New firmware: A100, long exposures and high ISO test

After upgrading my A100 with the new firmware I went out for some tests. The two most interesting questions are: Do the new firmware fix the poor long exposure performance (purple corners) at high ISO settings, and do the the new firmware do a better job with noise reduction at high ISO settings?

To get an answer I went for 5 minutes exposures. The results were compared to earlier tests with the original firmware under almost similar cionditions: midnight, cloudy skies, near full moon, temperature 15-18 degrees Celsius. The pictures were compared both on screen and as high quality A3 prints.

Conclution:

The new firmware does a far greater job with dark frame subtraction (exposures longer than 1 sec). Now 5 minutes at ISO 1600 shows only small pink left and right upper corner, occupying just a few percent of the total frame. This can easily be fixed when editing the pictures.

The new firmware does not do a significant better job with noise reduction at ISO 1600 and exposures longer than 1 sec. I have not tested the results with shorter exposures.



5 minutes at ISO 200. Lens (all frames): 200 mm f/2.8 Minolta apo tele. Really great result at low ISO settings.



100 percent crop, ISO 200.



100 percent crop, ISO 400.



100 percent crop, ISO 800.



100 percent crop, ISO 1600. Note the loss of fine details.



100 percent crop, upper right corner, ISO 1600. This crop represents 10 percent areal of the total frame.

....more reasons to keep my old trusty Maxxums and Mamiya ProTL.

... Or stop at ISO 800. The low ISO results from the A100 are truly great compared with film, which also means reciprcity, unpredictable color cast, and lots of grain at higher ISO values.

With film the 5 minute exposure at ISO 200 (at f/8.0) would have to be many times longer, due to reciprocity. Maybe 30 minutes.

The A100 is well suited for low light work -- up to ISO 800.

Wow, now we are seeing some improvement, thats pretty damn good for a 5 minute shot. The 7D would be beginning to look like butt at that timeframe.

Also, do you live in "perfect" that looks like the most quaint picturesque little town ever. Almost looks like the set to someone's RC Train setup.

Where did you get this new firmware for the A100? I went to the Sony web site, and found no updates for this camera.

Only dark frame subtraction. So I wonder why everybody hoped that it'll care of something that's probably impossible to fix in firmware?

Btw, excellent test and extremely beautifull town and photo.

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http://www.pbase.com/klopus

I live in Norway, so I got it from Sony Europe:

http://www.sonydigital-link.com/DIME/digistill/Alpha/firmware/firmware.asp?l=en

This cheap, simple "entry level" DSLR really impresses me!

The picture shows a typical norwegian small village ... actually the view from our living house. No need to say that I just love this view!

Youi are right about high ISO noise. Maybe some people just expect too much from this beautiful little camera

Nordstjernen said:

The picture shows a typical norwegian small village ... actually
the view from our living house. No need to say that I just love
this view!

Click to expand...

I guess we should start a thread "Views from my window (or back/from yards)".

Those are mine - just something really oppiste of yours, yeah?





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http://www.pbase.com/klopus

So how do you rate it at night stuff compared to the 7D, similar, better, way better?

Stuff like this makes me keep thinking of biting the bullet and getting one instead of waiting for the 7DII or 9DII

After I got my a100 I have hardly used the D7. The results form the a100 are far better. Lots of extra sharpness, much better tone distribution (more sting to the quarter tones), neutral colors ... and the great DRO+ feature. Now I am making an still picture "movie", using jpg and DRO+ with excellent "snap shot style" results. From several hundred exposures on people indoor and outdoor the last few days, almost all are well exposed.

For night photography work low and medium ISO settings works well. One could also stack several ISO 800 shots to smooth out noise IF one have to use high ISO settings. Even for my kind of astrophotography (deep sky) the a100 seems to outperform the D7 at ISO 800, gathering more detail due to higher pixel count and smaller pixels. (one will hardly find darker objects to photograph).

IMO people judging the a100 by ISO 1600 noise are "blind" (exept for photographers who have to do high ISO work). This camera is capable of great results. Also, this makes me wonder wich level of picture quality the next camera(s) from Sony will bring us.

Buy the a100 or wait ... maybe wait for the Photokina. Anyway, the a100 is not wasted money.

Have you done any kind of flat out test, like set both cameras up, set both lenses to same focal length, and F16, ISO 100, and then tried to see what the longest single exposure shot you can do without it getting noisy, or purple?

No need for such a test ... maximum exposures with the D7 (and D5, as far as I know) and noise reduction is 30 seconds. For longer exposures you have to make your own dark frame and manually subtract the dark frame to get rid of the upper left purple corner -- either when converting from raw (needs software that implements the dark frame) or when editing the pictures (far from perfect results).

The A100 do dark frame subtraction up to at least 15 minutes, probably longer. 15 minutes is the longest I have tested.

Have you ever thought of taking part in Steve's 'daily digital photo of the day contest...' with this photo?

Interesting. But the 7D does go more then 30 seconds on NR, but the time is not the same as the image capture time, it's just a rather random time interval, never understood it. Good to hear about the long NR.

But still, I'm talking about no NR, since I don't use it (most the time), I'm looking for straight up shot, no funny business.

If it does go to 15 minutes, that would become very interesting if a 15 minute shot comes out perfect. Still, that's a long wait, and thus why I don't like the whole concept of NR and dark frame subtraction. Doubles your time, and is overall annoying.

What a camera can do without the noise reduction tells the real story.

With NR off, you have to live with purple-purple-purple upper parts of the frame (both upper corners and an area left to the middle. So NR off is not an usable option for long exposures with the A100.

Of cause you cam make your own manual dark frame, but that takes software that handles sepatate dark frames -- or you can use Photoshop, with less than good results.

My advise: NR on ... and wait for the dark frame subtraction process after each light exposure.

I tried to install the update in vain. Tried it with a different CF card... same result, the version remained the same: 1.00. Can anyone tell me what's wrong?

You need the software for your region (US, Europe, etc.). With the wrong version the camera simply will not update, according to what I have read.

Go to http://www.noiseware.com the best NR software on the market (in my opion) and I have tried most of them. Outstanding and inexpensive.