Sony a7 III sample gallery

@osv: what is to understand here is the fact that this camera as serious design flaw which is not acceptable at this price point and by target market. Hopefully SONY will adress this somehow otherwise this will be new Nikon D600.

Other cameras from different manufacturers with the same kind of sensor technology (latest Fuji ) have the same problem.

i have an a9, it uses the same type of pdaf points as the a7iii, and in tens of thousands of photos, i've never seen any lines... and btw, the lines are horizontal, not vertical.

there isn't any "serious design flaw", that's nonsense... if you take noob photos with direct light in the photo, creating huge flare, you'll see problems in all kinds of cameras.

You can open them with that little trick! And in Lightroom!

We have not had a chance to test it or draw any conclusions yet. I'd appreciate it if you could show me where any member of the DPR team has said it's "cool."

We'll do our best to establish how prevalent it is (ie: whether it's worse than previous cameras such as the a6000 which occasionally shows the same thing), then let people decide for themselves how significant it is.

I'd neither try to downplay it nor get too carried away just yet.

@Richard, you are very right that it wasn't explicitly written that it was cool, apologies for misrepresenting that. My thoughts could have been worded better. It's more about the general attitude towards this huge flaw.

Things like "let people decide for themselves" put forth the notion that DP Review is not willing to say the stripes are a bad thing. We also do differ in opinions in that I think this is worth to get carried away.

Nikon and Canon are not perfect, but the difference with those brands and their reviews is that they get dragged through the mud for issues.

@ JoFa: Sure, who don't. But when these stripes are a fact, and probably is connected with on-sensor phase detection, we have to find a workaround. There are other cameras with more troublesome issues, like shadow banding (Canon, Leica, etc.).

As I said in the forum, you need to tell the method you suggest so we can assess it.

The technique that I used is now described in the same post that I linked to, with some added comments on how one probably could refine the result. ;-)

It's an improvement, but I would still not be happy with that. It will be interesting to hear Sony's official response to this. I may be in the market for a ML camera in the future, but I would not buy one that has this kind of issue, especially not for thousands of dollars.

The stripes is a fact, even if we don't like it. Deal with the problem, until Sony eventually makes a in-camera fix.

Guess I'm sticking with my Nikons.

@ xPhoenix: Nikon, Canon, Leica, and others have had their share of problems, so don't expect anything to work flawlessly. My take is finding a solition that works for real world use, and for the Sony A7III the stripes are pretty easy to fix.

I wonder how many would notice these sensor stripes if it was not for the web ... ;-)

Even if it only takes seconds, it's an error I don't want to deal with, expecially spending 2000$ on a camera. Maybe I just don't want to fix every second photo from a concert or studio shot.

@ Shiranai:

1) When a problem is a fact, you have to deal with it. Wishful thinking doesn't help much - we have seen other very expensive cameras with way bigger problems. Hopefully Sony will find a in-camera fix.

2) The problem will affect just a fraction of pictures

3) The problem is just seen at high magnification, and is pretty easy to deal with.

4) You don't need to process all pictures, just the best - those who will be used

5) Some realismabout how this affects real world results will help a lot here

Trying to "fix" the problem can ruin a photo too.

The comments in the Sony forum about your "solution" express ..."This is just making bad things worse."

The real solution is for Sony to fix it.

Thank you for sharing the fix. For anybody who has very few pics concerned, and given there is a correction possible, this issue is really minor: it's even less an issue than "moiré" that most people have to deal with.

" When a problem is a fact, you have to deal with it."

True, but I would say Sony has to deal with it. I can't believe anyone would spend so much on this camera knowing is has issues.

@Phoenix
Just like Magnar said on the forum: dust spots is a much more frequent and time consuming issue than this.
So you shouldn't be buying any camera.

Dust spos??? Talk about desperate excuses.

Dust can be removed. This can't. There would have to be a lot of dust to equal all those lines. And now you guys are saying you'd be happy buying a camera with lots of dust on the sensor and in the lens. Geez.

In the Sony forum several have pointed out quick fixes trying to fix the lines makes them worse.

For years Sony ignored overheating problems while people made excuses. Some still have the problem. If you want Sony to fix it, speak up. Sony still does not fully seal their cameras while people make excuses. Instead speak up so it gets fixed.

If I pay$2000 for a camera I want it to work all the time. I don't want to spend my life making excuses like some people here.

Dust spots are not even comparable to this sort of issue. I can remove those in a split second in LR. If Sony is trying to win over DSLR users, they're going to have to do better than this. No way would I ditch my Nikons for this kind of IQ. I expect more from Sony. Hopefully, they man up and take care of this.

@ xPhoenix:

- This might be an issue with just the tested camera
- Or more likely, an issue with all A7III cameras
- Might be fixed by Sony soon (which we all, for sure, want)

Why should a tough guy on a motorcycle smile?

He wasn't happy that I shot his girl.

His beard wax is too stiff to allow for facial expressions.

Thanks for responding. However, I believe Canon uses either one side of the pixel and because of which we don't see the stripes. Dual Pixel Raw gives both side of pixels where we can select either left or right set with a micro shift of focus. If it were to take an average of both pixel, the image would soften a bit with some inconsistent patterns. But whatever it is, Canon seems to have mastered it. All they need now is to further improve tracking along Z-axis with speed and accuracy and I believe when it approaches PDAF performance is when they'll release a full frame Mirrorless.

@Richard: what concrete observation makes you believe that this is related to PDAF? Which other camera shows anything close to that?

With Canon, the pattern was only obvious with the older PDAF systems (Hybrid CMOS AF I to III), but not anymore with dual pixel AF models. For example M3, T6s and related models had horizontal stripes visible in any patch of bright uniform color such as the sky: https://www.dpreview.com/forums/thread/4006320#forum-post-57790602

Canon adds the signal from both photodiodes under one microlens, so no this is not an issue with Dual Pixel AF sensors.

Yes this striping has shown up on images from the a7R II and a9, and we covered all this in the a9 review. It's less apparent on a7R II (and III) images though because each stripe is a smaller proportion of the image.

That said, it's pretty rare, and won't affect the majority of your images. I'm also pretty certain that a software based fix will be made available by someone, somewhere, sometime.

Well, it is a big difference if you have stripes or striped noise pattern along these pixel rows or if you have bright obvious stripes as the A7iii shows in these shots.
I spent some time today to get the stripes on an A7i and just with back light I wasn‘t that successful. Without lens I could get nice stripes but even then they are much less apparent than in the demo gallery and I had to process the pictures to make them that visible.

https://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/60849416

No it’s the camera at 3000 $ you can get D810 with lens for same price as well as a D750 with extra buy another lens if you can’t see that sorry

People say the lens is better than the DSLR counterparts (it has been the last announced, so less discounts too) and the D750 is 3 or 4 years old already.

Also has less features: older sensor, no silent shooting, heavier, no IBIS, no 4k, allegedly lesser AF system and speed, less AF points spread, less burst, worse video.

In the side of the d750 you have the DSLR goodies, like OVF, better stamina (using viewfinder) cheaper, already familiar ergos and menus foe you.

Right now I'd say that A7 sits between the entry enthusiast full frames (6d, A7II, d750) and the workhorses (A7RIII, d850 and 5dIV)

If silent mode, high ISO, 1080 at 120 fps aren't important to you, then clearly the camera isn't for you. If you think Sony shot themselves in the foot, you're insane. This is all but guaranteed to outsell the 750 and pretty much every other entry level FF camera.

Christian Wagner What are you babbling about , I don’t care if it out sells or not , my point was at certain price point if someone is more worried about image quality then features that truthfully have little to nothing to do with over all images then that is a hole in marketing and you obviously are a Sony fan , sorry if you got hurt feelings I sure you can get a band aid for those hurt feelings ..latest technology is fine but doesn’t make it better in my case , just makes it current .. I like this camera , cause of it’s size and Sony makes a solid product ..However i am seriously looking at buying a camera not wish shopping, I have to buy with my head and not heart .. I am not loyal to any brand but the one that suits what I am doing with my work .. you are free to drool like school kid over this camera, while I will be buying one ..

Sure, I am watching a different movie.

Then I would for sure not own a single Nikon camera :-)

@AKH Why wouldn't you? I think Nikon make great cameras! I own a couple myself and am very pleased with ( N1).
I think Sony is among the most clever makers out there. I remember the skepticism the A7 fed when it came our. 6 years later Sony's A7 (and A9) family is still pulling the mirrorless ILC market up with great features and top notch image quality. I frankly don't understand the huge criticism Canikon fellows have with such an innovating company.

@Felice62, I agree they make some very nice cameras, but the color rendering...hmmm
I have owned the A7 and wasn't too pleased with the color output or the fact that the camera lost contact with the lens in cold and moist weather. But nice size for vacations.

@Felice62 of course the colors can be corrected to a certain degree or probably fully if you use the time in front of the computer, but why waste time on that, when you can get much better colors out of the box from cameras like Nikon, Canon, Olympus and the list goes on..

All of the images with artefacts have been modified in some way and incomplete exifs. They're not OOC jpegs.

There's a discussion on the FF forum. Jim Kasson suggests it could be a software issue or a broken file.

'This doesn't look to me like it's related to stolen pixels used for PDAF. The camera interpolates over those pixels, giving periodic unnatural noise smoothing.'

https://www.dpreview.com/forums/thread/4259348?page=2

As I say, the EXIF has been edited and truncated in Rishi's images. I'm hoping he'll re-upload the SOOC JPEGs when he gets a chance.

However, although there may appear to be a flare artefact/truncated EXIF correlation, I'd characterise it as a relationship between Rishi's Contre-jour portrait style and the flare artefacts. (ie the EXIF problem in his workflow is a red herring).

Vegas really needs to get broadband access !

@RB
Contre-jour portrait style - hasn't he ever heard of veiling glare? He's supposed to be working not shooting private pictures!

I'll get him a starburst filter for Christmas. :)

The lines are in the original files, right in the back of the camera. This has nothing to do with Lightroom possibly truncating the EXIF when I selected and exported the 'originals' (which does not transcode the JPEGs).

The only reason I haven't had a chance to upload again is we have back to back activities here.

Lightroom is horrible at retaining EXIF during export. It strips EXIF from all standard fields and keeps shooting parameters only in Adobe specific fields that are not picked up by any non Adobe software! Everytime I export from Lightroom I use exiftool to cleanup the mess. Here is the command I use to fix all JPEG images in a folder. I have been doing this for years and it works great.
exiftool -all= -tagsfromfile @ -all:all -unsafe "-overwrite_original_in_place" *.JPG

I looked at 100%. Maybe I'm just used to looking at images from higher-pixel-density cameras, but I would not call these tack sharp.

@xPhoenix

Or maybe you're just trolling.

Or maybe you don't know much about photography because you suggested a RAW file might look sharper than a jpeg.

Not at all. These images look soft. Yes, RAW can be sharper and show more detail because there is not overuse of NR which is typical of jpeg. Nothing about the IQ of these shots is any more impressive than say a D750. And they better find a to fix those line artifacts. Yikes.

i second xPhoenix in this matter.

I had also the impression that these pictures have some sort of "soft" touch. Don´t know, on one hand they are sharp, but at the same time, the overall impression is very soft to me.

Or another camera... ;-)

Or just use the latest Canon Rebel T100, which is less than USD$400, BTW.

In fact, it was the horizontal lines I spotted first. Picture#5 - below the light - what a shocker!

It's always parallel to the long edge of the sensor, because the PDAF pixels are arranged in rows. If you're seeing vertical stripes, you're probably looking at a portrait orientation image.

@darlot. A friend of mine got a 5d4 from a 5d2.. very satisfied... no brainer

@Kaonashi
You could shoot Big Ben with it.

Or any of the famous London Landmarks. ;)

I totally understand your point. If you pay thousands of $ then you expect a known problem to be solved up to now.
However, this issue only occurs when you cut the light source at the edge of the frame. I don't think shooting a light source directly would be an issue.

@ssft - That's exactly what dpreview should test.

In all of the shots that show the issue, 85/1.8 lens is used and light is at the very edge of the frame. Put the light elsewhere in the frame, use the same lens. Does it still show? Does it show with a different lens? etc etc

Fuji fixed it.

Hopefully Sony will too, but it surprises me that they'd let the A7III get into reviewers' hands with this issue unaddressed. If these artifacts are a known pitfall for PDAF sensors, you'd think they'd have looked for and caught them during development. And if they caught them, you'd think they'd have fixed the issue if they knew how. I suspect that this may be a tricky issue for Sony to fix, but I guess we'll find out in time.