Note: The A7rII waiting list is getting shorter. If you order the A7rII now at Amazon (Click here) you will have to wait 2-5 weeks to get it.
–
Dpreview just posted an article about the ISO behaviour of the A7rII. While the state that the A7rII has a very high dynamic range they also complain about the lossy Raw files showing some posterization artifacts in certain conditions:
With the a7R II, Sony continues the tradition of lossy Raw files, with no option for lossless 14-bit Raw. This isn’t going to affect all your photographs, but it can rear its unsightly head at high contrast boundaries of pushed files. The area around the sign in the ISO 100 + 6EV and ISO 200 + 5EV shots have artifacts not present in the higher ISO shots. These posterization artifacts are due to Sony’s lossy compression, which you can read more about in Iliah Borg’s excellent study here.
We think this Raw compression is particularly a shame, especially when you consider how ISO-invariant this camera is otherwise. As you saw above, the pushed ISO 200 shot has very little additional noise compared to the ISO 6400 shot. This is because of the high dynamic range, and ISO-invariance, of the camera, which means that realistically you can save much of your image brightening for post-processing as opposed to increasing your ISO setting in-camera. However, you’ll be limited in your ability to do so because of Raw compression, essentially meaning the camera isn’t as ISO-invariant as it could be.
I am 100% sure Sony will release a firmware update to allow current A7 owners to shoot real 14 bit RAW. The pressure on Sony is too high to not bring this feature.
One more interesting note: DearSusans actually claims the Sony RAW files on the A7rII are “tweaked”. They shoot stars with the A7r and A7rII and noticed a clear improvement on the A7rIi files:
Doing so with files from the A7r produces square artifacts around stars, as seen above. The same intermediate processing on A7rII files did nothing of the kind. Now, this is not to say lossy compression is ideal or perfect. And, if it adds significantly to the already improved image quality, we’re all for lossless RAW compression, here at DS. But something already has changed and, apparently, in the right direction.
Give us 14 bit Sony, we on SAR want to get the best out of our great Sony sensors! P.S.: My personal request…add 64 ISO too 🙂
A7rII preorder list:
In USA: at Amazon, BHphoto, Adorama, SonyStore US, FocusCamera, Uniquephoto.
In Europe at Sony DE, UK, FR, IT, ES, NL, BE, CH, AT, SE, FI, NO, PT. Wex UK.
In Asia at Digitalrev, CameraPro.
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184 Responses
“I am 100% sure Sony will release a firmware update to allow current A7
owners to shoot real 14 bit RAW. The pressure on Sony is too high to not
bring this feature.”
Why are you so sure of this?
How about the owners of other cameras using the same compression formula? I think that would be anyone with a NEX 5n and other cams that came after that.
Yea i m sure on next A7000 they will put the main features of A7RII plus the wanted 14 bit RAW files and 64 ISO because of the SAR pressure
It would be a wise thing for Sony to do and I would welcome it, but don’t expect the Sony trolls to let up. They will find so other superfluous “issue” to complain about, you can count on that.
This is insane. What do they seriously think? I mean sometimes I ask myself what do the decision makers look like in those companies… Are they actually photographers ?
Giving us a pro body at 3200$ with lossy files, with absolutely no reason and no technology limitation for this….. Can’t understand. And why not 64ISO too? Nikon does it with Sony sensor and get better DR out of it. I mean…. Seriously guys think a little bit when you release a camera.
Hey… they’ll give you the lossless in the A7RIII… if you want the 64 ISO that will be A7RIV… if you want both it would be the A7RV… Sometimes I think Sony hired some old Apple guys the way they slow roll all the little tweaks and enhancements that you know they are full aware of and capable of putting out in the first version… but no they just hold them back for the next iteration….
And don’t hold your breath on the firmware fix… I would bet money you won’t get it.
your probably right, as if you fixed all the flaws and niggles of controls and non sensor stuff within a couple of generations, leaving only sensor and small increasemental updates
Yep, Apple have said for years, if adding X makes Y less efficient, we won’t add it. There are other factors at play in the A7 design, namely processor heat, everything being cranked up to 11 in order to offer this level of functionality. Maybe, just maybe, it aint as simple as DigVoid thinks it is.
It’s a lot easier to program and update firmware than develop a new back lit sensor or 5 axis stabilized sensor or 4K internal video, don’t hold your breath waiting for Nikon and Canon to do that. I guess the could license the technology from Sony if it’s beyond their technical ability.
Nikon and Canon should outsource the sensor. The Sensor is really the equivalent of film and neither Nikon or Canon were ever in the film business. Their business is the camera that uses the film/sensor and the lenses… I see no problem with them moving ahead with that mindset. And even if your a die hard Sony fan that hates Nikon and Canon you have to push for the same outsourcing because when one manufacturer like Sony outsources a component like sensors the end result is the costs for that component get spread across more units and the price goes down.
I have no hate for Canon, Nikon or any other camera manufacturer. Currently Sony has the best sensor mounted to the best (and only) 5 axis stabilizer. Those two attributes rate very high on my list of wants, right now Sony has it and the others don’t. If the scenario were different I would prefer the manufacture that did regardless of the name.
Problem is it’s not even remotely the same. People could buy any film for their camera. But if Sony supplies all sensors to everyone they can inflict damage on others by not giving them the best but only second tier sensors or sell them the best but 12 months after a Sony camera was released with it…
I think this is what they are aiming at in the long term.
I think you just described what Sony already does… Didn’t they have a deal for a while that Nikon got their best sensors for a certain time period before they would use them or sell them to anyone else?
Yes and once they make 80% of all sensors they can dictate the market hence giving a year or two old tech to everyone else and the latest to Sony Camera division. It can happen… With that they can greatly boost their sales. Pretty good tactic but bit long term though. I still love Sony cameras as they are so don’t care about domination or not, that’s a long road anyways 🙂
What if the compression algorithm is baked into a chip that’s on board to make it superfast? You cannot firmware update that. Also they will need to develop another chip… It takes time and it’ll make the saving and clearing the buffer slower and even less FPS…
Just saying it might not be as simple as people always claim…
What’s even more insane are $3000+ dollar cameras without IBIS and 4 K video, these are things that actually effect still and video photography. Yet I hear no screaming of outrage from the negative Nancy’s.
That really intrigues us too, if this were our D810 (video edition mit EVF) we’d be wanting $5499, pretty much inline with Canon’s C100 M2. That’s why we haven’t committed to video, our user-base wouldn’t pay that kind of entry fee.
Many don’t care about 4k and IBIS is not always needed, but can be beneficial. Most f2.8 or f4 zooms and teles have in lens stabilizations. For portraits I never had a problem with stabilization and primes, as shutter speeds are high enough. For travel photography without tripod it is a really useful feature in my opinion.
Low light non OSS fast lenses could benefit too
Am I the only one who thinks there are much bigger (but albeit still minor) issues with this camera? Like card write speed. Custom modes that don’t actually let you save all your settings. Poorly organized menus. If we’re going to get up in arms about something can it at least be relevant? I like to push shadows in post too but +6EV and the artifacts are only clearly visible at 200% on a 42MP camera? Sure, it would be great if Sony gave me the option to use loseless RAW (although then the slow card write speed might get more attention). I might use it. Sometimes. It won’t work with continuous, silent, burst, or long exposures anyway.
I would like to be able to set a custom mode that for studio work that switches off EVF Preview Effects (i.e. not completely black screen) and another for non studio with preview on. But you can’t?!!? I’ve also noticed the warning, “Still writing to card” quite a few times when clicking play after taking a shot and that’s with a class 10 U3 95mb a sec card. A few tweaks in firmware could sort it out….. plus giving us non lossy raw files.
That said, it’s still a dam fine camera with only a few rough edges to sort out.
So much THIS. If they would just let us be able to turn Preview Effects on/off via an assignable custom button, that would be great. It’d be especially handy for doing outdoor strobe work – leave the preview on while exposing for the background, then turn it off when composing and firing with your flash. I mean, they let us assign just about everything else to the the custom buttons, so why not this?
Exactly! These are the issues that affect real world photography and are easily fixable in software. Sadly I don’t think Sony can fix the slow write speed. One independent test pegged it at around 35MB/s even with the fastest UHS-I cards. Thankfully the buffer is a decent size.
“I am 100% sure Sony will release a firmware update to allow current A7 owners to shoot real 14 bit RAW. The pressure on Sony is too high to not bring this feature.”
Not entirely. In some (far too many, some ridiculous circumstances) modes the ADC processes in 12-bit rather than 14-bit. It’s likely that is a hardware rather than software limitation which cannot be changed. As to removing the 11+7 compression, that seems like a reasonable possibility although I’m far less confident than you that they’ll actually do it. Especially since they seem to be updating these cameras annually.
It already has ISO 64. Sure, it’s a pulled ISO and not native, but it’s there. 🙂 Base ISO 100 is just fine for the most part. It’s not like the A7 II or A7R II have any real residual noise at ISO 100.
How do you know it’s fake ISO? It’s completely new sensor.
Because I just reviewed the camera and put over 1,000 shots through it. ISOs below 100 show the bars on the A7R II to indicate they are expanded ISOs just like on the other A7 series cameras.
3200 bucks………………. still no have 14bit loseless !
Lets make a Meme !
“I am 100% sure Sony will release a firmware update to allow current A7 owners to shoot real 14 bit RAW.”
Nah… they will launch the Sony A7rII-S in 8 months with real 14bit RAW. New camera instead of new firmware 😉
Nope, it’ll come cross-platform via FW, if and when it comes, but with certain caveats, only certain later models though.
Pushing files +5EV and +6EV? Good grief. How about people learn how to actually expose a picture properly? These cameras have massive, class-leading dynamic range. If you’re still needing to push stuff +5EV and +6EV in post, you have far bigger problems than artifacts due to slightly lossy RAW files. I think I’ve had to do that a half dozen times in the past decade- basically when my flash didn’t fire at a key moment because the batteries hadn’t recycled yet. The amount of hand-wringing I’ve seen over this incredibly minor detail is somewhat staggering.
I was thinking the same thing…
It is quiet simple if it was not for lossy Raw files you could use a lower ISO, therefore having greater dynamic range and push the file in post. That would be very useful for theatre production photography.
Explain how to prevent blown highlights without ETTR and if bracketing isn’t possible (church windows during ceremony). Look at Jim Kasson’s or Dpreviews pushed D810 results. Only a minor difference as to using ISO 64 or ISO 3200, for example, but with the option to prevent highlights. The same is true for the A7rii iff you use the fact that the A7rii is iso invariant form ISO640 to 25000, as Jim Kasson showed (the sensor changing the conversion gain at ISO 640). So it is probably better not to start form ISO100 on. This is different in the D810 and A7r, for example. So if you want to preserve highlight, one should keep that in mind. In that case, a proper exposure for me is the one, where I ETTR and push in post.
The shadows are going to exhibit much more noise than a properly exposed image or an image underexposed by two or three stops which is a more realistic. This is based on my post processing results using my D800. I would never intentionally under expose 6 stops, the image would be junk if printed or displayed on a high quality monitor.
http://blog.kasson.com/?p=3826 shows hardly any difference for a 3-stop push for A7r, for example at 100%, only the 5-stop push exhibits visibly more noise (100%) for a 36MP file. So I don’t see big problems for decent print sizes up to 4 stops. Even 5-stops is usable after PP for smaller prints. The “much more” for 2-3 stops push is not true in my opinion for newer Sony sensors.
“Usable for smaller prints” That much I agree with with +5 stops. If I can’t correct an exposure with +3 stops I can’t use it.
In my opinion modern sensors give us a lot of possibilities when “smaller” prints (A4-A3) are required. If you want to benefit from the high resolution an A7r or A7rii provides and print big, I absolutely am with you in that strong shadow pushes are detrimental to quality.
I was shooting sunsets last summer using my D800 and just at a critical moment my SD card ran out of space. The overflow option was not set (Murphy’s law) and some quick menu setting was required to switch to the second SD card. The sun moves really fast in the last few minutes and seconds of a sun set and just as the second SD card became available the sunset was at it’s peak beauty. Camera was set to manual and I quickly fired off about 4 to 5 shots, success or so I thought. Turns out my settings were about 4-5 stops under exposed, in my haste to get the critical shots my exposure was not reset. The shots were adjusted in post + 4.5 stops and actually looked pretty good but some noise and muddiness marred what would have been an almost perfect shot. The image looked good on line but was just not good enough to print. There is no substitute for good exposure, don’t buy into this “I shoot everything 6 stops under”, it’s a load of crap.
Any Canon would have exposed correctly…
To quote Ansel Adams via Louis Pasteur. “Chance favors only the prepared mind”…
My sentiments precisely. In the chrome days my typical push was +1/8 stop. None of these “digital wonders” would have been able to make enough money to buy lunch!
>This isn’t going to affect all your photographs, but it can rear its unsightly head at high contrast boundaries of pushed files. The area around the sign in the ISO 100 + 6EV and ISO 200 + 5EV shots have artifacts not present in the higher ISO shots<
You ladies read this here first; +5 & +6 stop pushes can make those Sony files a little iffy!
Better warn our NPS Sports Pro's at the upcoming Olympics, those losers are still shooting 8-bit JPEG's……. oh wait, they also expose their work properly, and are proper photographers, WTF!
BTW, Iliah Borg’s Lloyd Chambers measurbation mentor, take this with a grain of salt.
ha ha push +5E ha ha
ha ha?
needing to push 5 or 6 stops when you have exposure preview is fairly unlikely…
It isn’t about pushing stops, but about shadow recovery or highlight recovery. These artifacts can happen in some pictures and when they do it’s annoying. What is more annoying though is that regardless of whether they do or not happen and how often, where is the harm in introducing a lossless compression image to avoid this scenario? I’m a photojournalist and I can’t more pixels in my photos to compensate for these artifacts.
What the **** is wrong with Sony.
They claim to want to capture Canon market share…what a joke.
Look at the Canon blog sites….the lossy compressed files make Sony a laughing stock.
Why deliberately provide Canon all this amunition to trash the a7rii.
Provide a firmware option for lossless raw, so those that eantvit can have it, and let those that want the current compression continue to use it.
Why should this even be an issue, just get it done Sony …!!!!
These are the kind of issues that make Sony management look like morons…people have been hollering about this for years.
I don’t get it. You were praising the camera and now trashing it? Is it that big of a deal to you?
Actually I am not trashing the camers, I am trashing Sony stupidity.
I personally do not care about the lossy compression, but many many people do, and Sony is sabotaging the sales of the camera by ignoring what all these people are clearly asking for.
I can speak highly of this camera but I cannot speak highly of management that consistantly makes foolish choices like this.
Sony will not be a professional photographers camera until they act like a professional photography company…thats what they just dont get.
When I travel I meet everyday people who ask about my cameras.
The majority of people that I meet
Think Sony went out of the camera business
Think Sony only makes point and shoot cameras
Or never knew Sony made cameras.
When I meet people that are serious photographers yhey are into Canon or Nikon and dont care what Sony does because they do not consider Sony a real camera company.
This is the image Sony has in the USA.
Gotcha. Well, I look at the lack of dual cards slots as another stupid move. How hard can it be to just add another card. I’m assuming it’ll take more processing, etc. Then just drop an A9 even if the body grows a bit- give us the option at least.
Canon and Canon fans will seek any opportunity to make the a7rii look bad…Sony needs to do what they can to counter that.
Hardware issues are not significant…and cannot be fixed easily
Dual card slots…use 128 or 256 gb cards
Short battery life…carry spares or use a battery grip
Overheating…only occurs with long 4k videos…rest the camera every 20 minutes and tilt the lcd screen.
Firmware issues must be adressed asap.
Lossless 14bit raw compresion
Make sure those lenses that do not focus properly with adapters do, etc.
Once all the fifmware issues are fixed this cameras reputation will improve.
I don’t think this is doable, but it would be good if there could be a firmware solution for higher burst rate, even if it comes with limitations like only shootng jpgs at 12 or 25 fps…..if it is possible?
The lossless raw issue should have been addressed before this camera was ever released, as people have been complaining about this issue for years.
By the way I carry more charged batteries than I can possibly use in a day, and I can change a battery in 3 seconds blindfolded…so to me that is a non issue.
For me personally, this issue is preventing me from buying into the Sony system. And yes, it may not be THAT big a deal, but I guess I am a nerd and cameras are just toys for me, and that’s lot of cash for something that has a known issue that may manifest itself in odd ways.
So there, from a potential customer who owns multiple bodies and lenses (APS-C and FF), and that’s my point of view.
Many many many people have been saying what you are saying…that they simply will not buy a camera with lossy compression…and they have been saying it for years…and Sony has stilll not listened.
Does Sony actually want to sell cameras to professionals. ..?????????
They are selling to professionals, who told you they weren’t? The better question here would be. “Sony, is there a solid technical reason you’ve adopted this compression scheme?”
I’ll answer this from a D810 standpoint, many Nikon professionals won’t touch the D810’s 36mp lossless RAW’s as the files are simply too large to deal with in a timely manner when out in the field, and storage requirements are obscenely difficult there, especially when dealing with >2,000 images.
Interesting point of view, but it begs the question; if you own multiple APS-C and FF bodies why would you need another one. I’m sure some of them already have lossless raw compression.
One reason is because I would like autofocusing Zeiss, IBIS, and some other things. And also, why not? I’ve sold plenty of gear before, and will do again. Is this some kind of character flaw?
At the end of the day, I like playing around with stuff. Why does Jay Leno need 150 cars?
Your comments are inconsistent, previously and repeatedly you complained that the cost of the A7rII was too high, even though it’s right in line with the competition which lacks many of it’s functions. So is it the cost or the compression technique? Or is it the name Sony?
I probably wouldn’t get the A7rII right this moment. If I were to buy now, I would get a previously released A7 model, but the compression issue affects all of them. I would otherwise be very interested in the A7II or the A7s, when and if the price is below $2,000 for the A7s.
I think the compression issue will eventually be corrected and hopefully soon. Being a purist any compromise in image quality however slight is a negative. However, the constant hand wringing on the issue is just ridicules and overlooks all the positive attributes of these cameras. It’s an issue that should be dealt with, but the hysteria generated by trolls, fan boys and bloggers out to make a quick buck is absurd.
Yeah, but Jay’s not getting hung-up on misinformation he hears from NPR’s Click & Clack. He knows better!
Then you’ve been fooled. I really am not being flippant – but you’re simply accepting inferior performance in a load of very important areas with other camera systems to avoid this weirdly esoteric and largely made-up “issue.”
The Sony gives so much in terms of benefits for camera nerds that avoiding the system for this stupid thing is like saying you wouldn’t drive a Lamborghini if the cigarette lighter was slower than the one on your Ford Focus.
Fair enough, thanks for your feedback.
Compressed raw sucks -> Sony sucks -> You use Sony -> You suck
Push ANY Canon camera 6 stops and see what happens.
Then don’t trip as you’re running back to Sony.
Bart
I think you are missinterpretting my comment a little.
I own the a7rii and am very happy with it.
But it is Sony’s intention to win over Canon users….they are not as Sony friendly as I am and it is foolish of Sony to give them amunition to fire back at Sony when many of these issues are firmware issues.
Read my comments on Canonwatch…I was whitelisted again..and you will see that I speak highly of a7rii…which is whst got me banned in the first place.
I also do not push my exposures like that…I am finding -1 or 1.3 holds both good highlights and shadows.
Even with that clarification (I know you like the camera) – I still feel the same way. I really can’t see how you look like a moron for creating a superior product.
The “compressed” Sony files are a joy to work with compared to Canon files.
The story ends there and everything else is just gravy. Anyone who wants to make a “pro-Canon” argument using this reason is out of their mind.
There is a post mentioning this. If you think the other way, would you do iso 6400 instead of pushing 6 stops?
Without having a complete understanding of the physics and software issues in play, I will say that in practice, pushing the ISO in camera always looks different than pushing the file an equal amount in post.
I understand the concept that it should be basically the same – and perhaps the mathematical amount of noise is similar… but it never looks the same.
We can argue the reasons, but can’t escape that reality.
In reality I trust post-processing software a bit more. Thus I basically turned off all in-cam optimization or correction as they can’t be undone.
It shows that they are an electronics company first and foremost, camera company second. The real problem is that they could patch in and add so many features to their product, but that goes against the electronics company mentality.
Samsung has been providing new firmware upgrades to thier cameras almost every month.
I don’t think you’ll see lossless RAW anytime soon with current A7Rii. Sony will need good reasons to make people move up to the A7Riii in a couple of years. Uncompressed RAW will look good with any new tech features.
Plus, Sony has to field test the uncompressed raw. The last thing they want is the new Raw to come out and tons of issues.
If I were SONY, i would have compressed RAW as default and a menu item to make uncompressed. I’m not certain if uncompressed RAW would have any influence on battery life or FPS.
I don’t think anyone was suggesting that sony eliminate the compressed raw algorithm. everyone asks for uncompressed raw as a an option.
Lossless compression would be better. I think that’s what people really want not uncompressed RAW.
I’m shooting Sony for years, A230, A55, A57, A58, A99 and now A7ii… I probably shot 400.000 photos with these guys. Never… and I say NEVER had a problem because of Sony’s compression algorythmics.
I’d just like the same beautiful image from bulb as single shot. Sure, Continuous as well… But presently, I really want to bring back the big stopper.
Summary: Badly exposed shots, might look bad with this camera if you blow them up to wall sized: FW Update released called “Don’t DO THAT”
The lack of understanding of what makes an image good and the total inability of any technology or eye to see differences between 12 and 14 bit astound me.
I refuses to buy A ferry because I heard it only has 240 HP at 120MPH!!! Ya we get it If lossy RAW is your excuse for bad photos.. its not the camera..
Hmmmm, no.
Try astro for instance.
Show us your unacceptable results due to the raw processing, love to see it.
if he’s Luc then you may be called Thomas in a previous life to only believe after seeing by yourself 😉
🙂
1 ev is much.
Please search for yourself, I have done my research when buying both N, a7 and a7mk2.
Your research is nothing more that repeating second and third hand quotes from uninformed bloggers. Stop embarrassing yourself.
And I’m reffering to my a7mk2 and the 24-mpix sensor, just as it is written above.
Chillout fanboys, you will not lose anything with the bigger raw.
The 24 megapixel sensor is not the same technology as the new one found in the A7rII.
The bigger raw would be a good thing, don’t expect a miraculous improvement. It will be a tiny bit better.
Correct; if your skills prevent you from getting acceptable results now the lossless raw is not going to fix it for you.
There are times you can’t do HDR stacking. On the other hand, a little bit extra is always welcomed, otherwise people won’t throw this much money on cameras and lenses.
Mine are completely acceptable, but talking about “bad exposure” in many cases is pure bullshit.
Besides – the same tech as mine a7mk2 sensor shows much better results on nikon, I would love to have that extra stop.
… And lowering the quality when exceeding 30s is riddiculous.
Show us the both and demonstrate the “much better” results. Unless what your saying is just bullshit.
What Nikon model uses the new Sony sensor found in the A7rII?
It hasn’t arrived yet.
That’s not what Mr. Luc said, he must be using a prototype model Nikon that’s not available to the general public.
That means it hasn’t arrived yet. I’ll wait for Nikon to announce it.
I thought he may be a beta tester.
Sounds like it. However, the same part number doesn’t equal to same quality. Nikon and Sony share sensors in many bodies and noticeable differences can be found. I am somewhat interested in seeing what Nikon would bring in the near future. But I do think 42MP is too much for non-pro use.
Then all you have to do is sit out two or three recalls and your good to go.
Perhaps they should learn from Sony, just tell everyone they don’t need a perfectly working camera.
It’ only exists in his mind. 🙂
Doesn’t Nikon run non-skippable median filter at long exposures?
Really? you haven’t seen any? go shoot the stars with your a7rm2 and see for yourself.
Done Astro.. Stacked images from Sony A700.. then moved to Canon 450D because of software tools you just can’t get for Sony. Not every camera is best fore everything. But even most of the examples Astro I have seen are this over pushed Astro images. Stack enough images and you should be fine.
Sony have got the whole lot of you on a string. They bring out the ‘Next Awesome Model’ and you all go out and buy it, regardless of cost, then you find out it’s not really what it seems, then you do it all over again on the next issue.
Just go buy an A77M2 and have some real fun with a camera which does ‘Everything’ well.
Sony, try some marketing on ‘A’ mount, you may find you will sell shed loads….. and you may find all these poseurs with kiddy cameras, oh sorry, I mean E mount cameras, will suddenly find what a ‘real’ camera is all about.
I think during every meeting of Sony managers, they should display such polls like at Fuji in order to remind them which features and improvements the end users want and not what the managers expect
http://i850.photobucket.com/albums/ab69/fujirumor/asdede_zpsffekjgzj.jpg
Yeah, right, what they don’t show is about decent and usable RAW for the major software on the market.
It shows those who already bought a camera, so why does that matter actually? They want to increase marketshare, and not to increase happiness of existing loyal customers.
Everyone buys a new camera once in a while. I think the times of huge market share of first time buyers are long gone, and Canon already made it’s current wealth on that trend. Sony themselves say that their target are current dslr shooters, especially canon.
Loosing existing customers does not help increase market share. Polls show what people actually care about of all the bells and whistles they include in their cameras.
do you mean that unfortunately ppl will buy their camera without checking on users forum if it s really a satisfying camera or not? Then I m really naive to think Sony managers will care about happiness of existing customers to increase the satisfaction of future customers by providing them better products. Indeed nobody else but end users know well the final products contrary to the Sony Managers which only see numbers and names.
can some one hack the software and change the raw to full 14 bit ? i have no idea if this is possible but it should be very welcome .
Sure Guido. No problem. I’ll do it tomorrow on my lunch break. After all – how can I refuse such a lovely request, spiced up with racial generalizations!
And tagging any cultural pattern as racism shows lack of education;)
very true. some cultures and traditions impede progress. kinda like people being blinded by religions. in this case the japanese culture plays a part in not admitting a bad decision (in using lossy compression) and it takes a long time for them to accept the need to change
As if they didn’t change anything by users requests in the new camera, what a stupid and ignorant comment.
remember Fukushima and the denying of the problems until they could no more deny the reality of the disaster .
and i am not racial . in fact there is only one human race on earth : homo sapiens ( with some genes of the Neanderthal ) : one race but different cultures .
Actually Japanese companies are quite famous for continuous improvement and appreciation of change for good. The Toyota Management System for example. However, same Toyota refused to acknowledge issues with accelerator. Go figure..
very thorough and detail oriented culture. but the lossy compression issue affect few users and probably below the threshold for their willingness to change.
Magic Lantern hacks firmware for Canon and improves functionality, but not for Sony. Hopefully someday they will.
W-T-F, every review on their new cameras praised Sony for listening for requests even the less known ones.
Why ISO 64?
If lower ISO could be achieved without compromising dynamic range then the lower the better. Not having to use neutral density filters in bright sunlight and for special effect would be welcome.
But you have ISO 50. Why do you need ISO 64?
I don’t believe ISO 50 is native, and does suffer a slight loss of dynamic range. Why someone insists on 64 as opposed to 8,16, 32, 50 etc, is a mystery to me. Unless he/she is asking for a native ISO of 64, that would be a good thing.
We don’t have ISO 50; it’s an extension ISO that gives you no more dynamic range than ISO 100.
ISO 64 on the D810, however, actually gives you more dynamic range than ISO 100, b/c it allows you to give the sensor more exposure, which reduces noise. It’s essentially a way of getting pixels to collect more light (have a higher full-well capacity), which means that when you *can* give the camera more light (e.g. you’re on a tripod), you can actually simulate the performance of a larger sensor that doesn’t have as deep wells (e.g. only goes down to ISO 100 native).
That’s actually pretty cool, and is a way of increasing capture dynamic range.
It is cool but is it a feature that can be added via firmware?
My bet is that this is related to data processing circuits behind the sensor. So no, if they could, they already did.
I’m trying to remember the last time I processed a shot successfully by pushing +6ev. That’s because I haven’t! That being said, I still would prefer having a 14 bit lossy compressed raw file.
Any raw image pushed 5-6 stops would be unusable unless if was for a forensic investigation by law enforcement.
That’s exactly my point!
Yes, I agree with you. No photographer worth his salt would try to sell or display an image with that much correction, it would look like junk.
I saw many photographers selling ISO6400 and 8000 shots at weddings in DinA4 or even larger in wedding books. We did so ourselves. No problem at all. Depends on output size, so your comment is a little weird. Pushing or using higher Iso for iso-less sensors (remember, A7rii changes gain above iso 640, so you should better push at ISOs above ISO 640 contrary to a D810, for example) is similar for many modern cameras.
Show us an image pushed 6 stops, just for kicks.
“A D810 ISO 100 raw file pushed 6 stops showing a dark shadow area of an image, lots of grain and noise. Not too awful, but not something you would sell or display, it would look much cleaner if exposed at a more reasonable exposure value.”
But the point is it doesn’t look much worse than an ISO 6400 shot with the same shutter speed and aperture you used. But you get 6 EV extra highlight headroom.
And that’s the point of all this. Let me flip the question around: when you shoot ISO 6400, you typically underexpose your sensor 6 EV relative to what you would’ve shot at ISO 100, with the ISO 6400 setting just brightening your shot in-camera. Why is it so inconceivable and unacceptable to underexpose the sensor by the same amount, but just keep the in-camera brightening low and save that brightening for post-processing instead?
In other words, you’re already underexposing your sensor 4, 5, 6 EV all the time, and what naysayers of 4-6 EV pushes area actually saying is that they have a problem with performing this push in post, but no problem with performing this push in-camera.
Why this double standard? 🙂
Love doesn’t need a reason.
There is a huge difference between “the push” in camera or in post. Especially you do not know what´s added by your post processing software and what is not.
So I stay with my statement. Such kind of test are silly and unhelpfull. The only thing they are seem to be made for is bashing a product.
I have to respectfully disagree, pushing an image 6 stops from any camera including a Nikon D810 would be a terrible compromise and unacceptable to my eye. Your expectations of acceptable quality may be different than mine, I would never do it.
I didn’t say anything about six stops, as the Nikon files are usually pushed 4-5 stops at most before losing iso-less-ness. My experience is consistent with http://www.thewanderinglensman.com/2014/10/how-good-is-nikons-d810-sensor-how.html. 4 stops can make a good print. 5 stops is possible with NR and PP and perfectly fine for web. Certainly not for DinA2. So dependent on output size as said.
A D810 ISO 100 raw file pushed 6 stops showing a dark shadow area of an image, lots of grain and noise. Not too awful, but not something you would sell or display.
My goodness – they work so hard to find some way to break every product (especially Sony) and make a headline out of the deficiency.
What if some clothing review site released this headline: “HANES MENS BRIEFS BURST AT THE SEAMS WHEN FILLED WITH 32 HAMMERS”
Nice graphic, show’s your @nal about the truth about your camera…not that you would now anything about having a hammer in your pants….
If you take a shoot at ISO 100 and you push it +6 stops – the only thing I can stat is this is foolish and dump.
This whole issue is about artifacts that only appear at ridiculously extreme exposures and I do not consider it a real issue, and would probably not even use the 14 bit raw…..but the real issue is that lots of people do want it, lots of critics use this issue to trash the a7rii, and Sony could easily provide a firmware fix that would make this whole issue go away…so right or wrong..fix it..!!!
Sony…it is more important to satisfy your customers, and potential customers than it is to be right.
Sony’s ownership of FF Mirrorless (universal Lens) cameras is unchallenged. Where are they going to go Canon? No.. Nikon No.. But Canon users are coming to Sony.. It is silly to design products to make the web happy. because the web is never happy. It would turn Sony into a cat chasing a laser pointer. If it was in my budget I would get on..
I already grab my A6000 more than the A77m2 and have been thinking about what it would take to move to just the A7 RII and what lenses I would use
they should make it optional. I’d shoot 14-bit all the time, actually i do right now, but not currently with a Sony. everyone has their preferences. I’d happily trade some performance around FPS to have 14-bit raw files 99% of the time.
I’d like to know what else would need to be sacrificed because slightly lossy is not THAT big of a deal on a camera that crushes in all other respects. it’s all about trade offs.
This is CaNIkon propaganda. Believe not one word of it.
DPreview has a proven history of anti Sony bias. The a7 ii is mirrorless so it’s better than DSLRs by default.
Why would anyone shoot with a camera that uses an EVF at -6EV in the 1st place. You’d be looking at a black blob. If you do the same with an SLR the viewfinder remains the same. In either case I would never produce an image at -6EV unless it was a commercial gig where I royally fu*ked up and had no other choice. Even if you were shooting at -6EV how do you check focus. How do you check the composition. How do check anything other than that the very brightest parts of the image are ok. Madness!!
You don’t need to. This test helps seeing and understanding the capabilities of the camera. Use ISO 800 and push to 6400 to get similar noise levels like when using ISO6400 directly, with the benefit of less blow out highlights.
Good look with that.
If you mean luck, no, not needed. compare ISO 800 and ISO 6400 at print size within the DPreview tool. Hard to tell a difference. Don’t you agree?
From the DPreview test alone you cannot judge if at ISO6400 the hightlights are blown since all you look at is a jpeg of this raw image. They do not even try to recover what seems to be clipped highlights.
So Enzyme’s argument to not expose to -6EV has still to be falsified.
Other cameras have global issues with pushing raw files to extremes as their noise level ruins color fidelity. Sony has some more elbow room but on the downside has a locally appearing restriction when pushing raw files. Both paradigms limit what is possible to expose in one picture. Both can be dealt with if you know your camera.
Sure it would be nice to have the full potential of the sony sensor with lossless raw compression. More is always better. But even with lossy compression I would choose the A7RII Output over the 5DSr.
Enzyme didn’t even think 3-4 stops to be adequate, in case I understood his answer correctly. All tests I saw so far, give 4-5 stops to be the upper limit before degradations in color noise etc. come into play (A7r, D810, http://blog.kasson.com/?p=3826). And 3-4-stops are hardly distinguishable from using ISO6400 or ISO3200, depending on starting ISO, directly. For the A7rii you need to factor in conversion gain which changes around ISO640. Does it matter if the camera pushes (oftentimes noise reduction of some sort seems to be baked in, too) by selecting a higher ISO or you pushing in post + PP within the iso-invariance region of the sensor? By the way, RAWs are available, so you can try for yourself.
‘Will take a look at those raw files. Thanks for the info!
I have tried to find my way through all this well presented data on blog. kasson.com. But in the end as long as neither detail nor colors are deteriorated, I pretty much do not care if the files are baked or not and when conversion gain kicks in.
I will either way expose for the brightest part of the picture that I want to retain detail in and pull it down in post as needed. Even if this means to clip some highlights. That way you will always use the most of the sensor’s dynamic range for the things you want to bring out in the final image.
I think shadow revovery abilities are great as a fail safe but I will not start to under-expose pictures on purpose just because a camera is more ISO-invariant than another camera. Seems like gambling for the right exposure to me.
In my opinion it takes a lot of field shooting to find a way to repeatably get to results, where you know a 2-3 stop push is adequate. It is possible, but not easy. But it is s.th. I think serious shooters should try to strive for.
All of my fine art work is printed up to 1.6 x 1.2m for a standard format image (a bit different for 35mm format) and much larger for panoramics. So I just wouldn’t go that route taking the images in the first place. For commercial work clients wouldn’t accept images that are taken like that in any case. For tripod mounted stuff there is no need to do this. There are way better ways of getting the detail you want. For handheld stuff how do you shoot a scene when you are shooting it at 4 to 6 stops under when using an EVF. How will you see the subtitles of the scene or if the image is even fully sharp. My point is as much about the image capture as anything else. Surely at a higher iso which this camera seems more than capable off (still waiting for bloody delivery so that’s only based from online reviews) you are more guaranteed to get the image capture that you want on the spot and to be spot on. Surely shooting the scene at 6 stops under is playing a very dangerous game of whether you get THE image. It’s all fine for testing but in the real work in the vast majority of cases it will affect the quality of image you capture.
In your case of printing really large fine art, trying to avoid severe pushing of shadows is absolutely understandable. Just out of curiosity, are into landscape photography?
Ya. Mostly. Landscape and industrial for my fine art works. HF. I’m just trying to figure out how do you actually compose the shot etc in the EVF if you are several stops under. Do you compose at higher iso and than turn it down just before capture?
I usually have “setting effect off”, am in full manual, use spot metering and then dial in the -3, for example. For portraits my wife uses -2 for the face in case she doesn’t have a reflector with her and she wants a little bit of sky texture. With our D810 highlight weighted metering does the thing.
Schorchio :o)
What is that? Sounds Italian.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abFJuqp867g&list=RDMuSPdsPWit0
Also used as a way of saying, grand, aah I see, great, perfect, wonderful, you’re the man etc :o))
I usually have “setting effect off”, am in full manual, use spot metering and then dial in the -3, for example. For portraits my wife uses approximately -2 for the face in case she doesn’t have a reflector with her and she wants a little bit of sky texture. She doesn’t set effects to off. With our D810 highlight weighted metering does the thing or exposure compensation (-5 to +5 possible).
My bread and butter is real estate photography. I use available light and still sometimes need to bracket on the d800. This single issue is enough to make a7r2 useless for me. I get a lot of high contrast boundaries in very pushed files.
only if you pushed more than 5ev, do you push pp that extreme?
You can see problems with only +2ev
would you care to share the draw file with problem with only +2ev?
Download ISO 100 RAW from DP and do the +2EV.
I left Nikon due to 4 cameras in a row with terrible back focus issues. My FF mirrorless Sonys have been the most amazing revelation for my professional work. Sounds to me like this guy wanted to be sponsored by Sony but was rejected. Why would anyone want a compact FF camera that doesn’t destroy your back from a long day of work? Why would anyone want to be able to adjust the image real time without having to pull the camera from your eye? Why would anyone want to see the result of their image without chimping? Would would anyone want face recognition memory and eye focusing? Why would anyone want wifi and NFC for easy sharing? Why would would anyone want 300 focus points for sharp images? Why would anyone want the best low light video and stills in the business? Why would anyone want to use cameras from a company that is innovating faster than any other camera company? Why would anyone want cameras that can use other manufacturers’ lenses at nearly the same focusing speeds? Shall I continue? All I have to say is a few years from now Nikon and Canon are going to have a huge market share rude awakening if that isn’t happening already.
Deleted my comment
You shouldn’t have deleted your comment. I would have loved it if others could have seen it.
Thanks for forcing me to stay up every night for the next week as I pour over thousands of images comparing them side by side in a futile effort to justify keeping this camera when in reality I’ve already made the decision to return it because I’m convinced that the posterization artifacts are the reason my photos look and smell like cow manure. And to think I was willing to overlook the long exposure chroma noise issue. No thanks!
Don’t forget pink corners cooked into the raw as a part of shading compensation.
Yuck.
Why can’t Sony leave RAW files alone?!
Tough luck waiting for firmware solution, it’s a hardware problem (bandwidth bottleneck, slow writing on SD card, slow RAM pipeline)
Aaannnnd this is why I try to stay out of the comments section on Photography sites. Rishi has been praising this camera for weeks now with some very in-depth and accurate reporting. While DPreview hasn’t published their final analysis review yet, you can clearly see that they are astounded with the capabilities of the A7RII, and are laying the groundwork for an unprecedented score. Yet, the one article that points out that with the camera’s wide dynamic range you can shoot at low ISO and push it 6 STOPS in post, but it’s flawed in certain circumstances because of RAW compression, and half the comments accuse him of being a paid CaNikon shill. WTF people? Stop with the kneejerk prejudice and fanboy blathering. YES, the camera has a flaw! Hopefully Sony will fix it! But stop with the stupid and baseless accusations at anything that challenges your worldview.
+1
Let ISO640 out, is just… Do they read their own forums? 🙂
It’s very far fetched to even think that Sony can switch from lossy to lossless with a firmware update. These things depend heavily on the hardware capabilities, and even if the sensor is capable, it doesn’t mean that all the other supporting chips / data lanes / converters / processors can deal with such a change.
Good thing that DPReview wrote an article about this issue. All other sites are too unimportant and Sony can ignore their complaints more than DPReview ones.
Do I need lossless RAW? This is the same question as: Do I need 42 mp instead of 36?
With my casual photography I problably won’t see any difference in most of my pictures. But I appreciate that Sony is improving their sensors even further. So why can’t Sony just allow lossless RAW as an additional “sensor-improvement”?
Why? They want you to buy a new camera every year. See the logic?
There is a ‘huge difference’ because… You say so?
Unhelpful even though people shoot using this technique to get more dynamic range?
And just to be clear, you now think I’m bashing the a7R II, when just last week I was accused of loving it? I sound like a very fickle person, according to the Internet!
Yes, I can compare the D810, the A7ii and the A7RII and I am shure about my statement. I make 60/40″ prints. So I think I know what I do and what I am talking about.
May be no one can help them – I know dozends of excellent photographers – none of them does such a nonsens.
Yes that is it. Looking for anything, that one can critizice, which is absolutely of no matter!
D.
BTW: I am not a Sony guy. I use always the best gear for my jobs.
Expected after a7rii has been used to bashed everyone else so hardly before release.
Alright personally I want ISO64 more than lossless RAW, native of course:)
First A7R II memes are comming !
Post-processing software’s touching can be undone. But effects imposed by your body can hardly be undone.
There are some A7R II memes on the Internet..
Sadly, i laughed more than i should have …
Right….so try pushing a canon file by +5EV….Then tell me there is a problem…