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#1
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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. -- -- r.p.e.35mm user resource: http://www.aliasimages.com/rpe35mmur.htm -- r.p.d.slr-systems: http://www.aliasimages.com/rpdslrsysur.htm -- [SI] gallery & rulz: http://www.pbase.com/shootin -- e-meil: Remove FreeLunch. -- usenet posts from gmail.com and googlemail.com are filtered out. |
#2
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DPReveiew - Sony a900
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?? |
#4
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DPReveiew - Sony a900
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 |
#5
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DPReveiew - Sony a900
"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 |
#6
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DPReveiew - Sony a900
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#7
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DPReveiew - Sony a900
"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. |
#8
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DPReveiew - Sony a900
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 $3K comes from the full frame sensor and high resolution, not to mention the giant viewfinder, etc. It loses image quality points in the high ISO area. A common failing of the Minolta/Sony bodies. Hopefully, the aforementioned firmware upgrade will improve that somewhat. I've seen many full sized samples from the camera. I have little doubt that it will print large images with high quality from ISO 800 down. With the firmware upgrade, hopefully a stop or two faster. -- -- r.p.e.35mm user resource: http://www.aliasimages.com/rpe35mmur.htm -- r.p.d.slr-systems: http://www.aliasimages.com/rpdslrsysur.htm -- [SI] gallery & rulz: http://www.pbase.com/shootin -- e-meil: Remove FreeLunch. -- usenet posts from gmail.com and googlemail.com are filtered out. |
#9
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DPReveiew - Sony a900
ransley wrote:
Why is "image quality" on dp review rated only an 8.5? For 3000.00$ 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 |
#10
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DPReveiew - Sony a900
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 |
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