Sony A7III vs Canon 5DIV vs Nikon D4s

neokind · 06-27-2018, 07:45 AM

Originally posted by Winder

This image is taken as a test shot for AF. Child was on a rocking horse going back and forth and I was about 1 meter away. Their back porch had a bunch of distracting "junk" on it and I needed to blow that out. A9 nailed about 70% of the shots with eye AF tracking the eyes. I had tried this before with My K-3 and I had zero keepers.

This is exactly why I made the switch, even though it meant buying all new glass. I loved the images I got with my K3ii...WHEN it nailed the focus. I eventually just moved to doing all MF, especially for product shoots. The surprising thing to me is that with the A7iii, the camera is nailing the focus in product shoots the vast majority of the time. I've hardly had to switch off AF at all. Is it worth a $1k premium for the body to save a little work in product shoots? To me it is. And it's certainly worth it to be able to capture candid moments. I hated looking through a dozen candids only to realize that I'd missed focus on all of them--no matter how I managed focus areas or AF types. Really frustrating.

normhead · 06-27-2018, 08:12 AM

Originally posted by neokind

This is exactly why I made the switch, even though it meant buying all new glass. I loved the images I got with my K3ii...WHEN it nailed the focus. I eventually just moved to doing all MF, especially for product shoots. The surprising thing to me is that with the A7iii, the camera is nailing the focus in product shoots the vast majority of the time. I've hardly had to switch off AF at all. Is it worth a $1k premium for the body to save a little work in product shoots? To me it is. And it's certainly worth it to be able to capture candid moments. I hated looking through a dozen candids only to realize that I'd missed focus on all of them--no matter how I managed focus areas or AF types. Really frustrating.

I seriously wonder why some people have problems in areas of photography where I just don't have any issues. I probably have 200 candids posted on flickr, and have no recollection of this ever being an issue.

But, product shots are professional usage. For the most part we aren't a professional photgrpahy forum.

neokind · 06-27-2018, 08:20 AM

Originally posted by normhead

I seriously wonder why some people have problems in areas of photography where I just don't have any issues. I probably have 200 candis posted on flickr, and have no recollection of this ever being an issue.

But, product shots are professional usage. For the most part we aren't a professional photgrpahy forum.

Hard to know. I've nailed plenty of candids with my K3ii, and plenty more with the K-x before it. But, the miss rate was really high. In the 3 or so weeks that I've had the A7iii I'd confidently say that the hit/miss rate in a moving subject scenario is inverted from my past experience.

normhead · 06-27-2018, 08:29 AM

Originally posted by neokind

Hard to know. I've nailed plenty of candids with my K3ii, and plenty more with the K-x before it. But, the miss rate was really high. In the 3 or so weeks that I've had the A7iii I'd confidently say that the hit/miss rate in a moving subject scenario is inverted from my past experience.

I'm just going to go with the the $2000 camera is better for candids than the $900 camera. That works for me.

neokind · 06-27-2018, 08:51 AM

Originally posted by normhead

I'm just going to go with the the $2000 camera is better for candids than the $900 camera. That works for me.

Sounds reasonable enough.

Winder · 06-27-2018, 09:29 AM

Originally posted by neokind

This is exactly why I made the switch, even though it meant buying all new glass. I loved the images I got with my K3ii...WHEN it nailed the focus. I eventually just moved to doing all MF, especially for product shoots. The surprising thing to me is that with the A7iii, the camera is nailing the focus in product shoots the vast majority of the time. I've hardly had to switch off AF at all. Is it worth a $1k premium for the body to save a little work in product shoots? To me it is. And it's certainly worth it to be able to capture candid moments. I hated looking through a dozen candids only to realize that I'd missed focus on all of them--no matter how I managed focus areas or AF types. Really frustrating.

You end up shooting a lot of frames just to make sure you have some in focus, but what is frustrating is when you see a lot of shot that would have been great shots if they had been in focus. And its not just "good enough". The A7/A9 series gives you perfectly sharp images where as with a DSLR a lot of images were sharp enough for web display, but when you printed large or looked at them on a big screen you could see it was slightly soft.

I was just in a discussion on another forum where someone posted some portraits and I told him he missed focus on the eyes. He insisted that he nailed focus and it looked fine on his monitor. He is looking at the image on a small 27" iMac with a pixel density over 200PPI. Small monitors with high pixel density mask AF errors. It looked fine on my iPad too, but when I looked at it on my 38" ultra-wide monitor it was obvious that it was slightly out of focus. There are a whole lot of people out there who don't print large or need images to look go on a large display. Maybe all they need is Facebook or Flickr quality.

neokind · 06-27-2018, 09:51 AM

Originally posted by Winder

You end up shooting a lot of frames just to make sure you have some in focus, but what is frustrating is when you see a lot of shot that would have been great shots if they had been in focus. And its not just "good enough". The A7/A9 series gives you perfectly sharp images where as with a DSLR a lot of images were sharp enough for web display, but when you printed large or looked at them on a big screen you could see it was slightly soft.

Bursts were helpful sometimes, but you're right that you'd see the one you wanted, with the expression just right, and it was slightly out of focus. So frustrating! Whereas, shooting bursts with the A7iii are nailing focus 80-90% of the time, and that's mostly been in very low light situations. Color me satisfied.

06-27-2018, 08:12 AM	#32
normhead Pentaxian Join Date: Jun 2007 Location: Near Algonquin Park Photos: Gallery \| Albums Posts: 40,451	Originally posted by neokind This is exactly why I made the switch, even though it meant buying all new glass. I loved the images I got with my K3ii...WHEN it nailed the focus. I eventually just moved to doing all MF, especially for product shoots. The surprising thing to me is that with the A7iii, the camera is nailing the focus in product shoots the vast majority of the time. I've hardly had to switch off AF at all. Is it worth a $1k premium for the body to save a little work in product shoots? To me it is. And it's certainly worth it to be able to capture candid moments. I hated looking through a dozen candids only to realize that I'd missed focus on all of them--no matter how I managed focus areas or AF types. Really frustrating. I seriously wonder why some people have problems in areas of photography where I just don't have any issues. I probably have 200 candids posted on flickr, and have no recollection of this ever being an issue. But, product shots are professional usage. For the most part we aren't a professional photgrpahy forum. Last edited by normhead; 06-27-2018 at 08:21 AM.

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06-27-2018, 07:45 AM	#31
neokind Veteran Member Join Date: Mar 2010 Location: Sunny San Diego Posts: 336	Originally posted by Winder This image is taken as a test shot for AF. Child was on a rocking horse going back and forth and I was about 1 meter away. Their back porch had a bunch of distracting "junk" on it and I needed to blow that out. A9 nailed about 70% of the shots with eye AF tracking the eyes. I had tried this before with My K-3 and I had zero keepers. This is exactly why I made the switch, even though it meant buying all new glass. I loved the images I got with my K3ii...WHEN it nailed the focus. I eventually just moved to doing all MF, especially for product shoots. The surprising thing to me is that with the A7iii, the camera is nailing the focus in product shoots the vast majority of the time. I've hardly had to switch off AF at all. Is it worth a $1k premium for the body to save a little work in product shoots? To me it is. And it's certainly worth it to be able to capture candid moments. I hated looking through a dozen candids only to realize that I'd missed focus on all of them--no matter how I managed focus areas or AF types. Really frustrating.

06-27-2018, 08:20 AM	#33
neokind Veteran Member Join Date: Mar 2010 Location: Sunny San Diego Posts: 336	Originally posted by normhead I seriously wonder why some people have problems in areas of photography where I just don't have any issues. I probably have 200 candis posted on flickr, and have no recollection of this ever being an issue. But, product shots are professional usage. For the most part we aren't a professional photgrpahy forum. Hard to know. I've nailed plenty of candids with my K3ii, and plenty more with the K-x before it. But, the miss rate was really high. In the 3 or so weeks that I've had the A7iii I'd confidently say that the hit/miss rate in a moving subject scenario is inverted from my past experience.

06-27-2018, 08:29 AM	#34
normhead Pentaxian Join Date: Jun 2007 Location: Near Algonquin Park Photos: Gallery \| Albums Posts: 40,451	Originally posted by neokind Hard to know. I've nailed plenty of candids with my K3ii, and plenty more with the K-x before it. But, the miss rate was really high. In the 3 or so weeks that I've had the A7iii I'd confidently say that the hit/miss rate in a moving subject scenario is inverted from my past experience. I'm just going to go with the the $2000 camera is better for candids than the $900 camera. That works for me.

06-27-2018, 08:51 AM	#35
neokind Veteran Member Join Date: Mar 2010 Location: Sunny San Diego Posts: 336	Originally posted by normhead I'm just going to go with the the $2000 camera is better for candids than the $900 camera. That works for me. Sounds reasonable enough.

06-27-2018, 09:29 AM	#36
Winder Veteran Member Join Date: Apr 2010 Location: Tennessee Posts: 6,617 Original Poster	Originally posted by neokind This is exactly why I made the switch, even though it meant buying all new glass. I loved the images I got with my K3ii...WHEN it nailed the focus. I eventually just moved to doing all MF, especially for product shoots. The surprising thing to me is that with the A7iii, the camera is nailing the focus in product shoots the vast majority of the time. I've hardly had to switch off AF at all. Is it worth a $1k premium for the body to save a little work in product shoots? To me it is. And it's certainly worth it to be able to capture candid moments. I hated looking through a dozen candids only to realize that I'd missed focus on all of them--no matter how I managed focus areas or AF types. Really frustrating. You end up shooting a lot of frames just to make sure you have some in focus, but what is frustrating is when you see a lot of shot that would have been great shots if they had been in focus. And its not just "good enough". The A7/A9 series gives you perfectly sharp images where as with a DSLR a lot of images were sharp enough for web display, but when you printed large or looked at them on a big screen you could see it was slightly soft. I was just in a discussion on another forum where someone posted some portraits and I told him he missed focus on the eyes. He insisted that he nailed focus and it looked fine on his monitor. He is looking at the image on a small 27" iMac with a pixel density over 200PPI. Small monitors with high pixel density mask AF errors. It looked fine on my iPad too, but when I looked at it on my 38" ultra-wide monitor it was obvious that it was slightly out of focus. There are a whole lot of people out there who don't print large or need images to look go on a large display. Maybe all they need is Facebook or Flickr quality.

06-27-2018, 09:51 AM	#37
neokind Veteran Member Join Date: Mar 2010 Location: Sunny San Diego Posts: 336	Originally posted by Winder You end up shooting a lot of frames just to make sure you have some in focus, but what is frustrating is when you see a lot of shot that would have been great shots if they had been in focus. And its not just "good enough". The A7/A9 series gives you perfectly sharp images where as with a DSLR a lot of images were sharp enough for web display, but when you printed large or looked at them on a big screen you could see it was slightly soft. Bursts were helpful sometimes, but you're right that you'd see the one you wanted, with the expression just right, and it was slightly out of focus. So frustrating! Whereas, shooting bursts with the A7iii are nailing focus 80-90% of the time, and that's mostly been in very low light situations. Color me satisfied.