Prior to the announcement of the α7S III, Sony Artisan Renan Ozturk took the camera to Moab, Utah to test its performance for a film documenting climbers and highliners. We connected with Ozturk for some insight into how the camera held up to the demands of such an extreme production. See what he had to say about the α7S III along with some of the film’s sneak-peek stills he captured using the camera.
This whole project is a tribute to the art form of climbing and highlining,” explains Ozturk. “We’ve shot the world record highline and this same valley before, but realized that the most powerful artistic image here is a shorter line to really get the sense of the landscape. You don't just want a person on the line and in space, you need to see more – and that's where the dynamic range of the α7S III comes in.”
“We took a risk with the interviews for the film and shot them in the dark. We couldn’t see anything out there, we had on headlamps. But then when we looked through the Sony α7S III and we could see stuff. It was like having night vision.”
“You don’t really realize it when you’re watching the piece but it was all shot real-time. I’m personally more of a documentary filmmaker, so I like the realness of footage. We had guys running through the desert at night with the camera handheld, and the moonlight in the sky. It was a situation that normally would accentuate camera shake, but with this camera you could really tell the lack of rolling shutter which was really cool. It had a cinematic look.”
