Sony A7iii sensor readout speed?

[Ocean365]

Question: does anyone know how fast the a7iii electronic shutter is (i.e., the sensor readout speed)?

This weekend I rented the A7Riii to make sure the controls would work for me (I'm currently a Canon user and the Sony controls will work fine). However, I was shocked to see lots of banding when using the silent (electronic) shutter at anything above 1/15 when shooting in a room lit by semi-cheap LED bulbs (and even at 1/15 some faint banding was there).

If the A7iii is similar in readout speed I might have to rethink preordering and consider the A9...but that's so much more expensive... (In case you're wondering, silent shutter of critical importance to me so I can use the camera in classical/choral music concerts.)

A7Riii silent shutter speed (1/15):
http://blog.kasson.com/a7riii/how-fast-silent-shutter/

A9 silent shutter speed (1/160):

How fast is the Sony a9 electronic shutter? - the last word

This is the fifth in a series of posts on the Sony a9. The series starts here. The biggest news about the a9 is the electronic shutter. Sony says it's fast, but they don't say how fast? Is it only half-fast? (Sorry, couldn't resist.) The electronic shutters on previous Sony a7x cameras have scan...

blog.kasson.com

What I mean by sensor readout speed:

https://www.dpreview.com/articles/5816661591/electronic-shutter-rolling-shutter-and-flash-what-you-need-to-know

Thanks!

 

[Astrophotographer 10]

Question: does anyone know how fast the a7iii electronic shutter is (i.e., the sensor readout speed)?

This weekend I rented the A7Riii to make sure the controls would work for me (I'm currently a Canon user and the Sony controls will work fine). However, I was shocked to see lots of banding when using the silent (electronic) shutter at anything above 1/15 when shooting in a room lit by semi-cheap LED bulbs (and even at 1/15 some faint banding was there).

If the A7iii is similar in readout speed I might have to rethink preordering and consider the A9...but that's so much more expensive... (In case you're wondering, silent shutter of critical importance to me so I can use the camera in classical/choral music concerts.)

A7Riii silent shutter speed (1/15):
http://blog.kasson.com/a7riii/how-fast-silent-shutter/

A9 silent shutter speed (1/160):
http://blog.kasson.com/the-last-word/how-fast-is-the-sony-a9-electronic-shutter/

What I mean by sensor readout speed:
https://www.dpreview.com/articles/5...lling-shutter-and-flash-what-you-need-to-know

Thanks!

I am not an expert on banding but I believe it can be avoided by not using shutter speeds in multiples of the hertz of the electricity ie 50 for USA and 60 for Australia.

Also the A7r3 has an anti flicker function. I take it that was not activated?

Greg.

 

[kamituel]

Question: does anyone know how fast the a7iii electronic shutter is (i.e., the sensor readout speed)?

This weekend I rented the A7Riii to make sure the controls would work for me (I'm currently a Canon user and the Sony controls will work fine). However, I was shocked to see lots of banding when using the silent (electronic) shutter at anything above 1/15 when shooting in a room lit by semi-cheap LED bulbs (and even at 1/15 some faint banding was there).

If the A7iii is similar in readout speed I might have to rethink preordering and consider the A9...but that's so much more expensive... (In case you're wondering, silent shutter of critical importance to me so I can use the camera in classical/choral music concerts.)

A7Riii silent shutter speed (1/15):
http://blog.kasson.com/a7riii/how-fast-silent-shutter/

A9 silent shutter speed (1/160):
http://blog.kasson.com/the-last-word/how-fast-is-the-sony-a9-electronic-shutter/

I sure hope Jim is warming up his oscilloscope already

 

[TLopez]

If the A7iii is similar in readout speed I might have to rethink preordering and consider the A9...but that's so much more expensive... (In case you're wondering, silent shutter of critical importance to me so I can use the camera in classical/choral music concerts.)

If it's critical then you want the A9.

 

[Dsnoir]

Strange that you blame the camera, and not the 'cheap led's', which even if not noticed by the naked still flicker. This was very apparent when using the new Panasonic G9

 

[Entropy512]

Strange that you blame the camera, and not the 'cheap led's', which even if not noticed by the naked still flicker. This was very apparent when using the new Panasonic G9

Even a camera with mechanical shutter will show banding with some PWM frequencies.

Don't ever go to high shutter speeds when the scene is lit with Philips Hue RGB bulbs... Even with mechanical shutter, the mid-frequency PWM (JimK estimated 600 Hz in another thread) will cause noticeable banding past 1/500 sec shutter speed or so, and extreme banding (approx. 4 bands with A6500 vs. 30-60 for e-shutter, not sure in the latter case as I haven't counted but it's vastly different)

We won't likely know for sure concrete numbers until the camera is released, but there's a lot of evidence so far pointing to the A7III having the same 500 MPixel/sec readout rate of the A6300/A6500. Sony's own marketing material implies less (only 2x the A7II, which is supposedly 20x slower than A9), however this is not possible, 480-500 or so is the minimum to achieve full-sensor-width 16:9 readout at 25 fps.

I'll be measuring against some Hue bulbs when mine arrives - but that'll be mid-early April.

 

[Ocean365]

Strange that you blame the camera, and not the 'cheap led's', which even if not noticed by the naked still flicker. This was very apparent when using the new Panasonic G9

Even a camera with mechanical shutter will show banding with some PWM frequencies.

Don't ever go to high shutter speeds when the scene is lit with Philips Hue RGB bulbs... Even with mechanical shutter, the mid-frequency PWM (JimK estimated 600 Hz in another thread) will cause noticeable banding past 1/500 sec shutter speed or so, and extreme banding (approx. 4 bands with A6500 vs. 30-60 for e-shutter, not sure in the latter case as I haven't counted but it's vastly different)

We won't likely know for sure concrete numbers until the camera is released, but there's a lot of evidence so far pointing to the A7III having the same 500 MPixel/sec readout rate of the A6300/A6500. Sony's own marketing material implies less (only 2x the A7II, which is supposedly 20x slower than A9), however this is not possible, 480-500 or so is the minimum to achieve full-sensor-width 16:9 readout at 25 fps.

I'll be measuring against some Hue bulbs when mine arrives - but that'll be mid-early April.

 

[WalterJ1959]

I have been searching for reviewers comments on this for the A7III and have also not found anything. Since the A7RIII and A7III have the same FPS in silent mode (10 FPS) I am guessing that they will have similar sensor readout speeds. But we will have to waite for some one to test this. Since you saw Jim K's posts, I am assuming that you know you can use it at 1/125 sec in US to match power frequency and not have banding. So their is a partial work around if the problem is their. It could be a feature they reserve for the A9. But it would be real nice to get this feature on the base model camera.

 

[Ocean365]

I have been searching for reviewers comments on this for the A7III and have also not found anything. Since the A7RIII and A7III have the same FPS in silent mode (10 FPS) I am guessing that they will have similar sensor readout speeds. But we will have to waite for some one to test this. Since you saw Jim K's posts, I am assuming that you know you can use it at 1/125 sec in US to match power frequency and not have banding. So their is a partial work around if the problem is their. It could be a feature they reserve for the A9. But it would be real nice to get this feature on the base model camera.

And WalterJ1959 gets the prize!!! For those that want the link to the Jim K article it's here:

Mitigating lighting banding in GFX ES images - the last word

This is the 45th in a series of posts on the Fujifilm GFX-50S. The series starts here. The GFX offers an all-electronic shutter, which Fuji calls ES in the menus. I'll do the same here. We have seen here that the shutter takes 1/4 second to complete an exposure. This can cause horizontal bands...

blog.kasson.com

Walter - thanks a ton! I hadn't returned the A7Riii yet and so I just tried it out that technique. 1/125 does indeed work very well. 1/60 was ok, but still a bit of banding there. What was surprising was that 1/40 and 1/20 of a second were completely band free - even better than 1/30 and 1/15. Dunno why - could be the bulbs again, but if all I have to do is fiddle around with an shutter speed until bands go away, the A7iii is totally an option and saves me $2.5k compared to the A9.

Many thanks again!

 

[Tristimulus]

We have 50Hz here.

Seems like the electronic shutter scan time is 1/18th second (specs).

The a6300 show slight banding at 1/30th second, none at 1/25th, and then slight banding when going 1/3 stop below. Guess the A7III will behave much the same (but very exited about the anti flickering feature). Will try out once getting the camera.

Some LEDs are dimmed by flickering, seems there is no fixed frequency - and if so, no fixed cure. Happily with digital test images can be taken and analyzed within seconds..

 

[aSevenArr]

Question: does anyone know how fast the a7iii electronic shutter is (i.e., the sensor readout speed)?

This weekend I rented the A7Riii to make sure the controls would work for me (I'm currently a Canon user and the Sony controls will work fine). However, I was shocked to see lots of banding when using the silent (electronic) shutter at anything above 1/15 when shooting in a room lit by semi-cheap LED bulbs (and even at 1/15 some faint banding was there).

If the A7iii is similar in readout speed I might have to rethink preordering and consider the A9...but that's so much more expensive... (In case you're wondering, silent shutter of critical importance to me so I can use the camera in classical/choral music concerts.)

A7Riii silent shutter speed (1/15):
http://blog.kasson.com/a7riii/how-fast-silent-shutter/

A9 silent shutter speed (1/160):
http://blog.kasson.com/the-last-word/how-fast-is-the-sony-a9-electronic-shutter/

What I mean by sensor readout speed:
https://www.dpreview.com/articles/5...lling-shutter-and-flash-what-you-need-to-know

Thanks!

If you absolutely need a super fast distortion free electronic shutter then (currently) the A9 is it.

Sorry about the price but on the a more positive note trust me when I tell you that you're only going to cry once.

It's an incredible camera!

That said your cited uses have subjects that aren't going to be moving very quickly so a lesser electronic shutter implementation might suffice.

 

[WalterJ1959]

Walter - thanks a ton! I hadn't returned the A7Riii yet and so I just tried it out that technique. 1/125 does indeed work very well. 1/60 was ok, but still a bit of banding there. What was surprising was that 1/40 and 1/20 of a second were completely band free - even better than 1/30 and 1/15. Dunno why - could be the bulbs again, but if all I have to do is fiddle around with an shutter speed until bands go away, the A7iii is totally an option and saves me $2.5k compared to the A9.

Many thanks again!

Their is not a lot of fiddeling to do since the power frequency in the US is similar. I take a quick shot at like 1/500 which gives very strong banding. If its OK then no worries otherwise use 1/125 sec or possibly 1/60 sec. In other countries you the power frequency is different and you need to change.

 

[Mark2d]

I too am concerned about this banding with LED's because sometimes you just need to shoot silent. I have the a7r3.

I did a quick test just now in my home with some LED bulbs supplied by LADWP. (Los Angeles water/power)

Sad to say, with these bulbs I could detect banding with silent shutter even at 1/125, (slight, but enough to ruin a shot). Going down all speeds, it was finally perfectly clear at 1/40. That's not fast enough to shoot most talking live subjects. It was not good at 1/30 or 1/25 either. It was clear again at 1/20 and below.

These lights are not on a dimmer.

I think the take away is to buy an a9, and/or be wary of LED lighting. It can be different.

Do a test in the moment if you can and look very carefully at the screen.

It's much better to download and check on a laptop.

I've been burned before where the main lighting looked fine, but dimmed LED's on a curtain in the back of the shot (that I hadn't noticed) did have banding.

 

[aSevenArr]

I too am concerned about this banding with LED's because sometimes you just need to shoot silent. I have the a7r3.

I did a quick test just now in my home with some LED bulbs supplied by LADWP. (Los Angeles water/power)

Sad to say, with these bulbs I could detect banding with silent shutter even at 1/125, (slight, but enough to ruin a shot). Going down all speeds, it was finally perfectly clear at 1/40. That's not fast enough to shoot most talking live subjects. It was not good at 1/30 or 1/25 either. It was clear again at 1/20 and below.

These lights are not on a dimmer.

I think the take away is to buy an a9, and/or be wary of LED lighting. It can be different.

Do a test in the moment if you can and look very carefully at the screen.

It's much better to download and check on a laptop.

I've been burned before where the main lighting looked fine, but dimmed LED's on a curtain in the back of the shot (that I hadn't noticed) did have banding.

I have never seen any banding in my A9 shot in all kinds of different artificial lighting conditions including LED lighting (which is my whole house these days).

The only issue I ever had with it was in using HSS flash in which case disabling EFCS fixed the problem.

 

[Entropy512]

I too am concerned about this banding with LED's because sometimes you just need to shoot silent. I have the a7r3.

I did a quick test just now in my home with some LED bulbs supplied by LADWP. (Los Angeles water/power)

Sad to say, with these bulbs I could detect banding with silent shutter even at 1/125, (slight, but enough to ruin a shot). Going down all speeds, it was finally perfectly clear at 1/40. That's not fast enough to shoot most talking live subjects. It was not good at 1/30 or 1/25 either. It was clear again at 1/20 and below.

These lights are not on a dimmer.

I think the take away is to buy an a9, and/or be wary of LED lighting. It can be different.

Do a test in the moment if you can and look very carefully at the screen.

It's much better to download and check on a laptop.

I've been burned before where the main lighting looked fine, but dimmed LED's on a curtain in the back of the shot (that I hadn't noticed) did have banding.

I have never seen any banding in my A9 shot in all kinds of different artificial lighting conditions including LED lighting (which is my whole house these days).

The only issue I ever had with it was in using HSS flash in which case disabling EFCS fixed the problem.

The A9's e-shutter is so close in performance to mechanical shutters that you'll only see banding in situations that are so severe that even mechanical shutter would show banding at high shutter speeds. (even then, the shutter speed "slow" enough to mitigate banding will be much higher).

One example was that article here on DPR where someone shot a sports arena lit with LED displays (not just LED-backlit, actual LEDs) at 1/8000 with an A9 - that was enough to see banding.

You'll also see banding if you shoot anything with a dimmed Philips Hue RGB bulb - these will show significant banding past 1/600 or so even with fully mechanical shutters.

Although the reality is, there's rarely any legitimate reason for going to 1/8000 in a sports arena like that, or 1/600 in a room lit with dimmed Hues.