DPReveiew - Sony a900

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/sonydslra900/

As expected:

Superb sharpness and resolution (providing a sharp lens is used).
Noise performance is not as good as the others from/above ISO 800.
No frills.

What is a bit disappointing is that (per Chris Malcolm) the a700
firmware upgrade which purportedly improves the noise performance
significantly, is not yet available for a900 and hence these tests are
with first production s/w. I hope (for the Dpreview record) that they
repeat the noise tests when that f/w comes out.

Sheckles are loaded. Now just looking for a good deal on the camera...
this should hold me for 5 - 10 years at least.

Cheers,
Alan.

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On Wed, 22 Oct 2008 18:04:51 -0400, Alan Browne
wrote:


What is a bit disappointing is that (per Chris Malcolm) the a700
firmware upgrade which purportedly improves the noise performance
significantly, is not yet available for a900 and hence these tests are
with first production s/w. I hope (for the Dpreview record) that they
repeat the noise tests when that f/w comes out.

You DON'T understand that the a700 is NOT, in ANY way, the a900??

wrote:
On Wed, 22 Oct 2008 18:04:51 -0400, Alan Browne
wrote:


What is a bit disappointing is that (per Chris Malcolm) the a700
firmware upgrade which purportedly improves the noise performance
significantly, is not yet available for a900 and hence these tests are
with first production s/w. I hope (for the Dpreview record) that they
repeat the noise tests when that f/w comes out.

You DON'T understand that the a700 is NOT, in ANY way, the a900??

You don't understand that an improvement in noise reduction algorithm is
designed to be portable across a product line? The algorithm would of
course have to be modified (adapted) to the a900 sensor, etc., but the
algorithm is what counts. I admit my wording was non-specific, but any
intelligent person would grasp what I was getting at. Really.

And by the way, I can understand what you're writing without the
all-caps emphasis. Really.

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wrote:
Alan Browne wrote:

What is a bit disappointing is that (per Chris Malcolm) the a700
firmware upgrade which purportedly improves the noise performance
significantly, is not yet available for a900 and hence these tests are
with first production s/w. I hope (for the Dpreview record) that they
repeat the noise tests when that f/w comes out.

You DON'T understand that the a700 is NOT, in ANY way, the a900??

I think he's right, though: improvements in a700 jpegs should translate to
improvements in a900 jpegs. This whole discussion is about heavily in-camera
processed in-camera jpegs, and optimizing this processing can produce much
nicer numbers to put on graphs.

--
David J. Littleboy
Tokyo, Japan

"Alan Browne" wrote:
http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/sonydslra900/

As expected:

Superb sharpness and resolution (providing a sharp lens is used).
Noise performance is not as good as the others from/above ISO 800.

Noise performance is also worse at 800 and below, which means a stop lower
dynamic range. (IMHO, this is more important than high-ISO performance in a
20+ MP camera since these things are presumably used for pictorial
photography where you are using either a tripod, or your own lights, or
both.)

I shoot at ISO 200 with the 5D, and the files are wonderfully clean: you can
crank the sharpening and bring out the textures in smooth areas without
seeing any noise; actually rendering these textures makes a big difference,
and I won't be buying a camera that sacrifices this. (This is the reason I
hate grain in 35mm: every smooth surface in every image has the same bogus
textu with the 5D, you can accentuate the actual texture of the
surfaces.)

The A900 ISO 200 black noise is about the same as the 5D's at ISO 800, where
noise gets in the way of texture rendition. So this isn't just an
occasional nicety in high-contrast scenes. (See the Luminance noise graph
(black patch) near the bottom of the page.)

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/sonydslra900/page20.asp

Of course, that's assuming that the jpegs are a reflection of what's in the
raw.

What is a bit disappointing is that (per Chris Malcolm) the a700 firmware
upgrade which purportedly improves the noise performance significantly, is
not yet available for a900 and hence these tests are with first production
s/w. I hope (for the Dpreview record) that they repeat the noise tests
when that f/w comes out.

Remember, though, that this discussion is _ONLY_ about jpegs. Thus it's more
of Sony playing catch up with Nikon's superb in-camera chroma noise
reduction. Which, in theory, could be done in third party converter/noise
reduction software.

Sheckles are loaded. Now just looking for a good deal on the camera...
this should hold me for 5 - 10 years at least.

My recommendation is to pass on the A900, at least until we see how ISO 100
and 200 noise in raw files compares to that in the 5DII.

--
David J. Littleboy
Tokyo, Japan

wrote:
On Wed, 22 Oct 2008 18:04:51 -0400, Alan Browne
wrote:


What is a bit disappointing is that (per Chris Malcolm) the a700
firmware upgrade which purportedly improves the noise performance
significantly, is not yet available for a900 and hence these tests are
with first production s/w. I hope (for the Dpreview record) that they
repeat the noise tests when that f/w comes out.

You DON'T understand that the a700 is NOT, in ANY way, the a900??



Actually, it is in 'some' ways. I was at the Sony press launch and it
was specifically said that the dual BIONZ processor was exactly,
precisely, two A700 circuits mounted back to back. The components are
identical, and the low price of the A900 has been enabled partly by
doing this - using two 12 megapixel processors in turn to process 24
megapixel files (they do not operate in parallel).

There's only one big question - Apical have stated that the IRIDIX, a
component of the circuits, can only process files up to 16 megapixels.
Therefore the A900 board must use an upgraded IRIDIX even if it uses the
same BIONZ.

Also, the firmware in the A900 handles 'first free, first served'
sequencing of data from the sensor buffer into the BIONZ channels. This
is a function not present in the A700. The firmware is clearly different
and more complex, but the core routines applicable to the BIONZ
processing are likely to be similar (the hardware is identical) so a
firmware update v2 - already promised in leaks by some Sony agents - is
quite possible and likely.

The sensor is a different matter, it's based on the A700 but by no means
identical; its NR chain is similar, but that's all anyone can say.

David

"Alan Browne" wrote in message
...
http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/sonydslra900/

As expected:

Superb sharpness and resolution (providing a sharp lens is used).
Noise performance is not as good as the others from/above ISO 800.

What other 25MP cameras did they compare it to? Damn they do back testing
and comparisons.

ransley wrote:

Why is "image quality" on dp review rated only an 8.5? For 3000.00$
it should be 9 - 9.5. Im sure its a great camera, shouldnt it deserve
a 9.

The $3K comes from the full frame sensor and high resolution, not to
mention the giant viewfinder, etc.

It loses image quality points in the high ISO area. A common failing of
the Minolta/Sony bodies. Hopefully, the aforementioned firmware upgrade
will improve that somewhat.

I've seen many full sized samples from the camera. I have little doubt
that it will print large images with high quality from ISO 800 down.
With the firmware upgrade, hopefully a stop or two faster.

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ransley wrote:


Why is "image quality" on dp review rated only an 8.5? For 3000.00$
it should be 9 - 9.5. Im sure its a great camera, shouldnt it deserve
a 9.

Because dPreview staff do not even try to use cameras or understand them!

http://www.photoclubalpha.com/2008/1...high-iso-body/

David

Alan Browne wrote:
ransley wrote:

Why is "image quality" on dp review rated only an 8.5? For 3000.00$
it should be 9 - 9.5. Im sure its a great camera, shouldnt it deserve
a 9.

The $3K comes from the full frame sensor and high resolution, not to
mention the giant viewfinder, etc.

It loses image quality points in the high ISO area. A common failing of
the Minolta/Sony bodies. Hopefully, the aforementioned firmware upgrade
will improve that somewhat.

I've seen many full sized samples from the camera. I have little doubt
that it will print large images with high quality from ISO 800 down.
With the firmware upgrade, hopefully a stop or two faster.


Alan, it prints fine at A2 at all ISO settings. Any bigger, and it would
be rough at 6400.

http://www.photoclubalpha.com/2008/1...high-iso-body/

I've been showing my A2 prints, I'm printing an A3 from 6400 full bleed
in the next Photoworld magazine (and I'm printing an ISO 200 shot as a
four-page A2 foldout tipped-in - glue dots!). I even sent Barry
Fitzgerald a 13 x 19 from totally unprocessed, direct 6400 ISO street
light shot JPEG from camera. He's converted now!

The big, big problem is the 100% view of 24 megapixels. They got it
wrong even at 6 megapixels, confusing 100% screen view with the 25%
scale you should use before even trying to assess noise. At 24
megapixels, dPreview have it hopelessly wrong.

They are looking at an image which would fill a 72 dot TV/computer
screen with a 115 inch diagonal! In normal TV terms, that's at least a
150 inch screen.

The whole thing is mad. All these cameras are and will be incredible and
the A900 is better than any 645/6x6 rollfilm I ever enlarged. I've got
A2 gloss Epson prints lying around the office to prove it and I keep
picking them up and just looking at them. This is the best investment I
ever made in a camera.

David