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08-26-2015, 07:25 PM   #1
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Sony A7RII - The Good, Bad & Ugly - Ming Thein

QuoteQuote:
It is, for all intents and purposes, and A7II with a higher resolution sensor. That is good and bad – if you liked the A7II, you’ll feel right at home here. If you didn’t, then nothing has changed. Unfortunately, that sensor is still crippled by the same 11+7 raw compression and some odd preprocessing that gives rise to strange texture noise in the shadows. However, it’s worth noting that at least empirically, that compression seems to be visually less of an issue with more resolution – I suppose that makes sense given there are more ‘steps’ over which to spread the transition. I’ve encountered posterization in shadow areas, but nowhere near as bad as with the A7II. Even though Sony has promised 14 bit raw, it isn’t going to fix the hardware compression that’s occurring before recording – we’re just going to have a larger container (i.e. bigger files) for the same amount of information.

No matter how many times I profile the camera or what I do with the primary curves or HSL defaults in ACR, there’s some muddiness and color indistinction going on in the shadows if you want to extract the most dynamic range from it; on the other hand, if you want clean shadows, you’re going to be faced with fairly early clipping. More profiling work is clearly required here; perhaps combined with some individual channel curve adjustments. There is perhaps 13.5 or more stops of DR in there, but not all of them are clean. It sits between the D810 and 5DSR in that respect, and is closer to the D810 in highlight handling, DR and the overall ‘look’ (both Sony sensors after all) and definitely lacks the 5DSR’s color. It probably has the least pleasing color of the three, even after profiling. Under ideal conditions, the A7RII can come quite close but does not take the image quality crown from the D810. I really still think that last bit of transparent tonality is being held back by file compression; it will be very interesting to see what Nikon does with this sensor in the inevitable D850 or D900.



08-26-2015, 10:05 PM   #2
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Interesting thoughts, although I always take Ming's comments on IQ with a grain of salt. Not because he isn't a great reviewer (I think he is), but because the demands he places on absolute image quality are far beyond what I (and probably most keen amateurs) will ever need...
08-27-2015, 12:15 AM   #3
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It does seem like extreme nit-picking. Personally I'd love an A7R II - the design of the Sony A7 line is very, very clearly the future of digital cameras.
08-27-2015, 12:54 AM   #4
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QuoteOriginally posted by Jonathan Mac Quote
the design of the Sony A7 line is very, very clearly the future of digital cameras
Why?

Even Sony themselves have actively revised the A7 design a lot from model to model, to the point that they are beginning to look like regular, bulky DSLR's - just without a mirror.

08-27-2015, 01:47 AM   #5
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Just saying, it is a pity to have such a wonderfull sensor and not making the (small) effort to have a lossless compression. There are a lot of lossless compression code available on the internet.
08-27-2015, 03:06 AM   #6
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QuoteOriginally posted by Jonathan Mac Quote
It does seem like extreme nit-picking. Personally I'd love an A7R II - the design of the Sony A7 line is very, very clearly the future of digital cameras.
As a long time owner of a Sony A99, I can state without a doubt that the issues that come with Sony's RAW compression scheme are indeed alive and well.
That said, I absolutely refuse to buy any camera regardless of the brand or model that uses this particular technology due to the inherent problems that come with it.
08-27-2015, 03:39 AM   #7
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Isn't this the sensor that is expected to go into the rumored upcoming FF pentax?

08-27-2015, 03:58 AM   #8
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QuoteOriginally posted by interested_observer Quote
My impression is that MT is not a fan of Sony anyway, so this review is no great surprise. In addition, he's said elsewhere on his site that he is trying to reduce his own kit to a main system for work and perhaps another for play, so I think an element of that is in this article too. Who knows, but in the back of his mind was perhaps whether a Sony A7 system could be a viable replacement for a Nikon one and the answer is no for the kind of professional work he does - which is no surprise, either. For other folks, YMMV of course.

To me, these cameras are more interesting for the technology they presage than for the way it is implemented. That is, newer sensors with more of the electronics and focusing stuff as part of the sensor itself mated to high-power chips perhaps derived from mobile ones (Bionz, Exynos, etc.). That change is going to have quite an influence on cameras generally, imho, not least because it further muddies the difference between stills and video and in addition allows better and better EVFs (because the sensor refreshes its data much faster).

MT makes the good point that everything about Sony says "focus on consumers". Perhaps in the end you have to choose: absolutely reliable, bullet-proof kit that's well supported and targeted at the serious photographer versus more consumer-oriented stuff which is undeniably more modern but after that its virtues quickly tail off (er, together with its resale value). At the moment, perhaps having it both ways is more dream than reality. FWIW, it's clear to me that Ricoh are aligning themselves with the first camp more than with the second.

Last edited by mecrox; 08-27-2015 at 04:11 AM.
08-27-2015, 04:04 AM   #9
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QuoteOriginally posted by Spodeworld Quote
Isn't this the sensor that is expected to go into the rumored upcoming FF pentax?
We will probably see some version of the 42MP sensor in the Ricoh FF body.
08-27-2015, 08:55 AM   #10
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QuoteOriginally posted by JohnBee Quote
As a long time owner of a Sony A99, I can state without a doubt that the issues that come with Sony's RAW compression scheme are indeed alive and well.
my guess is that you can't back that claim up with any raw files that show raw compression artifacting.

ming said "Even though Sony has promised 14 bit raw, it isn’t going to fix the hardware compression that’s occurring before recording" ...no one has ever claimed that any sony camera has hardware compression, and he's provided no proof of any such thing... he is clearly out to lunch.
08-27-2015, 09:06 AM   #11
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QuoteOriginally posted by osv Quote
my guess is that you can't back that claim up with any raw files that show raw compression artifacting.

ming said "Even though Sony has promised 14 bit raw, it isn’t going to fix the hardware compression that’s occurring before recording" ...no one has ever claimed that any sony camera has hardware compression, and he's provided no proof of any such thing... he is clearly out to lunch.
The first claim has been examined all over the place. The second is something new to me.

Here is a site - over my head at the moment while at home sick - that looked at the impact of the 11 bit compression.
RawDigger: detecting posterization in SONY cRAW/ARW2 files | RawDigger
08-27-2015, 10:10 AM   #12
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the individual behind that link has trolled sony raw compression all over the internet, but last i heard he's never been able to actually re-create the problem himself... that star trail shot, for instance, is not his.

which should tell you how often it actually happens.

no question that raw compression can show very minor issues in extremely high contrast areas, visible in underexposed shots that have been seriously overprocessed... long-exposure lights against black night sky, for instance.

Sony A7R teams up with Canon glass shows it in his review, with extremely overprocessed shadow recovery, but the dr/file latitude of the sony sensor completely blows away canon's sensor, so which would you pick? the canon 5dsr sensor has the same weak dr/latitude issues.

"...Some chicken littles cry out that the sky is falling and that they would never buy a camera that does this.

Well, not so fast. If you look at examples that have shown up online, what you’ll see is that the net effect in real world images is de minimus. Can you see it in some images, some of the time at 100% on-screen? Yes. Have I ever seen this be an issue in any image that I have ever shot with a Sony camera? No, I can’t say that I have. ...I for one am not giving this a moment’s further thought as I shoot with my Sony A7II and new A7RII.

Frankly, if I had to choose one over the other(Pentax 645Z vs. A7RII) I’d go with the A7RII.
https://luminous-landscape.com/sony-a7rii-review-and-hands-on-report/
08-27-2015, 02:02 PM   #14
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What I expected. The D810 is better at low iso, the A7R II has a slight edge with regard to dynamic range at high iso. SNR is exactly the same between them.

Personally, I would rather have better low iso -- I don't shoot over iso 6400 and wouldn't in most situations, but if you do that a lot, than having this sensor is probably the better way to go.
08-27-2015, 02:36 PM   #15
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QuoteOriginally posted by osv Quote
my guess is that you can't back that claim up with any raw files that show raw compression artifacting.

ming said "Even though Sony has promised 14 bit raw, it isn’t going to fix the hardware compression that’s occurring before recording" ...no one has ever claimed that any sony camera has hardware compression, and he's provided no proof of any such thing... he is clearly out to lunch.
It isn't artifacts actually, it's posterization. And I can certainly back it up. (time and time and time and time again ...)
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