My God, What's up with Sony???

[Cattykit]

I had high hopes for Sony A77 and its new sensor. Although I have never extensively looked at pictures Sony cameras produce, I thought it'd be more than decent as other brands'.
Then, I came across pictures generated from A77/A65/Nex7 and it's hugely disappointing. It's not the noise I'm concerned about. It's how they deal with noise.

Look at these samples: http://www.flickr.com/photos/guitarnews/6164490421/sizes/o/in/photostream/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/guitarnews/6165028094/sizes/o/in/photostream/

Is that a picture or a painting?

And, here's A77 which was officially released in South Korea a few days ago.

http://www.slrclub.com/bbs/vx2.php?...ss=on&select_arrange=headnum&desc=asc&no=5600

Canon looks soft because of less performing lens (50mm f/1.8) used combined with Standard Picture Style + Standard NR. Regardless, it keeps detail. On the other hand, Sony smears and smears. It melts. Though noise is reduced, detail is gone.

Even worse is that it doesn't offer an option to turn that nasty NR off. Even at low NR, it just melts detail.
I thought it was just the case of A77,65 and NEX7 which uses new 24mp sensor but my playing with NEX-5n confirmed it isn't the case. Even NEX5n does the same thing when it reaches high ISO. It's not as bad as 24mp cameras but still....
I only witnessed such ill-processing on cellphone cams and P&S. Certainly what I do not expect from large sensor cameras.

 

[RobDickinson]

Sony always seem to have very aggressive NR options always turned on, sometimes they back these down later with firmware.

Even then they are much poorer at utilising their sensors than nikon is.

Also remember the SLT's eat 1/3rd of the light before the sensor get it ....

 

[996GT2]

Were these samples taken as JPG or RAW converted?

 

[RobDickinson]

Sony apply NR to raw...

 

[996GT2]

I just had a look at the EXIF in those photos, they were taken with firmware v0.06

Which is VERY, VERY pre-production. The retail cameras should be better.

 

[RobDickinson]

Sony also allow places like dpreview to publish pictures from pre retail cameras.

Which are always shocking.

Why? Sony shoot themselves in the foot all the time. Its like theu dont care for IQ or people who have an interest in it, they just want headlines (13 frames a second!) and dont add substance (1 second of buffer space).

 

[Cattykit]

I just had a look at the EXIF in those photos, they were taken with firmware v0.06

Which is VERY, VERY pre-production. The retail cameras should be better.

I've been following A77 samples from 0.5x to 1.02 (official) firmware. They're all equally terrible. Smearing and melting NR is still the same. I don't think Nex7 is going to different in that regard especially when NEX5n also smears great deal of detail.

 

[abaez]

Is this the same with the nex3?

 

[novasatori]

I've been following A77 samples from 0.5x to 1.02 (official) firmware. They're all equally terrible. Smearing and melting NR is still the same. I don't think Nex7 is going to different in that regard especially when NEX5n also smears great deal of detail.

and they have all been jpeg

there are pics on dpreview forum from the latest jpg engine in the 1.02b firmware and it's much improved

I have been following the A77 closely, as I am considering switching to it, I am personally withholding final judgement until I can get some raw files into light room and look at them myself. All these jpg comparisons without the final firmware are pretty useless to me.

 

[Cattykit]

In that case, I agree that they've made an improvement on "red-channel processing." However, smearing and melting is the same (well, I maybe wrong on this one. New firmware maybe better when compared side by side. To be precise, I guess I should say they're equally terrible to the point possible difference does not even matter.)

 

[Cattykit]

Anyways, Sony seems to be having weird quality control issues. NEX-5n suffers from clicking noise problem (http://www.engadget.com/2011/09/16/sony-alpha-nex-5n-makes-clicking-sound-when-moved-renders-captu/) which should've been very obvious to detect.

A77 which was released in South Korea is also showing all sorts of problems: Cameras dying, not going into sleep mode when left idle, generating high freq. noise, GPS not working, not reaching infinity in AF, skewed buttons...etc. Out of all, most interesting is the menu lagging problem that exists in all A77s. They say overall user-interface speed is terribly slow to the point setting up right shutter speed is even difficult. You dial down shutter speed and think you're at say, 1/60 so you stop. But, since it's lagging, it eventually tells you you're at 1/50 after you're done

 

[foghorn67]

I remember this happening to early Nikon CMOS sensors and the D3. It was a cause of concern but panned out to be of a moot point.

 

[Sp12]

1. Those shots are underexposed jpegs off of early firmware. Sony does this with every new camera release and everyone goes "WTF".
2. Sony cameras don't have superb high-ISO. They have an SLT eating ~1/2 stop of light, they have the least effective in-camera NR, and their CFA is almost 50% more opaque than anyone else's, meaning they trade a fair bit of light for color accuracy.
3. Maybe this will be the camera where people decide looking at pixels as a means to compare cameras is silly.

 

[Cattykit]

1. Even with the official firmware of A77, the problem remains the same. It smears and melts hell of an image like cellphone and P&S cameras do. The main problem here is that there's not even an option to turn off that crazy NR. Even at NR low, it's way too strong.
2. Yes, they'll have deal with DSLT limitations yet they decided to go crazy with MP count which they couldn't handle. Considering excellency of previous sensor, I thought they knew what they were doing but I was wrong.
3. If Sony's proud of 24mp, turning it into a big marketing pitch, that 24mp should be worth it. That's not the case here. High MP and crazy NR is affecting image quality even at low ISO. At ISO 400, smearing kicks in. Below ISO 400, it's good but bokeh/background blur takes a hit - smooth gradation gets pixelated due to weird smearing algorithm.

Look at this picture: http://www.dpreview.com/galleries/r...85?inalbum=sony-cybershot-hx9v-review-samples
It's taken by HX9v P&S camera which houses whooping 16MP. At small size, it looks decent but at full resolution, it's hideous. Call it silly or whatever, but that is just not what I'd expect from a 16mp sensor. It's nothing but a silly marketing gimmick (however, that's actually I expect from P&S cameras for it's considered 'normal'.) New 24mp Sony sensor, of course, isn't that bad but I'm worried that this maybe the first sign of dslr(T), EVIL camera market going down the path of such gimmick.

 

[novasatori]

the 24mp doesn't really hinder the camera at all, it's mostly the slt and nr

the dxomarks scores put it 16th world wide just behind some of the "best" value FF cams like the 5D mk2 and A900

it only really loses out in the high iso noise rating which it loses by 1/3-1/2 stop of noise to the D7000 which coincidentally is the amount of light the SLT is said to cut, and it's almost equal to the 7D

It may not be a huge upgrade over a 7D or D7000 but it has different features, and anyways when looked at from the "upgrading Sony user" perspective, it's an upgrade over previous models.

 

[Anubis]

yea its not bad but itll be really interesting to see what nikon does with this sensor. assuming they put it in something

 

[Sp12]

1. Even with the official firmware of A77, the problem remains the same. It smears and melts hell of an image like cellphone and P&S cameras do. The main problem here is that there's not even an option to turn off that crazy NR. Even at NR low, it's way too strong.
2. Yes, they'll have deal with DSLT limitations yet they decided to go crazy with MP count which they couldn't handle. Considering excellency of previous sensor, I thought they knew what they were doing but I was wrong.
3. If Sony's proud of 24mp, turning it into a big marketing pitch, that 24mp should be worth it. That's not the case here. High MP and crazy NR is affecting image quality even at low ISO. At ISO 400, smearing kicks in. Below ISO 400, it's good but bokeh/background blur takes a hit - smooth gradation gets pixelated due to weird smearing algorithm.

1. What sample raws are you looking at? From the ones I've been playing with setting the "lum" NR value to 0 produces images with good detail but noise at high-ISO. Easily besting the 7D and close to par with the D7K. With some NR you can get great 6400 exposures with little shadow banding or smearing. I'm not seeing crazy in-camera NR.

2. More megapixels is never bad. End of. At the same output size a 24MP sensor will always hold a noise advantage over a 1MP sensor of the same tech.

3. I'm seeing it. At ISO 100-200 these raws have ~24MP worth of detail, and I can choose to use less of it in exchange for noise reduction. At 3200 I think it's about equivalent to the output from my 60D in terms of noise/resolution, but better in DR and color.

 

[Cattykit]

1. My IQ/NR concern was directed toward JPEG. I also looked at RAW samples which showed large amount of noise even at ISO 400. I don't mind having noise but I mind smearing hell of an image to hide it. Sadly, that's what Sony decided to do with their JPEG processing algorithm.

2. Check out my other threads or posts. I've always been a 'I want more MP' guy but not with A77 due to already explained reasons.

3. ISO 100-200 does show good detail but check out back ground blur and bokeh. What's supposed to be smooth gradation transition gets distorted even with DRO off.
Keep it mind my rant was toward JPEG IQ. Oh and the color, color is amazing with Sony cameras!! One of the primary reasons I want to jump ship to Sony is because of color.

Anyways, there was an interview with A77 developers in Japan (http://kozy06.blog.so-net.ne.jp/2011-09-25). It's reported that the atmosphere was not 'peaceful' and that People raised concerns over its laggy user interface speed and strong noise algorithm kicking in even at ISO 200. Sony guys said they're still working on the issue regarding both concerns so I guess it may get better.

I hope they follow Canon's approach. Since I care much about detail and fine lines, I can't even stand Standard picture style not to mention standard NR on Canons. However, with Neutral Picture Style with NR low which only targets color noise, detail and fine line rendition is superb.