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Archive 2019 · a7s for an a7rii owner?

hanay78
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p.1 #1 · p.1 #1 · a7s for an a7rii owner?

Hello,

I am enjoying a lot to shot night street photographs of cyclist and other moving objects.

I am wandering if it has sense to buy an used a7s owning already an a7rii.

Clearly because the cyclist move and i like to use 180mm slow small teles high iso is involved. Thanks to the IBIS of the a7rii ISO should be just larger than 10000-12000 to get an acceptable photograph at 1/80s. Of course noise is there that degrades the resolution. I am a hobbyist shooting for fun.

Now, a used a7s mark I is now quite affordable. It has not IBIS though, so probably to get something decent higher iso, of maybe 30000 should be needed using a 180mm to get something like 1/200.

Will I get better results than the ones I get with the a7rii using an a7s?

Any experience will be very welcome!

Regards and thanks in advance!

Nov 09, 2019 at 05:25 AM

GHarris
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p.1 #2 · p.1 #2 · a7s for an a7rii owner?

I have an A7Sii and an A7Rii. If I can find time today or tonight I might try to take some comparison manual images for you, or some static object or wall, one at ISO 10000 on the A7Rii as you request and one at ISO 30000 on the A7Sii. Maybe I'll try a couple of other ISOs near those numbers.

I was about to point out that a potentially bigger problem, for you, if shooting moving objects, would be autofocus speed - the A7Rii is not particularly quick at it but the A7S is downright slow as it doesn't even have PDAF at all. But in low light I'm not sure it would matter, they might both be equally slow... in such conditions they probably both fall back on contrast-detect... and the telephoto lens you refer to sounds like something slightly obscure, something that might be manual focus anyway not autofocus (or not high-end, modern, un-adapted autofocus at least).

I would suspect that the ISO difference, which is really quite a lot, would counteract the benefit from the A7S' bigger pixels. And I would suggest that the A7Sii is the camera for you, for this job (or maybe the A7iii, which is also an excellent low-light performer, I hear, though I haven't used it myself, and you might end up downsizing the 24MP image to clean it up to match what the A7S' 12MP would look like) since at least it has the same IBIS as the A7Rii, so you could use the same shutter speeds and get the direct benefit of a like-for-like improvement in your shots.

It's a shame the A7Sii isn't cheaper. Its price seems to have come down more slowly than other models. Perhaps because of its video role, I don't know. It's odd to me that it is priced higher than the A7Rii.

EDIT: a final thought. I have seen it said, from time to time, that the low-light performance of the A7S is not so much better than the A7Rii when you downscale the A7R's shots to equal resolution. I have never tested this myself, but I'll try to test it for you later today.

Nov 09, 2019 at 05:49 AM

realVivek
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p.1 #3 · p.1 #3 · a7s for an a7rii owner?

Stick with the A7rII unless you need a more compact camera in an A7S. In that case I would suggest an used RX1.

Nov 09, 2019 at 07:56 AM

hanay78
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p.1 #4 · p.1 #4 · a7s for an a7rii owner?

Hi,

thank you!

GHarris wrote:
I have an A7Sii and an A7Rii. If I can find time today or tonight I might try to take some comparison manual images for you, or some static object or wall, one at ISO 10000 on the A7Rii as you request and one at ISO 30000 on the A7Sii. Maybe I'll try a couple of other ISOs near those numbers.

This would be great!

I was about to point out that a potentially bigger problem, for you, if shooting moving objects, would be autofocus speed - the A7Rii is not particularly quick at it but the A7S is downright slow as it doesn't even have PDAF at all. But in low light I'm not sure it would matter, they might both be equally slow... in such conditions they probably both fall back on contrast-detect... and the telephoto lens you refer to sounds like something slightly obscure, something that might be manual focus anyway not autofocus (or not high-end, modern, un-adapted autofocus at least).

you are correct. i am shooting the apo-lanthar 180, apo-telyt 180 and olympus f5 200. AF not an issue for me at this moment.

I would suspect that the ISO difference, which is really quite a lot, would counteract the benefit from the A7S' bigger pixels. And I would suggest that the A7Sii is the camera for you, for this job (or maybe the A7iii, which is also an excellent low-light performer, I hear, though I haven't used it myself, and you might end up downsizing the 24MP image to clean it up to match what the A7S' 12MP would look like) since at least it has the same IBIS as the A7Rii, so you could use the same shutter speeds and get the direct...Show more →

a7s 500€
a7s ii 1300€

EDIT: a final thought. I have seen it said, from time to time, that the low-light performance of the A7S is not so much better than the A7Rii when you downscale the A7R's shots to equal resolution. I have never tested this myself, but I'll try to test it for you later today.

do you know hot to do it, i mean downscale, i a way is relevant for low light performance improvement?

Nov 09, 2019 at 09:42 AM

hanay78
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p.1 #5 · p.1 #5 · a7s for an a7rii owner?

any reasons for it? thanks!

realVivek wrote:
Stick with the A7rII unless you need a more compact camera in an A7S. In that case I would suggest an used RX1.

Nov 09, 2019 at 09:42 AM

WestTexas Sky
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p.1 #6 · p.1 #6 · a7s for an a7rii owner?

I am not sure of the autofocus but I find the A7S an amazing night camera. It laughs at ISO 12,800. Even ISO 25,600 will impress. At ISO 3200 in day or dim light it looks like most other cameras do at ISO 200.

It's also very easy to manually focus it at night with basically any lens. Far easier than my A7R3 or A7R.

Yes you give up megapixels but you are getting 12mp that are outstanding.

I think it's at least worth a rental.

Good luck.

Nov 09, 2019 at 09:54 AM

GHarris
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p.1 #7 · p.1 #7 · a7s for an a7rii owner?

OK, here are some clumsy tests I woolly-mindedly carried out this afternoon in a gloomy room. The cameras were set to continuous shooting mode, with LENR turned off, so that star eater and other noise-reduction firmware bugs did not involve themselves in the image.

The photos were opened in my old version of Adobe Camera RAW, raised 1.5 stops, sharpening was set to 40, Camera Profile was set to "Camera Portrait", Lens Corrections were applied (vignetting only, NOT distortion)... white balance was set to the same for all these pictures, would you believe it?.... and then they were saved out as a maximum-quality JPEG. That's all.

I used a Sigma Art 35mm f/1.2, set at f/4. EFCS was on. Based on your original question the a7Sii was set to take exposures about one third as long as the A7Rii, with an ISO setting about three times higher, using ISOs of about 10k for the A7Rii and about 30k for the A7Sii. Don't ask me why I used these particular settings (exposure lengths of 1.3s vs 4s, and raising by 1.5 stops in post), it seemed like a good idea at the time...! Hopefully it gets the point across well enough regardless: Larger pixels do not make up for hugely boosted ISO. Not only is the colour balance worse, there's more 'real world' grain at like-for-like image sizes. Which makes sense, come to think of it... they are both 35mm sensors after all.

For some daft reason I didn't think to take identical photos with both cameras (both at 4s, ISO 10,000, for example) for direct comparison, to demonstrate how shrinking an image from the A7Rii might produce a fairly similar image to an A7Sii. I'll do that shortly.

Links below are to the full images. Look for the 'Download' button in the top-left corner after you follow the link. The links might only work on a desktop or laptop computer, not on a phone/tablet.

A7Rii, ISO 10000, 4s

https://kggs-my.sharepoint.com/:i:/g/personal/staffgharris_kestevengrantham_lincs_sch_uk/EeEvI3M6QCVLn7jBDrTtBJcBohp9Knm6ucPQf4C57JfEzg?e=JfJsKr

A7Rii, ISO 12800, 4s

https://kggs-my.sharepoint.com/:i:/g/personal/staffgharris_kestevengrantham_lincs_sch_uk/ERuw47cZVQNNi41e3jNQQjQBthpNOGe4FEy4FSqGzlazmA?e=02ICS5

-------------

A7Sii, ISO 25600, 1.3s

https://kggs-my.sharepoint.com/:i:/g/personal/staffgharris_kestevengrantham_lincs_sch_uk/EbwA3p3NnClNmIXvlfhwHCUBWg_PSH5CI-oGMC4_tx9myQ?e=gSzsvV

A7Sii, ISO 32000, 1.3s

https://kggs-my.sharepoint.com/:i:/g/personal/staffgharris_kestevengrantham_lincs_sch_uk/EduL87j1muRFp16-yolvxCUBwQfueBEeyd0KsPLnkfmjwQ?e=KCoikH

Nov 09, 2019 at 11:50 AM

GHarris
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p.1 #8 · p.1 #8 · a7s for an a7rii owner?

OK, now here's a direct, like-for-like comparison between the A7Sii and the A7Rii. All at f4, all at ISO 10000.

Opened in ACR, vignetting correction on, "Camera Portrait", sharpening at 40, identical custom White Balance setting (which produces a different look between the two cameras!), then saved out at maximum JPEG quality.

I also took the A7Rii shots and resized them down to be the exact same resolution as the A7Sii shots (I just resized them to have 4240 horizontal pixels, using Photoshop CS5's default settings, and saved as max-quality JPEG), so you can judge how the noise looks when the image is shrunk.

A7Sii, 1/160th, ISO 10000

https://kggs-my.sharepoint.com/:i:/g/personal/staffgharris_kestevengrantham_lincs_sch_uk/ETXOGOtxYxZNl8i6OEsMIpgB1SAn4phgj3_nPwcFFba6kQ?e=YjLbe3

A7Rii, 1/160th, ISO 10000

https://kggs-my.sharepoint.com/:i:/g/personal/staffgharris_kestevengrantham_lincs_sch_uk/EbdRF-YRWUBCgO1EP2AdC5kB2Ax6mKSQ1N4O6kmITrE2qA?e=kbsEqu

A7Rii, 1/160th, ISO 10000, shrunk to the same resolution as the A7S

https://kggs-my.sharepoint.com/:i:/g/personal/staffgharris_kestevengrantham_lincs_sch_uk/EVUc5nZ-4fRCrVuej_gjzcsB9o8CXrsnquhCF86U4AEB5g?e=cdGayn

------

A7Sii, 1/320th, ISO 10000, exposure pushed one and a half stops up in post

https://kggs-my.sharepoint.com/:i:/g/personal/staffgharris_kestevengrantham_lincs_sch_uk/EegrE_GZ2P9MjswBlJGNQg4BFtA-mkbHGYsgoTrtzsR9Yg?e=gONQnr

A7Rii, 1/320th, ISO 10000, exposure pushed one and a half stops up in post

https://kggs-my.sharepoint.com/:i:/g/personal/staffgharris_kestevengrantham_lincs_sch_uk/EZHzZ4WaawZGruX9NmFXgnsBcJoB5iwJZj77wxkLbFSDag?e=Vo4eIK

A7Rii, 1/320th, ISO 10000, exposure pushed one and a half stops up in post, shrunk to same resolution as the A7S

https://kggs-my.sharepoint.com/:i:/g/personal/staffgharris_kestevengrantham_lincs_sch_uk/EZFs854DhBxDn1b8iTp4q_0BoqLUxuqOD1oDdMWJOx6uAw?e=U75hTt

Sorry for how messy these links are. You'll have to highlight them, copy them, and paste them into your web browser's address bar to go to them.

EDIT: And here are the RAW files of a couple of the shots (in DNG format, so that they could be losslessly compressed for upload).

A7Rii, 1/320th, ISO 10000

https://kggs-my.sharepoint.com/:i:/g/personal/staffgharris_kestevengrantham_lincs_sch_uk/EZQPrN-QKxJGooUJkblmqtwBPFp99rSOYhCCaFWULKYn5g?e=oOPXPM

A7Sii, 1/320th, ISO 10000

https://kggs-my.sharepoint.com/:i:/g/personal/staffgharris_kestevengrantham_lincs_sch_uk/EeEYuRsE7JJDsUUQKvFfFfYByOhXaqPwkPFVQeFJPx8c1w?e=9Us3N7

Nov 09, 2019 at 12:36 PM

realVivek
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p.1 #9 · p.1 #9 · a7s for an a7rii owner?

For video it is unmatched (for 2k). For stills it is very limited.

hanay78 wrote:
any reasons for it? thanks!

Nov 09, 2019 at 02:06 PM

pasblues
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p.1 #10 · p.1 #10 · a7s for an a7rii owner?

Do "fat" (larger) pixels trump more (smaller) pixels?

Jun 11, 2021 at 07:32 PM

Phong.nh
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p.1 #11 · p.1 #11 · a7s for an a7rii owner?

WestTexas Sky wrote:
I am not sure of the autofocus but I find the A7S an amazing night camera. It laughs at ISO 12,800. Even ISO 25,600 will impress. At ISO 3200 in day or dim light it looks like most other cameras do at ISO 200.

It's also very easy to manually focus it at night with basically any lens. Far easier than my A7R3 or A7R.

Yes you give up megapixels but you are getting 12mp that are outstanding.

I think it's at least worth a rental.

Good luck.

May I ask you a question. ISO reduction works both on JPG and RAW?
Thanks!

Jun 11, 2021 at 07:38 PM

rscrawfo
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p.1 #12 · p.1 #12 · a7s for an a7rii owner?

Not a Sony user, I shoot on MFT. Have you checked out noise reduction software? DXO or Topaz? DXO has saved many of my noisy shots, and I have quite a few given my camera.

Jun 11, 2021 at 08:31 PM

WestTexas Sky
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p.1 #13 · p.1 #13 · a7s for an a7rii owner?

What do you mean by ISO reduction?

I typically use this at ISO 6400 or 12800 at night for Milky Way photos if the lens is a f/2.8 or slower and it works great A7S is very good for that. It's only 12mp but they are good.

I used this on a helicopter flight. Set Aperture to f/5.6, prefocused to infinity and set my shutter to 1/1000. Left ISO on auto. Some shots went as high as ISO 3200 and you would never know that without looking at EXIF data. Super clean.

Phong.nh wrote:
May I ask you a question. ISO reduction works both on JPG and RAW?
Thanks!

Jun 12, 2021 at 05:07 PM


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