That new ISO test shows once again the impressive low light performance of the A7s!
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16 Responses
As an A7r owner I’m waiting not for the A7rII but for the A7sII. Really hope Sony make one with internal 4K/60fps (even if the module is in the form of a battery grip), IBIS and all manner of other improvements already seen in the A7II.
I think that will truly be a revolution for photo/video.
Impressive, but they would have been better to have picked a scene with a bit more colour in it. Grey settee, monochrome checked shirt and so on. As it is, it’s a bit difficult to assess chromatic noise and, more importantly, if how well colour is rendered. Also, when they reached the limit of turning the lights down, then it would have been better to have used neutral filters as that would have had the effect and still meant the test spot on the wall behind would have been at the correct exposure level. It doesn’t even need a whole range of neutral filters. Just one of about ones of about -4 EV would have probably done the trick (just boost the lights back up to get the exposure. (Although, to be fair, with the uncalibrated table lamp, the results wouldn’t be the same at all as it would not bleach out in the same way).
However, as far as the results go, it is, of course, very impressive. What it does reveal (often neglected), is not so much the noise performance, which remains excellent, but the loss of dynamic range. The part of the wall illuminated by the table lamp starts bleaching out quite quickly, as does that illuminated by the LED lamp once the limit is reached on that.
In any event, it remains true that the A7S will be able to get video images not available to any other camera, but at those very high ISOs even that camera will be prone to bleaching any highlights.
Colors lit with less light will be less colorful though since colors is the reflection of light. I did notice reduced colors but if that’s because of ISO or the simple fact i stated earlier is quite hard to tell.
I’m a bit disappointing. I was expecting to see a bunch of bananas in the video.
Sony a7s definitely outperform and will surely replace Canon cameras in astrophotography… Very impressive…my choice for astro
Put this sensor in A-mount & make it 12fps the fastest burst in FF. 😛
Then it will perfect for indoor sport.
Hands down A7s is a best camera for price in the world. Ok is only 1080p video but a7s video quality in 1080p is far superior all 4k cameras (punchy colors moires ecc). And 1080p is easy to edit in common computers. A7s xavc slog grades very well in truly Hollywood professional mode. To find 1080p quality of a7s you must spend 30000$. A7s is simply paradise camera! for 2000$ absolute a paradise dream
No. You only need to spend 8,000$ to beat the a7S. It’s called a FS7. Morew cameras coming that will beat it for sure.
I am considering picking up an a7s for night (primarily milky way/starscape) photography. However I read a review somewhere (can’t seem to dig up the link now) that said, while the a7s looks much better at high ISO straight out of the camera, if you downrez a higher MP camera like D800 to the a7s’s 12MP the difference becomes much, much less noticeable to the point where they’re pretty similar.
Does anyone have any experience/thoughts on this?
Noise at iso 6400 or less -> yes (at higher, A7S lead by bigger margin)
Dynamic range at high iso -> no competition ( A7S maintain dynamic range much better there).
Contrast -> D810’s image usually have lower contrast at high iso. (If image maintain high contrast, you’ll spot noise easier than lower one).
Actually, Noise is still different. A7S have similar noise at mid tone but much less in shadow than downsized D810 at 6400 (less noise in shadow is why it still lead even more at higher iso)
I used to own the D800, but I sold it late last year and picked up a D810, D750, and A7s. If you took a picture at ISO 12,800 (which all three do natively; i.e. it’s not the “high” setting that juices the sensor) and down-rez them to 8mp, then it’s absolutely true that much of the A7s’ low light advantage goes away. On a per pixel level the A7s is cleaner (that is, not down-rezed, but viewed at 100%), but they all gain something you get them down to 8mp. Between the A7s and the D810, I’d say the advantage is about a stop or a little less than that. Between the A7s and the D750 you’d be lucky to get 1/3 of a stop. The real advantage of the A7s is when you get above 12,800. Yes, you can (in software) boost the video of the D810 and D750, but the A7s is cleaner. That being said, none of them is great for video at those ISOs. Depending on your standards, you may not want to go above 6,400 in which case the A7s has no advantage and serious drawbacks. If you want passable video above 12,800 then the A7s may be the ticket for you. As for stills, the A7s, in my opinion, is cleaner at 25,600, but it’s still too noisy. For me, the A7s has a very narrow window (ISO 8,000 to 12,800) in which the stills are cleaner (again, down-rezed) than the other two cameras AND is still usable. That’s a lot to pay for such a narrow advantage.
Thanks for the insight. It sounds to me that A7r and Nikon D800/810 are more flexible than A7s if image down-rez is an option to the photographer.
So, new A7s is arriving? 🙂
Sony should make medium format 645 sensor with 24mpix with this tech. Then it would have both larger sensor area and larger pixels and would not be outresolved by 5k monitors.
What is the point of a yet another A7s test video. We all already know that it has a great ISO range and that it outperforms just about anything on the market.
Because most reviewers are just like you before they get their hands on an A7S- Yeah yeah, we’ve heard this a hundred times now, the A7S is a great low light camera yada yada… And later, when they actually try one out, they be like- Oh bl**dy hell! What kind of sorcery is this? We need to post a low light test at youtube asap! It’s just a human reaction.