12MP, if not cropping, Enough for Most Average Photography Needs?

[androidlad]

1 hour ago, SRV1981 said:

That is fascinating.  It makes me think of some debates I've seen as to whether or not the a7iv is a better lowlight camera than the a7sIII due to hits 7k downsampled to 4k readout that creates finer noise.  Any thoughts on the validity of this?  Part of me feels that the a7siii at 12,800 (second native iso) is better than the a7iv at 3200 (second native iso) but unsure if that is in fact true or why that would be?

The 7K readout has more noise to begin with.

The difference in low light with modern FF sensors from Sony Semicon is very small.

[PannySVHS]

1 hour ago, projectwoofer said:

If we’re talking about video, it certainly doesn’t help that most new cameras have awful 1080p quality. Only solution is to just shoot in 4K. Though my S5’s live crop mode has fantastic 1080p quality albeit only in 30fps. It puzzles me why the normal FHD modes are so bad on most cameras manufactured in the last few years.

Amadeusz Andrzejewski stated that HD on the S1H in S35 was very good and much better than coming from the whole sensor. It was a predroduction model. I haven´t seen any other tests for HD quality on the S line cameras. So here is the small glimpse from 10.30min to around 10.40min, testing for up to 25p only, after that it´s interlaced for some reason. I never tested it myself on my S1. I only know that HD never wowed me, whereas GH5 in HD did.

I didnt find the live crop mode on my S1. I really think there is none! Checked some youtube videos for the S5 and S1H I think. No luck for S1 users. Well, 30p anyway. 😉

 

[Django]

9 hours ago, androidlad said:

Pixel binning reduces read noise (1 readout instead of 4), hence those 100MP+ smartphone sensors output 12MP in lowlight. A7S3 essentially uses it as a locked down 12MP sensor.

In other words, it performs just as good as same-gen higher pixel FF sensor in A1, there's no longer a need to sacrifice pixel count for low light performance.

But if you compare it to A7S2 or original A7S, the noise performance at lower ISO did get worse, because the higher readout speed requires multiple parallel ADCs and this slightly increases read noise. But at higher ISO they share negligible difference.

Ok interesting but my main question is then why go done this route?

Wouldn't it have made much better sense if the photo side of A7S3 was 48MP and flip to 12MP for video or lowlight photography as you suggest those 100MP smartphones do?

That would really be best of both worlds no? Why lock it down to 12MP only? There is still MP sacrifice going on.

[hyalinejim]

6 hours ago, SRV1981 said:

that is photo not video

Search for "video stils comparison tool" and you'll get a different widget with frame grabs from the video output

[John Matthews]

7 hours ago, projectwoofer said:

If we’re talking about video, it certainly doesn’t help that most new cameras have awful 1080p quality. Only solution is to just shoot in 4K. Though my S5’s live crop mode has fantastic 1080p quality albeit only in 30fps. It puzzles me why the normal FHD modes are so bad on most cameras manufactured in the last few years.

Why is the 1080p bad on many new cameras? I'd say for the same reason that the 720p is equally as bad. Manufacturers have put all their efforts into the "headline" resolution whether we need it or not. As Yedlin said, "spacial fidelity" should be the goal because the minimum requirements for a detailed image have been exceeded for the human eye and that would be true for photos or video (because humans ONLY see in video).

[projectwoofer]

9 hours ago, PannySVHS said:

Amadeusz Andrzejewski stated that HD on the S1H in S35 was very good and much better than coming from the whole sensor. It was a predroduction model. I haven´t seen any other tests for HD quality on the S line cameras. So here is the small glimpse from 10.30min to around 10.40min, testing for up to 25p only, after that it´s interlaced for some reason. I never tested it myself on my S1. I only know that HD never wowed me, whereas GH5 in HD did.

I didnt find the live crop mode on my S1. I really think there is none! Checked some youtube videos for the S5 and S1H I think. No luck for S1 users. Well, 30p anyway. 😉

 

I vaguely remember that the FHD on the S5 in crop mode was even worse than in FF but I can be mistaken. I’ll test that one more time. That video is very comprehensive though! 

[androidlad]

5 hours ago, Django said:

Ok interesting but my main question is then why go done this route?

Wouldn't it have made much better sense if the photo side of A7S3 was 48MP and flip to 12MP for video or lowlight photography as you suggest those 100MP smartphones do?

That would really be best of both worlds no? Why lock it down to 12MP only? There is still MP sacrifice going on.

Yes it would have been much better for the users, but Sony didn't go that route from an R&D and markerting perspective.

Sony already has BSI 4.2um products, so it would be easier than developing 8.4um products from scratch. Not unlocking 48MP mode seems to be product segmentation strategy, no a sacrifice due to technical capability.

[John Matthews]

5 hours ago, hyalinejim said:

Search for "video stils comparison tool" and you'll get a different widget with frame grabs from the video output

That tool is not that accurate and probably shouldn't be used for decision making as the cameras tested are not optimized, just at the default settings. Have you ever had a camera be best at those settings? Not me.

[Trek of Joy]

15 hours ago, SRV1981 said:

That is fascinating.  It makes me think of some debates I've seen as to whether or not the a7iv is a better lowlight camera than the a7sIII due to hits 7k downsampled to 4k readout that creates finer noise.  Any thoughts on the validity of this?  Part of me feels that the a7siii at 12,800 (second native iso) is better than the a7iv at 3200 (second native iso) but unsure if that is in fact true or why that would be?

The a7IV can be a little more flexible ISO-wise (with a lot of caveats) since the a7sIII is awful at 3200/6400, meaning you have to skip those ISO's and just jump to 12800 for the cleanest image. If you look at comparisons there's really no difference at 12800 noise-wise and above until the a7IV reaches its max at 51200, plus the IV is more detailed since its oversampled and doesn't seem to have the overly aggressive NR the a7sIII does. But the a7sIII has a huge advantage with rolling shutter, overheating, and FF 4k60p plus a minimal crop for 4k120p. The a7IV has pretty bad RS in FF mode, but really good in s35 mode. Its basically Sony's best aps-c video hybrid that can shoot FF 4k 24/30p.

Chris