The A7III is *nuts* in low-light! What's your best test result?

I'm seriously impressed... just did a handheld test at ISO 25,600... in a pitch black room with one dim, small flashlight focused on the ceiling.

This is my best stab at what the scene really looked like:


Exposure dialed down to simulate what this looked like to the naked eye

And here's the default RAW output from Lightroom, with zero adjustments. The color is perfect, the noise is certainly there but is pleasingly smooth & film-like, with none of the nasty color artifacts that plagued any images at ISO 6,400 or higher on my A7II.


Unmodified RAW output from Lightroom

Zooming in even displays texture details in his iris and in the fur around his eyes, sharp whiskers, etc... this is absolutely jaw-dropping to me, even if it is at 1/13 sec & F1.8!


Astonishing crop.

What amazed me the most is video low light

mind blown

chrisno said:

What amazed me the most is video low light

mind blown

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Haven't tried video yet... will have to try soon.

I was impressed that the camera even autofocused in that light... pretty sure my A7ii would have been hunting frantically... on that camera I was always manually focusing in brighter scenes than this, and I wouldn't even attempt a shot in these conditions... unless it was something I could shoot as a tripod-mounted long exposure at ISO 1600 or below.

mrbenji said:

chrisno said:

What amazed me the most is video low light

mind blown

Click to expand...

Haven't tried video yet... will have to try soon.

I was impressed that the camera even autofocused in that light... pretty sure my A7ii would have been hunting frantically... on that camera I was always manually focusing in brighter scenes than this, and I wouldn't even attempt a shot in these conditions... unless it was something I could shoot as a tripod-mounted long exposure at ISO 1600 or below.

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you made the right choice

the upgrade from A7II to A7III is like a 3 generations upgrade

Pretty cool . My wife's cat doesn't sit that still

I wonder how that shot would compare, taken with an A7RII?

Yeah, pretty amazing result for sure, and as you say, noise seems basically luminance-type only and very fine-grained, with almost no or very low chroma noise, which is usually the nastier looking one.

Basically you buy an A7III, crop down to 12MP and get an A7SII for free..

Impressive

LOL... more kitty shot .

But ya. I received the A7III yesterday evening. After being patient to let the battery get a full charge I was able to handle it a bit after the family went to bed. Took a while to configure it all... I actually had one button left over with nothing to really assign to it, which is actually nice.

Anyway. I didn't do any raw shots. But just Jpegs and in EVF viewing. Noticably better looking images than my A7II. I was thought they were ISO 6400 images (which would have been way better than my A7II) since I left it on auto. I was surprised to see it was 12800 (what it comes set to out of the box).

I feel completely comfortable leaving it at that setting.

Some last additional comments. AF is LEAGUES ahead of the A7II. In the lighting condition you showed, the A7II would have switched to CDAF, and if you are a back button focus + AF-C kind of guy like me it would have been hunting like crazy. By the time you switch to AF-S, the cat/subject would have moved. Tracking is of course a little slow with the kit lens in low light, but that is to be expected.

Cheers and enjoy... cause I know I definitely will.

mrbenji said:

I'm seriously impressed... just did a handheld test at ISO 25,600... in a pitch black room with one dim, small flashlight focused on the ceiling.

This is my best stab at what the scene really looked like:


Exposure dialed down to simulate what this looked like to the naked eye

And here's the default RAW output from Lightroom, with zero adjustments. The color is perfect, the noise is certainly there but is pleasingly smooth & film-like, with none of the nasty color artifacts that plagued any images at ISO 6,400 or higher on my A7II.


Unmodified RAW output from Lightroom

Zooming in even displays texture details in his iris and in the fur around his eyes, sharp whiskers, etc... this is absolutely jaw-dropping to me, even if it is at 1/13 sec & F1.8!


Astonishing crop.

Post your own test here!

Click to expand...

Your post just gave me G.A.S.

fratiodan said:

Your post just gave me G.A.S.

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+1.. a7III pretty much solved what I've been wanting from my a7.. Better Low light IQ and autofocus. Everything else is a bonus

Just closed the deal on a new/bigger house.. so no new camera gear for a while :-(

--
The best gear is the one you have.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/jpgomez/

Really amazing that you shot at 1/13 of a second. Was it an image stabilized lens? I can't get anywhere near that with my 7ii using 35mm Summicron.

That's amazing focus at 1/13 handheld.

sacman said:

That's amazing focus at 1/13 handheld.

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Cat Eye AF? Impressive.

Tirpitz666 said:

Yeah, pretty amazing result for sure, and as you say, noise seems basically luminance-type only and very fine-grained, with almost no or very low chroma noise, which is usually the nastier looking one.

Basically you buy an A7III, crop down to 12MP and get an A7SII for free..

Click to expand...

That's really what it feels like... I lusted over the A7s series, but as I take almost no video, 12MP and lousy AF would've frustrated me, especially at A7s prices.

I know the conventional wisdom is that going from an A7ii to an A7iii should be more like a .5-1.0 stop bump in ISO performance, but the preserved color fidelity, autofocus usability, image detail, and especially the apparent total lack of chroma noise in this ISO range... those are game changers!

BTW, I should mention that this was shot in silent shutter mode (supposedly *reduced* DR!), and the single light was a dim LED flashlight (it was running out of batteries), focused on the ceiling more than 6 feet over the cat's head.

I think we need a new measurement that you can't really measure on a test chart... something like "real-life usable ISO" ie the ISO you set your Auto ISO max to allow for challenging lighting. Decent quality at average display sizes, preferable to not getting the shot. (I shoot a fair amount of dark church services where flash is not ok.)

On my A6000, my Auto ISO max is set to ISO 3200, although that still has more chroma noise, lost color info and smeared details than I liked. On my A7ii, it was ISO 6400, with similar chroma noise & loss of detail.

Based on all the tests I'd seen, I was hoping to bump that to ISO 12,800 on the A7iii... but on my limited testing (YMMV caveat), I'm way happier with ISO 26,500 on the A7iii than I was with my usable max on the other two cameras... that says to me I should be able to bump my max up to 52,000 in challenging situations. That's would be a 3 STOP gain in "real-life usable ISO" measurement vs. the A7ii... that's not supposed to happen!

Neocon said:

Really amazing that you shot at 1/13 of a second. Was it an image stabilized lens? I can't get anywhere near that with my 7ii using 35mm Summicron.

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No, the lens is not stabilized.. IBIS is on, of course, but there's no OSS on the Sony FE 85/1.8.

PWPhotography said:

sacman said:

That's amazing focus at 1/13 handheld.

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Cat Eye AF? Impressive.

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No, I was in continuous AF mode, and I got a couple of PDAF squares right on the catch light in his eye, so I took the shot. I don't think I tried Eye AF... I just thought "well, that's basically Eye AF right there!"

sacman said:

That's amazing focus at 1/13 handheld.

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At 85mm!

Ok. I'll admit it. I'm jealous. I have to stick with my plan to get the lenses I want first. This does make it tough.

The more I see from FE 85/1.8 too the more likely I am to get that lens.

I shouldn't have returned the 100 STF (paired with an A7II, with its T5.6 needs the ISO to be pushed indoors) :-(