Since the beginning of April, I’ve been shooting with the Canon 5D Mark IV. A huge step up from my personal camera as far as crop sensor to full frame, it gave me access to more light that I needed. While this setup was great, it also was my clients, and in the situations I found myself taking photos, the weight of the Canon 5D Mark IV was cumbersome. It would be perfect fit for concert photography, where you need a rugged body in the photo pit, and the sound of the shutter would be drowned out by the monitors but shooting inside a museum at 7pm during a presentation isn’t the best place for that.

What I needed was a camera that was lighter, but just as powerful, and could let me shoot silently in sensitive situations. I also needed a camera that could take superb video. As I started to narrow my options down, it came down to the Nikon Z 6, Canon EOS R and the Sony a7 III.

The Nikon Z 6 I loved because I already shot Nikon and had a few lenses that I could easily adapt. Atomos already announced support for it with 12-bit video. While everything pointed me to that, the two things that stopped me were the lens selection and memory. Between what I owned and the native Z Mount lenses, I only had a few cropped sensor lenses and the options for new lenses would be a significant upfront investment. That coupled with the expensive XQD cards, that while future proof, are still pricey at this point, would only make the purchase more expensive, so that eliminated the Z 6.

The Canon EOS R would have been a natural step up from the 5D Mark IV. Having the familiarity of the 5D combined with the latest processor and tech and really sharp lenses left me with nothing but good feelings about it, and the colors straight out of camera were astounding. Having a LOG profile with C-Log made it an easy choice, and being able to use the Canon lenses my client had made it a great choice. Unfortunately, the lack of image stabilization and the crop in 4k were two things that combined with a higher price than the Z 6 and a7 III meant that I would be paying more and getting less out of the box.

That led me to the Sony a7 III. I already had experience using the a7R III during the Sony “Be Alpha” event in Seattle, and unlike the higher resolution counterpart, the a7 III was better at video since it had a lower resolution sensor. With image stabilization in the body, as well as in a lot of the lenses, it made it the final choice.

Shooting with it has been fantastic. Between a combination of its high button customization, silent shooting, having my movie settings be separated from my photo settings via custom settings, and Eye AutoFocus, it made a hard combination to beat.

This all goes to say that when buying a new camera, you should consider what you’re using it for and how it fits into your workflow. I picked the a7 III because I’m more of a hybrid shooter these days, so it fits my workflow. Choose what works best for you, and go from there.

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