Douglas L wrote:
Thanks again, Ross. I read somewhere more than once that if compressed raw is chosen, the AF calculation drops from 60/seconds to 30/seconds? I wish there is an official Sony white paper with the technical details. Both ChatGPT and Gemini got conflicting information.
You can trust Mark Galer’s info (Sony Imaging Ambassador). It’s the opposite of what you heard - AF calculations drop to 30 per second if you are shooting in one of the 14-bit raw settings - Lossless or HQ - and when you choose standard Compressed (which is lossy) it goes to 12-bit and now you have the maximum 60 calculations per second (but your A1II is still better at 120 per second in full 14-bit). Jan Wegener also reports this same info and says it came from Sony.
Ross Martin wrote:
You can trust Mark Galer’s info. It’s the opposite of what you heard - AF calculations drop to 30 per second if you are shooting in one of the 14-bit raw settings - Lossless or HQ - and when you choose standard Compressed (which is lossy) it goes to 12-bit and now you have the maximum 60 calculations per second (but your A1II is still better at 120 per second in full 14-bit). Jan Wegener also reports this same info and says it came from Sony.
Here is the slide from Mark Galer’s video review:
It can be summarized pretty easily as follows:
If you want to maximize the speed of the camera, then shoot in compressed RAW (i.e., lossy compressed) with the electronic shutter. This increases the sensor scan speed, increases the AF calculations per second, and lets you get more shots before the buffer fills up, and you can shoot up to 30 fps. It still doesn't have the advantanges of the speed of the A1 or A9 cameras, but it gets closer to them
If you want to maximize the IQ from the camera, then shoot in lossless compressed RAW and use the mechanical shutter. This will increase the dynamic range and give you the best shadows at the cost of less AF calculations per second, a smaller buffer, and you will get at most 10 fps.
IMO, anyone who has the camera should consciously choose which mode they want to use based on what they are shooting. I think most people will want to switch between these two modes for almost all their shooting or just use just one exclusively. There may be some rare instances in which you want to mix them (e.g., mechanical shutter and compressed RAW or electronic shutter and lossless RAW) but those will be pretty unusual circumstances.
Douglas L wrote:
Thanks again, Ross. I read somewhere more than once that if compressed raw is chosen, the AF calculation drops from 60/seconds to 30/seconds? I wish there is an official Sony white paper with the technical details. Both ChatGPT and Gemini got conflicting information.
Ross Martin wrote:
You can trust Mark Galer’s info (Sony Imaging Ambassador). It’s the opposite of what you heard - AF calculations drop to 30 per second if you are shooting in one of the 14-bit raw settings - Lossless or HQ - and when you choose standard Compressed (which is lossy) it goes to 12-bit and now you have the maximum 60 calculations per second (but your A1II is still better at 120 per second in full 14-bit). Jan Wegener also reports this same info and says it came from Sony.
Here is the slide from Mark Galer’s video review:
Thank you very much for searching the data, Ross! It makes sense. Much appreciated!
I took my new A7RVI for a spin this afternoon at a local airshow. Horrible weather, drizzling and foggy. The F-16 demo didn't fly, the French and British teams shortened their shows considerably, The Blue Angels performed a "low show" due to the low cloud ceiling.
I used electronic shutter and compressed raw for the shoot. A few initial observations:
1. After several hours (not constantly shooting), the battery still had 55%! I would have had to change the battery in the A1II already.
2. The buffer certainly didn't feel like 130 in shooting compressed raw, I felt it filled quite a bit earlier than the A1II. Of course, that's not a scientific comparison, I have used the A1II since it first came out so I do have a sense of its buffer.
After reading a lot of reviews and tried it on an electric fan at home yesterday, I knew full well that the sensor readout speed will cause rolling shutter effect in some situations. Otherwise Sony may be selling the A7RVI $1000 more than the A1II instead of $2000 less.
So today I tried it on a Coast Guard chopper and a V-22 Osprey, at very slow shutter speed and much higher shutter speed, which is much much higher than the shutter speed I normally use for that type of aircraft. Just as I expected, at very low shutter speed, the rolling effect is "masked" by the blades' motion. At higher shutter speed, the rolling shutter effect can be very visible sometimes. Again, I don't normally shoot these types of aircraft at such high shutter speed, so I think I will do fine at low shutter speed with the A7RVI's electronic shutter. I just wanted to experiment, that's all, not a knock on this fantastic camera at all. As long as one knows its shortcomings and deals with it accordingly (like using mechanical shutter in those situation), it's a nice piece of equipment.
Have a look at the blades of the Osprey in the first picture. The chopper's blades in the 3rd picture also show visible rolling shutter effect but nowhere as bad as the first picture, look at the length of two of the blades of the chopper in the 3rd picture. When I looked at the baseball game pictures @hyken posted recently, the arms in some shots looked too long and twisted to my eyes.
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ILCE-7RM6FE 200-600mm F5.6-6.3 G OSS lens600mmf/13.01/100s50 ISO0.0 EV
ILCE-7RM6FE 200-600mm F5.6-6.3 G OSS lens362mmf/6.31/500s100 ISO0.0 EV
ILCE-7RM6FE 200-600mm F5.6-6.3 G OSS lens365mmf/14.01/60s50 ISO0.0 EV
ILCE-7RM6FE 200-600mm F5.6-6.3 G OSS lens600mmf/6.31/4000s640 ISO+0.3 EV
Steve Spencer wrote:
It can be summarized pretty easily as follows:
If you want to maximize the speed of the camera, then shoot in compressed RAW (i.e., lossy compressed) with the electronic shutter. This increases the sensor scan speed, increases the AF calculations per second, and lets you get more shots before the buffer fills up, and you can shoot up to 30 fps. It still doesn't have the advantanges of the speed of the A1 or A9 cameras, but it gets closer to them
If you want to maximize the IQ from the camera, then shoot in lossless compressed RAW and use the mechanical shutter. This will increase the dynamic range and give you the best shadows at the cost of less AF calculations per second, a smaller buffer, and you will get at most 10 fps.
IMO, anyone who has the camera should consciously choose which mode they want to use based on what they are shooting. I think most people will want to switch between these two modes for almost all their shooting or just use just one exclusively. There may be some rare instances in which you want to mix them (e.g., mechanical shutter and compressed RAW or electronic shutter and lossless RAW) but those will be pretty unusual circumstances....Show more →
I shot this swallow and the kites using lossless compressed RAW at 30fps and there wasn't noticeably more rolling shutter visible in the sequence than when I used lossy compressed. DxO doesn't support anything other than lossless compressed which is why I had to use it. In fact distortion was only visible in a small percentage of the frames - so not so sure about there being any material difference in the sensor scan time.
Jun 28, 2026 at 07:05 PM
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duncangr wrote:
I shot this swallow and the kites using lossless compressed RAW at 30fps and there wasn't noticeably more rolling shutter visible in the sequence than when I used lossy compressed. DxO doesn't support anything other than lossless compressed which is why I had to use it. In fact distortion was only visible in a small percentage of the frames - so not so sure about there being any material difference in the sensor scan time.
People have measured the difference. The sensor scan speed is 19ms in lossless RAW and 14ms in what Sony calls compressed RAW (i.e., lossy compressed RAW). You also get 60 AF calculations per second in lossy RAW and 30 AF calculations per second in lossless compressed RAW. Finally, you get a deeper buffer in lossy RAW (150 images) than in lossless compressed RAW (60 imgages). Now whether any of these parameters will matter does depends on the exact conditions in which you are shooting, but I think it is a shame that your post processing softward seems to be driving your decision about what type of RAW to use. Hopefully, they will rectify that soon with an update and when they do I can't see much reason to shoot lossless RAW for fast action. Sony's lossy compression is actually quite good and only very rarely produces results that are at all different from lossless compressed RAW.
Steve Spencer wrote:
People have measured the difference. The sensor scan speed is 19ms in lossless RAW and 14ms in what Sony calls compressed RAW (i.e., lossy compressed RAW). You also get 60 AF calculations per second in lossy RAW and 30 AF calculations per second in lossless compressed RAW. Finally, you get a deeper buffer in lossy RAW (150 images) than in lossless compressed RAW (60 imgages). Now whether any of these parameters will matter does depends on the exact conditions in which you are shooting, but I think it is a shame that your post processing softward seems to be driving your decision about what type of RAW to use. Hopefully, they will rectify that soon with an update and when they do I can't see much reason to shoot lossless RAW for fast action. Sony's lossy compression is actually quite good and only very rarely produces results that are at all different from lossless compressed RAW. ...Show more →
The support for the compressed RAW formats is coming in September release of DxO PL apparently - no doubt when you purchase the upgrade !!
Not sure there is a meaningful difference between 19ms and 14ms in the scenarios I was shooting - if so it wasn't that obvious but I am sure if you really look for it you can probably find it.
With swallows a 2 second buffer is about twice as long as you're ever going to have the bird in the frame for so no real impediment - and I am used to having only 2 seconds from using the A9iii anyway. More of an issue with the kites but for them 20/15 fps is plenty so not real issue there either.
You just figure out how to make what you have in your hands work.
I have unfinished business with those swallows though...
I can imagine situations where 30 fps is valuable, but… I also know that shooting at that rate (especially in long bursts) generates hundreds/thousands of frames, often with little advantage over a slower rate, say 10 fps or so.
For me, it would be rare to choose that high frame rate.
gdanmitchell wrote:
I can imagine situations where 30 fps is valuable, but… I also know that shooting at that rate (especially in long bursts) generates hundreds/thousands of frames, often with little advantage over a slower rate, say 10 fps or so.
For me, it would be rare to choose that high frame rate.
Thoughts?
I wouldn't say "often with little advantage over a slower rate, say 10 fps or so". It depends on what you are shooting and what you are after. All things equal, the higher frame rate simply gives higher probability of getting a particular shot you are after, such as a baseball bat hitting the ball, an osprey's talons hitting the water surface, the opposing passes of Blue Angels, Thunderbirds captured at the exact moment, not a mini second too early or too late. Of course, if you don't shoot that kind of stuff, the higher frame rate may not matter.
Sure it takes a lot of unwanted pictures that take hours to delete.
gdanmitchell wrote:
I can imagine situations where 30 fps is valuable, but… I also know that shooting at that rate (especially in long bursts) generates hundreds/thousands of frames, often with little advantage over a slower rate, say 10 fps or so.
For me, it would be rare to choose that high frame rate.
Thoughts?
After having the A1 II and now the 7R6 also I quickly found out that the novelty of 30fps (plus pre-capture) quickly wears off when culling images. I have since set the 7R6 up for action at 15fps with a custom button to toggle [cont spd bst] on for 30fps when needed....the A1 already has that custom button. I also set up a marker frame to delineate when bursts are taken...Initially I liked this for focus stacking landscapes/macro but I like it as well for bursts...
I recently grabbed a new A7RVI as an upgrade from my old A7RIV and am very excited to play around with it. I also own an original A1, which has been my workhorse camera for the last few years, but I’m trying to decide which to make my main and which to be my backup.
My setup has usually been
A1 with 400 F2.8 for 90% of my shots of wildlife
A7RIV with 70-200 2.8 for when I want to shoot wide and get more environmental shots.
I shoot mostly mammals across Africa and Yellowstone, so super fast subjects like birds aren’t my main concern. Outside of a cheetah hunting, I rarely shoot my A1 at full speed and usually shoot short 3 round bursts of shots so I’m not filling my memory cards too quickly.
However I do tend to crop in a lot for my shots, especially when I can’t get close to my subjects for safety reasons. Even though 50 to 67 MP doesn’t seem like a huge difference, that was the main attraction of the A7RVI for me and I feel like would be reason enough to make it my main with my 400 2.8.
However, the slower readout speed and autofocus makes me hesitate just a bit because I know that even though the A1 is 5 years older it still beats it in that category. I don’t want to be missing shots because the autofocus of my gear can’t keep up, though I acknowledge that the AI chip in the A7RVI does an incredible job of locking on to subjects much easier than my A1 ever has.
In the end I’ll still be using both cameras just trying to decide which will be the workhorse going forward
James Burden wrote:
After having the A1 II and now the 7R6 also I quickly found out that the novelty of 30fps (plus pre-capture) quickly wears off when culling images. I have since set the 7R6 up for action at 15fps with a custom button to toggle [cont spd bst] on for 30fps when needed....the A1 already has that custom button. I also set up a marker frame to delineate when bursts are taken...Initially I liked this for focus stacking landscapes/macro but I like it as well for bursts...
I have a different non-Sony system that goes to 20 fps, and my default is to use a lower rate. While I can understand that some specific subjects may benefit from super-high rates at times, I’d regard that as an exception — and it would not be my default.
Recently I anticipated a very low flyover of a F-35 (at least that’s what I think it is — I’m not expert!) in a remote desert location and I grabbed that camera at its slower rate (and with the lens at only 100mm) and…
(Damn, that thing was close and loud! I had to immediately put the camera down and stick my fingers in my ears!)
gdanmitchell wrote:
I have a different non-Sony system that goes to 20 fps, and my default is to use a lower rate. While I can understand that some specific subjects may benefit from super-high rates at times, I’d regard that as an exception — and it would not be my default.
Recently I anticipated a very low flyover of a F-35 (at least that’s what I think it is — I’m not expert!) in a remote desert location and I grabbed that camera at its slower rate (and with the lens at only 100mm) and…
(Damn, that thing was close and loud! I had to immediately put the camera down and stick my fingers in my ears!) ...Show more →
This particular shot doesn't need fast FPS. Now, if the F-35 makes a vapor cone in a blink of an eye, higher frame rate would certainly HELP (but not guarantee) capturing the moment. Nice shot of the F-35, BTW.
Higher frame rate simple increases your odds of getting certain shots you are after but agree, culling is a PITA. I often spend more time culling the shots that took less time to make. I was mad the A1II stays at 30 FPS, same as the A1. 60 PFS would be nice, maybe the A1III.
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ILCE-1FE 200-600mm F5.6-6.3 G OSS lens496mmf/6.31/4000s500 ISO0.0 EV
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ILCE-1FE 200-600mm F5.6-6.3 G OSS lens376mmf/6.31/4000s200 ISO-1.0 EV
Douglas L wrote:
This particular shot doesn't need fast FPS. Now, if the F-35 makes a vapor cone in a blink of an eye, higher frame rate would certainly HELP (but not guarantee) capturing the moment. Nice shot of the F-35, BTW.
Higher frame rate simple increases your odds of getting certain shots you are after but agree, culling is a PITA. I often spend more time culling the shots that took less time to make. I was mad the A1II stays at 30 FPS, same as the A1. 60 PFS would be nice, maybe the A1III.
30fps (or 60fps or the sky is the limit!) can be useful for those who rely on it to product that gives of subject relationship in space — or, I think, for certain specialized kinds of bird and other photography.
If you do a lot of those things, then it could be extremely important.
But most of the time, few of us do that sort of thing, and my point is that just going with 30fps in those other cases probably creates more problems for the photographer than it solves… and slower burst rates likely make more sense.
BTW, I’m impressed that you, likely a person who specializes in this sort of aviation photography, can produce images that along the planes this way. :-)
Douglas L wrote:
This particular shot doesn't need fast FPS. Now, if the F-35 makes a vapor cone in a blink of an eye, higher frame rate would certainly HELP (but not guarantee) capturing the moment. Nice shot of the F-35, BTW.
Higher frame rate simple increases your odds of getting certain shots you are after but agree, culling is a PITA. I often spend more time culling the shots that took less time to make. I was mad the A1II stays at 30 FPS, same as the A1. 60 PFS would be nice, maybe the A1III.
. The chopper's blades in the 3rd picture also show visible rolling shutter effect but nowhere as bad as the first picture, look at the length of two of the blades of the chopper in the 3rd picture. When I looked at the baseball game pictures @
