JIM DECKER
CEO

 The Sony A9 III has become my favorite camera of all time, but not for the reasons you might think. The mass media headline is speed, but the real story—especially underwater—is having no flash sync speed limit with the global shutter.

Sure, it shoots fast, but underwater we’re usually on strobes, and 10 or 15 frames a second is more than enough for almost all situations. It’ll do 20 to 30 frames a second with the right flash attached, but you’ll rarely need to be there. The very big deal is that you’re not limited on shutter speed when using a flash.

That changes everything in bright, clear water. In Little Cayman in June, at 30 feet over white sand at noon—about as bright as it gets—you can still make black backgrounds because you can simply increase shutter speed to wherever it needs to go and still be able to use flash. It completely eliminates the need for high speed sync. In wide angle situations where you just can’t pull the background in dark enough, it gives you way more latitude.

There are images I can get with this camera that I can’t get with others, and that’s why I’m willing to make the trade-offs. I’m at peace with 24 megapixels instead of 50 or 60-plus. I’m at peace with a little less dynamic range. And once you get to ISO 400, the dynamic range difference versus other Sony bodies at 400 isn’t any different. Base ISO is 250, and you can extend down to 125, but with the shutter speeds this camera gives you, that’s rarely the thing holding you back to make the picture dark enough.

The other big deal is that there’s no physical shutter which means no viewfinder blackout and no shutter shake. If you’re doing precision snooting macro with rapid fire, that’s huge. You can see what’s happening as you shoot, focus track a moving macro subject, and make live distance adjustments to keep it in the snoot light all while squeezing off shots at up to 30fps. With other cameras, those shots are either extremely difficult or just not possible.