In defense of the A100

[Vidgamer]

I was recently put into a position of having to defend the A100. Which is fine, as I like the camera. In that recent thread that I helped to de-rail (sorry!), I had a few points which probably should have been separated to another thread. So here it is.

1) I think the A100 has a lot of resolution.
2) Pixel-peeping can be useful, but things that look poor on a pixel level can still look good in print, even relatively large prints.
3) ISO 400 is a tad noisy, but not bad.
4) Many of the Sony cameras are also noisy at high ISOs.
5) Different people have completely different requirements as to the quality level that is needed.
6) Most people owning DLSRs are probably not professionals and probably do not have the highest needs.
7) Most people see right through noise. Small amounts of it will go unnoticed.

But I would not recommend the camera for night-time sports action. I don't know why I was called upon to dislike my camera because it could not do this task, but that seemed to be the case.

If I must show the worst of the A100, here is an ISO 1600 photo I put some effort into:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/9644425@N06/2833544721/

OK, I probably would have trouble submitting that to a stock photo service, but that wasn't my intent. This prints fine at 8x10, with a bit of noise visible in the background. I do recommend processing from RAW if you have to use ISO 1600.

For ISO 800, you can see some noise, but I did not use any noise reduction. This is straight out of the camera:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/9644425@N06/2834386398/

I can see where you might be concerned if you intended to print large, but I really don't think this is so horrible.

But I will admit, most of my photos, by far, are ISO 400 or less.

And this shows why I like the A100 most of all.



(That says something for the lens too -- wide open at 300mm!)

So, when people complain about high ISO noise from the A900, what do they intend to do about it? Not photograph at high-ISO? NR? Not submit to a stock photo agency if at high-ISO? I guess I'm just saying that the same high-ISO issues seem to exist to some extent, and perhaps someone out there has some comments or observations that might apply to a more general topic of how much noise is too much noise.

When forced to make the choice of resolution vs. noise, I took the higher resolution even if it had more noise. Would I do it again, say, with an A300/350 instead of an A200? I don't know. I know a lot of people online are arguing the other way, but those that do probably have a specialized need for higher ISO work. But I don't think Sony is going to make a 6mp Alpha. Those days are gone.

[mcddeb]

Great shot of the jets. Really shows what the a100 with a good eye behind it can do.

D

[Greg Beetham]

That's a great photo of a F16, some nitpickers would most likely say the sky is slightly noisy....but it's the plane that's the subject...not the sky, so I for one, automatically ignore the sky.
And yes I agree the A100 is a fine camera.
Greg

[Vidgamer]

That's a great photo of a F16, some nitpickers would most likely say the sky is slightly noisy....but it's the plane that's the subject...not the sky, so I for one, automatically ignore the sky.
And yes I agree the A100 is a fine camera.
Greg

There is some noise on the 100% crop. It could be my RAW processor. Only recently, I used two different RAW programs on a different ISO 100 photo, trying to keep it otherwise equivalent, and one program was noticeably noisier than the other (although, I could swear that there is a touch more detail in the noisier one, it's too subtle to worry about). I could post them if you're curious. I can't recall how I created that photo, above. Here's a similar 100% crop from a different photo that doesn't look as noisy:



I also wondered whether I would get additional noise due to the time of day. That was the last act of the show, and I had been out for hours in the sun. The camera was probably well heated-up, which will increase the noise level. But it shouldn't be that noticeable at ISO 100.

It's interesting how the processing can make as much or more of a difference than anything else!


Thanks for the comments, all.

[David Kilpatrick]

If you want to kill the sky noise, just do a raw conversion at a lower K temperature - say the original was at 5600 or 5200K, do a conversion at 4800 or 4600 instead. You may be surprised how the colour cleans up and the blue sky loses the noise.

David

[MFS]

Looks very good to me. Low in noise and of course som noise noticable @ 100% crop. I'm intrested in the two RAW converters you used. Which were they if I may ask?

[Vidgamer]

Looks very good to me. Low in noise and of course som noise noticable @ 100% crop. I'm intrested in the two RAW converters you used. Which were they if I may ask?

Rawhide (which is still considered to be "alpha" status according to its author, I think), and Raw Therapee, are the two I've been trying the most lately. I have also downloaded the latest IDC (version 3), which also works for the A100, although its noise reduction is awful --otherwise, it's OK. For a long time, I used UFRaw, which works really well. I haven't tried any of the stand-alone commercial RAW converters -- one that I tried a while back didn't support the A100 at the time, and I generally get good enough results out of these.

[MFS]

Looks very good to me. Low in noise and of course som noise noticable @ 100% crop. I'm intrested in the two RAW converters you used. Which were they if I may ask?

Rawhide (which is still considered to be "alpha" status according to its author, I think), and Raw Therapee, are the two I've been trying the most lately. I have also downloaded the latest IDC (version 3), which also works for the A100, although its noise reduction is awful --otherwise, it's OK. For a long time, I used UFRaw, which works really well. I haven't tried any of the stand-alone commercial RAW converters -- one that I tried a while back didn't support the A100 at the time, and I generally get good enough results out of these.

Thanks Vidgamer. Rawhide I have heard of before, RAW Therapee I never heard of before untill now. TFS

[Vidgamer]

Definitely give RAW Therapee a try. Also, UFRaw uses the standard DCRaw which is at the heart of most RAW converters anyways.

[MFS]

Thanks again Vidgamer. I sure will have a look into RAW Therapee, RAW converters draw my attention. For MRW files I book the best results with C1P btw.

[Jian]

In the right hands, an a100 flies past those with far better, more expensive cameras in the hands of those who don't know what they're doing.

If someone glances at your photo and assumes you're working with much more (camera, lighting equip, software used, etc,) than what you've got, you're doing something RIGHT.

[Vidgamer]

With all of the posts about DxOMark, I only recently thought to compare the A100 with other cameras I was considering a couple of years ago -- the D40 and D40X. When you compare the "print" numbers, where the numbers are standardized for a printout (giving a bit more of a level playing field in many cases, I think), there's little difference. The A100 comes up a bit short at high ISO... but looks good at low ISO! Well, it's all relative, isn't it?

http://www.dxomark.com/index.php/eng/Im ... nd3)/Nikon