Sony Alpha A7Rii - noisy images.

[tom.b]

Hi guys, 

Having a lot of trouble with the Sony A7rii. I decided to buy one (used) a couple of months ago and bought a Used Sony FE 3.5-5.6 28-70mm OSS. When testing it out I found that the images seemed weirdly noisy and blurred despite shooting on RAW, with low ISO, high aperture, a shutter speed above 1/125th and on a tripod. After discussing with the camera shop I thought it was the lens (lens aberration) so decided to get the Sony FE 50mm 1.8 new from the same shop I got the camera. 

When I got it there was a definite improvement but there was still problems with noise and handling contrast and depth when it was a landscape. I shot RAW and JPEG and I was completely baffled. So I thought it was the sensor of the camera which was wrong and returned it. 

I have now bought another used one from ebay from someone who worked at jessops the camera shop. And I am having the same problem with the 28-70mm lens. (I have returned the new sony fe 50mm lens). 

Firstly, should I buy a new lens and give it a go to see. 

More importantly however, what am I doing wrong??? I'm a recent photo graduate so have a fair amount of experience and I'm stumped. I was really looking forward to using this camera! 

 

(I've bought used because I'm a graduate and the price of a new one is £££)

[sapstar]

Hi Thomas, I can't really help you with your issue, but wanted to point out that it's not safe online to use your email id which is displayed publicly as your user name... You will end up getting lot of unnecessary spam.

[Pieter]

Thomas,

1. What do you consider low ISO values?

2. How do you post-process your RAW-files? RAW-files always need noise reduction, especially chroma noise.

3. You should know that the smaller the pixels, the higher the noise on pixel level. An A7R2 will show more noise when zoomed to 100% than an A72, which will in turn show more noise than the A7S2.

4. Noise is not related to the lens used, assuming all lenses are used at the same ISO. A faster lens (lower F-number) will allow you to use lower ISO-values at the same shutter speed, but for landscape photography this is of no use as you'll usually be shooting with a small aperture to get enough depth of field.

Edited May 26, 2020 by Pieter

[tom.b]

1.Low ISO being 200 or less. 

2.I have been dragging and dropping images from the SD card to mac and then into photoshop. I have since downloaded image edge but unfortunately similar results of image. I tried noise reduction but there was little improvement.

3. That's an interesting point about the noise relating to pixel level. I thought the more pixels the less noise. How does one solve that issue? I've used PhaseOne's and Digital Blads in the past with no issues and they have a far greater pixel level. I took a JPEG on the Sony the other day which didn't have any problems (first one yet!) but have no idea why. 

4. Yeah I understand that, I just wondered whether it was sony's way of getting buyers to purchase expensive lenses rather than something like the Sony FE 50mm 1.8 which is actually affordable

 

[Pieter]

1. That is indeed low, nothing wrong there.

2+3. It was only one JPEG that came out good, or do all JPEGs look good compared to the RAW-files? If JPEGs generally look ok, the problem is in post-processing the RAWs.

3. PhaseOne and Hasselblad have bigger sensors, so if pixel count is the same, a bigger sensor means bigger pixels, so less noise per pixel. For the same sensor size though, more pixels means more noise and less dynamic range when looking at pixel level. A7R2 (42 MP) images look noisier on pixel leven than those from an A72 (24 MP). However, if you downsample the A7R2-image to 24 MP the noise on both images will be pretty much equal due to averaging the noise from the higher MP photo. Similarly, an A7R2 (fullframe) has about the same noise per pixel as an a6000 (APS-C, 24 MP). The thing is, if you don't look at pixel level but at print size, the A7R2 will look much better than the a6000 when printed to the same size. How does one handle this? Don't look at pixel level but at actual viewing size (be it print or screen). The A7R2 will look great.

4. A faster lens will always help to keep ISO-noise down if you shoot in dim conditions, even old vintage ones you can get cheap. The higher price point of expensive lenses is only warranted if you actually benefit significantly from whatever an expensive lens has to offer over a cheap one. Considering you have a high MP camera, I guess lens sharpness is something you'd value to get the most out of your camera. This already limits you to the more expensive options. Otherwise you might as well have bought a lower MP, less noisy, cheaper camera.

Edited May 27, 2020 by Pieter

[Benz3ne]

Is it noise or general blur? If it's the latter, then it could be down to having steadyshot/OSS on while using the tripod.

Perhaps try turning that off, if you haven't already done so, and see whether that makes a difference.

Edit: I understand that blurry images wouldn't lead to a loss of contrast but it might still be a worthwhile avenue to explore.

Otherwise, what JPEG/Raw settings have you set? Do you have it set to a single shot or timed mode for your photos, rather than Hi+ continuous shooting? Is it on compressed or uncompressed, or FF versus APS-C mode etc...

Edited May 29, 2020 by Benz3ne

[tom.b]

Hi guys, thanks so much for your responses. I decided yesterday to give a vigorous test with the camera and lens. Going from lowest JPEG to RAW on 3 different locations - one landscape, one medium distance and one close up. From looking at the images I think it is 100% the lens. Especially on the landscape - I can scroll from one end to the other and you can see what I can only think is aberration, it goes from very distorted/blurred from the edges and then gets sharper in the centre, but even then it's still a bit out. On the medium distance shot, I could see a kind of bleeding of detail, especially in the corners and distortion. But the isolated object in the close up was okay. It does seem the wider the shot, the more this happens. 

 

Is there a setting I'm not touching which would resolve this? 

I think i'm pondering whether to either A) get a Used Sony FE 24-70mm f4 ZA OSS Vario-Tessar Carl Zeiss T* Lens (your thoughts on this lens would be great), B ) Get a metabones adapter and buy a Nikon lens or C) Screw it, return it all get a used D810 and lens. 

EDIT: The focus mode was set to Wide and metering to multi

RE-EDIT: Looking at reviews for the Zeiss lens mentioned, it doesn't look like a good option, falls short by the sounds of things. 

Edited May 30, 2020 by tom.b

[tom.b]

I think it's also worth noting I'm a art photography, so full image detail with little aberration, especially round the sides is pretty vital. Things like bokeh is of little interest but seems to be the main praise of lenses. 

[Pieter]

Whatever you just described as test result has nothing to do with 'noise' as described in your initial post. These image defects are indeed due to the lens used.

The Sony 24-105 F/4 is considered to have great image quality but might be out of your budget (much better than the 24-70 F/4). If you really value abberation-free edge-to-edge sharp images, I suggest you buy a prime instead of a zoom lens. Pretty much all primes available are better than the 28-70 in terms of image quality.

[tom.b]

Yeah initially I thought it was noise due to the subject, but from the re-test it showed. 

I see, I still had a similar problem with the Sony FE 50mm, I saw there is a used Sony Zeiss 55mm 1.8 which I'm tempted by but it obviously does limit one to 55mm.

 But i'm honestly starting to think going to a D810 might be a more sensible option. I do love the Sony, but I feel like getting a decent lens for the Nikon would be far easier.

[Pieter]

There are indeed much more used quality lenses available for Nikon than for Sony. The D810 and A7R2 won't be far apart in terms of image quality.

A thing to consider though is whether it's a sensible choice to start investing in a DSLR-system now instead of a mirrorless system, especially when starting from scratch. Nikon might yet develop 1-2 more DSLR cameras and lenses before they fully switch to the new Z-mount. DSLRs will be a thing of the past in a couple of years. This doesn't mean they stop performing well at all, but if your future equipment-budget increases you may one day feel compelled to switch systems again. I'd suggest against adapting Nikon-lenses to a Sony camera as reportedly the autofocus is mediocre at best.

[tom.b]

Yeah that's a good point, part of the reason why I chose the sony originally. Maybe I should save up and wait for a bit. Do you think the Zeiss 55mm lens is good from corner to corner? I also heard that it has quite bad colour hues on points of contrast, feel like there'll never be the perfect lens ahaha. Thanks very much for your help by the way! 

[Pieter]

The Zeiss 55mm is pretty sharp and favoured by many. It does suffer from bad longitudinal chromatic abberation but this is only of concern if you shoot it wide open. Lateral CA is well controlled so contrasty edges are usually not a problem. Have a look here:

https://www.lenstip.com/483.1-Lens_review-Sony_Carl_Zeiss_Sonnar_T*_FE_55_mm_f_1.8_ZA_Introduction.html

The Tamron 28-75 F/2.8 might be of good value to you: sharp across the frame and cheap in it's class. If your budget is tight and you like the 50mm focal length, the Samyang 45mm F/1.8 might also be interesting to you.

[tom.b]

That's interesting, haven't seen the Samyang before. Would you say it's much different from the Zeiss 55mm in terms of image quality and performance / worth the price difference?

[tom.b]

I got the Samyang 45mm and I could not be happier - it's resolved everything! Thanks so much for your help

[Pieter]

You're welcome!

[Benz3ne]

On 6/5/2020 at 11:03 AM, tom.b said:

I got the Samyang 45mm and I could not be happier - it's resolved everything! Thanks so much for your help

A great lens - I really enjoy mine... tempted now to get more. Perhaps the 35mm f/1.4? Or the new 75mm... hmm