I was pretty sure that the Sony a99 would do low light pretty darn well. Here's stage shot at the Austin City Limits stage. I'm shooting from in front of the stage. The color balance was set to auto. Lots of colored lights and the front lights were tungsten. I was amazed at the dead on skin tones. Hand held. 1/160th of a second at f2.8 @ ISO 6400. Still pretty sharp at 4000 by 6000.
Tamron 28-75mm f2.8 lens. Shot as a Jpeg.
I have been shooting the D700 for 3 years pushing it often to 3200 and 6400 ISO in dime lighted stage and event situations. Looks this outout from the Sony big sensor really is a full notch better, looking at cleanliness/detail. But what i am stunned by from present Sony camera is colour rendition. Woha!
ReplyDelete1600 images in the last three days and the color is as perfect as I could imagine.
DeleteVery nicely rendered skin tones, indeed.
ReplyDeleteI have upgraded to canon 5DIII, and I love its high ISO performance.
SONY should pay sponsor fee to you for sure, you are making our mouths watering :) I will try to resist until the next full frame sensor camera of SONY, I am sure they will take the camera one step ahead. I have been testing LCD viewfinders in live view mode and I think EVF is the future of digital imaging, you get a lot of information on your viewfinder and what you see is what you get, the only problem is lack of speed compared to optical VF.
ReplyDeleteIf I hit the lotto Sony will be on my list. Honestly I think you could take great photos with an empty toilet paper roll with a magnifying glass for a lens. The ISO capabilities over the past two years are nothing short of amazing. When I got my D200 years ago I thought it was great to shoot as high as 1,000. Today digicams do it just as well as the 200 did. Now we have M43 shooting capably into the 2,000 range, APS-C up to 3,000 (I'm even happy at 6,400 with proper exposure on the D7000. Most nikonians were lusting after the D700 for years. To me the reasons to use a particular sensor are almost unrelated to ISO performance. It comes down to glass and useful features (oh and price!).
ReplyDeleteI shoot live music all the time and the A99 is a winner. I combine manual mode with Auto ISO of 400-6400 and am satisfied I'm going to get consistent results no matter what the camera chooses. With the A77 and previous cameras I set myself limits for ISO but I don't feel I have to now. Then there's the EVF, focus peaking, silent controller etc...
ReplyDeleteDo you have pics somewhere to see the difference between ur live music shots from the a77 to the a99...?? I'm considering these cameras for the same reason.
Deleteit's a nice camera. I'd change a few things but there aren't any deal breakers for me. It is not, however, a camera for sports photographers...
ReplyDeleteThe a850 seems to always have spot-on colour and WB so I'm not surprised to hear the a99 is great in that area.
ReplyDeleteI'm not surprised to read your comments on the a99's performance at ISO 6400. I am, however, surprised to read any new posts here while you are on this big assignment.
ReplyDeleteI recently picked up one of those severely-discounted Nikon V1s. I've been impressed by the photos I'm getting at ISO 3200 with its teeny tiny sensor. I expect the high-ISO images you are getting from your a99 must be wonderful. As I've said before, we live in a great time for buying cameras.
Kirk, that's a beautiful shot above! I'm curious about your sports photography comment. I have an A500 and want to upgrade to Sony OR Canon. I shoot horses at shows and moving at liberty, so I guess that is sports photography!! My issue with my A500 and the Sony 70-300 lens is the purple fringing around the lighter parts of the pictures. Do you have any recommendations for a camera that you think would do a really great job at sports photography, and still won't break the bank? Thank you, Laura
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