a900 and high ISO settings

[malcy]

I have read on some other sites that Sony may not be giving a900 users a firmware upgrade due to software problems. Now I'm not sure as to the validity of this claim but if it is so why then would we wait for the proposed a950 if we are to have no upgrades for the forseeable future. Dont get me wrong the a900 is a great camera but a friend of mine, also an a900 user, feels let down that Sony do not seem to be addressing the high ISO noise problem. At a recent course which she attended some of the Canikon users were using ISO settings as high as 6400 with great results, some of these cameras are cheaper than the a900 so why are Sony ignoring a900 users, this does not bode well for Sony future pro users, after all at the moment the a900 is sony's most expensive DSLR so please, please Sony, sort it out?

[David Kilpatrick]

Er? The Alpha 900 gives great high ISO results. I use a lot of different cameras and I would be just as happy with the A900 as a 5D MkII or indeed a Nikon D3X. It does underexpose, compared to the other makes, by about a stop. If you give the same exposure with the A900 as the Canon or Nikon actually allow in the same conditions, you get very similar results.

I use my A900 at ISO 640 for routine full daylight shooting, or 320 when light is very good. It has exceptional freedom from noise. No need to even think of using 100 or 200.

David

[gpr2020]

David, why do you use the a900 at ISO 640 and 320 day time ? What are the advantages to do so instead of using ISO 100 or 200 ?

[malcy]

Thanks for the reply to my question. I have had great results with the a900 up to iso 800. It is after these settings that I experience noise. For good level light action shots without flash. iso 320 to 640 etc. pose no problems but if I wanted to reach say iso 3000 to 6400 because of low light conditions then the D3x seems to have the edge. I should add that I dont go this far but a friend of mine who attended a pet photography course was told that very high iso settings were a must especially when more depth of field is required i.e. f8 at 1250th, shooting on a dull day. This is certainly not a criticism of the a900, but if Sony did eventually give us an upgrade do you think they would look at increasing iso quality as part of the package.

[David Kilpatrick]

I don't think much can be done about the JPEGs, but every modern current raw converter (latest C1 Pro, latest DxO, ACR 6.2, LR3) gives results from the A900 at high ISOs which are just like the D3X - not surprising really considering it's the same sensor. The problem was always with earlier converters, and Sony's own converter, creating very noisy coarse results.

That is now in the past, at least if you have been able to get the latest software.

Re the 160/320/640 thing - yes, it gives significant relative gain in quality over using 200, 400, 800. It is all down to how the gain amp and the digital boost work together to create the raw file. These settings are much better than the 'whole value' steps, probably because the A900 has a native true ISO of 160 despite this setting being marked as a saturated one.

David