How has Sonya9 III performed during the entire wedding season? I share my thoughts after extended use.
It’s just more than one year Sony A9 III Debut Does the camera still live for publicity, and how it happened, in my opinion, as my primary wedding camera?
I will share my ideas and reflections with Sony A9 III when shooting the entire 2024 wedding season and comment on how the camera has helped me as a documentary wedding photographer.
Why did I buy Sony A9 III?
I was shooting with Sony A9 since 2021, and when A9 II came together during this time, in addition to improving body design, it offered to upgrade “no” to upgrade. All internal functions were the same. The same LCD, the same visible, the same sensor. Therefore, I, like many other photographers, lived with the original A9.
A9 III, however, is a separate animal.
How did Sony A9 III help me as a wedding photographer?
Increased my workflow (Culling and editing speed)
Thanks to its leading global sensor, Sony A9iii solves a major problem that gives plaque to mirrorless cameras; He is banding.
LEDs used to lighten indoor functions produced in sensors can ruin your photos. We all have seen it, those stripes have highlighted more exposed areas than others. This problem can be reduced but cannot be eliminated by careful selection of shutter speed.
The revolutionary global shutter eliminates this problem as the entire sensor is read immediately. Therefore, the sensor does not capture examples where interrupt artificial light sources are on and close on the cycle. You get minor exposure variants between the frames, but there is no variation in the exposure within the frame.
This means that I no longer need to reduce their images to exclude their images that were trapped by banding (sometimes band falls in a bad place), and secondly, I do not need to apply corrective measures in post-production in every image where the banding is problematic but correct.
As a wedding photographer, who shoots about 200k frames in a year and distributes thousands of images annually, adds time saving during Kalinga and Editing.
Better confidence in shooting and less left moments
When I enter a room, I no longer need to do test shots and solve the banding problem by testing and error; I can focus on shooting purely. This allows me to be persistent and it is important how I work as a documentary wedding photographer. I am more likely that I do not miss short moments because my focus may be completely on shooting.
A feature that I can no longer imagine without any pre-captured function. Before pressing the shutter, you can start capturing the camera and setting the buffering images.
If I am guessing a moment, but I don’t do when it will happen, if I activate the pre -cattle, I might sure that I would not miss it from being late late on the trigger – many frames would have been stored before releasing the camera shutter. This depends less on the time of my shots and allows me to get the shots that I want to leave it without opportunity.
How does it work in a marriage? The most clear place is the first kiss. This adds an additional level of protection to ensure that you can achieve it. Most couples expect this shot, and I am not alone in admitting that I have remembered it before because it can happen sometimes very quickly, such as a peck on a check that is finished in a fraction of a second. I often use it to assign this function from one of my custom buttons.
Finally, the menu system, which is much more comfortable to navigate than the A9, is simply easy to find items, which means that I hunt less time for options to tweete and I can shoot more time.
Physical fatigue decreased in long days of shooting
With a large body and deep grip, I can get much better purchase on the body, so the camera feels more secure in my hand and is much more comfortable to hold. Furthermore, this means that I no longer experience the “pinky problem”, with the need to add a grip extender for me. This makes the camera feel light, which is important for the way I shoot because I often shoot with the camera above the height of the head.
The button is improved in positioning, as well as large buttons that travel more for them, which makes the camera feel too comfortable to operate. The best improvement is the new shutter placement; It is angleed, reducing the amount of rotation requires to hit my wrist. (On A9, the shutter is almost above the body)
Eye fatigue decreased in long days of shooting
Upgrade to LCD and viewfinder has made the camera very little tired for my eyes to use a specific 10-hour wedding in a 10-hour wedding compared to Sony A9.
The diameter of the screen is 0.2 “Sony A9 is longer at 3.20”, which is equivalent to an increase of 13.8 % in the viewing field. It seems marginal on paper. However, the screen looks quite large. Coupled with 69% increase of LCD in resolution (from 374,000 DPIs from 540,046 DPI), makes the screen very easy to work on the basis of how to shoot. I often do not shoot at the eye level, so I use LCD to make my photos using touchscreen. Being able to view the screen more clearly when the camera is held at the length of the hand, helps reduce the distance of the eye and improve my creations because I can more clearly look at the edges of the frame when the camera is away from my face.
It is incredible to see clarity in the viewfinder. The 3686k dot electronic viewfinder is replaced by the 9440K dot electronic viewfinder, and the viewfinder magnification is also increased (0.9x vs. 0.78x). It creates more immersive experience.
Improvement in body design, EVF and viewfinder helps my eyes feel less tired, and it helps to feel more alert to catch Going.
In addition to the performance of Sony A9 III
I have underlined the main benefits that the camera brought me as a wedding photographer, however, it is worth commenting on these aspects of the camera performance to end the article.
battery life
I have found that the battery life is solid. In a specific wedding, I will use four batteries in 10 hours of shooting and I will carry around 5,000 frames with the camera. I perform the battery with Sony A9iii equal to the old camera.
ISO
The camera base ISO ‘only’ had a lot of mourning from the photography community and concerned about the high ISO performance of the camera. In practice, as a wedding photographer, it does not make much difference. I am often shooting ceremonies indoors, so my ISO is above 250 anyway and when I am out of ISO 250, the quality of the image is very good.
At the high end of the scale, though (above ISO 4000), I think there is more noise in Sony A9 III files than A9. But this doesn’t matter to me because the files are fine to work in the post.
If I am shooting for Danceflor without flash, which I usually do because I want to catch the atmosphere, I will still opt for Sony A9 III because it ends the banding. I can find ‘Cleaner’ high ISO danceflor photos with A9, but banding is a deal breaker. This is a business closed.
I have not compared a side-by-side here; It is just my opinion to edit more than 10,000 photos in a wide range of about 150,000 frames and shoots after shooting 20 weddings with my A9 with my A9.
Autofocus
As you guess, autofocus is very good! It is much more capable that is necessary for a marriage (action is usually not lighting weddings rapidly). Leaving the speed and accuracy of autofocus aside, one thing I have seen is a great improvement, which is ‘intellect of autofocus’.
I had earlier experience where I locked a subject, and then another person walks them last, and the focus point would jump to follow the new person. Impressive about Sony A9 III is that it is no longer – autofocus remains closed on my subject and does not distract from a new arrival close to my focal point.
conclusion
Sony A9 III is the best wedding camera I have used.
This has saved me time in post-production by making me a matter of past. Orgonomic improvement for body design, EVF and LCD on its predecessor has made the camera very little tired to work during the long hours of the wedding day and it is a pleasure to be able to use pre-captures.
If you are a wedding photographer, it would be great to hear in comments about your experience using the camera, and if you are a Sony shooter, what is a feature that you want to present to Sony to pursue?
