When director and operator Steven Soderbergh came up with the idea for the horror short Presence, he knew he wanted the camera to be the star. In this ghost story, the camera itself has the role of the ghost, the presence, and which camera did he choose for the job? The Sony Alpha 9 III.

In an interview with filmmakermagazine.com, Soderbergh says, "We shot this on the [Sony Alpha 9 III], which is, as you know, a digital [mirrorless] camera. Its primary mode is as a still camera, but it also shoots really good video. It’s small, and this new version has a sensor that was never used in [this kind of camera] before. I did experiments with all the digital cameras that I’d worked with before and ones I hadn’t. I stripped them down as much as I could, then put them on the smallest stabilization rig that would support them. What I discovered was that there was just a couple of pounds’ difference between the camera I could use and stabilize and be able to back into any space I wanted to, and the next step up made that impossible because of the weight. We did all these tests with the Sony and this one rig. And I’m like, 'This’ll work. It’s not heavy.'"

Read the complete interview with Soderbergh at filmmakermagazine.com.