I did a thing….New Camera in the House Sony a9III

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I went out for the first time today, crappy conditions (misty, rainy, cloudy) so not much chance to catch things in motion. My initial impressions is that the bird detection is far superior to the A1 (not real surprise there) and the AF did feel snappier to me (used it it with the 600 F4 with and without the 1.4x TC).

Just to illustrate the eye AF I got this Wilson's Warbler through these leaves and the camera locked into the eye. I also really appreciate the xs AF box (used that here with tracking). This is a 10 MP crop and ISO12800.

I'll post some more photos tomorrow.

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DavidT said:
To follow up on this I shot a Rugby match last night which is 80 min long. Between pregame events and the game I had the a9III on for about 2.5-3 hours. I used pre-capture at 60FPS .3 second buffer the entire match. I shot just short of 10K images and the temp was 92 Deg F. I had no issues at all. I use 1TB cards as my primary and the a9III has a Pergear which has been fantastic! I have wrote about 130K files to that card without issue. I also have the Angelbird which I would have bought a third one for the a9III but they stopped making them. Maybe your card is an issue. I haven't tried the Angelbird in the a9III but have them in both a1's.
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Thank you for your comment @DavidT

Did you have the opportunity to use the A9III with the Angelbird 1To please ?
I have 4 of them and I'd like to be sure that they cause problems before buying Pergear.

What's more, I understand you use Pergear 1To size, correct ?

Finally, do you use 2 CF Express cards at the same time (slot 1 and 2) or only one card in slot 1 please?

Thank you.
 
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PhD69 said:
Thank you for your comment @DavidT

Did you have the opportunity to use the A9III with the Angelbird 1To please ?
I have 4 of them and I'd like to be sure that they cause problems before buying Pergear.

What's more, I understand you use Pergear 1To size, correct ?

Finally, do you use 2 CF Express cards at the same time (slot 1 and 2) or only one card in slot 1 please?

Thank you.
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I can try that out! I’ll be shooting song birds in S TX all weekend and it will be 102 deg.
I do use all 1TB cards now.
I have my cameras set to write to card 1 and card 2 is overflow. I haven’t ever tried redundant.
 
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Palmor said:
I picked up one this week and I'm just setting it up. I was wondering if people are using lossless compressed instead of the default compressed RAW file type? I'm leaning towards lossless compress since the only disadvantage I can think of is buffer depth but curious to hear what other people are using.
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I used Compressed to maximize buffer depth. Sony says 192 shots in Compressed and only 96 in lossless compressed at 120 FPS. I found the buffer very limiting even in Compressed at 120FPS. I've always shot compressed on previous bodies as it was the only way to get 20FPS on A9/A9II and 30FPS on the A1. It is nice the A9III gives full 120FPS regardless of RAW setting but the buffer is just too small for Lossless Compressed at 120 and even at 60FPS to some degree.
 
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arbitrage said:
Not David, but I was using Pergear 520GB card in the A9III. It is my main card in the A1. I don't shoot mirrored so I have a 160GB Prograde card in the 2nd slot for overflow. But even with 50MP on the A1 I never get past 520GB and certainly not with the 24MP A9III files.
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Thank you for the information! I really appreciate it! Do you ever have any issues with buffering?
 
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Dawallace99 said:
Thank you for the information! I really appreciate it! Do you ever have any issues with buffering?
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Not really. If using pre capture I do .3 seconds and if shooting for a perfect moment the buffer is enough. I’m usually at 60FPS and doing short bursts so don’t often hit the buffer.
I’d take more buffer if I could but even in sports shooting peak action is a short burst. If you see the camera to 20fps it’s basically an endless buffer in lossless raw.
I haven’t tried compressed raw yet but with higher iso I doubt it will impact the file quality compared to lossless.
 
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DavidT said:
Not really. If using pre capture I do .3 seconds and if shooting for a perfect moment the buffer is enough. I’m usually at 60FPS and doing short bursts so don’t often hit the buffer.
I’d take more buffer if I could but even in sports shooting peak action is a short burst. If you see the camera to 20fps it’s basically an endless buffer in lossless raw.
I haven’t tried compressed raw yet but with higher iso I doubt it will impact the file quality compared to lossless.
Click to expand...
and which CFE do you use?
 
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Dawallace99 said:
Thank you for the information! I really appreciate it! Do you ever have any issues with buffering?
Click to expand...
On the A9III I had some buffering issues when doing precapture at 120FPS for Osprey fishing. You can't shoot a full dive, entry, exit, spin-dry and fly by at 120FPS...that is probably obvious. But even if I fired when the Osprey started his dive, I'd be buffered out and getting like 5FPS as he was emerging from the water. Sometimes I'd even hit the buffer before he entered. So I had to be very diligent and only hit the shutter as I saw him hit the water and then not keep holding the shutter. Then I could switch back to 30 or 60FPS for the rest of the sequence. The only reason I was really using 120FPS was trying to get a perfect entry shot where talons are touching the water but the water isn't disturbed yet. For most of my BIF shooting I found 30FPS with pre-capture ideal. 60FPS when I was after smaller and faster birds. But even at 60FPS with pre-capture you can have buffer issues if you hammer it for too long.
 
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Here are some more samples from yesterday. I'd say that for this type of shooting (small birds combined with restrictions on where you can walk, meaning you can't get any closer) I'd say the A1 is the better tool just because of the MP. These are all pretty heavily cropped. I didn't find the files hard to work with, even at higher ISOs.

In terms of everything else the A9 III did very well, AF was fast and the subject recognition was great. It did feel like it was a little worse at the whole re-autofocusing to a closer subject but it could have been the awful lighting that was at play. I didn't play around with pre-capture but since I have an OM-1 I know how useful it can be in the right circumstances.

First set of shots of a Blackburnian warbler where the AF was able to get on the eye through a bunch of distractions
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Female Oriole that I caught as it was hoping from branch to branch
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American Redstarts

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A few more

Yellow Warbler
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Piping Plover
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Least Tern
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arbitrage said:
On the A9III I had some buffering issues when doing precapture at 120FPS for Osprey fishing. You can't shoot a full dive, entry, exit, spin-dry and fly by at 120FPS...that is probably obvious. But even if I fired when the Osprey started his dive, I'd be buffered out and getting like 5FPS as he was emerging from the water. Sometimes I'd even hit the buffer before he entered. So I had to be very diligent and only hit the shutter as I saw him hit the water and then not keep holding the shutter. Then I could switch back to 30 or 60FPS for the rest of the sequence. The only reason I was really using 120FPS was trying to get a perfect entry shot where talons are touching the water but the water isn't disturbed yet. For most of my BIF shooting I found 30FPS with pre-capture ideal. 60FPS when I was after smaller and faster birds. But even at 60FPS with pre-capture you can have buffer issues if you hammer it for too long.
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What memory card are you using? I've been reading about the type A cards...seems as though there is a lot of information out there.
 
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Dawallace99 said:
What memory card are you using? I've been reading about the type A cards...seems as though there is a lot of information out there.
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I'm using Pergear 520GB card. I also have 2x 160GB Prograde cards that I had before the Pergear. Those cards perform similar.
From what I've read, the fastest buffer clearing cards are the Lexar Diamond ones. I don't know if it is that big of a difference though.
People found the 260GB Pergear to be slower than the 160GB Prograde but when I tested my 520GB Pergear it cleared a full buffer in the same time.
Higher capacity cards sometimes are faster so that may be why I saw better performance with the 520GB compared to others with the 260GB compared to the Prograde.
 
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arbitrage said:
I'm using Pergear 520GB card. I also have 2x 160GB Prograde cards that I had before the Pergear. Those cards perform similar.
From what I've read, the fastest buffer clearing cards are the Lexar Diamond ones. I don't know if it is that big of a difference though.
People found the 260GB Pergear to be slower than the 160GB Prograde but when I tested my 520GB Pergear it cleared a full buffer in the same time.
Higher capacity cards sometimes are faster so that may be why I saw better performance with the 520GB compared to others with the 260GB compared to the Prograde.
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Makes total sense. But the Pergear 520GB only has sustained write speeds at 400 MB/s, right? I've read that you really need the 1TB card with sustained write speeds at 700 MB's. Your thoughts?
 
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Dawallace99 said:
Makes total sense. But the Pergear 520GB only has sustained write speeds at 400 MB/s, right? I've read that you really need the 1TB card with sustained write speeds at 700 MB's. Your thoughts?
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Hard to say. I think sustained write is really only going to matter for video recording. Even with a full buffer, the clearing rate may not differ much as the card can write for a short time close to 900 MB/s
There are some lengthy discussions on FM Forums about CFe-A and different clearing rates for different cards. If you go there on the Sony section and search Cfexpress or type A or similar you may find those threads.
 
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arbitrage said:
Hard to say. I think sustained write is really only going to matter for video recording. Even with a full buffer, the clearing rate may not differ much as the card can write for a short time close to 900 MB/s
There are some lengthy discussions on FM Forums about CFe-A and different clearing rates for different cards. If you go there on the Sony section and search Cfexpress or type A or similar you may find those threads.
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Much appreciated, thanks!
 
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DavidT said:
To follow up on this I shot a Rugby match last night which is 80 min long. Between pregame events and the game I had the a9III on for about 2.5-3 hours. I used pre-capture at 60FPS .3 second buffer the entire match. I shot just short of 10K images and the temp was 92 Deg F. I had no issues at all. I use 1TB cards as my primary and the a9III has a Pergear which has been fantastic! I have wrote about 130K files to that card without issue. I also have the Angelbird which I would have bought a third one for the a9III but they stopped making them. Maybe your card is an issue. I haven't tried the Angelbird in the a9III but have them in both a1's.
Click to expand...
Just catching up on this thread as I've been away.

As a ex pro sports photographer you have created the perfect nightmare, 10K images to go through and dead line in 30mins!!! :ROFLMAO:
 
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