[normhead]

From a vendor site....

The ISO sensitivity of this camera is INCREDIBLE! Great to see a manufacturer that bucks the trend of ever higher resolutions, and produces a stellar camera with more than enough resolution for even a pro shooter, but blows the competition away with ultra low light sensitivity with outstanding quality. I strongly recommend you consider this camera.

Looking at ISO 4000, it looks as good as a K-3 400 ISO image.

For an image like this...



That probably helps me clean up the noise, and shoot at a faster shutter speed. It's pretty intriguing. It's just hard to consider paying $2500 for a 12 MP camera.

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Last edited by normhead; 12-15-2014 at 08:37 PM.

[rawr]

That probably helps me clean up the noise, and shoot at a faster shutter speed.

What software do you use? You seem to have a lot of rough looking noise there. Or was it simply a very heavy crop?

[Shanti]

Yes the A7s is on my list for low light short tele wildlife/nature work. Many deer here come out at dusk & I can get within 20ft alot of times. 12MP is enough if the frame is filled for me.I used and Oly E1 for many yrs.& got great images(in good light max ISO 400).Would love if Pentax could do a B&W FF 12 MP as a niche product,I'm sure they could sell enough.

[normhead]

What software do you use? You seem to have a lot of rough looking noise there. Or was it simply a very heavy crop?

I probably didn't clean this one up.... it was shot at 1600 ISO, my point was, being able to take this to 4000 ISO and still get a clean image would have really helped. As noted above, wildlife are often most active at dawn and dusk. And the thing is, even if Pentax releases an FF body, what are the odds it will have this kind of capability? I'll be watching the boxing week sales.

[Rupert]

The A7S looks like an amazing low light camera and the small size and ability to use so many different lenses makes it very tempting...to those with a pocket full of cash and that dreaded incurable "FF Fever".

For everyone else, maybe it is time for another brief 15 second Commercial? (I could only afford 15 seconds this time)

Friends, fellow shooters, and PF Members....if the FF fever is eating away at your mind and your pocketbook, maybe it is time to bail out and come join us over on the Toy Camera thread? We are more interested in capturing the moment, memories, and having a little fun than we are peeking at photos at 400% and eating anti-acid tablets like candy over the spotting of a little noise.

Here is one from one of our best posters, a guy you all know, Mr Bassie...shot with a wonderful Fuji Instax. You can own one of these cameras for under $100. and have as much fun as opening a box of squirrels on Christmas morning!
Isn't it time you broke the chains of FF obsession and joined us in the fun world of Toy Cameras?

Photo credited to Mr Bassie with his Fuji Instax.....sure there is a "little"' noise, but it certainly doesn't ruin the shot or the memory!


Note: Adam, if I ran a bit over my 15 seconds, I will make a contribution to PF and catch up...just send me a bill!

Regards!
Rupert

[bossa]

They have dramatically increased the DR of the 810, to about 15 EV, better than a K-5 even and as far as I know the DR on the D7100 and K-3 went back a stop to 13 EV. So , you are going to gain in DR going to an 810. So you do have that trade off. DO you want the DR or more resolution.



If it's not good enough for the 810s sensor it's definitely not good enough for a D7100 sensor, but I'd take such info with a grain of salt. The D810 and K-5 are already suffering from diffraction in the red spectrum, but the blue spectrum won't top out until FF hits 100 MP. I guess we just have to wait to see what results are.

The 51 will be equivalent to 24 on APS_c, but there's already 28 on APS-c. But yes, for a while the D800 and K-5, the K-5 was just a smaller version of the same technology. At some point the K-3 will also become just a smaller version of 51 Mp FF technology. It's that never ending technology thing. With all the talk of organic sensors etc, with a base ISO of 5200, and clean images up to 12,800 ISO, it's really hard to even guess where it will be in even five years.

I find the D750 and D4s to be quite interesting conceptually. But I'm also quite happy with my K-3 for the money. And I doubt I'd use either of them very much even if I owned them. My perfect world is K-3 for wildlife, 645z for landscape.

An APS-C sensor of 24MP tech applied to a FF sensor would be 54MP - the Samsung APS-C 28MP would be 63MP.

[philbaum]

They have dramatically increased the DR of the 810, to about 15 EV, better than a K-5 even and as far as I know the DR on the D7100 and K-3 went back a stop to 13 EV. So , you are going to gain in DR going to an 810. So you do have that trade off. DO you want the DR or more resolution.
..

Nikon D750 versus Nikon D810 versus Sony A7S - Side by side camera comparison - DxOMark

The highest point of the curve at low iso may belong to the D750, but IMO, the A7S trumps the Nikons for a more useable real world purposes.

[cali92rs]

Nikon D750 versus Nikon D810 versus Sony A7S - Side by side camera comparison - DxOMark

The highest point of the curve at low iso may belong to the D750, but IMO, the A7S trumps the Nikons for a more useable real world purposes.

Depends on your definition of "Real World".
If I am a landscape photog that shoots at base ISO, then I am going for the D750 or D810 (look at the DR curve).
If I am a people person that shoots indoors a lot at ISO 1600 and higher, I MIGHT go for the A7S. It does start beating the Nikons handily from a DR perspective, but in actuality, how much DR is required indoors at low light?
If you look at the SNR curve, they are close enough to not sweat over.

[normhead]

Looking at the DxO numbers....


This is a K-3 with a lot less resolution but 1.5 stop better low light performance, when the D810 is 1 stop better.

According to Imaging Resource the A7s gives you 2100 lw/ph, so approximately the same as a K-5, which is darn good considering it's 4 MP less. And 1.5 stops better high ISO performance. It has nothing to offer the landscape shooter.

So If my current situation seems to give me shutter speeds of 1/100 and I'm buying this camera to increase my shutter speeds, it would get me to about 1/300 of a second. And that wouldn't be good enough.

I'd need to be shooting at 1/400 on a regular basis for the A7s to bump me up to 1/1000, which is the bare minimum I want to work with. So, I'm going to guess, this camera isn't enough improvement. Essentially you can fudge one stop, this would give me a half stop more than I can fudge. I won't carry a second camera body for that.

That D810 is looking mighty good.
But at the price they sell for, the only reason for buying the A7s is, it will use your Pentax glass. The D750 is more attractive at least to me, were I buying a whole system.

[osv]

This is a picture i took in Oct 2011 for a play called Dracula:
1/125s, f3.2, 20,000iso, Oct 2011, Pentax K5 (yep- thats 20,000 iso)

that looks pretty good at 20,000iso!

it has a retro look, a bit of grain fits right in.

what is the typical iso there? at least 800-1,600iso? a7s beats the d810 performance there even after downsizing, plus a silent shutter? i see the attraction.

here is the a7r at 10,000iso, with an old viv 28/2.0 at f/2.8... the lens is real weak at that aperture on ff... horrible lighting with no lens hood; even after heroic clean up with dxo, i wouldn't call it usable, because some of the shots were much worse.

see the 1920x1080 version on flickr: