Sony Alpha DSLR Studio Samples

[Photo-John]

I shot the Sony Alpha A100 digital SLR studio tests last night. For those of you who don't know, the studio samples are for our editorial review and are all shot in a controlled studio environment. The white balance is set to the tungsten preset and exposures are made manually at all ISO settings. They're posted at full resolution and are unedited except for the addition of text to indicate the ISO, a graybar, and a PhotographyREVIEW.com logo.

Sony Alpha DSLR-A100 ISO 100 Test >>
Sony Alpha DSLR-A100 ISO 200 Test >>
Sony Alpha DSLR-A100 ISO 400 Test >>
Sony Alpha DSLR-A100 ISO 800 Test >>
Sony Alpha DSLR-A100 ISO 1600 Test >>

All digital camera studio tests >>

I think they look very good all the way up to ISO 1600. ISO 1600 isn't so nice, though. I would pass on that sensitivity setting. I've already tried ISO 800 in the field and think it's pretty nice, though.

[Jingle]

Thanks for sharing these points to remember. It is still a fairly new model but very much similar to the Dynax Maxxum 5D which I am using.

[Anbesol]

ive been shooting with the 5D for a while now too, and been playing with the a-100 lately as well, it seems the only differences is a more effective anti-shake and higher megapixel. from what ive seen noise performance isnt as good at 800+, but i think i prefer the extra 4 megapixels anyway ;).

[Confusion Circle]

I did some informal tests too, and I found the A100 to be noticeably noisier than my 7D.

[Redeye_Mt]

Hey John..Thanks for posting these. I was wondering if you have ran any of the Alpha's 800 or 1600 ISO shots thru any noise reduction software like NI or NN? If you have could you post a some samples?

Thanks

[Anbesol]

does the a-100 have noise reduction built in? was that in use ont hese?

[Canuck935]

The a100 does have built in noise reduction, but that works only on long exposures (1sec+) I believe. Also I've taken a few iso 1600 shots that cleaned up pretty good with the free version of noiseware.

[Photo-John]

does the a-100 have noise reduction built in? was that in use ont hese?

Good question. Noise reduction was turned off for these photos. And for the person who asked if I can run it on some samples, no problem. I have Imagenomic's noise reduction software and will be happy to run it on the ISO 800 and 1600 samples to see how it improves them.

Someone said they thought the A100 has more noise at high ISO. I don't have a KM 5D or 7D to compare with, but I would guess that real world tests would put the A100 equal to or better than the KM bodies. That's because the higher resolution effectively minimizes the noise that is there. Of course, when you view at 100%, you see the real noise. But at reduced print or Web sizes, the A100's noise will be less noticeable. More resolution is one of the most important noise reduction variables.

[Anbesol]

Good question. Noise reduction was turned off for these photos. And for the person who asked if I can run it on some samples, no problem. I have Imagenomic's noise reduction software and will be happy to run it on the ISO 800 and 1600 samples to see how it improves them.

Someone said they thought the A100 has more noise at high ISO. I don't have a KM 5D or 7D to compare with, but I would guess that real world tests would put the A100 equal to or better than the KM bodies. That's because the higher resolution effectively minimizes the noise that is there. Of course, when you view at 100%, you see the real noise. But at reduced print or Web sizes, the A100's noise will be less noticeable. More resolution is one of the most important noise reduction variables.

yeah i figured as much. i wouldve thought the resolution wouldve compensated for the more noise per pixel.