Right price for the Sony A7riii?

Sony A7riii price drop to $2998

When the Sony A7riii was first introduced in late 2017, it was difficult to complain about the price of $3199.  That made it cheaper than the Nikon D850, which was its closest competition.  It was the same price as the Sony A7rii when it debuted, and same price as the Sony A99ii, another 42mp camera.  It was cheaper than the Canon 5Ds and 5Dsr, cameras with slightly higher resolution but otherwise inferior cameras.   So while $3200 isn’t cheap, the pricing was quite fair.

Landscape with the Sony A7riii, lots of resolution and lots of detail

I could have waited for the eventual Sony A7iii but when you looked at the Sony A7 history, the A7r was priced only about $600 more than the A7.  The A7ii was significantly cheaper than the A7rii, but the A7rii had many advantages that went beyond resolution.  In addition to more resolution, the A7rii boasted superior dynamic range and ISO performance thanks to BSI sensor.  The A7rii had a totally electronic shutter, lacking from the A7ii. The A7rii had numerous video advantages including 4k.  Autofocus was far superior in the A7rii over the A7ii.

Handheld, 1/8th of a second and ISO 1600 — the benefits of IBIS

So I purchased the A7riii, believing that there was no reason to wait for the A7iii, I would likely be getting a far superior camera.

Price competition from the Sony A7iii

To be clear, I do not regret purchasing the Sony A7riii.  I’ve come to appreciate the greater resolution and I love the camera.

But like many people, I was quite surprised by the feature-set of the Sony A7iii.   Though I knew the Sony A7iii would borrow much from the Sony A7riii, I expected it to be dumbed down in many ways.  Maybe the A7iii wouldn’t get a second card slot, or it wouldn’t get a UHS-II card slot.  Maybe the A7iii wouldn’t get 10 fps, or wouldn’t get 10 fps with electronic shutter.

Eye-AF benefit of the A7riii

Instead, Sony delivered a “basic model” that had virtually the same body and same features as the Sony A7riii while actually surpassing the autofocus system by taking the Sony A9 system.   Aside from the resolution, the image quality is nearly identical, as shown by these DXOMark comparison.  WOW.   With a price under $2000, there was now immense price pressure on the Sony A7riii — Not from competing brands, but from below within Sony itself.

So how much extra is the Sony A7riii worth?

If you are considering whether to get a Sony A7riii or A7iii, it might be helpful to really assign value to the differences.  Some of us will know that we absolutely must have the higher resolution, and then it’s an easy choice.

But for those people considering whether it’s worth buying the more expensive Sony A7riii, we can break down the differences.  These values are largely subjective — I’ve assigned dollar values based mostly based  my personal valuations.  Your own valuations will differ but I hope my discussion provides some guidance.

  • Battery charger.  The Sony A7riii comes with a battery charger, which can be purchased separately on Amazon for under $100. The A7iii does not come with a charger.  You can charge your battery in the camera, but this isn’t always ideal.   I suspect most people will buy the Sony charger or a cheaper third party charger.  Thus, I’ll assign a $75 value to actually having a charger included.
  • Increased Resolution:   This is the big difference and hardest to assign a value to.   42 megapixels vs 24 megapixels is a big difference.   But depending on what you are shooting, the difference may make little difference.  Having 18 additional megapixels does provide more detail in your shots, allows for even larger printing, and gives significant cropping latitude.  You can shoot the Sony A7riii in “crop” APS-C mode, and still get 18 megapixels of resolution, still a fairly significant amount of resolution.  On the other hand, if you are rarely doing much cropping or printing massive sizes, you may not see much benefit from the extra resolution.  With increased file size, one can see the extra resolution as a negative.  Personally, if the only difference between the cameras was resolution, I’d be willing to pay $500 to jump from 24mp to 42mp.
  • Pixel Shift:   I’ve used this feature but rarely.   It is only useful in limited situations when you have scenes with absolutely no motion.  It requires additional processing using Sony’s poor software.   But there are times when it can indeed provide some benefit, images with better color and detail.   If you use it a lot, maybe for studio product shooting, I can see it being valuable to you.  For me, it’s not worthless, but I can only give it $50 for value.  In other words, that’s how much extra I’d be willing to pay for a camera with it.
  • EVF and LCD quality:  This is pretty significant.   These are two features you are using all the time.  The Sony A7riii EVF has 50% more resolution — 3.69 million dots compared to 2.36 million.   This is a noticeable difference and makes a real difference in how comfortable you are actually using the camera.  The LCD has the same difference — 1.44 million dots vs 921,000.   As this affects my comfort every time I use the camera, I’d pay an extra $250 for superior resolution in EVF and LCD.
  • Slight body differences:  The A7riii has a bit more magnesium  instead of plastic.   There are 3 memory recall settings on the A7riii with 2 on the Sony A7iii, and the mode dial locks on the A7riii but not the A7iii.   A flash synch port is present on the Sony A7riii but lacking on the A7iii.   I guess the A7riii advantages are worth an extra $25 for me?  Personally, I don’t use the flash synch port.
  • Slightly better Image stabilization.   The Sony A7riii IBIS system is rates as a 5.5 stop advantage while the Sony A7iii is rated to 5 stops.   I rely on stabilization in my shooting, the more the better.   But I won’t pretend that 5.5 stops is massively different than 5 stops.  Still, I’d pay an extra $50 for the extra half stop, if everything else was equal.

There are a few advantages of the Sony A7iii.  The battery life is rated longer, but I shot 1200 photos at a wedding on one Sony A7riii battery and still had 20% left.  So I wouldn’t pay more for more battery life.   I’ve never filled the buffer on the Sony A7riii so I have no use for the bigger Sony A7iii buffer.  But the Sony A7iii autofocus system is better than the already great Sony A7riii system, and that is worth something.   It’s a difference of 693 phase detect points covering 93% of the frame compared to 399 points covering 68% of the frame.  (But the A7riii does still have contrast detect AF for total coverage of 93%).  In real world shooting, the only difference is that when shooting at the far edges of the frame, the Sony A7iii can still use fast phase detect while the A7riii relies on contrast detect.   If you are shooting action at the edges of the frame, this can make a big difference but for me, it doesn’t affect my shooting often.   Still, I’d pay an extra $200 for the superior autofocus system, if everything else was equal.

The autofocus system of the A7riii had no trouble following my daughter as she ran

Adding it up so far……   My own subjective numbers, the fair price of the Sony A7riii would be fairly priced at about $750 more than A7iii.  So do I feel ripped off?  Well, there is another additional significant factor:

One last advantage of the Sony A7riii

I have been enjoying my Sony A7riii since November of 2017.  If I waited for the Sony A7iii, I would have waited until April 2018.  It’s not about impatience, it’s about time having actual value.   I got 6 months of shooting with this fantastic camera, that I wouldn’t have gotten if I waited.

Because of the incredible demand for the A7iii, there is currently a 1-3 month wait on Amazon.  If you want one today, people are reselling the Sony A7iii on eBay for $2400 to $2800!

So if you want the features and quality of the third generation Sony full frame system, you have three choices:

  1. Wait 1-3 months and pay $1999 through reputable retailers like Amazon.
  2. Buy re-sold or less reputable sellers for $2400 to $2800.
  3. Buy a new Sony A7riii at the now-reduced price of $2998.  (Buy from Amazon here).

If I was in the market now…

I’d carefully do my own valuation as above.  I wouldn’t even consider paying $2400 to $2800 to get an A7iii today — the A7riii is definitely worth spending $200 to $600 extra if I wanted to have a camera NOW.  (My own math came out to $750).   But you should do your own math — are the extra advantages of the Sony A7riii worthwhile to you?  And is there extra value in getting the camera within a few days as opposed to a few months?


I encourage my readers, comment on what your own math below.  How much extra is the Sony A7riii worth, if at all?   And please follow me on twitter (button on top right), to get reviews and feedback on the Sony system.