Sony Alpha A99 Field Test Report

[Mark K]

Dear David
Thank you for your indepth comments, which explain the difference in colour rendition of three camera manufacturer. Having had D800 for months, I never like its colour right out of box. It was an embarrassing thing to find out that to find out I did not shoot in Adobe colour space and recent readjusting my camera settings and monitor settings set thing right
I do not agree with the comments of Michael Rehmann about A99's EVF because I am getting used to A77's EVF. I let go my A850 and waiting for reviews of A99 up to see how bad a99's IQ will be comparing to D600's. Local 5D III's price is about the same of A99 and my Canon lenses have been left untouched for some time.

On the Alpha 900, ISO 320 is a sweet spot and ISO 160 is the optimum setting. I won't revisit to quote the charts, but DxO's tests showed that the settings below 200 on the A900 are non-linear; there's not really much difference between 100, 125 and 160. The same broadly applies to the A77 settings from 50 to 80, the sensor is being overexposed and the gain adjusted to compensate.

For some reason, the A to D gain seems to be adjusted in full steps only - 200, 400, 800, 1600 - on the A700/900/850. The intermediate steps are achieved by changing the digital gain which comes after A to D stage. From 2000 to 6400, all gain is digital. I don't know exactly why this happens, but it seems that 320 is achieved by reducing gain from 400, 160 by reducing gain from 200 (I use 640 as well for the same reason). The effect is to improve the noise more than you would expect, so much that 320 can look smoother than 200. Certainly there's no real point in using 200 as a setting, 320 generally looks just as good, and 160 is as good as 100 for noise but with slightly less risk of clipping the highlights - better recovery from raw, maximum dynamic range.

What really gets me about the A900 is the difference in colours. I quite like the A77, but there's a quality to the saturated reds and greens which is artificial looking compared to the A900. Canon's colours in the 5D Mk III are not pleasant at all (the earlier 5D models were both better).

Generally, I don't like Nikon colours as much as Sony. That's the dilemma. New cameras can give me higher ISOs, greater resolution, but no matter what colour profiles I apply and what processing settings I use, I can not get the same effortlessly fine accurate colour rendering the A900 provides.

I suspect this is because the A900 uses denser RGB filtration. Actually, I know this is the case. That is what my very first comparison test of the Nikon D3X and the A900 showed. All the extra high ISO noise of the A900 was caused by two things - first of all, the high ISO was a truer setting, the Nikon typically giving 1/3 to 2/3rds more actual exposure to get the same brightness values; secondly, the chroma content of the Nikon files was reduced.

Since then, every maker including Sony has taken the route of using lower density colour filters on the sensor, producing less discrimination but paradoxically lower Delta-E values (colour error - with less colour to start with, colour errors are reduced in their deviation). Fuji has even doubled the number of green sensors in the X-Pro1 etc chip. Colour is constructed in software. It's even reduced in intensity as the ISO goes above A-to-D gain levels, normally over 1600 or 3200, in all camera models - low light shots have a monochromatic look. Sony has resisted this trend as much as possible and even with changes, keeps pretty good colour across the normal range of ISO equivalents.

But... the Alpha 900/850 and 700, the 100/200/300 series with CCDs, the Sony DSC-R1 - all of these use full strength RGB on the sensor, just like the KM7D and 5D did before. The first model with a visibly different colour filter array was the Alpha 350, and for that camera, they didn't try to boost the colour artificially. It has a naturally more pastel rendering which is very subtle, like a portrait-type neg film. They also didn't try to optimise its high ISO.

David

[Mark K]

Just bid on an exdemo A900 at around 600usd. BTW, it is not too difficult to get a new A900 at 2000USD

[Dusty]

Just bid on an exdemo A900 at around 600usd. BTW, it is not too difficult to get a new A900 at 2000USD

The problem is, it's hard to come up with the 2000USD!

Dusty

[artington]

Getting queasy thinking about buying new cameras.

Source: http://visualsciencelab.blogspot.co.uk/ ... uying.html

[Mark K]

or should I get an A99 at 2500 usd, which is still ten percent lower than local 5D III's price?
I found I am the only one in love with EVF....
Worries about A99 inlcude
1. degraded optical quality by slt, c.f. D600
2. noise level at iso6400 (indulged by D800's performance
3. slow and inaccurate AF (as found in my a77)
4. a higher end FF camera in near future

[agorabasta]

Buying new cameras will continue to be a must for quite some time into the future. I mean the bodies with the integrated sensors, the MF digital backs are a different matter.

The real problem is that image capture is still very far from optimal/ideal. So buying a new body is now more like trying some new film type used to be in the past century.

Now that the sensor tech has finally matured enough, the real problem is with the sensor toppings. There are simply too many factors of distortion/aberrations introduced there. The colours are always wrong, despite careful profiling; internal reflections cause tons of fringing/ghosting under high-contrast conditions, etc.

Now I have to say that the popular myth of dense RGB filters producing better colours is simply wrong. Doing capture in as little as three hard-limited bands makes it impossible to record realistic hues for the monochromatic light sources and hence for the peculiar spectra consisting of a few sharp peaks too. It is very necessary to have at least two capture channels to overlap within their respective effective DR while also having sufficiently different slopes of their transmission curves there.
E.g. if your red flower registers only in the red channel, its hue in the resulting image would be the hue of your monitor/printer pure red channel, having nothing in common with original hue. And only the wide smooth spectra would be then represented properly enough.
The objects with colours destroyed by dense RGB filters are actually very common - it's all the bright-coloured flowers, all the bright modern artificial paints/colourings.

No modern camera is capable of delivering the true enough range of hues/saturations with the bright saturated coloured objects in the same frame with the wide-spectrum coloured objects. If you get the wide-spectrum objects sufficiently saturated, you narrow-spectrum objects get all but the strongest colour channel clipped to zero in the output TIFF/JPEG despite the raw histo showing no clipping at all - no matter what colour space is the output.

It's only the Foveon-like sensors that may now overcome that problem to some extent, as they by-design register different monochromatic hues differently. This is why some fans claim that Foveon delivers the best colour at lowest ISO's. Actually it doesn't because of too complex colour processing it requires. But what it really does even at its present early tech stage, it really delivers much better hue separation under optimal conditions. It means that any two given hues may be improperly reproduced due to complexity of processing, but they will stay different from each other and never get rendered as the same hue in the output. And then the relative saturations of wide- and narrow-spectrum colours are much more realistic with Foveon capture.

[johnstra]

I think that some of you are missing the point of what Sony are doing. They have to sell cameras. If they don't they will stop making them.They can try to compete with Nikon and Canon by producing another 'me too' slr or, like Minolta sometimes did, they can create an alternative. If they take the first route they are unlikely to get a large market share of new users because Canon and Nikon already do conventional dslrs so well. They have created a new kind of product that will attract an audience that are looking for something different. As a company majoring in electronics they are in a strong position to do so. They know that Canon and Nikon have pushed low light performance to the limit and so they choose to give you an SLT that works better in brighter conditions and why not? What are Nikon and Canon going to do to make people want to replace their D800s in three years time? 36mp must be near the limit of what is desirable. They too are going to have to come up with new ideas and I bet that they are developing better EVFs right now. There will be fully gated sensors (electronic shutters) soon too, further decreasing the mechanical component count. Todays young photographers are not so phased by EVFs and I doubt whether a few old ex Minolta fuddy duddies like us will be at all significant to Sony's sales numbers. Sony don't have a large professional photographer population to influence them either. I can see that the SLT pellicle mirror is a stop-gap solution but so what? At the moment it is the best solution if you want full time live view. I suspect the price of the A99 will drop shortly.

Bob

[artington]

I have been keen on Sony's latest EVFs because i felt that the image was pretty good and I love the idea of live view and magnification in the vf.

However...

I am finding that I am getting eye-strain when trying to focus critically with the NEX-7 evf, something that does not happen with an ovf.

I dont know why this should be the case but it is. I love mirrorless - the small size, the ability to use alternative lenses. The NEX will be my camera of choice when travelling. But for fine focus work, particularly when using Tilt & Shift lenses, the ovf rules. Unfortunately, Sony has not bothered to offer one of these lenses, unlike Canon and Nikon, both of whom offer several, but the newly announced Samyang 24/3.5 TS lens may open the door for Sony users (shame on Sony).

But it does rather rule out an a99.

[agorabasta]

I am finding that I am getting eye-strain when trying to focus critically with the NEX-7 evf, something that does not happen with an ovf.

Neither it happened to me with the a55 low-contrast/resolution EVF...
But I'd rather agree on the Nex7 EVF, it's really tiresome at times. Still, an a700 OVF may be as nasty, if you need to look at the info line below every now and then too often.

P.S. Just to clarify - I don't blame the EVF per se, I blame the optical design of the VF in general.

[Dusty]

I think that some of you are missing the point of what Sony are doing. They have to sell cameras. If they don't they will stop making them.They can try to compete with Nikon and Canon by producing another 'me too' slr or, like Minolta sometimes did, they can create an alternative. If they take the first route they are unlikely to get a large market share of new users because Canon and Nikon already do conventional dslrs so well.

CaNikon do everything (generally) well; They have a large range or products, large lens line-up, extremely large range of affordable accessories, and professional customer service. Sony has none of that.

In business, you must compete on price, quality, service, or innovation, and need several of those factors on a par with or better then your competitors to beat them. Many and innovative product has fallen to lessor competitors due to a lack of one or more of the other components. Likewise, Leica isn't #1 because, while they are pretty much undisputed in quality, price puts them out of the reach of most people.

Minolta's strength, IMHO, was that it gave you great quality and innovation at a price that beat the competition. When Sony took over from a struggling KM, I had hopped it's deep pockets would bring back the innovation and also strengthen the lens and accessory line-up. They are just as weak now in lenses, accessories are overpriced, and now with the ishoe being dropped for the ISO shoe, breaking compatibly with their own line. Oh, and no pro service either.

They have created a new kind of product that will attract an audience that are looking for something different. As a company majoring in electronics they are in a strong position to do so. They know that Canon and Nikon have pushed low light performance to the limit and so they choose to give you an SLT that works better in brighter conditions and why not? What are Nikon and Canon going to do to make people want to replace their D800s in three years time? 36mp must be near the limit of what is desirable. They too are going to have to come up with new ideas and I bet that they are developing better EVFs right now. There will be fully gated sensors (electronic shutters) soon too, further decreasing the mechanical component count. Todays young photographers are not so phased by EVFs and I doubt whether a few old ex Minolta fuddy duddies like us will be at all significant to Sony's sales numbers. Sony don't have a large professional photographer population to influence them either. I can see that the SLT pellicle mirror is a stop-gap solution but so what? At the moment it is the best solution if you want full time live view. I suspect the price of the A99 will drop shortly.

Bob

"An audience that are looking for something different" will just as quickly switch to the next latest fad. One of Sony's problems is that they think of SLRs as photographic Walkmans, instead of systems people invest in for the long haul. This will be their downfall. "Old ex Minolta fuddy duddies like us" who have multiple bodies, flashes, lenses, etc, have put more money into the pocket of Sony that the Point and Snapper who wants "something different" but buys one with the kit lens and switches brands when the next new big thing hits, having so little invested.

In 3 years time, CaNikon will be selling 36 or 48MP cameras with better dynamic range, higher ISOs of whatever it is that they can push out of the technology to make things better, and people will be buying them, confident that their other system parts all still work. They will also be selling more lenses, since they make more, and replacements for those things that have worn out.

Remember when we used to buy cameras thinking they will last us for 20 years, not 3-4? Part of that change is that digital means there is no real cost to developing and printing, so we over use them, but part is that the tech is still maturing and we want the most mature tech. When it's mature, I'll only buy new cameras when mine wear out, but other gear I'll buy as the need, mood and finances permit.

Dusty

[pakodominguez]

CaNikon do everything (generally) well; They have a large range or products, large lens line-up, extremely large range of affordable accessories, and professional customer service. Sony has none of that.

Grass looks greener...
Canon users are not as happy as you can imagine, you can read their frustration, similar to ours, in websites like http://www.eoshd.com/ (mostly video, but also stills) and Barry's friend www.bythom.com talk about Nikon weakness.

[Dusty]

That's why I said (generally). Quality control problems will always creep in, a bad run of AF modules can cripple a model's reputation, but they have full systems, lots of lenses and are thinking more like photographers than Sony, who thinks like an electronics company.

Dusty

[johnstra]

I don't think that things were that different in the days of film. What is now seen as a mature technology was certainly not in the 70s and 80s. No one I know has ever hung on to a camera for 20 years, unless it was in a cupboard collecting dust. The average cycle time was probably around five years. If it went to twenty years I don't think that any company could afford to make them. Having said that no one is forcing us to replace what we have. I have an A77 but if I still had to use my A700 I would not be that upset.

Every company has to have a differentiator. Leica has a niche market for those that must have the best, Canon and Nikon cover the mainstream, Sony and Olympus are innovators, Fuji has found a way to marry the best of the old with the new.

What is this stuff about lack of lenses? What possible lens would you want that Sony do not provide? Except for the tilt-shift I admit. At the price they are though you would have to really need one to buy one. Another thing - I had to make use of Sonys' service recently and did not find it wanting.

The A77s ergonomics are superb and NEX were the first digital cameras to have their lens mount made open source so that you can fit pretty well any lens - so how does that square with 'a company that thinks like an electronics company'?

On the EVF front, I have found a snag. There is a problem in bright sunlight if you wear glasses. The light can enter the eyepiece because of the gap caused by the specs. This happens with OVFs but the difference is that the EVF cannot provide enough brightness to compensate.

Regards to all

[Atgets_Apprentice]

No one I know has ever hung on to a camera for 20 years, unless it was in a cupboard collecting dust. The average cycle time was probably around five years. If it went to twenty years I don't think that any company could afford to make them.

I have a Zenit E purchased in 1976 which is still in frequent use, is much loved, and will go with me to my grave. I learned my craft on it, and how to get the best results I could. I can pick up almost any camera today and get good images from it. Could someone who had learned on an all singing, all dancing digital do the reverse?

[peterottaway]

No one I know has ever hung on to a camera for 20 years, unless it was in a cupboard collecting dust. The average cycle time was probably around five years. If it went to twenty years I don't think that any company could afford to make them.

I have a Zenit E purchased in 1976 which is still in frequent use, is much loved, and will go with me to my grave. I learned my craft on it, and how to get the best results I could. I can pick up almost any camera today and get good images from it. Could someone who had learned on an all singing, all dancing digital do the reverse?

Yes. Having used everything from s Rollei TLR to FF DSLR.