  We use the AdS/CFT conjecture to investigate the thermalization of large-N_c
N=4 Super Yang-Mills plasma in the limit of large but finite 't Hooft coupling.
On the gravity side, we supplement the type IIB supergravity action by the full
set of O(\alpha'^3) operators, which enables us to derive O(\lambda^{-3/2})
corrections to the emission spectrum of prompt photons in one model of
holographic thermalization. Decreasing the coupling strength from the
\lambda=\infty limit, we observe a qualitative change in the way the photon
spectral density approaches its thermal limit as a function of the photon
energy. We interpret this behavior as a sign of the thermalization pattern of
the plasma shifting from top/down towards bottom/up.
