Photoclubalpha

Interesting piece here and a lot of common sense about 100% pixel peeping

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/revie ... ions.shtml

If you compare a65/77 to the now obsolete a700 at image level, without pixelpeeping, you may immediately recognise that new cams are plain lousy noise-wise.
Something is very wrong with those preproduction sample bodies. And if nothing changes by the release date, it's a huge problem.

agorabasta wrote:If you compare a65/77 to the now obsolete a700 at image level, without pixelpeeping, you may immediately recognise that new cams are plain lousy noise-wise.
Something is very wrong with those preproduction sample bodies. And if nothing changes by the release date, it's a huge problem.

Sony is in deep damage control mode right now. David has said that the Sony UK guys are after the fact now spinning that other Sony people mistakenly let websites publish images. Those websites were told by Sony that the images were representative of what the production cameras would be producing. Now Sony is backtracking and trying to undo what it did. It is funny seeing what the biggest fans on dpreview have been saying:

1. There aren't any problems.
2. The problems are because the firmware is not production yet.

It is amusing seeing people claim #1 and #2 at the same time. Now it seems that Sony UK is saying that the problems will be fixed in production firmware. I guess that leaves all those people who say there are no problems looking silly.

I have not pixel peeped and I almost never do and I don't shoot jpegs so this whole issue with jpegs doesn't bother me much, but I know it does for some people.

The problem with NOT pixel peeping is that I would want to use the extra MPs in a way that enables me to crop. Shoot wide and then compose, in some instances. That somewhat makes up for not having a square format like we did w/ 120/220 film. In some cases you shoot the way you think it should be, but afterwards have to switch vertical to horizontal or vice-verse. If we forgo pixel peeping because "we'll never print that big" what happens when we cut away 1/2 of those pixels and we end up with a lousy 12MP shot?

Dusty

Henry, it's the raw files that show horrible noise. Those lousy JPEGs are just a result from that lousy raw, and the JPEG engine seems to be the same as that in the Nex5N where it works pretty nicely...

Dusty wrote:The problem with NOT pixel peeping is that I would want to use the extra MPs in a way that enables me to crop. Shoot wide and then compose, in some instances. That somewhat makes up for not having a square format like we did w/ 120/220 film. In some cases you shoot the way you think it should be, but afterwards have to switch vertical to horizontal or vice-verse. If we forgo pixel peeping because "we'll never print that big" what happens when we cut away 1/2 of those pixels and we end up with a lousy 12MP shot?

I have nothing against pixel peeping, I just said I hadn't done it on these A77 images. I mean I have seen crops people have posted, but I haven't gone to look at the original images on IR and other places and do my own crops and peeping. Yes, I agree with you though because I like to be able to crop too. I am glad some people do pixel peeping and push the companies to do their best.

agorabasta wrote:Henry, it's the raw files that show horrible noise. Those lousy JPEGs are just a result from that lousy raw, and the JPEG engine seems to be the same as that in the Nex5N where it works pretty nicely...

Oh, I thought it was still about the jpegs. I do care about raw.

An A64 and A76 with the 16mp sensor would probably be pretty good.

I feel strongly pushed towards a Nex5N+adapter+viewfinder. But what a stupid awkward thing to carry around! As if specifically designed for the geeky dorks.

Pretty amusing to read about pixel peeping from a site that's done nothing but pixel peep for over a decade
Leaving that one on the side lines I'm still not seeing magic from this sensor esp not for higher ISO work.

I’ve sort of been wondering if the whole image debacle thing isn’t some kind of stunt by Sony to get lots of discussion/turmoil happening and hopefully get the cameras more widely noticed, eg free publicity?
But that isn’t making a whole lot of sense either, really; the new cameras could do without the kind of publicity that either makes people think they are a dud on one hand or Sony don’t know what they are doing on the other, or both.
So where does that leave us, is it just another case of Sony ineptitude or are the cameras actually a flop? Most of all why would Sony run the risk of bad press in the US market where their SLR brand recognition, model practicality/equivalency, marketing and distribution has been near non existent by comparison to the big two?
All we can do is wait some more and see what transpires when production cameras are actually released I think.
Greg

agorabasta wrote:I feel strongly pushed towards a Nex5N+adapter+viewfinder. But what a stupid awkward thing to carry around! As if specifically designed for the geeky dorks.

Yes, the 5N + EVF is not sleek like the 7, but I am still giving some thought to it. Although the EVF in the Minolta D7i that I had in 2002 was not nearly as good as an OVF there were 3 things I really liked about it:

1. I could tilt the EVF up at any angle up to vertical. I often used it at angles from 45 degrees to 90 degrees when I was pointing the camera up and if shooting low to the ground. Sometimes I even used it when I was shooting straight ahead since to people on the street it sort of appeared like I wasn't taking a photo.

2. I liked to zoom in with the EVF to do precise MF.

3. I could review shots using the EVF rather than the rear LCD. With the LCD, especially if the light was bright, it was hard to get a really good look, but the EVF was great.

The EVF in the new cameras is much better than the old one in the D7i, but it is not tiltable except my understanding is that the accessory EVF for the 5N does tilt. Also, if you don't want it you can take it off. Unfortunately, you can't attach the EVF and flash at the same time.

agorabasta wrote:Henry, it's the raw files that show horrible noise. Those lousy JPEGs are just a result from that lousy raw, and the JPEG engine seems to be the same as that in the Nex5N where it works pretty nicely...

Sony UK says now that we should wait because production cameras will be fine. Maybe they will have updated sensors in addition to updated firmware so that raw and jpegs both get better?

The only way to have an updated sensor in the release cams is to intentionally put some early batch prototype stepping ones in the pre-release ones. Possible, but we shall see.

I wonder why you seem so certain, that the RAW output is absolutely independent from the firmware. Wasn't the A700 example enough that there is more to it than just the sensor?

I'm not impressed too by the pixel peeps of the A77 so far, but I'll draw a final conclusion when the real thing is actually there.

@agorabasta
What you call the JPEG-Engine is actually the camera built in RAW converter. This thing has to be optimized for particular sensors and it's likely that there has been done more work on the 16Mp Sensor than on those new 24Mp beasts. I would not be surprised if the final results would come out significantly better, but evenso if they are not better than shown so far.

I thought the A700 update, just turned off NR for RAW images....... I wounder if the A65/77 problems are Sony once again applying NR to RAW and then applying to much NR when converting to JPG?