Last Updated on 10/25/2018 by Mark Beckenbach
If you’ve been patiently waiting for the Sony A7S III, you can finally be excited to know that the company is on it. And the real waiting game begins.
It’s been three years since we’ve seen the Sony A7S II, so it’s easy to see why Sony fans have been eager for any news about the A7S III. The good news is, the company has confirmed that they’re on it. The not so good news? In the words of Kenji Tanaka, VP and Senior General Manager of Sony’s Business Unit, “it will take time.”
Why? Because it looks like Sony already has several things things in the pipeline. In a Photokina interview with Tanaka by DPReview, he mentioned that the company has plans to release new stuff for the APS-C users, as they consider it to be a big market for both cameras and lenses.
“Recently most of our new lenses have been full frame, but APS-C remains a key target,” Tanaka said on releasing new APS-C lenses. He then followed with plans for new cameras. “The APS-C market is very important for us, so we will create new models in the APS-C market, but we need to ask customers what kind of models they want.”
The company is aware that the AS7 III has been among their most anticipated products. Tanaka acknowledged that their AS7 II customers “want to create many things” and want to see many improvements. So they’re now thinking of building the successor model to meet these demands.
“They want 4K/60p, 4:2:2 10-bit, and of course more battery power, increased AF accuracy — many things!” But he adds that this next model “should of course be more than they expect.”
This may be of some importance to current users, but the AS7 II successor may not be a hybrid or video-centric model. Tanaka sees the AS7 II as a good stills camera with vast dynamic range thanks to very large pixels, and believes that there is demand for still camera features.
We’ve been keeping tabs on predictions for the AS7 III, and also put together a wishlist of features we’d love to see on this next model. We’re hoping for a 16MP Full Frame sensor, over 20 frames per second shooting at a smaller resolution, better detail retention at higher ISOs, and improved mount protection (just to name a few of those features). With this latest development, looks like we can finally say that the real waiting game begins!
