The above shot I took yesterday with my Sony A7iii & adapted Sigma/Minolta 50mm f2.8 macro with no flash. Two years ago we had significant rain this time of year and I took similar shots with my Minolta 600si and the same lens using Kodak Ektar film.
In both cases I took the shots hand held. I edited both with Lightroom Classic CC. Even though it is the same lens and the film shot is four times the size of the digital I think the sharpness and color of the digital is better. I spent very minimal time editing the digital shot.
This is a larger view of the same area.
My point. The Sony A7iii may not be the best handling easiest to operate camera I have ever owned, but it puts of great files. Quickly and much easier than shooting film and then getting it developed and scanned.
The Sony is very versatile in being able to shoot landscape, people, and pretty much any lighting situation you throw at it.
All three shots were taken in my usual raw only (compressed raw) and edited in Lightroom Classic CC. Both the flower picture and my newest grand daughter were cropped. The photo of my grand daughter was indoors in fairly dim light and no flash. There was a tiny bit of noise after editing which I mostly removed with Lightroom. The top shot was with a zoom lens and has everything from full shadow to sunny sky. The Sony handled this with no problems.
Now that I have owned the Sony for just over 3 months it is becoming easier to use. At least I can find near everything quickly. I go back and forth from using checking and adjusting the settings either by pushing the fn button on the back which puts on the screen the basic settings. You can then adjust those there. Or at other times I push the buttons for the individual focus, drive, and other things you need. I usually look at the back screen to make my adjustments. If it is full sun I look in the viewfinder. It all works pretty fast and easy. Of course if Sony looked in it’s archives and pulled out the Minolta 600si (Sony owns Minolta) and used the set up system from that camera plus a touchscreen it would be much better, but they did not and the existing system with the Sony A7iii is fine.
The Sony on time from rest or turned off is relatively fast. Not as fast as a DSLR, but fast enough. You do have to make adjustments when going to the Sony A7iii with EVF from and optical viewfinder. There is a slight lag for the EVF, but again, the A7iii works fine. I have become used to seeing subjects in the EVF as opposed to OVF. I do like being able to see light settings adjustments in the viewfinder or the back screen. This saves a lot of fiddling and guessing to get the photo exposure right.
The Sony G 24-105 f4 which I added to my kit just before Christmas is excellent. I would call this a mid size lens. It is bigger than my Zeiss – Sony 55mm 1.8 prime, but not so big that I find it cumbersome to carry and use like I did the Nikon D750 24-120 f4. I learned to live with the Nikon but it always felt too big. The Sony does not. The few oz’s you save on the body weight and body size and the couple of oz’s less and a bit smaller on the lens and it just fits better on my Peak Strap. The Sony lens is rated a little better than the Nikon but I think they are both sharp stabilized lenses. I definitely liked the price of the Nikon better. Quality I can’t tell the difference. The one annoyance on the Nikon you don ‘t have with the Sony lens is that the Sony does not clip the corners at 24mm like the Nikon did. I cropped it out when editing the Nikon files, but you don’t have to do that on the Sony setup. The bokeh is good on the Sony lens as you can see in the photo above.
The Sony / Zeiss 55mm f1.8 is an exemplary lens. Super sharp with great bokeh and the ability to set up the above photo so the newborn is in sharp focus, as is my wife’s face, and her left sleeve. The rest of the photo defocuses and seems to go out of the photo.
Basically the same thing happens here with the restaurant on the pier in sharp focus and the background fading away. This is one of the best lenses you can buy for the Sony A7 cameras and for sure the best lens that is also not big and heavy. DXO Mark gives this lens very high marks and so do I.
Very likely a lot of people go through the adjustment to get used to the A7iii or other A7 Sony’s when they come from Nikon or Canon like I did. I would say it is similar to when I switched from Windows to Mac about 5 1/2 years ago. It took me a while to get so I was used to the Mac, same with Sony A cameras.
Conclusion. The files don’t lie. They are good out of this camera. And once you get a feeling for what settings to use the camera seems to pump out good ones pretty easy.
Bob Nuttmann 