Dxomark: A55, A33, Nex

[David Kilpatrick]

The reason they compare it as the sensors are identical - totally identical, no changes made by Pentax. With the mirror in the way, we would expect to see a 1/2 stop DR difference and a lower signal to noise ratio in the A55.

David

[Neonsquare]

@Barry
Well - it depends. If you look at the details most differences are in a range that one would have guessed from the mirror (1/2 Ev). The only really surprising curve is the dynamic range - which is at the strongest part somewhere around 1.6 Ev on top. The curious thing is that it only has 0.3 bits more tonal range. This could mean that the dynamic range is somewhat stretched or uses some smart compression scheme. Another weird thing is that the K5 has some "smoothing" beyond ISO 1600 - whatever that means en detail it at least doesn't spoil the metrics.

It will be interesting to see further results.

[agorabasta]

LR overexpose A700 files more than 1 stop. And it was really hard to match color and density.

It really does 'overexpose' them a700 files by one stop. So I have the defaults modified to dial in -1 'exposure'.
And I also normally shoot with -0.7 AE. Then I adjust effective exposure with 'brightness' and 'contrast'. It works much better than adjusting the 'exposure'.

The supplied camera profiles for the a700 are almost unusable. The 'Adobe Standard' is way off and is also 'twisted' at that; it looks like they really goofed and produced a profile for the A illuminant viewing conditions instead of the D65.
Both the 'ACR 4.4' and 'ACR4.2' profiles are mere matrices embedded in the proggie's body, and they both are not reading the camera's embedded matrix. But they are somewhat usable, especially if you use the 'camera calibration' saturation controls to add some red saturation and to tune down the blue saturation (that actually adjusts also the relative lightness of the red and blue, red goes down and blue goes up against the saturation).

For the better results you'd need a good external profile to use with a700.

Once the camera-specific settings are optimised, the a700 results with recent Lr/ACR are really fabulous. If you point me at some sample raw file, I'm quite ready to demonstrate that.

[stevecim]

Since all the talk about the latest LR/ACR, I download the LR3.2 trial and processed 350 odd photos I took on Saturday, including quite a few ISO3200 and I was really upset at how much better LR handles ISO3200 compared to DxO Pro Optics 6.2. but for my cheap lenses DxO handles CA better than LR , for me at least. (All A550 photos)

[bfitzgerald]

When I get back (currently I have no access to most of my photo stuff bar 2 film bodies) I'll be sure to try some high ISO A200 v the Km5d..
I can tell you now what the result will be..the old Km will deliver less noise and better images. If I run it up v the Pentax it would trash the living daylights out of it. So you'll have to forgive my sceptical side but having used both cameras extensively for some time and having used LR3..there is no way on this earth the A350 is better than the A200 for noise (not that much in it..but it's there), thus the old 6mp CCD will win here.

What LR 3 does is make the colour noise problems on the 10-14mp CCD's more tolerable and you can actually get things under control (which you could not on LR 2) That's great and welcomed...but you get a boost to all models out there, thus the ones that are better are even more better. The 10/14mp CCD isn't the best for high ISO it's been soundly beaten for some time now, the newer batch of CMOS sensors absolutely destroy it.

Of course you have to take things in context here..you can use the old CCD's (10/14mp) for low light high ISO work, you'll just get better results with the 6mp CCD and much better results with the more recent CMOS sensors. Anyone banding these CCD's around as low light killing machines..is sadly mistaken. It's also worth point out that not every review of these models used the older ACR..some have used other raw convertors showing the actual noise coming off the sensor. No tricks no gimmicks just these sensors are noisier.

[bakubo]

Since all the talk about the latest LR/ACR, I download the LR3.2 trial and processed 350 odd photos I took on Saturday, including quite a few ISO3200 and I was really upset at how much better LR handles ISO3200 compared to DxO Pro Optics 6.2. but for my cheap lenses DxO handles CA better than LR , for me at least. (All A550 photos)

I thought that in a few days I would download the latest DxO Pro trial version to try out. I tried it last year on a Vista pc and couldn't get it to install. I exchanged a few emails with their support people and also researched on my own and discovered that the software they used to prevent unauthorized use is malware. They wanted me to change the Vista DEP setting to get it to work. By the time all of this was found and I got back to my computer so I could try it the 30 day trial had ended and they wouldn't extend it so I gave up on them. I now have a new pc with Win7 and they also have a new version so I thought I might try it. I guess I should try LR also one of these days.

[stevecim]

I'm waiting on the new 6.5 has well, I've used 5, 6 and 6.2, if the new release can get close to Lr3.2, Then I will be happy. I'm not a pro, so I can't justify US$299.00 and go to the trouble using 2 apps.

[pakodominguez]

Pako - they do not treat A700 badly! We can process Shirley's A700 files with beautiful results up to 1600 - suitable for Alamy or any professional use - grainless. A700 files have been transformed by using 2010. Mind you, if you are leaving old files with the exclamation mark appearing and 2003 process in place, which will happen with any previously processed file still complete with .XMP sidecar, you do need to change to 2010.

David

I did a photo-shoot last month (nothing really interesting, you know how this work: I have to pay the rent...) with both cameras A850 on a tripod and A700 for close up, same settings, same lighting, same everything. LR overexpose A700 files more than 1 stop. And it was really hard to match color and density. For the second part of the shooting, I only use the A850...

Are you sure you had the same camera raw defaults in Lightroom? Or that you should have had? For example, with ACR I use Brightness 25 as a default for the A700 and Brightness 50 as a defaults for the A900.
...
Every camera is different...

David,

I was thinking about your post last Sunday while I was finishing with that Job (lots of moldings for a catalog, quite boring...) and thought about one thing: I compared in my mind different cameras with different film: slides, color and BW negatives, each one will have a different rendition of the subject. But 100 ISO is 100 ISO and exposure won't change.

Lightroom do overexpose A700 raw files and just changing Brightness doesn't solve the problem because whites always look burned -it can work for landscape and in most portraits/events, but it won't work if you are shooting products side by side with the A850.

I think this is something Adobe had to fix and they just didn't (and alas I don't think they'll do now)

[stratokaster]

Barry, it's clear that you have not followed recent developments in Sony's JPEG engine. It's much better than it was just 2 years ago.

It still smudges fine detail at higher ISOs a bit more than Canon, but is on par with Nikon and better than Pentax in that respect. What's more important is that Sony retains much better colors - for example, other cameras tend to turn red into dark brown. Sony's reds are still red even at ISO 6400.

See also this thread on DPReview: http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read. ... e=36864967

It's really funny that Sony's smallest interchangeable lens camera is miles ahead of Pentax' flagship in terms of high ISO JPEG quality. So much for Pentax' rumored prowess in handling high ISO / low light noise reduction.