Sony Photography News and Rumors

After yesterdays revelation about the Sony Star Eater issue still existing in the Sony a7RIII DPReview decided to publish an a7RIII/a7RII comparison tool that clearly shows how differently the two cameras handle denoising, which causes the star eater issue. The Last Word also published some additional materials of interest and found “no material difference” between the Sony a7RII and a7RIII dark-field frequency responses, which is interesting considering the above image.

If none of the above helps you understand the star eater issue, The Last Word also published this post which shows how muddy the affected dark field image becomes compared to the unaffected one. Of course, you can still capture amazing astrophotography photos with Sony cameras, even with star eater, but it will wipe out star light that is only a single pixel in size and if you have ever pixel peeped a proper astrophotography photo that can be quite a few stars to snuff out.

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Sony a7RIII: B&H Photo / Amazon / Adorama
Sony 24-105mm: B&H Photo / Amazon / Adorama

The Sony a7RIII looks like a pretty crazy camera from the buffer test below. One of my biggest issues with the Sony a9 was how it encourages you to shoot an irresponsible amount and it looks like the a7RIII might have a similar issue if you shoot it in burst mode too much. I am still editing photos from my time with the Sony a9 from way overshooting and I hate pairing down my photos so owning a camera that shoots too quickly is never good for me, but it’s good to have the option. Thankfully ill never touch the 10fps mode because it drops the RAW files to 12-bit, but 8fps might be useful at times.

As for Pixel Shift, its utility is very subject and photographer skill dependant. Luminous landscape and insights4print do a good job of exploring its usefulness, but I really think Sony needs to compile these shots in camera so that you can check them on the spot. If you’re forced to use a computer to compile the image then you won’t know if you got the shot until much later and that is not something photographers expect when shooting a digital camera.

luminous-landscape – Pixel Shift

insights4print – PSMS: Does it Deliver?

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Sony a7RIII: B&H Photo / Amazon / Adorama
Sony 24-105mm: B&H Photo / Amazon / Adorama

The Camera Store TV came away from Sony’s latest event with the belief that the Sony a7RIII is a Jack of all trades and master of all trades. It’s really hard to find anything wrong with the a7RIII, but the biggest improvement is, of course, the battery, which is probably followed by the AF performance and then just general overall improvement in the feel of the camera. If you have to come up with negatives though there is still rolling shutter which is to be expected, you also can’t install apps for an in-camera intervalometer and the camera really should compile pixel shift images in-camera instead of requiring an app on the computer. TCSTV seems to believe that pixel shift software will be implemented in Capture One anLightroomom in the future.

When comparing the a7RII and a7RIII shadows are a little cleaner. The a7RIII also has a slight edge over the Nikon D850, but the D850 can have more perceivable resolution thanks to the additional megapixels. Most of the D850’s advantage when a tripod is not used though.

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Sony a7RIII: B&H Photo / Amazon / Adorama
Sony 24-105mm: B&H Photo / Amazon / Adorama

Charts Courtesy of The Last Word

Today The Last Word confirmed that the Sony a7RIII uses spatial filtering, which is called the “Star Eater” algorithm, with some dark field photos that DPReview sent him for testing. This is disappointing news for those of us that enjoy astrophotography or do it professionally. I have shot cameras with the “Star Eater” algorithm in the past during astrophotography season and gotten satisfactory results, but losing a few hundred or so stars to this algorithm is disappointing. When you take a photo of the night’s sky you always want to capture every last bit of information available.

I was leery about the first report of “Star Eater” being solved because it was not a technical analysis. Even DPReview had to send files to someone technical to get the truth behind the problem, which I commend them for because there are lots of blogs just looking for clicks on this issue and sales based on it being resolved. Let’s hope that the community continues to come down hard on Sony about “Star Eater” so that they truly resolve it in a future firmware update. Spatial filtering simply isn’t needed for the vast majority of photos and we should be able to turn it off in camera. Until this is fixed I will continue relying on my Fujifilm GFX and X-T2 for shooting astrophotography.

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Sony a7RIII: B&H Photo / Amazon / Adorama
Sony 24-105mm: B&H Photo / Amazon / Adorama

The Sony a7RIII fits in an interesting spot between medium format cameras and the rest of the full frame cameras on the market, where you have to spend big money on big glass to get optimal results, but save a little on the body its size. Sony made some leaps forward with their cameras this year that were expected and unexpected, but they also took some steps backward. Excluding an intervalometer from the a7RIII is inexcusable in 2017 and the inability to use an on-camera app for the feature can be frustrating. Sony really should add functions like this in via a firmware update in the future.

digitalphotopro – On The Road: Live From The Sony a7R III Media Event In Sedona

sonyalpha.blog – 18 secret features that will make you upgrade from A7rII (or A9!)

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Sony a7RIII: B&H Photo / Amazon / Adorama
Sony 24-105mm: B&H Photo / Amazon / Adorama