Photographing a Real Wedding on the Sony a9 III

Primarily designed for sports photography, could the Sony a9 III be the perfect camera for weddings?

You may have seen the hype about the new Sony a9 III and its global shutter. You may have even pixel-peeped some stills to try and decipher how good the dynamic range and ISO performance are. But here, you’ll find some thoughts on using this camera in the real world while photographing a real wedding.

When I first saw the announcement about the Sony a9 III and its global shutter, I was instantly excited. As a wedding photographer who uses a decent amount of flash in my work, the global shutter is extremely enticing. Adding in the fact that you never need to deal with banding issues while using the silent shutter, this camera is looking like an ideal setup for me. But, like a lot of people, I had a slight bit of hesitation when it came to dynamic range and ISO performance. I watched people get technical, photographing graphs and still life images, then later analyzing the results at 300% zoom. But what I really wanted to know is how the camera could hold up in a real-life wedding, where pixel peeping matters less than simply getting the image. Thankfully, while I had the camera on loan, I was able to test just that.

 

Real Wedding Slideshow - All Images Taken on the Sony a9 III

The first thing I noticed, while not always overly important to me, is the ergonomics. As someone who still uses the original Sony a9 as a full-time workhorse, the overall feel and handling of the a9 III was noticeably better. Buttons, menus, EVF, and that amazing flip/tilt screen are all much-welcomed upgrades. The grip of the camera along with the new shutter button placement is also fantastic.

When it comes to customization, this camera is a dream. Especially when paired with the touchscreen. There is a customizable function menu (swipe up on the screen to access), another customizable function menu (swipe left/right), as well as a host of customizable buttons and dials. What I love most about the ability to swipe to access certain menus is that this frees up a custom button on the camera that is normally needed to hold this function. I also really enjoyed having the new C5 custom button located on the front of the camera (more on that later).

The autofocus on the camera is also outstanding. Paired with the dedicated AI processing unit, the camera can lock onto subjects lightning-quick and stick to them like glue. Even when subjects leave and then re-enter the frame, the camera is able to lock focus back on the intended subject. The AI autofocus also makes focusing on the eye of a subject insanely easy and accurate. No more needing to tell the camera you want to focus on the near or far eye. Simply place the box on which eye, and it will stick to that eye. It will also lock onto the surface of the eye instead of locking onto an eyelash or eyebrow. In some past cameras, the below image would have been hard to quickly capture since the eye-af would have tried to lock the focus on the closer eye instead of the far eye like I wanted.

The AI autofocus also has something that allows it to interpret the human form. So it no longer needs a face or eye to distinguish between a subject and another element in the frame. So when trying to focus on a very small subject against a very contrast-heavy background, the camera can quickly grab focus on the subject without getting confused. In the past, I would have gotten images where the focus was locked on the trees in the background instead of the subjects, but in the complex scene, I didn't miss focus on a single image.

But what I am sure you all are interested in is the global shutter. And I’m happy to report that I saw real-world benefits on my first wedding. With an after-dark ceremony lit with string lights and candles, things are going to already be a bit difficult. But add in the fact that the string lights had an absolutely horrible refresh rate means that any camera is going to struggle with banding issues (even when using a mechanical shutter). In the past, I’d be stuck shooting at a lower shutter speed of 1/60 or slower, and I’d just have to deal with motion blur and overshoot with the hopes of getting something sharp. But because the Sony a9 III has a global shutter, this is no longer an issue. So I was able to take images at my regular 1/250th shutter speed.

One thing to note here though is that although you won't suffer from banding, you still can't escape the refresh rate of lower-end lighting. What this looks like is that if you happen to take an image during a certain time of the refresh, the lights will be more dim than if you had taken the image at the peak output of the lights cycle. So while the lighting might change from frame to frame, you will at least have a usable and workable image file.

Another feature that I have found very useful is the new pre-capture function. When enabled, what this does is allows you to capture images that happened before you actually press the shutter. So if I am focusing on the scene waiting for a moment to happen, the camera will capture images to the buffer for as long as I have the shutter half-pressed or have focus enabled. Then, as soon as I press the shutter, it will take the image as well as save all the images (at 120 fps) that were saved to the buffer prior to pressing the shutter. In the menu, you have the ability to define whether you capture a tenth of a second all the way up to a full second. This is amazingly useful for capturing those moments you find yourself waiting for. In the past, I’d have to take a set of images every time a subject moved with hopes of capturing what I was after, or, I’d be too slow on the shutter and miss what I wanted and have to hope I got another chance. But with pre-capture, anytime I set up to capture this type of moment, all I have to do is press a custom button I have set up, get the image, then turn off pre-capture.

This new pre-capture feature allows me to never have to worry about missing an image ever again, so long as I have the ability to set up and wait for that moment to happen. Though this feature did end up teaching me a valuable lesson into which custom button I choose to turn it on and off. Because the button I chose is one that I apparently press accidentally throughout the day. Which means I got 100+ images every time I pressed the shutter until I realized it was on, even if it was me taking a simple image of the wedding dress. What I would actually really love to see is for this feature to have the ability to only be enabled when you press and hold a button. This would eliminate the chance of accidentally turning the feature on. However, I do think the ability to simply have the feature always be on needs to remain for situations where you are waiting for moments for a prolonged time and won't want to hold down an extra button. 

From here, another standout feature of this camera is being able to take full raw images at 120 frames per second. While this is overkill for most situations on a wedding, I love the way they integrated this feature into the new C5 custom button. What you can do is have the camera set to take images at whatever burst frame rate you like, but the instant you press and hold the C5 button, the camera will instantly start taking frames at 120 fps. This gives you the ability to take images in a more traditional way, while also having instant access to unleash the camera's full potential, all without needing to stop shooting. And while this C5 button being paired with the boost feature is perfect for me, you can obviously reassign this button to whatever you like. You can even program this button to raise the frame rate to something lower like 60 fps if that's what you want.

In terms of dynamic range and ISO performance, I simply wanted to know if it was good enough for what I needed. So with that, I’m happy to report that I found the files to be equal to that of my original Sony a9. No better, no worse. Now obviously if you break things down to a pixel level and compare each sensor across all ISO ranges, you could probably find out which sensor is better. And I’m sure someone will do that if the information isn't available already. But for me, I really only care if the files hold up to real-world use. And while editing, I didn't notice any lack of quality or flexibility in the files that I wouldn't have expected in files from other cameras. Which is saying a lot since this wedding required me to take images in lower light than the majority of weddings I photograph. The only negative here is that the base ISO is 250, which just means the starting point is higher than other cameras. So the a9 III is pretty much the same as the a9 at similar ISO ranges, but the a9 gets better results when taking images at the lower ISO ranges the sensor has available.

From here, there are still some real-world situations I want to put this camera through. Especially when it comes to using flash at higher shutter speeds. While I’ve done some simple testing in my studio, nothing can really compare to real-world use. And this wedding didn't present a situation where I wanted to use flash until later in the evening. However, I did find that given the same camera settings (ISO 250, 1/8,000 shutter, f/2), a flash paired with the sync of a global shutter gave much more light output than the same flash when using high-speed sync.

This might seem like an obvious statement, but the way a global shutter works with flash, especially at higher shutter speeds, causes a good amount of light loss from a flash because the flash duration simply isn't fast enough at certain powers to be captured by such high shutter speeds. So some people were questioning whether this fact might mean the tech from a global shutter was a little less useful than previously thought (at least till lighting brands can catch up). So while I’m going to do a dedicated article on this topic in the future because it is just too much to go into here, I did want to share that, although a global shutter won't capture all the light from a full power flash, it's still drastically more effective than high-speed sync. This means that it’s the best tool on the market for flash photography, and can only get better as lighting companies develop products that play in its favor.

What I Liked

• Global shutter giving unlimited flash sync speeds and no banding issues
• Pre-capture is extremely useful
• 120 fps, though overkill for a lot of work, is still wonderfully implemented and useful
• The overall build and ergonomics (love that tilt/flip screen)

What I Didn't Like

• With so many cool features, it can be cumbersome to figure out the best way to implement them into a shooting workflow
• Base ISO of 250
• ISO/dynamic range is on par with what I need, but other cameras have better

All this to say, that the Sony a9 III will absolutely become my new workhorse camera. While the ISO and dynamic range won't break records, cameras in this line were never meant to do that. But what this camera does have to offer is one of a kind in the market. Completely silent shutter with no banding issues. Insane autofocus speeds and tracking paired with artificial intelligence. Add in the ability to capture moments before they even happen and the ability to sync with flash at any shutter speed, and this camera is as close to perfect as I have ever tested.