Sony A7S III Review (1 Year Later)

I purchased a Sony A7 III in the beginning of this year, and I'm going to be doing a review after nine months. In this video, I'm going to be discussing the positive and negative things about this camera after using it for nine full months. The Sony A7S III is my first ever full-frame camera coming from the Canon 80D, which is a crop sensor, and that was a huge upgrade for me because this is my first full-frame camera. The quality got better. I can now shoot in 4K. The low-light is insane. The auto focus, there's focus peaking. I definitely take advantage of all of those features.

Number one is obviously the quality. The 4K on this Sony A7S III is insane. I can crop in at 200% and still have great quality. It has more features like 4K (60FPS), 4K (120FPS), 1080P (240FPS) so I can get that slow motion. Also, when I shoot in low light, the quality is insane. I can bring up my ISO up to 12,800 and that footage is still usable.

Coming in at number two is durability. This camera is built like a tank. It's maybe not as tough as the 1D X Mark III, but it's definitely stronger and more durable than the Sony A7 III. Two months ago, I went to Utah to shoot at this event and some other filmmaker had a Sony A7 III, and I compared the bodies. Obviously, the Sony A7 III feels heavier but also more durable. The Sony A7 III feels more light and feels more like a toy, like a beginner's camera. After going from the A7 III to the Sony A7S III, it's a big difference. It feels more durable and just more solid.

Coming in at number three is ease of use. Sony A7 III is a bit more complicated and more overwhelming on the menu system, but Sony definitely upgraded and made the menus easier to learn. I feel like the Sony A7S III is like the Canon. It's super easy to use that you can start shooting right away. That way you can shoot on the run. You can get those quick shots. The buttons are right there. You can change from 1080p to 4K in just one click of a button. You can turn off the focus peaking and all that. It's super quick and easy. After you have the custom buttons nailed in, then it's super easy to use.

Coming in at number five is the auto focus. The auto focus on the Sony A7S III is super quick and it's super reliable. I've never had any issues with the auto focus. Every time I shoot videos like a talking headshot where I need that auto focus, I rely on the auto focus, and right now it is tracking my face really good that if I step out of frame and I come back, it will track my face very quickly. Also, this camera has this feature of animals so you can get auto focus on your dog's eye or your cat's eye, and it will definitely track the eye of your pet.

Coming in number five, which is my last opinion of this section of why I love the Sony A7S III, is the focus peaking. This is definitely a huge game-changer for me, because when I had the Canon, 90% of the time, I would use manual focus because the auto focus on it sometimes struggles, so I would switch it to manual. Sometimes, I wouldn't even know if my subject is in focus. I would just guess. When I'm outside and it's sunny and then I can't really see, I pretty much guess. I try to use auto focus, but then it doesn't really do a good job. I would also bring up my aperture so that way everything is in focus. But now, I don't have that problem. I have the focus peaking, so that way, I know that my subject is 100% in focus.

Now for the negative things, I got four things that I struggled with or I went through with the Sony A7S III. Number one is sometimes the SD card needs some time to process. It takes time to load the images or the footage. It's not really a huge deal. I have to just press OK and it takes a few seconds to load, but it sometimes does get annoying when I'm in the middle of the shoot or when I'm shooting something and I need to get that quick shot. It is kind of annoying. I have to press OK then it takes a few seconds to load. It is one problem that I have.

The second problem I have is that sometimes the Sony A7S III automatically stopped recording. I don't know why. I'm shooting in my middle of my shot, and sometimes it just stopped recording. I don't lose clips or files. It just for some reason needs time to process, needs time to download, needs time to load, or maybe it was overheating and it needs time to take a break. For some reason. I don't know. I'm not really tech-savvy, so I don't know. That is kind of annoying, but not really a big deal.

The third problem I had was my Sony A7S III stopped working for some reason. I have no idea what happened. We went to Utah for a whole week, maybe like six days, and then I was in the middle of my shot. I was recording this shot and after I got that clip, for some reason, it turned black. I turned it off, turned it on, and took out the battery. I tried everything, and it still didn't work. I would get this black screen and it would have this M on the top left that stands for manual, and it will just go back and forth with being on and then off.

It would go back and forth and I was getting worried because I don't have insurance on this camera. So then I waited for the next day and I turn it on and it started working just like normal. It went back to normal. That was kind of weird and scary. I've heard that Sony is not really as reliable as Canon. Canon is built for video, and they've been around for a really long time, so Canon is probably a bit more reliable than Sony. I've heard stories where people's Sony cameras stops working, turns off, the SD card doesn't read it, or the camera doesn't read the SD card. I guess that's going to be the problem with it, or I might switch back to Canon. We don't know.

And lastly, number four, the Sony A7S III gets hot. Sometimes, when I'm shooting in the sun or when I'm shooting in 4K, it sometimes does get a bit warm. It doesn't overheat. It hasn't overheated on me, not even once, even though when I shoot in 4K, 60FPS, it still hasn't overheated on me, so that's a good thing, but it does get really hot. As for the Canon, it never got hot or got to the point where I had to stop recording so that it can cool off. Maybe it's because I only shot in 1080p, 8 bit, 24 frames per second, the files were not so big, so maybe that's the reason. Other than that, I have no complaints about it.

So do I still recommend this camera in 2021, even though it came out last year? 100%. I think the new one that came out, the Sony A1 and the FX7, it's a bigger camera. It has a fan built in, so overheating issues is not going to be a problem for that camera, but I do still recommend this camera. If you're thinking about getting it, 100%, I would go for it. That is pretty much it. That is my review of the Sony A7S III after having it for nine months. If you got any value out of this video, make sure you like, subscribe, and I'm out.