I have bought a new Sony A7. clicked few pictures using a Samyang 12mm f2.0. But the image has a lot of noise even at ISO1250. Just wanted to check if Iam missing something here?

 

Greatly appreciate responses, guidance and suggestions.

See image attached and EXIF is Manual exposure, ¹/200 sec, ISO 1250

 

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probably setting my self up ready for getting shot down, but my impression is that any thing over iso 1000 especially in low light is very noisy on my A7 compaired what I was used to from my Pentax K 5 series bodies which I use in similar lighting up to 2400 before it became realy apparent.

take RAW pictures

 

use a good RAW developer like Capture one pro

 

than reduce the noise

 

ISO 1250 should not be a problem

If you shoot RAW and want to minimise noise, then shoot at 100 or 800 and underexpose 2 stops rather than shoot at 400 or 3200 and adjust in Capture 1.

 

You may want to look up further details on this blog

 

http://blog.kasson.com/?m=20151012log.

I've experienced the same thing on my A7s - wasn't sure if it was something I was doing wrong. 

I've begun to investigate noise and banding on my A7 too, and happened upon this thread. Thank you for starting it.

 

Where I come from: I've shot with an Olympus E-P5 and manual lenses all bought on ebay for the last two years, and have been very happy. To better understand the characteristics of those older optical instruments, I snapped up a new Sony A7 from a Sony shop a couple of months ago. It languished a bit until I purposely bought an old Nikkor-O.C 35mm f2 [very nice lens, fun and easy to use too].

 

What I've noticed: the rendering seemed far less pleasing on the A7 than the E-P5. Always shot RAW, usually at 100 to 800 ISO, rarely 1600 or exceptionally 3200, and rendered with the supplied software. So I began taking a closer look, and discovered not only noise whose rendering is displeasing to me [always in my humble opinion], but banding at ISO100.

 

What pics I can show you:

 

Shrunk 50%, essentially identical to original for purpose of this analysis.

 

Below: ISO-1000, notice structure and banding in NE shadows

 

Below: ISO-100, notice banding in NW segment

 

This is not what I expected.

Addendum - detail in question of pic A]

 

The banding looks strange... especially if shot raw.

I can´t recall seeing anything like that on my Sony cams.

 

I use uncompressed RAW now all the time now, because I can. Just to make sure I don´t miss out on any details. SD cards are cheap.

 

However as for shadow noise itself - if you push exposure hard enough in post to bring up deeeep shadows at ISO 1000 or more, I would think some noise is normal.

Personally I can get caught up pixel peeping tiny little details which no one will ever see, as most pictures I make will  end up being scaled for a screen anyway.

As for the noise itself, I find the noise on my A7 II or even my A6000 is much easier on the eyes than the noise on my old Canon 50D. The sony noise is mostly luminance noise, easily corrected, whereas the Canon noise is not so easy to clean up because there is much more color noise in there.

/A

Having read this thread, and similar ones, I  can only agree with writers observations. The A7II is a wonderful instrument, perfect pictures at low iso, but hell, nothing compared to a Pentax k5, which has a Sony apsc sensor. I think Sony has to rewrite its algorithms or make a deal with Pentax to buy them. Update please Sony!

Thank you Bindegal and Lescatalpas for your comments. It's good to have feedback, especially on the strange banding. No pushing of the exposure.

 

The unusual droplets in the air might contribute to the problem, and i'll try to replicate it on my Olympus. That pic was taken with an OM 85mm f2 lens. 

 

Made another test pic yesterday with F1.2 that has really bad dark regions, with rain in the foreground. Need to study it.

 

Additional fact: Firmware of the A7 was still 1.2, I've now updated to 2.0 and will retest. Sony does officially promise better image quality.

I did a couple of test shots the other day, a7 ii, uncompressed RAW hence firmware 2.0 . I see no banding.

Interested to see if updating changes your results.

 

/Allan