Thursday, August 25, 2011

Image Quality from the Sony 24MP Sensor

I am excited about the NEX-7, but unfortunately it's pricey and the image quality may disappoint.  I haven't found any sample pictures from the NEX-7, but I looked some from at the A77, which shares the same 24MP sensor as the NEX-7 and probably the image processing engine as well.  What I can see is that Sony is still one of the worst when it comes to jpeg image quality.  The A77 samples don't look very good.  Shadow noise is excessive at ISO 200. Why don't manufacturers understand that most of us want quality, not quantity pixels.  ISO 1600 looks ok, but lacks details.  I hope it's due to the jpeg engine and that RAW files will perform much better.  If not, I guess my NEX-5 will be with me, and I will end up with a 5D II instead.

New Building -- NEX-5 & Vivitar Series-1 28mm f1.9.

4 comments:

  1. It definitely appears that Sony hasn't improved their JPEG engine. There's some preliminary tests with the RAWs (RAW Therapee will apparently read them, but can't set WB) and those are showing significantly better performance. Also note that the NEX-7 should have about 1/2 stop better noise performance than the A77 as it lacks the pellical mirror

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  2. while we want quality not quantity, the majority of buyers are totally clueless and think bigger is better.

    Eg one of the "advanced" photographers at my work (advanced because she has a Nikon DSLR) keeps thinking that my G1 is a compact and similar to a Canon G10

    shrug

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  3. @mawz: I do expect the RAW files will do better, as I can see from the NEX-5. I am just a bit disappointed that the megapixel war is still going on. The NEX-7 is designed for advanced users and thus image quality should be #1 criteria. We are getting more for less.

    @obakesan: Unfortunately some people have such a closed mind that all they see is the surface of things. This will not likely change until they inform themselves.

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  4. Just had a quick glance on the samples on some review website, the result is really disappointing jpeg picture files... hope the problem is because of the pre-production units... Anyway, i'm still hoping Nex-7 going to be a new killer camera ..

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