dPreview A77 samples

[David Kilpatrick]

I have had a chance, sitting down today with the laptop, to study the dPreview samples from the A77. I can now understand all the negative comments flying around. If I had obtained results like this from any camera, I would not have published them; before checking the ISO, I thought I was looking at 6400 or one of the ultra speed modes on one shot - then found is was ISO 1250...

It's very hard to tell whether the new 16-50mm is simple a very poor lens, as I see some evidence of optical stuff I don't like at all in the outer field and defocused areas, or whether this is combined with inaccurate critical focusing and poor JPEG processing (but this camera offers an Extra Fine JPEG mode like the KM7D, A700, A90 etc).

Sony seem happy to do this - let out a pre-release model and accept that a site like dPreview may post results which look no better than an Alpha 100 10 megapixel file upscaled. But it may be two months before I can use the camera and I'll probably have to buy one in order to get hold of it. Hoping that this will not be case.

David

[bfitzgerald]

Imaging Resource have samples up:
http://www.imaging-resource.com/PRODS/A ... ALLERY.HTM

Again pre production with some American Football shots at ISO 800..again same story really unimpressive (by any standards) shot in good light and they look frankly awful lots of NR problems smearing etc etc.
So I'm wondering why Sony did not get the firmware sorted out and ask sites to not put up pre production samples? I'm puzzled hugely by this because even if the final production images are much better this has done untold damage to this model.

Odd strategy I'm sure the final production ones will be better they surely have to be, question is by how much?

[alphaomega]

Everything else with the A77 seem to be excellent according to this chap here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRVOzwI10Iw
If you hang on you will even find he has almost gone from OVF to EVF enthusiast as there is no "ghosting" when panning the camera and looking through the EVF.
Sony got off to a bad start with the A700 image quality at higher ISO settings. I prefer to wait until a number of reviewers have actually used the production version and Adobe has released upgrades to LR and ACR. Not sure Sony have authorised release of any pictures as such but presumably they have had to hand out pre production models of camea and lens and these may not produce images that match what the production models can achieve. For me my A580 and NEX-5 can do what I require and I can sit back and wait for proper results before pulling out the credit card.
Don't understand French and don't know how to use Google translate but here is a link to a French test of the A77 RAW against D7000 and Pentax K5. The A77 looks the best to me, but I may be wrong. Let's wait and see how this thing plays out and production models become available.
http://www.focus-numerique.com/test-129 ... ue-12.html

[David Kilpatrick]

Hurried rollout, I think, trying for once to bring their new sensor to market before Nikon do.

Or - the unthinkable alternative - is that Sony embarked on a large scale production of 24 megapixel sensors, and Nikon/Pentax after testing them have rejected the sensor outright. So, faced with no market to third party makers until they can fix the problems, Sony puts this sensor into every camera they possibly can (NEX, Alpha) and keeps the prices low. They then rush the product to market two months ahead of schedule and release pre-production cameras to the websites they think will create the greatest buzz.

The NEX-5 was released for press testing before the final version. But I have to say the NEX prototype I tested was not significantly different from later models, and compared to the A77 previews, great in every respect. Even the 16mm pancake actually looks 'nicer' than the 16-50mm.

I'm dusting off the Alpha 900 and considering medium format digital as an option.

David

[bakubo]

Richard Butler, dpreview reviewer, has this to say about the A77 images:

http://forums.dpreview.com/previews/son ... /page7.asp

"We have always published pre-production samples (not studio shots), but only when we're assured they're at or near production standard."

[bossel]

They have an excellent 16MP sensor and a few years ago we would have insisted it would be insane to stuff 16MP into an APS-C sensor and whatever technology advance there is, high ISO performance would forceably be bad.

I can't imagin Sony releasing that sensor if it's that horrible, though I haven't done any pixel peeping so far. I hope it's not that bad because there is that NEX-7 with the same sensore smiling at me ...

[bfitzgerald]

We won't be able to tell much until raw samples turn up..the link above shows images with NR standard. But that can vary quite a bit from maker to maker. I'd wager Sony use stronger NR than many do so that might explain something.

Yes I thought 16mp would suck but it did not rather the reverse, however it would be unwise to suggest you can keep pumping the pixels on there and all 8 million of them extra on the same size sensor and not pay some kind of price.

Sony have been a bit hit and miss on this. A900 arrived and erm well the jpegs were not overly liked, and it's performance was not really impressive at higher ISO levels either..many said even the A700 beat it out in that dept. Saying that I know some folks don't even shoot above ISO 400 they might not care..

[bakubo]

This link has a few IR jpegs at ISO 12,800 comparing the 5N, A77, GH2, 5DII, and 60D:

http://www.eoshd.com/content/3802/which ... -7-and-a77

The 5N sure looks good. Eventually we will see how the A77 raw looks.

[stevecim]

David, I know your busy, is there any way you could post an example here and "high light" the defects you are seeing, I just don't have the skill to spot the faults or I just happened to pick all the good photos

[David Kilpatrick]

I'm talking about the shots from Seattle by one photographer, and the Arizona looking trip by Richard Butler. Nothing looks properly sharp even on the 16-35mm f/2.8 CZ - the ISO 200 shots (no idea why ISO 200 was used in full sun where 100 or the extended 50 would have been ideal) have very grainy sky blue noise; the high ISO shots are terrible - seriously some of the worst high ISO examples ever posted, the files may be bigger but the smearing is back to first firmware generation Alpha 700 quality.

Just view as many images as you can at 100%, you will see the problems.

dPreview do not permit posting of their samples elsewhere.

David

[Bengeo]

There are 34 samples here: http://dpnow.com/8229.html with Raw versions available if you have anything to process them.

Andy

[tom power 53]

Hard to believe that many of the images we are seeing are going to be representative of the final results.

On the flip side hard to believe that Sony would let this camera out for preview with these results coming from the camera.

I did see a comparison on one site though that the IQ looked quite good compared to 5D,D7000 and 7D so maybe this is simply unfinished processing engine causing the problem. We will know when final version arrives I guess. Hard to believe the IQ will be substantially worse than their less expensive cameras but stranger things have happened.

[emarsh72]

If you look at dpreview, there is an image of a red steel beam with the blue sky behind it. There is noise in the sky at iso200. However the file size of the 24mp image is 9.7mb. That seems small to me. But, maybe it's correct. Nevermind that, the firmware ver. is 0.58, NR is normal, the jpeg compression is labeled ( at least on imaging resource exif ) Compression: jpeg(oldstyle). Old style from what? Is that normally labeled like that? Also, the a77 will have lens correction built into the camera, however this feature is not enabled yet in the pre-production cameras. So, these are questions I have, and things to bear in mind. In two weeks or less, things will be much clearer, I do believe. One other thing I noticed on Imaging resource is that long exposure NR was On, even with a shutter speed of 1/500. I can't tell if dpreview did the same, I can't see the full exif there.

[Dr. Harout]

Look at pictures here:
http://www.popphoto.com/gallery/sample- ... t-a77-dslr

[bfitzgerald]

They're just as bad have a look at image 6 it's ISO 400 (really not even high ISO to most) and it's pretty awful being polite. I'd get better off my A200 and really that's kinda worrying.