ThePhoBlographer (Click here) compared the ISO results of the A77 with the Pentax K5. As you may know also the (in my opinion very good) K5 uses a Sony sensor. The reviewer writes: “The A77 has two things working against it in these tests, I believe. First is the fact that the sensor has a significantly higher megapixel count than the Pentax K-5, and cramming more pixels onto an APS-C sensor will generally add to the noise. The other issue I noticed though, is the inability to be able to turn off noise reduction.”
Do you agree?
Speaking of Sony sensors used by other brands Dpreview (Click here) just published the full Nikon D800 review which they say uses a Nikon designed sensor. As I told you many times this sensor is basically a Sony sensor with Nikon engineered tweaks. Let’s see if Sony will release a similar high reoslution camera in 2013!
71 Responses
等成熟後再說 絕不當白老鼠
Wait a sec. My chinese is bad. What did you said again?
he said.. waiting A77 ISO better
All sensors got some kind of noise reduction at the very low level.
And this is what you get as RAW files, take it or leave it.
Sorry, I don’t think that D800 uses a Sony sensor.
People should stop saying that Sony will make money off the D800 sales.
you “don’t think”? Have you ever thought about doing a research? There’s something call “Google”.
hmmmm… hoping for “similar high reoslution camera in 2013!”??? i hope i have a similar (not better) camera one year later.
Nice try Nikon fanboy.
Arggh. I hate this discussion over and over again. It’s absolutely clear, that D800 uses Sony sensor. Here is good explanation why: http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/readflat.asp?forum=1021&thread=41056725&page=2
It’s clear from 100 other websites the Nikon D800 does NOT use a Sonys ensor.
Who cares if it does anyway?
End of the day the the D800 is an amazing camera and Sony has nothing to compete.
I guess Sony fanboys feel better about their camera cause Nikon uses a Sony sensor?
Nice quote from that link: “I would like to congratulate Intel for those amazing MacBooks.” 😛
I don’t want to deal with 36MP files on the Sony A900 replacement. 24MP files from the A900 are large enough and use up a lot of disk space. Still don’t want it to be a SLT. High ISO, low noise with approximately 24MP with Optical Viewfinder and 10 fps would be ideal. ISO 50 would be a nice option. Would like to see 2 Compact Flash slots. Hope they force the XQD cards into the camera. Built-in WiFi would be nice or an Ethernet Jack at the least. Faster and more accurate Autofocus in all situations, especially low light, would be welcome. Electronic Viewfinder does not refresh fast enough for fast moving action like birds of prey in flight. It would also be nice for Sony to get rid of their proprietary hot shoe and go with the same ISO 518 hot-shoe that everyone else uses.
Would also like to see Sony get behind their pro level photographers with some type of program to provide support and draw a line in the sand stating that the A9x camera will be truly be a professional effort. Are you listening Sony?
I almost completely agree with you, Brian!
But do you believe, Sony ever really listened to their users?
I basically like to have the same,but I think that it will make no sense to Sony that is head2head with Canikon.
thinking about buying a Nikon D4 and 600F4 and get the Sony flue out of my system,but I still love my A900 and my Zeiss and Minolta glass
/Jakob
Stop beating the no-SLT drum. It will be SLT. Sony has been clear on that. You can add WIFI to the memory-card if the camera doesn’t come with it.
Stop beating the Sony flash hot-shoe drum. It will be a Maxxum flash-mount. Sony only sells flashes with Maxxum flash-mount for Alpha.
Sounds like Brian doesn’t like Sony’s technology choices. Some who have already made such choices pretend that they are unhappy Sony users to create unhappiness in the Sony community.
Sony has made it clear how it plans to take over the world. They could easily be wrong, but they will do it the way they have shown.
Take over the world with billions in losses each financial quarter?
Take over with ZERO pro product line, and little to no semi-pro line?
Thats a great stradegy.
If you’re that worried about things like disk space, I’m not sure your the market for such a camera.
Why the fish do people keep complaint about the goddamn hotshoe!
I think its perfectly way better than the generic hotshoe others are using today. Im glad that sony chose to stay with the minolta hotshoe.
Its freaking easy and fast to use.
All these people are just complaining due to the fact that they have to stick to the old shit that the other brands do not dare to change due to heavy investment.
Sony is an electronics company and as with Minoltan trandition I am happy that they chose to give us in features even on a beginner level camera that only the pro level in other brands offer.
+1 Brian ! The EVF on A77/A65 is an absolute deal breaker, how can Sony put an even worsen version in the coming A57/A37? Sony really should continue the A580/A900 line with OVF and just improve AF module and JPG engine unless more sports photographer definitely change to CaNikon. There you can find better AF and JPG for several years already: Sony wake up, video quality is not everything !
*yawn*
ohhh you are still talking about OVF…
Yes, I looked though it (A65) in a shopping mall, turning the cam horizontally (not even fast). Result: a horrible flickering of all the neon lights made me loose my subject (a walking person). Ok, this may also come from EVF refresh in combination with the 50Hz lights, but anyway: definitely unusable for indoor sports !!!!
I have had the A77 since it came out, and have used it every day – and have NO problems with the EVF. I have shot sports, portraits and events. No problems what so ever. But hey – you tried it in a mall for a few seconds, so I can see that your experience is a lot more thorough.
Yes a few seconds are enough to love or hate somebody or something !
So for you the A77 may be right, the D3200 will probably be preferred by me, but I wait for the 650D before deciding witch next entry cam is best price / IQ ( and I promise to look through A57’s EVF but I guess I will be disappointed once more 🙂
@WTH
Chasing people out for discussing an OVF isn’t very nice.
Don’t feel bad people are jumping ship to other brands.
You’ll always have your SLT and I am sure we will see your work grace the cover of a magazine one day too.
@Click,
Chasing people out? what is there to discuss?
The guy used the EVF for a few seconds and he hates it. He then tries to validate his few second review by stating that the technology has more flaws.
Do I feel bad for people jumping ship? Hell no! I recommend all people who doesn’t like EVFs to pack their bags and go. It is also a good idea to sell their glass on ebay to help fund their transition.
Would I always have my SLT? I hope not… You see, I unlike you can understand that technology is always improving. Somewhere down the line Sony will stop with SLT and start with the next better thing. Just like what they did for the OVF to EVF.
Look if you want to discuss this further, you can call my mobile on your Tele-Phone.
After while I’m OK with EVF. Most of the time I like it more then OVF. Only issue I found is related to using it in bright sunny day while wearing glasses. I can not put my glasses off. Strong ambient light coming into viewfinder around my glasses decreases contrast in viewfinder.
Actually EVF still needs a lot of improvements. There will always be pros and cons of every technology, in case of EVF, the cons weigh a lot more than its pros:
–
–
Actually EVF still needs a lot of improvements. There will always be pros and cons of every technology; in case of EVF, the cons weigh a lot more than its pros:
– It’s refresh rate will always be lower than real-time viewing experience of OVF.
– Less dynamic range. Its colors still appear washed out in broad day light.
– There’s still a lag of the EVF turning on, compared to the always “on” OVF.
– Higher battery consumption for just looking through the VF & shot framing.
– And, finally the SLT design “steals” 30% light from the sensor. This is not particularly against EVFs, but indeed works against choosing the EVF-based SLT cameras.
The pros on the other hands are better simulation of the exposure in viewfinder, and magnification for MF assistance, all of which can also be done on OVF models using the back LCD.
Now, before the SLT owners start flaming me as a canikon fan or whatever, I should add that I have always been a strong loyalist of Sony products, I own both SLR and NEX cameras from Sony, and I have never owned cameras from any other brand than Sony. Still facts are facts. And, sometimes facts need to be stated without bias.
So, I don’t think EVFs in A65/A77/A57 are the ultimate EVFs. Yes, they’re better than A55’s crappy EVF and they indeed get the job done well. But, comparing EVF and OVF will still make the EVF lose.
@saiman: +1+1+1+1+1+1+1
This has been talked to death!
EVF has many advantages over OVF as well.
I am not going to list it here, because I am sick and tired of trying to educate people.
If you don’t like what Sony has chosen to go with, that is your choice to make. There are many other brands out there loyal to OVF, go go go!
don’t come back.
@ Saiman: you mostly focus on negatives, decide that they outweigh positives you don’t really mention and make a sweeping statement that they always will outweigh the positives. And to humour us you state that those are unbiased facts, ignoring the real fact that you merely gave us an opinion which is biased for not listing the countless positives.
It is insane to keep doing the EVF dance. The fact that saiman assumes EVF goes with SLT is telling.
NEX has EVF without SLT (and he claims to have one). Like or dislike of EVF doesn’t bring in SLT, except for those bridge trolls that want to run down Sony decisions.
So have a discussion (again) about EVF or have a discussion about SLT. They are not inexorably linked.
Blabla must have the exploding batteries in his Nikon, but he didn’t discover that in a 30-second eval. a77/a65 also did a firmware release that greatly improved startup time.
Blabla has simply chosen other technology and trolls around Sony sites to please his decision making. Good luck with that.
was v1.04 and what has a bad battery (happened also with notebooks before) to do with a bad EVF flicker ? Go and test yourself the EVF against neon lights inside large shops and the like !
I have used an A77 for many months now.
The EVF is brilliant!
There are so many good reasons to go with EVF and here you are complaining about flicker which I have not encountered myself.
Maybe you are trying to shoot indoor photos with a shutter speed < 1/25…
God knows why you would be doing that and expect to use it for indoor sports…
@Blabla,
I own the A77 and have used it on ever firmware starting with 1.01.
I have used it indoor, outdoor, morning, evening and night.
Tested it shooting at different artificial lighting conditions. In my studio powered by 2 Rotalux softbozes. At work with fluorescent tubes ranging from 2700-6000K.
Never have I lost a subject because of the EVF “flickering”.
BlaBla you are a fool. Thank you for your useless contribution.
I know “a fool with a tool is still a fool” but that flickery is real 😉
I own an a77 and have used it indoors and out with no real issues. I have never seen the flickering problem (although I admit I haven’t yet tried to photograph a neon sign with it). However, I fail to see how it won’t work for indoor sports.
If it is real, I am not seeing it.
Perhaps we are using it wrong!
A few seconds is not enough, but pair it with a preconceived bias and it could be. Do you seriously think people will put any weight in your assessment of a camera by looking through the view finder for a few seconds in a mall?
he probably had the iso at 100 and the shutter speed < 1/25 second and expect the laws of physics to bend to his will.
strobe effects can happen if refresh rate of environment light and display are not synchronized. this can be funny like here http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&NR=1&v=3-rPn0a56WE or even dangerous if for instance a wheel in a machine looks like standing still but in reality turn around at the same frequency as the lights refresh. In Europe this is mostly 50Hz, therefor in such environments there must be installed a circuit to guarantee continuous light. This is the root to explain the flickery I noticed but I am not a Sony engineer so I can’t tell you how quick the EVF refreshes in reality. Belief what you want, I will not struggle with such an issue and buy an even cheaper OVF ! Remember: A65=€850 versus D3200=€600
blabla just wants to do theoretical arguments. Since lights flicker at 60 Hz (or 50 Hz in EU), it is easy to design systems that will not flicker until much higher frequencies.
blabla is just here to start arguments and make people feel bad about Sony tech. I don’t know why such a person would spend their time on a Sony tech site.
@ beachrider: it’s not that easy boy! I have 3 Sony’s and 10 lenses for alpha and no NiCan yet, so it is really not that I absolutely want to jump ship, but I prefer an OVF because it is instantly real, not delayed and has no refresh/flicker problems. And I am sure that Sony will come back with some kind of OVF or hybrid system if we just ask for. The root for EVF was just a strategic decision and no customer demand, or how do you explain that NiCan is not jumping on the EVF train right now? They don’t have a technical delay, they know that this technology is not (yet) good enough to be sold to a professional photographer!
I’ve never understood the negativity towards the EVF. When I got my A33 when it came out, I perceived it as an advantage. I can preview pictures through it, verify shots, see a live histogram, I can see in darker conditions with it.
I traded away a T2i at the time, and I’ve never had the impression that I could do anything with it, that I couldn’t with the A33. The EVF seems absolutely fine.
I find that when I’m using the camera in “A” mode, with a bias of -3, pictures are most often getting proper exposure. In “M” mode you’d have a take a few test shots *anyway* to get it right and to prepare for a serious portrait.
Where’s the upside on an optical finder?
~Mike
in Japan the D800 sensor is believed to be non-Sony , though nobody says who actually made it clearly, other than some tech papers here guessing it is Aptina or Renasus.
but personally, I dont really care if it is Sony or Aptina.
I personally dislike my D800(I traded my Alpha A900 in for that) and I am not a big fan of the sensor and hope it is not the Sony sensor will be used in rumored A99.
Also, the D800 definitely has several design issues that DPR or any review site never gets into and all of them giving it highly recommended or similar ratings , that really made me feel there is something very fishy going on thre, the AF of the D800 is poor( a bit less accurate than that of the D700) , with left side points precision issue and it suddenly locks up I had many times it suddently locks up and I lost some shots , I much prefered my reliable A900 and I am selling my D800 soon.
if Nikon could sort all the annoying D800 issues out and recalls these affected bodies , I may reconsider it, but other wise ,honestly I lost all my faith in all internet reviews and Nikon itself. it is very odd to me that all review sites used to be so hard on high MP cameras in a relatively tiny sensor such as my A900,5D2,etc (I consider 35mm FF sensor tiny) are suddely becoming high MP fake MFB fanboy sites and raving about the D800.
imagine if Sony announced a 36mm mini MFB kind of camer first , how they get criticised or even trashed just like when the A77 and the A900 were first out.
I dont take any internet review seriously and I feel almost all of these sites are dishonest.
Sad to see that you are affected with the AF issue.
There are people affected by this, and from what I have read it is in a few but not all D800.
As for the freezes, that is more common and hopefully Nikon will be able to get a firmware to fix it rather than duct tape.
+1 I also don’t take those internet reviews seriously anymore, especially from those photographers (or better say bloggers) who received the pre-production models.
As a practicing online marketer, I’m aware of those tricks to influence opinion on the net. Big corporations spend big money on their online campaigns. One would wonder where those money go.
Hmm, very bad test imho, where did he focus? The edge of the buton is way sharper even on the high isos on the A77. We all are aware of the noise at higher iso, nothing new. Test those camera’s against a nikon d700, you’ll get really different results. But then again that is already another price league. I don’t agree that this test proves so much.
The review definitely favored a lower-resolution camera. Since he goes pixel-by-pixel (not area-by-area) he should ultimately test K5 against an 2003-era 3 megapixel image. That one would be even sharper than his tiny-pixel K5.
The crops shown in that test are not a great comparison – the a77 files should have been down samplers to 16mp for a ‘fair’ test.
However, I’m still not keen on the hi ISO jpegs on my a77. There is a very big difference between an in-cam jpeg and a raw file treated nicely in LR4! It would be more interesting to me to see the same test done on RAW and 16mpix re-samples….
Perhaps one day Sony will update the a77 jpeg engine. I hear the nex5n makes very good jpegs, so Sony have the know-how. Untill then, above iso1600, I’ll keep on using raw on my a77
remember!, the test is in JPEG, not in RAW.
The D800 samples look very impressive, but only at 1:1 resolution! If you down-sample the hole 36MP image to ordinary FullHD resolution of today LCD displays, you loose too much of information. What works fine with 16MP to sharpen an image looks now over reduced on screen (look at the image of the house http://masters.galleries.dpreview.com.s3.amazonaws.com/1933494.jpg?AWSAccessKeyId=14Y3MT0G2J4Y72K3ZXR2&Expires=1336551390&Signature=15MuL7Rdhid0eJdMQpVxgVjn95Y%3d ) , so you better first crop a part of your image but then why spend so much money for 36MP ? Until 4k or 8k LCD display are standard, this really only makes sense if you print your image in A1 or A2 format or if you don’t have time to compose your image before shooting (or not long enough zoom lens). But the D800 image quality is good, no question about this 😉
The test is of limited use, to put it kindly.
There are, IMHO, too many uncontrolled variables and a poor choice of subject to really judge what the sensors of the two cameras are actually recording. And when you downsample to resolutions for average screens or prints, the visible noise in the 1:1 crops often becomes irrelevant. Dynamic range and accurate color rendition are far more important factors.
Any comparison testing is subject to flaws in methodology. This is why one internet review is not necessarily the best way to judge a piece of equipment by.
When you read the following:
“The test was shot in JPEG to eliminate skewed results due to how RAW processing software handles RAWs from different cameras. I wanted to present images that were completely unprocessed outside of the camera. ”
you have to wonder. JPEGs are processed images (from inside the camera). I am no big fan of Sony’s jpeg engine, but it is what it is.
Then the author uses a 35mm lens on the Sony, crops the image to a higher degree (compared to the 50mm used on the K5) to compare noise, etc. When you read (and see) something like this, it makes you realize how much work and rigor professional sites such as dpreview, imaging resource go through to test cameras and other pieces of equipment.
I would say that as an opinion piece, the supposed “test” is fine. As a serious test that indicates the strengths and weaknesses of each camera tested? Whoa, Nellie! Don’t step on that!
He does make a valid point. The apparent noise of the 24mp sensor is higher than that of the 16mp sensor. I wonder if he’ll get around to testing a 5N or an A57 against the K5. That may actually be worth a read. Hopefully, somebody who actually knows what they are doing will perform such a test.
Let’s see:
– The K5 shots are 2/3 of a stop darker, pushing them to A77 brightness will increase visible noise accordingly
– completely different whitebalance (and contrast)
– OOF vs in focus crops clouds further judgement of noise
– no normalization of output size
Verdict: useless test
I’d like to see a proper, scientifically sound, comparison of the A57, A65/77, and its competitors, focusing on the quality of the photo sensor, and the end results, due to the Sony’s SLT thing.
Do you have any links to such tests?
~Mike
Everybody has his/her own opinion, so let the Nikon fans do so! I really don’t care what Nikon and/or Canon does, I just want Sony to learn from those two, same as they learn from Sony!
Talking about high ISO noise and noise reduction is bullshit to me, because most people(basically all I personally know) using a semi-professional camera like the A77 don’t shoot in JPEG … they use RAW. And to me the RAW performance of the A77 is really good till ISO1000. And with RAW Noise reduction can be turned off.
so who cares what the ThePhoBlographer writes?
Talking about the future:
I love my A77 though I miss some professionalism … AF performance could be much better
I really would appreciate a 40mpix FF A9x camera … especially for my portrait, and fashion pictures. Maybe with a Scale down functionality? Such as PhaseOne has: “you can have 60mpix, or you can have 20mpix with much better ISO noise performance” … would be awesome.
I really need my 10fps for sports photography … so pleeaaaseeee stay with high speed!
and so many more wishes have already been published … WI-FI build in, Dual CF Slots, …
Wish u all the best, MG
+1
The 100% crops show color fringing. Green and purple indicating that the focus was *slightly* back or front focused?
The test should have been repeating until the letter O happened to have been focused spot on, making the fringing go away – I think*.
~Mike
– looking at it again, I do think that it’s comparing an out-of-focus letter O because the focus is on the front part of the key, with an in-focus letter O of the K5’s. Perhaps better to compare the O of the A77 with the key above the O of the K5.
The color fringing is making this very clear. The top part is green and the bottom part is pink. The O is in the green part. The front part of the key of the A77 is in focus, and the front part of the K5 of the letter O key is not.
A quick casual observation of someone like me, should not be able to see these obvious flaws in this test. This isn’t a good test *at all*.
Can you please explain to me why a slight focusing change would make any difference when comparing the NOISE performance of these two cameras?
Because the increased feathering puts it at a disadvantage because the noise reduction algorithms, which can not be turned off on the Sony, has a harder time reducing a gradient/feather (so to say) vs a flat constant surface.
~Mike
I think we can all agree that the K-5 is cleaner at high ISO. But the low ISO comparisons with the out of focus “O” and all the fringing/CA just makes the A77 low ISO look horrible. And I just don’t believe that the A77 low ISO is THAT bad.
For the past 5 years I have enjoyed weekly cycling and photography outings at a wildlife water managment area 8 miles from my home. The goal of this activity is to capture pictures of of standing, perching and or flying birds. For the past year and a half I used an a55 camera body with a variety of lens. Recently I switched to an a57 camera body. I prefer to use an EVF camera outdoors whether it is a sunny day or not. It gives me an advange in setting the exposure as the subject often stands in a pool of highly reflective water especially with birds that are white. I feel that success in capturing a good shot of a flying bird is more related to my panning technique and whether the sun is at my back than whether the VF is EVF or OVF. I ingore any of the negative comments about an EVF camera from people who have not spent time and fairly tested the camera in the real world. I thrill at the beauty of the creatures in our world and don’t care much about tech sheets. Get out an shoot. The subject, light, and the photographers skill is more important to IQ than which camera body they use anyway.
Why is a Sony forum constantly posting rumors, news, etc about Nikon????
Admin are you jealous of Nikon?
I guess if you want people to visit the site you need to have news about the best in the business.
As a Nikon fanboy, I have to ask.
Why is it that ALL of Sony equivalent sensors underperform when compared to Nikon sensors fabbed by Sony?
Regardless if Sony fabricates these sensors for Nikon, the bottom line is that I would rather have a Nikon specced sensor in my camera than the Sony equivalent. 🙂
By the way, i am in no way endorsing that the D800 is being fabbed by Sony as Thom Hogan believes otherwise, and i trust his take on things far more than the moderators.
Nikon is in a great position right now, they get fab facilities to build the best sensor for them for the givin task, wether it is Aptina, or Renesas, or Sony.
Sony sensor fab facilities are using Nikon Stepping machines (fact) to make those sensors. It seems that the moderator for this web site has an inferiority complex by the tone of his reporting nikon cameras.
I’ll repeat for the moderator’s sake, Sony is only fabricating those sensors for Nikon to Nikon’s design standards, if Sony can not manufacture a sensor to Nikon’s standards they go to a different Fab facility as they have done many times (D700, D3, D3s).
Don’t hate the player, hate the game
If speaking about A77 – with enough light picture is fine, but in low light condition noise level is very high – and very very small chance to make it usable.
Again and again starting volks that washed-out discussion about OVF vs. EVF… People, just be rational once please: sit down, take a sheet of paper, divide it into two parts and count all pro and contra. And not some silly pro-points with no relation to reality, like mini-micro-seconds of delay, not correct colour-space and other pixel-peeping. No, count only the points, which help you to take better photos. And stay honest please.
The pro-points of EVF like focus-peaking, smartzoom focus, output-preview, “night-view”, histogram and other infos and much much more (complete listings were posted already many times her) – they ARE helping to take better photos and in some situations you can take photos only with this abilities at all. Now go to the second part of your sheet of paper and count pros of the OVF which helps you to take better photos over the EVF. How much do you have? A couple maybe…