SIGMA FP vs SONY A7 III – Can SIGMA Change My Mind?

Hi, this is Jay P Morgan, and Kenneth Merrill and today we have Anaya Harmony here to help us take a look at the Sony Alpha A7 III VS Sigma FP.

So we have reviewed the A7 III a million times, well almost a million times, but you know what, it still holds up! It’s a great camera, it’s a great advanced entry level camera. Today we’re looking at how it compares to the Sigma FP, which also has still capability.

Our lenses today we got from Samy’s camera, so big thanks to Samy’s and Sigma was able to get us that art lens, so we’ll be taking a look at that 50mm art lens on the SIGMA camera. And then a big thanks to B&H for the camera bodies. So we’ve got everybody involved today, we love everyone coast to coast.

Let’s get started and see what we got!

PICTURE QUALITY TEST

Right now we are doing out picture quality test. Usually for this setup we take nice portrait – a rim light with the sun and put a bounce on the face. Meter according to the incident meter with how much light is hitting the subject, then take a nice portrait and see how it looks. We see what the resolution’s like, the color, the tonality – this is really the most real world example of how the camera is going to perform taking a portrait.

First off, I have the same love/hate feeling I always have about Sony – it’s just that it’s a little neutral-ish for me, maybe a bit yellow. Yellow in the foreground and not in the background.

The SIGMA looks very red to me in comparison, and the image seems a little cooler. The background seem remarkably similar on both. They’re both very pretty images.

When you blow this up, these lenses and the way they resolve are both so incredibly sharp.

The SIGMA is sharp but a bit softer.

There you have it! Picture quality test.

DYNAMIC RANGE TEST

Let’s see if these 2 cameras can handle this dynamic range. White wall on the left, white clouds in the background – let’s see how these cameras handle it.

The great thing about this scene is you have some darker areas, but you also have the sky and some lighter elements in the background. Already you can see that the SIGMA does not hold the sky at all. I was trying to process these and there was nothing I could do to hold it. You would want to expose it a stop under just to hold anything in the background.

-1 EV

AT -1 now we’re having some hold and it looks great on both.

-2 EV

Her cheeks sure turned red on that SIGMA. The Sony is a little gritty.

-3 EV

The SIGMA is holding fine in the background.

-4 EV

At this point we’re really pushing things. They’re both holding – holding the highlights, holding the shadows, holding the sky in the background. Sony is looking pretty gritty though.

+1 EV

But you know, neither of these cameras likes +1, SIGMA already wasn’t holding that sky well, and now the Sony is looking like SIGMA did at normal exposure.

+2 EV

The wall is gone on the SIGMA and the SONY is starting to posterize. On the SIGMA you have this redness and desaturation on her cheeks and the brightest parts of her face are starting to turn yellow. So her face is about to clip in terms of color.

+3 EV

Start to lose all detail on the highlights, though the SONY hasn’t clipped as much on her face.

+4 EV

I’m not really sure why we do +4 because she is just in the snow at this point. There’s no detail in her face and theres just nothing here.

ISO TEST

400 ISO

Right off the bat the SIGMA is red and the Sony is yellow, but the tonality is almost identical.

800 ISO

Still very clean.

1600 ISO

Starting to see it break up in the background and her face a bit.

3200 ISO

There’s more grain in the SONY.

6400 ISO

Obviously seeing quite a bit of grain in her face on the SIGMA, the SONY you’re seeing some more reds happening and a bit of the green shift that we see with the SONY.

the checker board is really bright on the SIGMA.

12800 ISO

They are both pretty bad here. Her eyes are still popping a bit more in the SIGMA. It’s holding on to that tonality a bit better.

25600 ISO

The SIGMA is soo red and the SONY is soo yellow, it almost looks like sepia!

I would say there’s a slight edge to the SIGMA, i think it was a little more consistent, the colors popped a bit more.

AUTO FOCUSED TEST

SONY has always done well – they have their eye detect autofocus that has really been a game changer for them and a lot of companies have implemented the eye detect as well. SIGMA has the eye detect and I’m really curious to see how it performs because the auto focus is really what separated the great still cameras to the good still cameras.

SIGMA

Looks like half the photos end up in focus.

SONY

In my experience the sony misses 1 out of every 8 maybe!

SIGMA can’t quite beat the SONY out though.

ERGONOMICS & FEATURES

I can’t stand a camera that I can’t get my fingers around. I need something to grip on to and this SIGMA is a box. I feel scared to pick it up, like it’s going to just slip out of my fingers. It’s interesting that they’re building a modular camera like this. It reminds me of RED – it’s cool that you can accessorize it in different ways, but at the same time it feels odd not to be able to hold the camera out of the gate.

One last thing about the SIGMA is the battery life, they will be making a battery extension, which is necessary because it’s practically unusable right now with this barely life. You shouldn’t have to carry around 10 batteries.

I love SIGMA lenses, i have a lot of respect for them. I do think it’s pretty incredible what they’ve done, especially considering the videos we’re going to talk about next month.