’s worse, there’s an exposure compensation dial to the right of the rear control dial which is larger and more substantial than the rear control dials. They should have designed the control dials like this. And of course, I did indeed mistakenly change the exposure compensation when meaning to use the rear control dial.
OK enough about the bad ergonomics. What about my overall impressions?
Well, I couldn’t run the most scientific tests with the camera, so I shot it around the house and took it along for some errands over the weekend.
Pros
Fun to use. Indeed, despite the ergonomics, I did find the camera easy, and dare I say, fun to use. The camera was fast, responsive, and fairly intuitive.
Menu & Set Up. You’ll read that Sony’s menus are tedious or confusing. But I found them fairly intuitive, easy to scroll through, and once I set it up with Fro’s recommendations, didn’t need to bother much with the menu again.
Controls. And once I started using the camera, despite the ergonomics and poor dial design, I found it easy to control everything from aperture, shutter, ISO, release modes etc.
f2.8 24-70 GM lens. Obviously this was a great lens to take sharp photos. Of course it would be a big investment to get a pro lens like this, but the Z6 equivalent is actually $100 more than the Sony, so one will get what they (are willing to) pay for.
Eye auto focus. The Sony definitely shines here. Like everyone says, “it just works” - and works so well. It found my daughters eyes fast and maintained focus even as they moved around. It’s really remarkable. The Z6 can do eye auto focus, but not as fast and not as consistently.
Continuous shooting 10 frames per second. The Sony is impressively fast. I ran several tests where I had my daughter walking toward me and the Sony maintained focus for a majority the 30+ continuous shots. it just fires them off at a rate that seems significantly faster than the Nikon.
Sharp images. And of course, most importantly, the Sony shot great images. Were they less vibrant than what comes out of the Nikon raw? Perhaps, but that’s easily adjusted in post production.
Here are some photos shot at home, Whole Foods, and during lunch on Saturday with the Sony A7iii on the f2.8 24-70 G Master lens…
