A few months ago, I took a leap and purchased the Sony A9III. I was fortunate that I found one used on B&H Photo, which for a new release like the A9III isn't easy to come by lately. So after encouragement from my wife that I should pull the trigger, I purchased it and have been playing around with it ever since.
The A9III is known for it's ability to capture 120 frames per second of photo...that's 120 photos per second at 24 megapixel in raw....pretty crazy. Granted the buffer for such a capture is less than 2 seconds, but 2 seconds is really longer than one might think for an action shot that such a setting might be used to capture. I do get paid for photographing some sporting events, so it's not totally just for the novelty. That being said, I usually can capture anything I want at 30 frames per second. But, the even more interesting part of the A9III come with other features to me.
The first is a global shutter. This is the first photography camera that incorporates a global shutter, which is an electronic shutter (as opposed to mechanical shutter) that exposes all the pixels on the sensor simultaneously. Unlike rolling shutters in previous digital cameras that read different lines of the sensor at different times (albeit pretty darn fast). In the world of photo that translates to less issues with banding from the refresh rates of current LED lighting. In the world of video, it translates to less rolling shutter effect, which is distortion you see with a jello effect, blurred or curved lines and such when capturing fast moving subjects.
In addition, this camera as the latest and greatest in all of Sony's video world. 8 stops of IBIS (in body image stabilization) as well as the electronic stabilization. My point in this post was to test the image stabilization in varying modes in real life with something like walking a trail...Thus this video:
What I found was it's pretty decent stabilization. Not good enough to replace things like a gimbal, but certainly helps with handheld moments one might want to capture.
The A9III is more camera than I truly need, however, some of the new features really have sold me on the future of photo/video capture and the lines are truly blurring between what is just a "photography" camera and what is a "video camera". It's not as if that is a new concept as I realize those lines have been becoming blurred for a long, long time but the lines are growing closer with every release. As a professional photographer/videographer, prepare to do it all!
