My biggest takeaway from the studio comparison is that the colors of the new Alpha 1 seem to have improved a great deal. This is pretty big as i do portraits and wildlife in combination. The Sony colors/whitebalance has always (in my opinion) required a lot more post-processing than their competitors to be acceptable. Now looking in a comparison between The A1, R5, D850 and Z7II i find that the A1 and D850 are equally pleasing, while the R5 and the Z7II are not on par.
Lassep wrote:
My biggest takeaway from the studio comparison is that the colors of the new Alpha 1 seem to have improved a great deal. This is pretty big as i do portraits and wildlife in combination. The Sony colors/whitebalance has always (in my opinion) required a lot more post-processing than their competitors to be acceptable. Now looking in a comparison between The A1, R5, D850 and Z7II i find that the A1 and D850 are equally pleasing, while the R5 and the Z7II are not on par.
Thats pretty amazing!
A9 (not the II) mess up WB some times and I had some unrecoverable portraits. A9 generally has a magenta cast and it's hard to get rid of it. I tried Fuji for some time. While Fuji mess up WB more often, the only thing I had to change in ACR was WB. It was easy to get consistent result with Fuji. I hope Sony has improved.
Jemini wrote:
A9 (not the II) mess up WB some times and I had some unrecoverable portraits. A9 generally has a magenta cast and it's hard to get rid of it. I tried Fuji for some time. While Fuji mess up WB more often, the only thing I had to change in ACR was WB. It was easy to get consistent result with Fuji. I hope Sony has improved.
Sony has included an IR WB sensor in the A1, same as the one in the Siii, I suspect the sample images from the Siii in regards to WB should be the same/similar to the A1
webmstrk9 wrote:
Sony has included an IR WB sensor in the A1, same as the one in the Siii, I suspect the sample images from the Siii in regards to WB should be the same/similar to the A1
Jemini wrote:
A9 (not the II) mess up WB some times and I had some unrecoverable portraits. A9 generally has a magenta cast and it's hard to get rid of it. I tried Fuji for some time. While Fuji mess up WB more often, the only thing I had to change in ACR was WB. It was easy to get consistent result with Fuji. I hope Sony has improved.
So why do you shoot JPEG if you have issues with the WB?
If you were asking me, I'm shooting JPG and RAW. I struggled with RAW in ACR. I also tried in Sony Edit which was better but not perfect. Pic was in mixed indoor lights.
Daran wrote:
So why do you shoot JPEG if you have issues with the WB?
The first thing I did was put it up against the 7R4 and R5, and the colors look like they closely mirror the Canon. That's a good thing - I always hated sony color. But the cameras are just so good..
EDIT...added the A9II file for good measure....that file is getting close to 100% crop. The crop ends up around 1600 wide and my output to FM is 1400.
Judging from the samples posted, I think that the realistic limit to preserve textures and fine detail is ISO 6400 (I suppose this ISO implies maintaining details in birds' feathers). Keeping in mind the downscaled interpolation applied to the higher resolution bodies to the 24 mpx of the A9II, the A7 R4 is the best in this aspect, closely followed by A1. R5 feels a tad worse than the other two, but not bad at all in absolute terms (does it really applies some NR by defalult in the raws, loosing some detail??). A9II is out of the game IMHO.
Lassep wrote:
My biggest takeaway from the studio comparison is that the colors of the new Alpha 1 seem to have improved a great deal. This is pretty big as i do portraits and wildlife in combination. The Sony colors/whitebalance has always (in my opinion) required a lot more post-processing than their competitors to be acceptable. Now looking in a comparison between The A1, R5, D850 and Z7II i find that the A1 and D850 are equally pleasing, while the R5 and the Z7II are not on par.
Thats pretty amazing!
Yes, the skin-tones on the A1 now look similar to Nikon (with the caveat about the validity of using pictures for this: re metermerism etc).
That said, what struck me was the image quality of the A1 files vs the A7rIV: the A1's file appear as sharp or sharper, with less CA, tonaly richer and with greater clarity. Perhaps the newer version of ACR is playing a role here, and/or in-camera processing. Regardless, based on this one lab shot, the A1 seems to set a new image quality bar (dynamic range evaluation pending)
You can see the effect of the low-pass-filter on the R5's still file, although Canon hits back with more detailed 8K video (at the expence of a more processed look compared to the A1).
Interesting live stream from Patrick Murphy-Racey.
It’s quite long. And the aspect of the A1 they discuss is pretty niche. But it’s interesting to hear the perspective of a professional sports photographer and what he considers the stand out feature of the A1.
Can you clue us in so we don’t have to blindly watch a movie length zoom call?
robert614 wrote:
Interesting live stream from Patrick Murphy-Racey.
It’s quite long, And the aspect of the A1 they discuss is pretty niche. But it’s interesting to hear the perspective of a professional sports photographer and what he considers the stand out feature of the A1.
RoamingScott wrote:
Can you clue us in so we don’t have to blindly watch a movie length zoom call?
Lol. Sure.
The Maple Leaf’s photographer is really stoked about the 1/400 (1/500 in aps-c) flash sync speed.
He uses strobes when shooting hockey and basketball. Even though the flash freezes the action. The 1/250th second sync speed he’s been using up until now would still sometimes result in blurring on very fast movements. So having the higher sync speed is very exciting to him.
That, coupled with “Hypersyncing”, he said he was able get 1/800th of sec flash sync when in aps-c mode on the A1.
The Maple Leaf’s photographer is really stoked about the 1/400 (1/500 in aps-c) flash sync speed.
He uses strobes when shooting hockey and basketball. Even though the flash freezes the action. The 1/250th second sync speed he’s been using up until now would still sometimes result in blurring on very fast movements. So having the higher sync speed is very exciting to him.
That, coupled with “Hypersyncing”, he said he was able get 1/800th of sec flash sync when in aps-c mode on the A1.
I am, too. As an event photographer this rang a bell with me.
Added to the main list.... I need someone to lend me equipment so I can beat the sh%t out of it without a care in the world :-) Glad to see it held up and I like his results.... although not in agreement on his jpg comments, its good to see the camera get put through some real world paces.
