The crazy guy from Hong Kong tested the Sony A7s. Just watch the video on top to see if he likes or not likes the new camera! He also posted a behind the scenes video (on youtube here).
Sony A7s store links:
Sony A7s preorder in USA/CA at Amazon, Adorama, BHphoto, Sony USA, Sony Canada.
Sony A7s EU pages: Sony DE, UK, ES, FR, IT, NL, BE, AT, CH, SE, NO, FI, PL. And Wex UK.
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The best so far about the A7s! 🙂
What do you think of the black and white images people are creating with the A7S?
I think the A7S is probably the 2nd best camera on the market at he moment behind the MM for black and white.
I don’t know. I don’t have the A7s and probably will never buy one unless it hits my price of 1200 Euros (ie., about 1/2 of current list price).
For B&W, there has to be another B&W camera to make the comparisons. 🙂
Leica M Monochrome, referred to above as MM
I used to call it M9M. I own one and use it and Slingers know. 🙂
You’ve never used any of Sigma’s Foveon cameras. They are far and away the next best BW cameras for 1600 (really 3200 I think) and below. Isolate the blue channel and you have some really filmic looking BW images. No MM, but it’s the next best thing.
That’s true I have never looked at a sigma foveon in any detail other than seeing landscape images at low ISO. I might go check it out now thanks.
MM is the best for B&W? Please… it’s not even a serious camera next to the IQ260 Achromatic 😉
You are right. I should of put a cost disclaimer though as I don’t even consider the digital backs due to cost.
The cheapest monochrome camera in the market is the MM. 🙂
Well it’s not that black and white 😉 Any camera can do monochrome. So what you really mean is monochrome+non-interpolated. Then Foveon can also be included there.
Yes, it is hardly black and white. I tried figure out what is going on but gave up because of the 2 salient features that is in a commercial camera.
1. Absence of Bayer dyes.
2. Presence of microlenses
This probably boosts the fill factor to >1.
Combine that with the ability to use a variety of lenses and a very quiet shutter it is worth more than its price, despite the archaic body.
Again, it’s not that straightforward. There likely are colour filters on the sensor or on the cover glass to bring the monochrome response to what we consider “natural”. So I doubt it’s a “pure” sensor. There definitely is an IR cut filter, for starters.
Not sure what you mean by the fill factor. 100% is generally the norm nowadays from what I’ve seen in highend cameras.
There are no color filters on the sensor. There is an IR cut filter, yes.
Fill factor is more than 100% (visible range).
How have you verified that there are no colour filters? Colour filters don’t necessarily mean a spatial mosaic.
Fill_factor = light_sensitive_area / total_area
It can’t be over 100% unless the sensor gathers light from its surroundings in addition to what falls on it 🙂
No color filters (no dyes). If you mean there are assigned pixels, that is a different matter. I don’t know about that.
If you wish, “effective fill factor”, ie., ~1/14 stop more effective than a Bayer/micro-lensed sensor.
Yes, there must be colour filters somewhere or else the monochrome won’t have the correct balance of RGB.
As for the fill factor… since the advent of gapless microlenses, Bayer CFA sensors also get a 100% fill factor. Even with that aside, I don’t know how you think over 100% is possible.
im surprised he didnt play the role of a stalker with this one…
He starts losing his religion
Kai Wong did not acting as monkey in this one…
Aaah! Well spotted
Three senseless comments together. What next?
Do you get sarcasm?
he LOVES full frame anyways
What I take from this video is what I suspected already a while ago. A lot of cameras, raw or not, cook their files anyways (Sony is not alone on this, like many people want to make it look)
In this example, you need someone that is looking carefully at the file to realise that Sony always shows more noise (grain-like) but maintains a sharper image at high ISOs. Nikon, here, has a cleaner image, but the detail is not as sharply defined. When they convert the photos to black and white, its easier to see. I remember downloading A7/RX1/D600 files and comparing them and you really loose detail at higher ISOs with the Nikons.
I prefer grain + detail than a noiseless – detail rendering. I like it how Sony has not bent to the pressure of “noiseless”-like images because the others do it so.
Absolutely. The noise pattern on the A7S is actually quite attractive (not quite grain, but it gives it more physicality than other cmos cameras). The other cameras are mushy.
Its a shame he didn’t put any bling on the A7S like he did with A7R.
All the reviews i saw the A7s has less noise, raw and jpeg, than the nikon d4s or df. So I don’t understand how he gets more noise with the A7s.
some links to help us out?
Just check the studio comparison tool at dpreview and you will find out.
Will have a look.
I have to agree with Danny somewhat. This video brought the a7S down to Earth for me. I can’t reference all I’ve seen but one of latest examples if the Philip Bloom video: http://philipbloom.net/2014/07/03/a7s/.
Not comparing it specifically to the d4S though.
It is better than the D4s for single captures. No banding and sharper.
However, there is *no contest* if the fps goes up. The D4s is the king.
Probably, it’s due to youtube compression artifacts. Noisier images are harder to compress due to the random nature of noise. Therefore, the artifacts become more visible in input that has less denoising (=A7s).
That’s true for VBR. With CBR you can lose detail+noise.
Perhaps because Kai left noise reduction on “normal” for both cameras so he isn’t comparing just sensor performance but also noise reduction algorithms. Sony’s seems very moderate. The biggest thing for me is the the noise pattern seems less obvious and offensive than the A7 & A7R. Those cameras also hold details well but there’s a strong pattern to the noise (reduced or otherwise) that take away from the image.
Kai’s reviews are all about performance. He’s the intended centre of attention, and any review should really about him rather than what he purports to be evaluating.
This reaches something of a new low. If he wants a career as a comic, then he shouldn’t be pretending to evaluate cameras.
In your opinion.
Let’s not get into the irony of you commenting on Kai, rather than the camera. 🙂
Now that’s really odd. I hadn’t thought of it as my opinion before.
You haven’t really got much of a handle on irony have you? Never mind.
(hint – it’s not irony if somebody puts up a video and you comment on its quality. It’s just a comment on the video and who produced it).
I’m still not sure you fully grasp the concept of irony…
It is not, repeat not, ironical to comment on the presenter of a video. Perhaps you’d explain how? You might just make a case that’s reviewing a reviewer but even that isn’t really ironical.
Now if you want an example of irony try this. The co-writer of a book called ” Fiesta: How To Survive The Bulls Of Pamplona” has, himself, just been badly gored at this year’s event. I suppose it’s not the perfect irony, as (fortunately) his injuries weren’t fatal, but it’s still not a bad example.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-07-09/pamplona-survival-author-gored-in-running-of-bulls/5585982
If you need it explained: the irony is that you are just commenting on the form of the review, not the content of it. Just as you are criticizing the review/video of doing (Teaspoon: Not focusing on the camera, but the reviewer).
I was really not looking for another example of irony, i was looking for comments on the content of the review in question.
Someone can’t take a gentle poke… did you not get cuddles as a child?
Commenting on the form of the video is still not ironic. At least by these definitions.
http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/irony
Of course it would certainly be ironic if somebody was claiming something was ironic when it wasn’t. Even better, they might sing about it…
http://notesnpieces.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/contextual-analysis-of-song-ironic.html
To be fair, there’s some irony in the song’s lyrics.
Oh wow… you still don’t see it, do you?
Commenting on the video wasn’t the irony. If I have to explain it to you I think I’ll probably be wasting my time.
Have a great day!
I had to dig up this priceless clip from a long time ago. Cheers!
Oops! here it is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nT1TVSTkAXg
That is two Sony cameras in a row that he actually kind of likes. Hmm. The A7s does look like a great camera though.
I never really learn anything about cameras from Kai – but he’s so darn likable!
Digital Rev reviews are the worst.