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A77 Noise reduction

Guy Mancuso

Administrator, Instructor
Quick question and yes i got a A77 yesterday with a 16-50 that was in a local dealers demo cabinet. Jumped all over it with a price reduction. But wanted to know if they are applying NR to the Raw file. BTW The Jpg are way over sharpened need to work on fixing that.

Anyone have any great tips on this please let me know. I turned off a lot of stuff already. LOL

But have to say this OLED i actually kind of like. Don't tell anyone I said that. LOL
 

ecsh

New member
Guy
To adjust the JPEG setting, hit the FN button, and down on the right side is Picture Style. Choose the style you want, and you can also adjust contrast, sharpening, and saturation.
Joe
 

Jim DE

New member
Hi Guy, I will be the first to admit I am far from the one to offer techno advice. I just pick camera's up and burn pixels with them ;)

But I think in adjusting the jpg settings you are referring to the "creative style" settings?

To access hit "FN" and "creative style" is the second from the r/s bottom on the screen. Inside there you have various settings available.

What I do find interesting is you (who I have much respect for your opinion and know you are very much into extremely high IQ imagery) feel the jpg's are over sharpened. Many users (before the DPR review slop they presented on the a77) also felt the a77 was a much better jpg shooter than RAW then after that review "mushy jpg's" seemed to be the new mantra. Me? I have shot 1 RAW test shot and used PS5 to create it and have been shooting nothing but JPG waiting for Aperture 3 RAW support to arrive. I don't really like using PS5 in comparison to Aperture 3. So with this my jury is still out on the comparison of RAW to JPG files IQ out of the a77. Both right now are fine for what I have been doing with the a77 which has been mostly Eagle BIF stuff. I did go down to the ocean this past Saturday and did some 11mm-16mm seascape stuff at 50 iso and find there is an abundance of extra fine detail (almost too much at screen view). Of course that lens is not one of my better pieces of glass either. For me IQ and detail is everything in photography and without a doubt for my scenics if I had the bankroll I would own a great digital medium format system and have a equipment bearer to haul it around to the areas I shoot. Being retired and watching my investments dwindle for the second time in 4 years in the markets my budget won't support those tastes. ;)

I am sure Jono will chime in with all kinds of suggestions for the a77, he is another person who I respect his views and observations. I will be curious what the two of you come up with in custom settings to squeeze the most out of this a77 light box.
 

Guy Mancuso

Administrator, Instructor
Just opened a jpeg in CS5 and actually it is not bad at all. i was looking at them going through C1 and it appears it was adding sharpening which made it look bad. Still a little over but not by much
 

jonoslack

Active member
Quick question and yes i got a A77 yesterday with a 16-50 that was in a local dealers demo cabinet. Jumped all over it with a price reduction. But wanted to know if they are applying NR to the Raw file. BTW The Jpg are way over sharpened need to work on fixing that.

Anyone have any great tips on this please let me know. I turned off a lot of stuff already. LOL

But have to say this OLED i actually kind of like. Don't tell anyone I said that. LOL
Hi Guy
I'm still eating hats over the viewfinder. Sorry I can't be a lot of help over the NR yet. I don't use C1 and still waiting for Aperture support. I'm using adobeDNG conversions right now. But it's not perfect

Incidentally. Just imagine using Leica R lenses with focus peaking!!!!
Sorry. I shouldn't have said that :)

All the best

PS I just got the 21-35, and an APO 180 f2.8 for $1400 a piece off eBay in the UK together with a 28-90
 

douglasf13

New member
AFAIK, Sony high ISO NR only applies to jpegs (they learned their lesson with the initial firmware of the A700.) Long exposure NR does apply to both jpeg and raw, since it is black frame subtraction.
 

Bill Caulfeild-Browne

Well-known member
I use the a900 for "hiking" photography (when I don't want to lug MF and a tripod etc) but the wildlife photographer in my decided to add an a77 to go with my 70-400G - a 600 mm equivalent fov. But wildlife usually needs high speeds and thus high ISOs.

I've been printing 16 by 20 inches from Raw files decoded in Capture One with the a77 to see what is the highest ISO I can risk going to IN PRINT.

Noise is visible if you look hard enough at 100% ON SCREEN at all ISOs (true pixel peeping) but appears objectionable at ISO 800 and up.

But when I printed the same scene at 200, 400, 800 and 1600 on my Canon iPF, ISO 800 is entirely acceptable. The noise is barely visible to me, and not at all to my wife who doesn't know what to look for. (She thinks I'm nuts even to bother with the test - and she's probably right!) In fact ISO 1600 is quite usable though, routinely, I'd avoid it for the highest quality prints.

All my prints were made using C1's noise sliders though I didn't move them very far from the default settings.

Thought others might like to know my experience.

Bill
 

Jan Brittenson

Senior Subscriber Member
Depending on the shot, in particular the size of the subject in the frame, fine detail may be less important than low noise. I'd think in situations where it mostly fills the frame you can stomp pretty hard on the NR setting. In other situations, where the subject is smaller and there's lots of environmental context with fine detail and texture it might be more desirable to keep detail at the expense of noise. Fortunately, the latter kind of shots allow a lot of zooming out and shooting at lower speeds (and ISOs).

How do you like the A77 and 70-400G? I'm still debating whether to get that in lieu of the D7000 and Nikon 80-400 VR. I suspect the Sony is sharper, but it seems prone to rough bokeh. The Nikon is nice and smooth.
 

Bill Caulfeild-Browne

Well-known member
Jan, I haven't used the 70-400G much with the a77 (only had it a couple of days) but with the a900 it is phenomenal - one of the few lenses I use wide open all the time. So far the a77 looks at least as good. I'll post something here in the next few days.

Bill
 

jonoslack

Active member
Jan, I haven't used the 70-400G much with the a77 (only had it a couple of days) but with the a900 it is phenomenal - one of the few lenses I use wide open all the time. So far the a77 looks at least as good. I'll post something here in the next few days.

Bill
Interesting stuff - I have a nice old Leica 70-210 f4 which I'll be using on the A77 as soon as David from spain sends me the adapter - it works well on the NEX7
 
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