p.32 #2 · Official: Sony A7 and A7R Fullframe Mirrorless
Hmmmm. Zeiss + clarity does not look nice to me. So this processing will be in the RAW data as well?
Tariq Gibran wrote:
He had both the sharpness and the contrast set to +1 so the sharpness was enhanced plus...
It's also interesting to note that the new Bionz X processor in these cameras are apparently doing some major "image enhancement" in the form of sharpening which Sony marketing (per the product brochure) describe as "Detail reproduction technology" which "restores clarity". The effect looks good but I'm not so sure I want my raws touched to that extent.
Sony makes a lot of this new Bionz X processor and I'm wondering what other image processing is taking place. For instance, I have yet to see any moire in examples that I would have thought would have exhibited some. Perhaps there is some sort of "anti-moire" processing going on as well....Show more →
p.32 #3 · Official: Sony A7 and A7R Fullframe Mirrorless
mco_970 wrote:
Hmmmm. Zeiss + clarity does not look nice to me. So this processing will be in the RAW data as well?
I'm not 100%, but I do believe the processing is with the raws as well. It's not the sort of "clarity" effect that Lightroom or ACR uses. It looks more to me like using the "Detail" slider for sharpening. Here is the example given in the brochure...It's not going to be as severe as the over sharpened out of camera jpegs shown:
p.32 #4 · Official: Sony A7 and A7R Fullframe Mirrorless
michaelwatkins wrote:
Tariq, apparently with the A7 (haven't seen video from A7r) if you want moire the fastest path is to put the camera in video mode.
That looks fairly severe and one would think the A7r might possibly be worse since it goes without an AA filter. For myself, I'm more concerned with stills+moire. The processing would be different I'm sure on the full size native data for stills vs re-sized video.
p.32 #6 · Official: Sony A7 and A7R Fullframe Mirrorless
Thanks for that info, Tariq. I don't usually hit the detail slider very hard in processing, so maybe that's partly why it looks so pronounced to me...
If anything, I already have trouble with my Sony sensor images looking too crunchy and sharp.
Tariq Gibran wrote:
I'm not 100%, but I do believe the processing is with the raws as well. It's not the sort of "clarity" effect that Lightroom or ACR uses. It looks more to me like using the "Detail" slider for sharpening. Here is the example given in the brochure...It's not going to be as severe as the over sharpened out of camera jpegs shown:
p.32 #10 · Official: Sony A7 and A7R Fullframe Mirrorless
Imo, that last crop in particular looks like processing that doesn't quite appropriately match the structure of the image. It presents no worries for me ... the raw's should be fine, and you can always just set your sharpening to a lower amount if you're taking sooc jpgs.
That's part of what I really like about shooting without an AA filter (a true no AA filter), you don't have to push your sharpening/detail/clarity processing as hard, thus you get less "crunchy" ... even when you are a detail junkie.
Additionally, take notice of the lighting being used ... very contrasty/specular to reveal all that texture ... such lighting doesn't need as much pp sharpening as when using a softer light. Getting an appropriate match between lighting contrast, subject structure and sharpening algorithm is part of the craft.
3 Days isn't enough time to really understand the nuance of sharpening settings with different lens/different light/diff sensor @ no AA as you slinging through things to get a "first feel". That being said ... I'm good with the images, no worries @ over-sharpened. I think my SLR/C may start collecting dust next year.
p.32 #11 · Official: Sony A7 and A7R Fullframe Mirrorless
I'm good with it, I just need to upgrade my friends and family and find more beautiful people to hang with. The ones I have aren't gonna make the cut with this new lens and camera.
p.32 #13 · Official: Sony A7 and A7R Fullframe Mirrorless
I really wish they would be more specific when they say "uncompressed HDMI output", since that can mean not just 4:4:4, but also potentially something like 4:2:2, or even 4:2:0 if someone in marketing gets their way with words.
p.32 #14 · Official: Sony A7 and A7R Fullframe Mirrorless
Sam_W wrote:
I really wish they would be more specific when they say "uncompressed HDMI output", since that can mean not just 4:4:4, but also potentially something like 4:2:2, or even 4:2:0 if someone in marketing gets their way with words.
The Sony USA rep in the B&H video said it was 4:2:2 if I remember correctly.
p.32 #15 · Official: Sony A7 and A7R Fullframe Mirrorless
michaelwatkins wrote:
Tariq, apparently with the A7 (haven't seen video from A7r) if you want moire the fastest path is to put the camera in video mode.
Wow, that's awful. Looks like they just create the video frames by line skipping without much resizing or processing. If this is the case the A7r will be even worse.
One thing I can't understand is that Sony makes one the best reasonably priced video camera (FS100, love the files from it), but they can't or don't want to make high quality video output from most of their still cameras. After all these cameras have mic and headphone ports and clean HDMI out, so the video is one of the big selling points.
I understand you can't resize 60 frames per second from the full A7r sensor to create perfect video frames, but I would guess that it would be at least possible to create nice smooth resized 30fps video from the 24mp sensor of the A7 with minimum line skipping and minor in-camera processing.
Sorry about the rant, just amazed how is that even possible. There is a small possibility that they are changing the way video is created in final production model but I don't have much hope for it. Bummer.
p.32 #16 · Official: Sony A7 and A7R Fullframe Mirrorless
Tariq Gibran wrote:
I'm not 100%, but I do believe the processing is with the raws as well. It's not the sort of "clarity" effect that Lightroom or ACR uses. It looks more to me like using the "Detail" slider for sharpening.
It looks and sounds like a form of deconvolution sharpening, the sort that most decent sharpening plugins can do nowadays. The only novelty is that it can be done by the in camera JPEG engine. I'd be very surprised if they were applying it to un-demosaiced RAW files!
p.32 #17 · Official: Sony A7 and A7R Fullframe Mirrorless
Sami: Don't shoot buildings and roofs? ;-)
Here's the A7 and A7r, being shot by one of them, out in the woods.
Here's video output from both the A7 and A7r, just watching it now, not sure if there's a moire issue but maybe a comment to the author can determine if it was a problem
I used to see more moire from an AA filterless 12.3MP GXR and Zeiss lens combo than I see from my D800. Aren't more pixels supposed to help mitigate the issue to some degree?
p.32 #18 · Official: Sony A7 and A7R Fullframe Mirrorless
I think we will need like 80 mp FF sensor to get rid of moire (almost) completely. Of course, you can also reduce the lens sharpness by shooting stopped down to f/16, or opening up below the lens optimal aperture.
p.32 #19 · Official: Sony A7 and A7R Fullframe Mirrorless
Matt Grum wrote:
It looks and sounds like a form of deconvolution sharpening, the sort that most decent sharpening plugins can do nowadays. The only novelty is that it can be done by the in camera JPEG engine. I'd be very surprised if they were applying it to un-demosaiced RAW files!
Looking at the image processing chain that Sony shows in the brochure, the Bionz X processing (which includes this sharpening/ detail enhancement) occurs before raw or jpeg output. Area specific noise reduction is also taking place in the Bionz X processor. Btw, certain settings of the "Detail" slider operate as deconvolution sharpening according to Eric Chan of Adobe (link below).
"Yes, moving Detail towards 100 will use a deconvolution-based method to sharpen the image. I recommend this only for clean (e.g., high ISO), finely detailed scenes. It will perform the most detail and texture extraction that it can, with no effort to suppress noise or other anomalies. Use on portraits at your own peril!" Eric Chan http://forums.adobe.com/thread/1020845
p.32 #20 · Official: Sony A7 and A7R Fullframe Mirrorless
edwardkaraa wrote:
I think we will need like 80 mp FF sensor to get rid of moire (almost) completely. Of course, you can also reduce the lens sharpness by shooting stopped down to f/16, or opening up below the lens optimal aperture.
Sony is using some sort of Diffraction-reducing technology as well that takes into account the lens aperture so I'm not sure if that trick will work. That will be interesting to test on these cameras. Some of the samples shot at F16 and F22 look remarkably sharp from the A7's...at 100%!
I don't usually hit the detail slider very hard in processing, so maybe that's partly why it looks so pronounced to me... 
