A99 shutter cycle - can owners pleae help me with a test?

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bfitzgerald
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Re: A99 shutter cycle - can owners pleae help me with a test

Unread post by bfitzgerald »

Question is why is it less sharp? Strong AA filter?
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Re: A99 shutter cycle - can owners pleae help me with a test

Unread post by David Kilpatrick »

I would guess - AA filter, SLT mirror, on-sensor PDAF points requiring a different way of processing the image across the whole sensor to ensure an even and consistent sharpness.

It's probably not that significant, but in half the image height (2000 pixels) there are 10 PDAF points which probably occupy 5 lines each (three pairs, separated by one row of pixels) so losing 50 lines of information. However, if that required special processing or regional difference in AA filter strength (which Sony has already implied is the case) it would be 100 lines in 4000. Hard to tell. It's also possible that the D600 has a weaker AA filter anyway, which would explain why the oil spot issue is a problem - the weaker the AA filter, the more dust and oil spots show up.

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Re: A99 shutter cycle - can owners pleae help me with a test

Unread post by waardij »

I own the a99 now for about 4 weeks, and am surprised by the unenthusiastic reactions to the a99. I own an a900 and a nex-7 to compare. For me the a99 is a big step up from the a900. But first a bit about how I use the camera; I am mostly a landscape type of photographer. It can be cityscapes and seascapes as well.
My normal print size is at least 20x30 (inch).
To me the results seem at least as detailed as those out of the a900. But sharpness is only a part of a picture. There is a difficult to describe quality. The images seem more real, more believable, especially in print. And at iso 50 the images stand up to post processing so much better. There is so much more detail in the shadows, no more color blotches. And the noise in general, for all tones, is much lower. In a lesser degree this is also the case for iso100. Another thing I notice, the few times I used it at higher iso, is how good the images still stand post processing. And in general how clean they are.
And apart from the image quality, I love the way you can shoot with the a99. I often us e tripod, and when I do so, I mostly use the lcd to compose my images (I do use the viewfinder, but mostly when not using a tripod). The whole live view experience with Sony is so good. If you compare that to a d600, it is so clunky. The mirror going up and down, it depends on the mode you’re in if you see what you get (the exposure), you cannot change the lens opening without exiting live view, etc.
I suppose it all depends on how you use it, for me it is the best camera I ever had.
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Re: A99 shutter cycle - can owners pleae help me with a test

Unread post by Greg Beetham »

Just a bit of gossip: I saw one diagram of on sensor AF (don’t know now if it was CDAF or PDAF) where they had half pixels here and there, most likely the green ones, (now they have some half ? white ones too so I’ve heard, maybe for exposure?), half the pixel was for AF and the other half was just normal pixel, don’t ask me if the half pixel is as good as a real pixel I have no idea, but the idea itself looked like it would be better than taking a pixel out of the equation altogether.
I also don’t know if that was a Sony design or not, can’t remember.
I also saw that chipworks were impressed with a Sony sensor (D600 I think) that had a lot of pixels (not all apparently) that were combined or pared with one transistor instead of one pixel one transistor, again don’t ask me why they were impressed, I have no idea and they didn’t say, or they didn’t say anything that was understandable by me. If I was to indulge in some clairvoyance maybe the two pixels are switchable by frequency, one for video and one for stills or maybe they can be combined in a deep bit still mode….who knows. :roll:
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Re: A99 shutter cycle - can owners pleae help me with a test

Unread post by pakodominguez »

waardij wrote:I own the a99 now for about 4 weeks, and am surprised by the unenthusiastic reactions to the a99.
Well, the problem is that we got most of the A99 "wow" factor on the A77, no huge improvement other than the FF chip. It is not a Video beast, the AF improvements is limited to some lenses and it is not clear that it DOES really works as marketed...
I'm thinking about buying one but mostly because I want 12 MP RAW files (with APSc lenses) not because I find that the A99 is so good it can replace my A900. And I'm still not 10% convinced about it.
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Re: A99 shutter cycle - can owners pleae help me with a test

Unread post by agorabasta »

Pako, it's not 12Mp, it's only 10.4Mp. Moreover, it's strongly antialiased. Essentially, the real res still left there is less than the 24Mp a77 downsampled to 6Mp (half-res); and it's not simply 'less', it's incomparable.
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Re: A99 shutter cycle - can owners pleae help me with a test

Unread post by pakodominguez »

agorabasta wrote:Pako, it's not 12Mp, it's only 10.4Mp. Moreover, it's strongly antialiased. Essentially, the real res still left there is less than the 24Mp a77 downsampled to 6Mp (half-res); and it's not simply 'less', it's incomparable.
A900 RAW with DT lenses is on the 11MP, right?
What happens is that LR4 slowed down my workflow a lot. For most of the events I shoot, I deliver 6MP (I always shoot RAW, I have a sense of history...) but I don't need to downsample, I need smaller RAW files in order to process them faster...
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Re: A99 shutter cycle - can owners pleae help me with a test

Unread post by agorabasta »

a99 is 6000x4000, and a900/850 is 6048x4032. The multiplier/divider is 1.52.
So...

P.S. The AA filer in the a99 is of higher quality, but it's slightly stronger than that in the a900. Hence further loss of best res achievable. On the other hand, the a77/Nex7 at 6Mp deliver about the max theoretical res achievable at that 6Mp pixelcount.
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bfitzgerald
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Re: A99 shutter cycle - can owners pleae help me with a test

Unread post by bfitzgerald »

Been reading a few threads suggesting the video quality is not very good (someone showing an OM-D spanking the A99 for video sharpness)
As before I think it is inevitable that people will compare it to the D600 and look at the price and scratch their heads, it's also obvious the D600 will be a bit better IQ wise and people will resent paying such a high price for the Sony based on that alone.

I would have serious doubts about the Nikon's AF accuracy and consistency based on my own use of APS-C Nikon bodies, just really not accurate enough to be satisfactory. But that's the problem for Sony. It's not just loads more expensive than the D600, it's a good £400 more expensive than the D800, that IMO is just not going to cut it at least for UK buyers. Price is the problem here, less so other areas.
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Re: A99 shutter cycle - can owners pleae help me with a test

Unread post by pakodominguez »

bfitzgerald wrote:Been reading a few threads suggesting the video quality is not very good (someone showing an OM-D spanking the A99 for video sharpness)
I don't believe that A99's Video is as bad as some people are claiming (but I'm not an expert, at all...) The problem is that people were expecting a really good output and they found that A99's video is just "like the others"
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Re: A99 shutter cycle - can owners pleae help me with a test

Unread post by Greg Beetham »

The A99 has one thing in still shooting mode the A900 doesn’t have, 14bit depth, big difference, it appears to have much greater dynamic range.

Pako if you look at the thread on dpr in Sony SLT forum http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/thread/3347335 where there is a video comparison between the 4/3rd EM5 and the FF A99 the Olympus wins hands down, it’s not even funny, it’s tragic.
This camera was supposed to be able to do video, the whole idea of SLT’s with the EVF and PDAF in video is for doing good video and the A99 so far just doesn’t deliver. :shock:
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Re: A99 shutter cycle - can owners pleae help me with a test

Unread post by waardij »

about the a99 just being an a77 with a better sensor: if you look at it that way, the d600 is just a d7000 with a better sensor. it seems that Sony took a higher spec starting point, which can only be a good thing. And wow, what a sensor.
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bfitzgerald
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Re: A99 shutter cycle - can owners pleae help me with a test

Unread post by bfitzgerald »

Have to agree with Greg on this Sony are pushing video hard on the SLT models, and from what I've seen it's just not up to par on the A99 and yes buyers are discerning at this level they'll pixel peep and look in depth into a purchase like this.
Yes the sensor is great, but it's not quite as great as the D600 thanks to the light sucking mirror on the A99. Shave £700 off the A99 and it becomes a bit more interesting.
Amazon UK are not even listing it for sale obviously they don't expect it to be a big seller :mrgreen:
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Re: A99 shutter cycle - can owners pleae help me with a test

Unread post by Greg Beetham »

I don’t know how true it is but I saw someone claiming that the A99 in Europe was 500 Euro more expensive than the D800, that can’t be correct…can it? If so I think Amazon would have it right not listing it, at that price sales might be fairly slow.
As far as the video from the A99 goes it still might be early days yet, remember Sony seemingly releases beta test units now for the first couple or three months on unsuspecting first adopters to see how it travels and then release some firmware update/bug fixes sooner or later on the things that seems to be generating the most noise, the video performance seems to be coming in for a bit of flack at the moment so they might try to improve that sooner rather than later one would think.
But it does make one wonder what the point is of releasing an unfinished camera out into the wild, you would expect that the last thing a company would want in this day and age of the internet is to have people running around forums describing the problems they are having with their (insert brand) camera, if anyone can shed any light on this behaviour please feel free, because this little black duck doesn’t ‘get it.’
One problem that needs reasonably urgent attention is the ExFat implementation in the Linux firmware os, that sucker seems to have a gremlin, either that or a fair few people with different SD memory brands and sizes/speeds have all had bad luck together. (The camera not being able to format the card was one of the problems)
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bfitzgerald
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Re: A99 shutter cycle - can owners pleae help me with a test

Unread post by bfitzgerald »

Greg I use this for camera/lens prices
http://www.camerapricebuster.co.uk/prod ... ody&p=3253

I can't find it on Amazon UK at least not at the moment.
But you can find the D600 for £1460 odd, one seller has it up for £1399, that's a whopping £900 less than the A99
That kind of price difference says "please switch mounts" I won't because I already tried that and was unimpressed with multiple AF issues. But others will because the price is def going to fall even more, and it's not too bad right not anyway.

Sony are not even competing in the FF market right now..swanky new A99 or not, warts and all or not.
I don't really pay much attention to video because I don't do much of it. I know some folks I showed the A57 to were ok with the video and sound quality..but seriously put off with the video crop (no idea if the A99 crops the video) If Sony are going to make any kind of impact in this market they are going to have to re-think their strategy.

And to top it off the cheaper FF Nikon is going to have somewhat better sensor IQ too! Now try selling that to folks it's a non starter straight off.
I know the UK gets some dumb prices from time to time (Olympus are notoriously bad OM-D is still £999 and has not dropped a penny in 10 months) but if I remember Nikon released the D600 "before" the A99, so Sony could easily have adjusted the price accordingly.

The only affordable full frame A mount options are a s/h A850/900 or get your 35mm body out and some film :lol:
I just ordered a grip for my Film 7 body because even with film/processing costs it's a heck of a lot cheaper than anything Sony have on offer!
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