Sony Alpha 7S in low-light: See video at ISO 409,600

Help me understand how this video was "shot to underexpose" at ISO 1600. The aperture and shutter speed are listed on the video and consistent for all ISOs, as they would need to be in a comparison of this sort.

Are you talking about post-processing? Why would a "'professional video person" confuse terms?

Sam... While not exactly sure, I would expect that this video had to be downsampled at least once before/during being posted on this review site. I suggest that was where the noticeable artifacts came in.

I'm shocked you see compression artifacts in shadows from a youtube video.

Wake up call: Youtube compresses too, especially in shadows.

easiest way to gauge intensity of sky brightness versus fire brightness is absence of shadows cast by fire, or highlights lit by fire is overwhelmed by evening light from surrounding skies on immediate surroundings. total absence of red fire glow on objects near fire tells us the sky is still quite bright, but grossly underexposed as appearing blackened out.

why build a fire at all if it has no lighting ability of its surroundings?

the scene is contrived via gross underexposure, and regrading (pp) back to normal brightness, as many shooting raw stills do for high contrast daytime shots do to 'prove' shadow lifting capabilities. (sony/nikon shooters do this all the time)

You have no idea how slog works do you?

Tell you what - since you love canon so much and troll on a Sony post (I own a 1dc and am 100% confident that this sensor is superior ) please shoot a similar video with your superior canon sensor.

No need to hate.

This is amazing tech. Be happy. Don't feel threatened Daniella.

Hey Canon Shill-

Didn't you used to post under a different user name, with the same picture?

SRT3ILKT you are confusing what the human eye can see and what a digital sensor can see.

Not sure why I am defending Sony being that I own so much canon gear - but the critics need to back off a bit and applaud this Sony achievement and be thankful for competition.

That is quite a fangirl defense for canon.

@sdaniella Your comment, "why build a fire at all if it has no lighting ability of its surroundings?" made me literally laugh out loud. The subject is removing his fish from a drying rack and this is a "contrived" setup? Girl, you seriously need to step away from the computer and travel a bit. Get up at dawn when the ambient temperature is sub 40°F and see if having a fire might not be a pleasant thing.

On another note, I'll allow that the latest version of Canon sensors *might* be better at the very specific firefly example you'd noted than the A7S (very freakin doubtful), but at least you agree that sooner or later, Sony will surpass them ("...it will be awhile before SONY catches up to Canon sensors").

Fangirl. Lol.

Slog-2 does help to make the best use of that 8 bits though.

If I gave everyone on this forum a gold brick, for free, you would be the one complaining that it's not shiny enough.

aborta - I dont know if you are being sarcastic or not. Its well known that a sensor with low pixel density + low megapixel can be used to print larger print sizes as compared to high pixel density + high megapixel which sometimes show artefacts when used for printing large sizes. I also think in the a7s the load on the sensor will be lesser thanks to the low megapixel plus faster write times (especially raw) which might help achieve a higher burst rate.

I prefer 24MP FF sensors. I can use it to crop or downsize (downsizing gives you similar noise and more detail which can be traded for additional noise reduction: http://www.luminous-landscape.com/essays/dxomark_sensor_for_benchmarking_cameras2.shtml; there are enough scientific paper to show how to do so to increase dynamic range, eliminate artefacts. For extreme ISOs this doesn't work anymore, but for the ones interesting for me, no problem). I see the value in less MP for me only in case of video. But as I don't do this at all, I'm still wondering what do I need ISO 400k for? I don't see the value of shooting at night to have a picture which I could do during the day, too. There may be people really requiring it, but how many amateurs really need this?

HFLM,

Lots of wildlife videos are shot under low-light conditions, or even at night. A lot of photography is about acquiring information, not necessarily art. My first digital photographs were taken through a microscope in a biology lab.

But even for artists, I think the implication of this camera is cleaner video at lower ISOs, too. I would bet that ISO 1600, 3200 etc. is cleaner than it is on competing cameras.

EDIT: Also, whatever the burst rate is on your camera is affected by the size of the files. If you have a 24Mp camera with 8 fps burst (I'm guessing), you would have significantly faster burst with 12Mp. It might be as much as double. If you think about 4K video, as on the Panasonic GH4, that is essentially a 30 fps burst mode with a file size of 8 Mp! That's what you're missing out on by having to have 24 Mp files. I'll bet whatever your current camera is could do a burst mode of 30 fps with 8 Mp files, if it had been designed to use its processing power in that way.

bobbarber:
True, burst rate certainly is s.th. If people rely on it (sports photographer, for example), fine. However there will be a point where it doesn't matter whether it is 13 or 16 fps for 99% of us. Processing gets better, so it is only a matter of time when even a 24mp sensor manages that. I don't say nobody needs it. But I think the vast majority probably won't. When the A7r came out everybody was raving. Now the A7s comes out and everybody says 12MP is enough.

So which is it? In the post below you complain about video being considered important and a 'selling point' to these cameras when it supposedly shouldn't be, then complain that the original NEX series didn't have manual control for video?

On another point, did Sony advertise that the NEX-3/5 had manual control in video? Was it MEANT to be a feature? Complaining that an newer upgraded model has 'more stuff' than the old model is just ridiculous! Yet somehow we see it all the time.

The NEX-3/5 did however gain a whole heap of improvements via firmware updates including adding peaking, picture effects, far better manual controls and menus etc... But people gotta whine right? Can't talk about the good things, just have a soon fest instead for not getting MORE free upgrades ;)

Both the A7 and A7R offer uncompressed hdmi video out.

Second word for an answer: me

> who uses 409600 iso anyway

NOBODY, only because it is not available yet.

> and do pros use isos above 1600 in real life situations?

Absolutely:

* astrophotographers
* Journalists
* wedding, concert, indoor, and night event photographers
* sporting event photographers
* Wildlife photographers

* Anyone who needs to photograph moving objects with a reasonably fast shutter speed to eliminate motion blur

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=R46ca9zBP4A

That Nikon 720p video was revolutionary for its day.... now we can achieve better at 1080p with a small adaptable camera like this a7s.

Yes, pros use ISO 1600 all the time, and even more so now that ISO 1600 quality so much better than it used to be. And it's not just for "emergency situations." Everyday shots in indoor existing light, around the house, is often quite low and images shot in such indoor conditions easily benefit from high ISOs. Maybe you live in a house that has a roof comprised entirely of glass, but that's not the case with most buildings and homes, LOL. Plus, as a wedding photographer who tries to avoid the use of flash as much as possible, I can tell you that we practically live at ISO 1600 (or higher)! The image quality is certainly good enough for it these days. And natural light photography, especially for wedding photojournalism, just looks better. Plus, many churches (often dimly lit) do not allow flash photography at all. So that means we absolutely depend on high ISOs during these church ceremonies. It's not uncommon to shoot an entire ceremony at ISO 1600 or higher.

everyone.

why?

with absolute clean high ISO (>6400) you dont need fast glas for indoor family shoots @ crappy 40W bulbs. any kit zoom can take such pictures - with high shutter speeds.

ISO 400k is funy, but for me its ISO 6400/12800 cleaner then ISO400 on my 7D.

Also, guess who has done exactly that, bringing out affordable IL video cameras based on MILC's for about the last 5 years? Hmmm let me see, could it be Sony? ;)

Most don't use above ISO1600 because lots of noise creeps up,especially in canon sensors.
With clean higher ISO people will start using it.

cheap handicam devices don't have lens options or shallow depth of field. These apsc mirrorless DSLR video cameras allow the potential to mount nearly any lens ever made using cheap adapters. Suddenly you have literally thousands of lens options and tons of creative control over depth of field.

@aruk5 - I don't think you get it. There really is no limit to what ISO people will use, as long as it delivers sufficient image quality. You seem really hung up on the ISO number. For the rest of us, it's really about getting the image-- even when the light is really low. There are a lot of images that we aren't getting now because we don't have sensors that are sensitive enough. We're losing images to subject motion, or we're having to resort to artificial lighting (flash) in order to deal with low light levels, or we don't even try getting the image! But as cameras keep pushing ISO performance to ever higher levels, usage of these expanded ISO levels has followed. If the choice is between getting the image at ISO 409K, versus getting *no image* at all, I'll gladly go for the ISO 409K. Go look at iconic classic photos, like from Cartier-Bresson; upon close inspection, the grain-level IQ isn't great. But the overall image itself is! A grainier image is better than no image!

Fair enough, but having the capability a) opens up new opportunities of expression of a scene but more importantly b) should quite dramatically improve quality of images in more 'common' ranges. Everyone jumps to test 'the max' on things like this, but the biggest improvement will actually be in the more commonly used range, say up to 12,800 or less, with maybe a couple of stops of usable 'emergency' range above (say 25-50,000).

I completely agree; All of these new camera products never match what our eyes actually see.

Just the other day, this fool was trying to sell me a lens that turns the foreground and background into mushy balls of blur!

None of the current Exmor-based cameras can achieve a usable 409K ISO image even at 1920x1080 with NR - they have too much High ISO read noise for this type of night scene. The D4s/D4/Df/1DX/6D, maybe.