Sony a9 III Review: ULTIMATE Wildlife & Pet Camera?
70,307
Published 2023-12-20
Sony a9 III at SDP.io/a93 for $6,000
Sony a1 at SDP.io/a1 for $6,500
Sony 70-200 f/2.8: SDP.io/S70200ii
Sony 600mm f/4: SDP.io/S600gm
Nikon Z8: SDP.io/Z8
Nikon Z9: SDP.io/Z9
Nikon 600mm f/4 TC: SDp.io/N600f4tc
Is the Sony a9 III the best wildlife camera? Is the Sony a9 III the best camera for action photos of pets? Let's find out!
Tony & Chelsea Northrup review the new Sony a9 III mirrorless full-frame camera for how it performs for pets & wildlife. They use the global shutter to shoot 120 FPS with full 24 megapixel raw files, and absolutely no rolling shutter! First they test it with their dogs, a common task for pet photography. Then they take it to the park to test it for bird photography, for both perched songbirds and flying birds.
0:00 Introduction
0:53 Running Dog Photography with the Sony a9 III
2:58 Running Dog Video with the Sony a9 III
3:39 Bird Photography with the Sony a9 III
8:25 Bird Video with the Sony a9 III
10:32 Global Shutter & Rolling Shutter in Wildlife Photography
11:20 Summary
All Comments (21)
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A9iii as a second camera for 6000$? These birds better be paying for those photos 😂
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8:00 I know plenty of people have much more money to spend on gear than me but saying a $6k camera makes a good second camera really cracked me up😊
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I think the use cases most people are missing are concert photography which is traditionally a nightmare with he flickering potentionally mismatched lights and photojournalism with the silent shutter at artificial lighting.
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Visit our sponsor Adorama at sdp.io/adorama to buy your cameras, lenses & more! Sony a9 III at sdp.io/a93 for $6,000 Sony a1 at sdp.io/a1 for $6,500 Sony 70-200 f/2.8: sdp.io/S70200ii Sony 600mm f/4: sdp.io/S600gm Nikon Z8: sdp.io/Z8 Nikon Z9: sdp.io/Z9 Nikon 600mm f/4 TC: sdp.io/N600f4tc
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Tony with his camouflaged lens and bright red jacket. No wonder the birds are far away.
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Great job Tony and Chelsea comparing this camera to the Z8/Z9 for wildlife. As an amateur, I'm sticking with my Z7 (mark 1) and Z9 for the foreseeable future.
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Sony didn't have animal eye autofocus in video before the A9III?? That's not correct
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The more I watch the Sony A9iii reviews the more the Nikon Z9 looks like the perfect camera.
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Don't you think we've reached a point with these insane shutter speeds where we should simply call this filming?
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I love when Tony just says, "bye" and the video instantly ends😂 Great video!!
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Why do you show comparisons at 800-900% zoom? I get that you're trying to show your subjects up close, but I don't get it. What do the pics look like at 100% crop? At first, I was looking at your examples and thinking WOW my R5 produces significantly cleaner and more detailed images....then I saw the magnification level.. LOL
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It’s hard to have an actual review of a camera if you can’t dive into the raw files. I love the tech and can’t wait to see how it evolves in the future, and filters down to other less expensive camera models over time.
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I think this is such an honest review, thanks! (And I would love to see a dog-shoot (or other fast animal) comaprisations between the Nikon Z9, Canon R3 and Sony A1 camera's)
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Who likes to sit behind a screen for hours and select a few pictures from a bazillion and than trash the rest of the bazillion? If spending hours behind a screen is your thing. The a9III is your camera. I loved my D700. Grab it, go on a trip. Archived the pictures, deleted the few redundant pictures and maybe crop a few. That was fun, because I love the being outside part of the hobby.
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Great review and thanks. There’s no way I am going to pop $6,000 for a second body I will only pull out on special occasions. I agree with all the comments about a higher pixel count and am waiting for the R5 II, but the lower pixel R6 II often gets the call because I just enjoy using it more than my current R5 I.
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Great review guys. After shooting with the A7R5 with 60MP I would find it difficult to go back to 24MP. I'm finding shooting slightly wide and cropping is almost essentially with fast moving wildlife when there is only one take. At least for me 🙂
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HDR video! I'd love to have this camera to compliment my A7RV, but I only use third-party lenses so I wouldn't even be able to use it properly, assuming the 15fps limit still exists
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I see many people waiting for the A1 II or even an a9 IV in hopes of getting the global shutter AND higher resolution. For kids, pets, sports, weddings, concerts, journalism and other use cases where MP isn't as important, this is perfect. But for wildlife, art, etc, it's not enough MP! When you start cropping and enlarging images, the quality decreases very quickly.
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When comparing the Nikon z9 and Sony A9 III at 07:00 (flying bird), it is more than the resolution making the Nikon better. The Sony A9 III has a lot of more noise in the pictures. In other words the ISO sensitivity is a lot better in the Nikon than the Sony.
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I have animal / person eye-AF (amongst other stuff) in video on the A6700 and it's really quite amazing!
