Seems like if you could afford 2 cameras, then the A7R5 + A7S3 combo looks like a winner, and if you can only afford 1, then the A7IV is a pretty good in-between.
What a fantastic video. Great job with the detailed specs with analysis of the real time pictures and videos. It was a very scientific yet entertaining learning experience. Thank you. I expect your channel to blow up.
Amazing comparison video! I'm really happy that you included the A6500 since it shows how capable even APSC camera can be in this challenging scenario.
Thanks! I agree, it is important for amateur photographers to understand that they can still capture something they can be proud of on a budget. Furthermore, you can see from some of my earlier comparison videos that Sony APS-C cameras really stand out for low light performance.
@@DesmondButler I don't have the A6500, but the A6000 and I struggle to get clean photos (even after denoising) of the northern lights, but your videos give me hope that the newer models are indeed good enough and I won't have to upgrade to A7. I don't even have a good lens for night sky photography, but maybe I'll get the Samyang/Rokinon 12mm f2 soon and step up my game.
@@Meg_A_Byte Could be worthwhile to have a closer look at the Sony 11mm f/1.8, Meike 10mm f/2, or Viltrox 13mm f/1.4 instead - each being a better lens than the Samyang/Rokinon.. Also, seems like the A6400/6600 are even a little bit better in low light than the A6500. But all arae definitely way ahead of the A6000..
Great review man. I own an A7Riv with a 20mm f1.8 for Astro. 15 seconds at 1.8 with 1600-3200 iso is what I get my best photos with. After running a de-noise tool in Lightroom the photos are so good they don’t even need to be stacked.
Thanks! I've been using the Denoise process in Camera Raw (I bet it's very similar to the one in Lightroom) and I have to say that I'm very impressed with how well it removes the noisy pixels. Sounds like you have a great setup!
@@DesmondButler True, never seen an in camera version. I have found it works really well on hard textured surfaces like roads, cars, walls etc. But can make things like grass and trees look horrible.
@@LeBoned Haha, yes, I was going to mention trees if you didn't. It's always the trees that come out a bit odd. But honestly it's surprisingly good with noise among stars, leaving things like satellites and planes alone. It says on Adobe's website that Lightroom is built on the Adobe Camera Raw framework, so we indeed are using the same process.
@@timjwes If you have an Adobe subscription that includes Photoshop or Lightroom, there is an included de-noising feature that actually does a really good job of distinguishing noise from important details. It can at times be a little wonky with stars, but it has been getting better. Definitely well within the usability range for time-lapses. It can be accessed from a few places, but I prefer to use it from the Adobe Bridge program's Camera Raw feature. I show you how in my time-lapse tutorial (starting at about 4:20): ruclips.net/video/655z9GGS4yI/видео.html
Excellent video !! Really amazing ! What about "star eating" with these cameras ? Is there any way to avoid this problem ? Which one has the option to turn off star eating ?
I have never done a deeper investigation to test specifically for star eating, but many Sony photographers say that the a7R V's firmware has corrected for this issue.
@@DesmondButler yea, been building & flying FPV drones for years, love capturing mountain top footage here in Norway. Recently bought a Sony A7iv and so I’m spiraling down that wormhole now... Got interested in Astrophotography because northern lights have been quite active this year. I currently have a 24-105 G lens, which is great but the F4 aperture isn’t ideal for night shots. Requires longer exposures causing blurry stars. I’ll keep trying though.
This was not the bus in the Atacama Desert, but a different one abandoned in the Utah Desert. That's cool that you're going soon though! Hope you get some amazing photos 👍
@DesmondButler My biggest mistake was selling my a7iii and picking up a Fuji x100vi. That's now being sold and I'm looking at picking up the a7rv with a couple of primes.
I have to say that if noise is your concern, take a series of exposures at your slowest possible shutter speed (without creating start trails) then stack the images in something like DSS. I would be more concerned about the loss of dynamic range, and find that you're often better off just taking a series of exposures at your native or 2nd native ISO and stacking them. You'll have much more data to play around with in the end, and little to no noise if you stretch everything properly. (in my experience, if you shoot at either of the native ISOs with most newer Sony mirrorless, you will get nearly zero noise in the results)
Those are useful approaches, but not all astrophotography is stacked or tracked, particularly timelapses. And the fact remains that for extremely deep objects, an ISO value above even the second native ISO of the a7S III is absolutely necessary, so understanding the differences between these sensors is important to potential buyers.
I've have the Sony a7RIII and a7III which were great at the time. Then I purchased both a7SIII then the a1 when they came out. I agree with the performance of the a7SIII and use it for stills in many other projects including capturing lightning during storm chasing. Sharing those images from the a7SIII at 12mp bears no noticeable difference when shared online. Also of note, the a1's low light capabilities have blown me away. So much that I would love a second a1 if I could afford it. I've captured sprites above thunderstorms in the distance in extremely dark situations with exceptional image quality. Overall I can't walk away from the a7SIII and the a1. They're both on the tripods when it's night. Great breakdown, thanks!
That I do not know. I have only captured images in uncompressed mode with the a7R V. I really ought to do more testing in other raw modes to see if I notice a difference. Also, thanks!
Very Nice comparison: concerning the astro photographers the Sigma FP is the best concerning dynamic range / noise, it has the lowest read noise, The Nikon Z6 (1 / II) is also better for astro, low read noise. Many of the Sony's tend to have more amplification noise, I once checked the A 7 III vs de Nikon D750 and Z6, the A 7 III had quite some issues there. I can't say anything about the A 7 IV or A 7 R V
nice comparison. Important to note that if you aren't shooting tracked shots, you aren't going to really see much of the star eater V1 or V2 issues. The raw filtering that treats stars as noise needs them to be sharp and small and that's when they start to disappear, get hollowed out, or turned green (depending on which version of the algorithm is used). Thus, having a bit of trailing significantly reduces the negative effects of the star eating algorithm. What you can also see in these shots is the built in noise reduction for all but the A7RV. The A7RV has more finer grain, but that will nicely stack out.
Thanks for this comment, it sounds like you have some valuable experience with the phenomenon I tried to describe. I've read quite a few different things about the "star eater algorithm". Some have said that that issue was resolved after recent software updates, but I don't have the experience to say one way or another. To be absolutely clear, every one of these cameras had noise reduction turned off. I do know that for video, Sony has added something extra going on in the background with the a7S III that still performs noise reduction at high ISO values, but I'm not aware of any other sneaky noise reduction. The images I've displayed are just the raw images, no tricks, no alterations unless otherwise disclosed.
interestingly enough, you picked the a7rv for comparison. In the astro community its has been proven that this was the first camera that sony finally decided to turn off their star eater algorithm off for. since then it looks like two other cameras no longer suffer from star eater, those are the new a7c cameras. We can only hope for the future cameras sony produces to carry on this trend. as for your method in turning everything off that could maybe affect star eating, you did it right, no issues there. but individual sony models still controls how the camera interprets fine points of light(stars) and at what SS(depending on the gen of the algorithm) it chooses to take action. then it uses its interpretation of those fine points and treats them as fine noise, unfortunately star eating is baked into the cameras raw filtering/processing, it doesnt matter if long exposure noise reduction is turned off. star trailing certainly helps along with the use of a less sharp lens, if the lens cant resolve the points of light then it the camera wont treat the stars as noise. Great review!
@@kururuvai That's fascinating. I really appreciate you guys for leaving these comments. Its such an esoteric element to how these cameras are engineered, and I have had almost no experience with it. As I indicated in the earlier response, I knew Sony had some background algorithms going on for some things, but I wasn't sure how far it goes or which features are affected. To me, it sounds like the main impact would be on deep sky imaging, and perhaps most landscape astrophotography wouldn't be terribly altered by these background processes. Does your experience suggest otherwise though?
@@DesmondButler Sorry, posted the first comment on the wrong account. Deep-sky actually works a little better against the star eating algorithm as the stars tend to cover more pixels. However, then you run into the baked in lens corrections creating circular patterns when you stack and stretch. The star eater is worst with wider lenses (under 200mm) tracked. I almost always shoot tracked, so it was a deal breaker for me. I've used the A7S for a lot of timelapses because it's uneffected by star eating under 30seconds. I've now started using the A7RV, however, and just sent it off for modification because it has solved all these issues and performs well enough in the noise department. You do a great job showing how the A7Siii preserves details, but stacking can solve that problem, too. Allyn Wallace had a great video on the A7Siii showing how much the star eater would remove and dim stars. The A7RV, A7Cii, and A7CR all might be the best current non-cooled astro cameras because they have fixed these issues that other manufacturers still have in some capacity. If I was buying a camera that I planned to use a lot for astro, those three would be my only choice.
I got the Sony A7R V for doing wildlife photography here in Alaska but did end up getting the Viltrox 16mm 1.8 and did some northern lights photography with it and they turned out really good for me so ended up loving this camera with this lens for night time photography
Glad to hear from my a6500 people 😄 It has been such a great little camera for me. I still prefer it for a lot of things I shoot, and I've even won some contests shooting night landscapes with it.
@@antondeputat8814 I'm happy our APSC setups get love. I've heard that the best camera (and therefore a compelling reason to check out what other people are having success with) is the camera you have. I'm pleased the a6500 got mentioned.
I’m getting the 6500 Astro fixed (as soon as they can get the filter!), so I’m glad it will work fine. I’ll still used the RV along with it, of course.
Nice detailed look with lots of pros and cons, thanks! Pretty sure I'll go with the α6700 to start, since it'll be a huge leap from my old Sony RX100 II, and having full width 4k60 is important to me (since my astro animations are usually 60fps, to reduce streaking), then maybe one day upgrade to the A7sIV if the limitations start to be an issue.
I started astro photography with A7iii and was really happy about it. The only issue I have with it is the non flip screen. I had problem shooting it from high and low position. Later I upgraded to Ha moded A7IV, couldn’t be happier. It’s perfect blend of resolution and noise performance.
Those seem to be the two most commonly mentioned models in astrophotography discussion. Some would say that is all due to the affordability, but I'd have to say comparisons show that its more than that. The a7R V is already better than most cameras at low light, and yet the a7 IV is shown to be significantly better. We can see that it isn't on the level of the a7S III, but when you take it without the compromises in resolution and cost, it just makes for a really smart choice.
Wonderful video! You did a great job of showcasing the cameras strengths and weaknesses. I would like to point out to potential buyers of the A7RV that you can also be on the lookout for the A7RIV because they do use the same sensor. Especially in these use cases you won't find much of an upgrade with a lot of the RV's features (minus the articulating screen)
This is all true, I've done a lot of shooting with the a7R IV as well, and it is virtually the same. The one major advantage that I mention is the 8k video. You would rarely ever need that feature, but only the a7R V has it. Thanks for the comment!
@@DesmondButler I totally glanced over the 8k part since I don't do any video work. Astro is something I always wanted to get into as a hobby, but could never justify owning a lens for it exclusively. But this video does a great job of showcasing the weaknesses of a high resolution camera when you start pushing the ISO. Definitely deserves more views!
I'm a complete noob at these things but to me the image produced by the SIII seemed the best. The colours just seem a little more vivid. Watching this on a large tv in the video's max resolution. Sure, when zooming in I can see some of the detail is lost compared to the others but i don't notice at all when the pics are side by side. For regular use cases, like posting to IG and stuff, I think SIII is best choice? But probably best to wait for SIV , it is about due for an upgrade, no?
Yes, this was essentially my conclusion in this video. For social media, even platforms that support 4K, the a7S III is the obvious choice. It actually is next in line for an upgrade, but there have been some signals from Sony that they may pivot to focusing on the FX line instead of releasing a fourth in the S line. Either way, we should wait and see. I do love shooting with the a7S III right now though.
Great video! Love it! I'm aiming to upgrade my camera ( a little fuji) to a Sony camera (One of the reasons is Astro photography). This video helped me a lot. Although probably I would choose between A7 CR and A7 CII
Both great choices, and should perform very similarly to their counterparts in this video. I would personally be more inclined to pick the a7C II. As we've seen, it should have noticeably better low light performance, and it is quite a bit less expensive. While it is nice to have larger megapixel images to work with sometimes, the file sizes on the R models do get very cumbersome 😅 Thanks for the comment!
Excellent Job, there is no detail left behind in relation pixel and ISO, everything was exactly the way it is, I do have the A7R V and ZV-E1 which have the same sensor of the A7S III, and I use them mostly A7 R V day time and ZV E1 at night, as someone said before those sensors are the perfect combination, Thanks Desmond for this video.
Thank you for nice comparison. When upgraded a7riv to a7rv last fall I noticed that a7rv no longer has that star eater long exposure (>3.2s) noise reduction. To my surprise this was not publicly discussed before. My post on dpreview (jtra username) shows it and others have confirmed it. So in this sense all other cameras in this review have spatial noise reduction (bright pixels are darkened when surrounded by dark pixels) so it is not completely fair for those longer exposures. It might be interesting to reduce 60mp to 15mp by computing minimum of the four pixels or lower quartile of them and then compare to 12mp camera. That might get rid of the bright noise in dark shadows on the land.
Thanks for sharing that information from your firsthand testing. That's an interesting hypothesis regarding reducing the output resolution. I suspect that it won't meaningfully close the gap, given that it features significantly lower native ISO values than the a7S III, but since you've suggested it, I'll have to give it a shot the next time I have them both out on a shoot.
@@end_theinflu If you want 61MP and 8K video, it is a great choice. If you don't need that much resolution, the a7 IV is a much more economical choice.
Noise reduction algorigthms are still present, although not as bad as they were before in older Sony mirrorless. Now they don't completely remove stars, but they still mess up star colors, and you can see it in most astrophotos with Sony cameras where you'll find green and purple stars.
I got A7IV instead of R or S line because: 1. 12mp felt very little to me, well, even 25mp felt not enough, 2. I expect to capture images with lots of detail and highest iso makes it at least somehow sharp, despite some color loss, 3. Instead of going for best hi iso camera, I would remove IR/UV filter on sensor to more than double the light intake, or even use the brightest leans like f0.95 and capture hi res files... A lot depends on usage, to get the maximum performance in low light S line would do the best when comparing overall colors, using the brightest iso, shooting video, basically not hi res prints. I shoot mostly in the sun tho, so hi res is more welcome to me.
@@DesmondButler It's great camera, but the build is not up to its price for everything, I mean that LCD screen when folded out is not totally straight, it's like 3degrees or so off, which sounds a little but when shooting near the ground, it's hard to get it straight even horizontally... I'm sure I won't ever use it's full capability, but at least there are no constraints...
Very interesting comparison. I find myself to have moved away from Sony for astro. I started with a6300 ->A7 ->A7S and then bought a USED Canon 6D....I NEVER looked back.I'm working on a video on my channel comparing Canon EOS R, 6D, 7R II, 7S, 6300, Nikon Z6 all in a bortle 2 sky as apples to apples as I could get. BUT I didn't have my A7 IV when i went out in the field to compare them so I may go back and try to get some shots with it to be true to Sony's CURRENT offerings. I think it will add a lot to this type of discussion. I just prefer how Canon renders milky way images. I have a A7 IV now, and from my limited testing with it am just unimpressed with it for astrophotography. There's way less color and natural look to the shots than my 6D. I DO use a star tracker, because then you are getting your signal above the noise floor, and the 'low light performance' no longer matters as much as the way the images look. The 'budget' option for people really should be the canon 6D (not Mark II that's worse) IF they are wanting a dedicated astro body. if you want the camera for other things, as most do, then I would buy the A6500 as the budget option or a Canon EOS R The exception here, is that I still use my original A7S for TIMELAPSE of the milky way, as the signal to noise ratio is just so good, you can get great timelapses with short exposure frames. I actually sent it to be full spectrum modified because it is SO GOOD for filming milkyway travels at night.
It sounds like you and I have come to a lot of the same conclusions. I hear you on color science, people do have legitimate reason to prefer Canon, but I would still call this a personal preference rather than an objective standard, and I imagine you'd agree with that. With only one exception, the comparison videos I've done are all for untracked, uncomposited, authentic single exposure Milky Way images, and for that reason my videos have primarily focused on noise. Perhaps I should do a test using a tripod tracker with the main cameras I've featured. At that point, we would be comparing other aspects than noise, as you rightly pointed out. My main comparison video from last summer featured the a7R V and the EOS 6D, and I have to tell you that while the 6D is really good, the Sony appeared to produce far less noise. Check it out sometime if you're at all curious: ruclips.net/video/4OvRnfRykwI/видео.html Thanks for the comment! It's always cool to hear experience from photographers who are trying similar things to what I do here.
Thank you for the great test, I didn't expect apcs camera can do this well, would you like to do a comparison between a6500 and a6700 which has a new sensor and similar than Fuji's
Very nice video. Thanks for making such a nice and in-detail comparison! It's actually pretty impressive how good the results are when using them at ISO 3200. I personally think they all have extremely and nicely useful images. Even by using a faster lens, the noise would be less pronounce. The a7 IV really stand out as great value comparing megapixels and noise.
I totally agree, I would be comfortable using any of these to create a print or social media post. They are all within the threshold that good editing could turn into a presentable finished product. And you're right about the a7 IV, a great middle of the road option with strong noise performance and a reasonable price point. Thanks for watching!
Great 👍 job. Thank you for sharing and putting this video together. It helps a lot. Can you do a video on the best light pollution filters and solar filters with these cameras
Thank you! Glad to hear that! A test with filters is not something I have ever tried before, but that could be very interesting. Thanks for the suggestion!
hello desmond... Im just got the A7IV but I had an option to get an A7RIV too... all the comparatives are I saw are not talking about the IV vs the RIV and they copare the IV with the RV... is the RIV a better option? I usualy take my photos with star trakking with a 24mm f2 or with the camara attached to a 9.25' telescope... thanks!
Great questions. So the a7R IV is actually a lot like the a7R V. For nebula photography, they would have almost no noticeable difference since they are both a 61MP sensor. I have attached the a7R IV to my 8 inch SCT to shoot a few different deep sky objects, and it was fantastic. The a7 IV would also be really good, but I do have to say that the R models do give you more deep details, and that makes a huge difference for deep sky objects and stacking.
Great tests, though I'm curious to see one more test. The A7RV has a feature to take small, medium or large sized images without cropping. 16MP, 26MP and 61MP. Would be nice to see how the images hold up against the others if you lower the resolution in-camera. I expect the images to be cleaner, but the A7SIII would probably still beat it regarding noise.
Another viewer suggested trying this. I agree with you that the a7S III would likely still outperform, but I'm curious enough that I might try it if I get the chance.
Very good comparison. I would like just to comment that newest models, A7RV, A7RC, A7CII have not longer the star eater issue according to reports in cloudynights. The A7CII has the same sensor as the A7IV but they have managed to solve the star eater problem. Personally, I'm considering an A7CII or Canon R6II, the A7RV looks fantastic but expensive.
Thanks for sharing that info! I've been told that the Canon R6 Mark II has low noise, but I've seen charts that say that the Mark I has lower noise than the Sony a7R V, and that is verifiably false from some of my other comparison videos. I need to test the Mark II though. It seems safe to assume that the a7C II would be a great choice, both economically and for noise.
I own a7s2 and was looking at a74 for all around hybrid. Now I’ve waiting long enough that I’ll get the a7 mark 5 when it drops. W it’ll be the a7s4 or the a7 mk5 that comes out in the next 2 months , it’ll be worth it!
IMO its not what comes out of the camera but the ability to make it look good after post processing. I have seen a robin singing inside a dark bush and had to use 10K iso, the picture was out of focus and -2ev of exposure and yet it was cleaner than my a77ii's 1000iso which is insayn. Edit: 0:30 subbed.
Haha, thanks for the sub! I really do hear you though. Some of my favorite Milky Way shots are my earliest. But in the age of AI, there is the temptation to revisit those edits. I now routinely use Adobe's raw denoiser, but I've also used Topaz a little bit. Now we also have generative fill and some other tricks. So my question to you, and maybe anyone else who might be interested in the discussion, is when does an enhanced image stop being the image we captured and just something a computer created? I'm not saying that's what you did with the robin, and maybe what I'm asking becomes totally separate from that, but I guess the contrast we face ourselves with is how things used to be when it was just you, your understanding of photo science, and a canister of film. In this modern era, how do we maintain a threshold for what can genuinely be considered a photo that was actually captured? Where is the line? My whole career is editing, but when does that go too far? I'd love to hear your thoughts.
@@DesmondButler Gah dayng i wasn't expecing any sort of interaction! But yes you make a VERY good question. When I started I used to hate post processing with a passion, because the first exposures I had to "edited" photos were on plane spotting groups where spoilt brats would add fake panning blur effects to their photos taken with €5000 gear back then in 2014 when I started with DSLR-A200 and taking genuine panning shots. But then i realized that wasn't post processing the way one actually post processes; removing noise, enhancing colors and balancing lighting is for me the core of post processing. When you _change_ something you already crossed the limit (but this is FOR ME), say I didn't change the colors of the robin at all, but i did change the colors on the lighting of a chiffchaff twisting it's neck upwards to peck a leaf. I changed the colors to make a halo'ed sunset with an incoming right side sun glare where there was just a slightly orange tint because it was already sunset. Still, the switch to CMOS sensors pushed people to edit/postprocess/change photos much more than before because CMOS sensors are still unable to deliver the fidelity of the CCD sensor. The world of digital imagery is changing. We firstly post processed to make pictures match what our eyes see; our high contrast AND dynamic range combination, the beautiful glares and our brain's trickery to make faces more beautiful than they actually are. When we love someone's face who has a sharp jawline all covered with acne, the facial features that stand out make our brains magically ignore acne or make it subtle. But if you take a picture with a camera, the acne is as visible as the beautiful facial features, so you either get out the pimples or to a lesser degree, make them less noticeable. But now we edit photos to make everything look like something that is not. For example, the first case I pointed out of the faked panning blur, or now the crazy filtering on faces, for instagram accounts of random people acting like bots as well as for something as popular as Cristiano Ronaldo. Everywhere he appears printed or framed in a still or in an advert, he has a strong jawline and small ears, while on live video his face is completely round and has no jawline corners, heck his face is EVEN shorter from hairline to chin than in photos. Even his wax museum statue has the chin and jawline of the media files. Same as Elon Musk making himself thinner and have a good jawline when he has sadly become a blob that looks like a character alien lifeform from star wars. About CCD vs CMOS, CCD in my opinion, is something we should go back to. If camera companies are eager to price their cameras way above their real value nowadays, then they can invest on making the barely costlier to produce CCD. Plus, it has global e shutter by default. But they do not because of pure marketing strategy. Why give CCD sensor cameras for €1400 when you can make global shutter exclusive for the higher end professionals? People genuinely think that A9iii is "global shutter for everyone", despite the fact you can only use global shutter and 120fps if you couple a G Master lens and, since a9iii is focused on wildlife and action, you ain't going to put a 85mm 1.4GM as the longest telephoto, you will get the 100-400GM instead, which is roughly 3000 bucks. All in all you will pay 10.000 minimum for global shutter. Thank you for initiating a very interesting conversation, and thanks in advance. If you reached this very line after reading everything, thanks again!!
@@kingghidorah8106 I like the way you described how we see a face. That is very true, I always feel compelled to remove blemishes I never noticed for exactly the reason you explained. That, and many other facets, really does complicate the question. Haha, thank you for a thoughtful response!
Interesting comparison, thank you! I'd be curious to see how the A6600 or A6700 would perform in this test with a 16mm-ish lens @ f/1.8 (same ISO, same exposure)..
I've never owned a wide angle lens with an aperture under f2.0, but it's on my wish list. I am currently working on getting my hands on the a6700 to do some comparisons. Thanks for the suggestions!
I like the a7sIII sky video! I wonder if there is a way to take a few seconds of that video and stack the twinkling stars into a frame. Would such a strategy reduce noise compared to a single exposure?
Photo stacking with timelapses would be tricky, since the primary intent is to show changes with the atmosphere and foreground, details that are smeared or omitted by the stacking process. I know that some photographers do create one stacked image and then just comp it into the back of a masked out foreground, but I personally find this to be pretty dishonest. One effective way to maintain star brightness is to get out into the deep desert on a clear night. I've had decent success with that, but I also don't mind a little twinkling.
@@DesmondButler thanks for the thoughtful reply and I suppose you have a point. I found with my setup I can only take 7 second exposures before stars start streaking. I wanted to be taking longer exposures and so... Also i found that faint stars often look like noisy pixels, to complicate the stacking process and also the de noise you would have to ignore pixels that only appear in a single frame.... I suppose the foreground would be from the base image, or the last image depending, and I don't want clouds... I guess I need to think about what I'm trying to do, another astro photographer was saying that he removes some stars which seemed odd to my thought of trying to include more.
@@lcambilargiu I agree with you, selecting stars for exclusion seems like it would make stacking more difficult. But then again, stacking is a strange and complex process, so maybe he is on to something. I guess if it actually did work, more images fitting inside your stack would be worth losing a couple stars. Very interesting.
@@DesmondButler I am thinking that stacking is more about enhancing the information of the milky part of the image and less about capturing more stars. That seemed funny to me at first.
Here is a tutorial for how I create timelapses: ruclips.net/video/655z9GGS4yI/видео.html I recorded this video last year before I had the a7S III, but the process is almost exactly the same. Hope it helps!
Full Frame lenses don't really cost more than APS-C because of the awesome third party options available at every focal length. For example, the full frame Viltrox AF 16mm f/1.8 FE is one of the best astro lenses and it costs slightly less than the APS-C Sony E 11mm f/1.8, which is not even equivalent because you'd need an 11mm f/1.2 to match the full frame. Though the Sony is a very good lens and weighs only 1/3rd of the weight.
Would be interesting to see the old A7III compared with others, since it has lower megapixel count than A7IV and according to DxOmark it performs better
This is a comparison a lot of viewers seem interested in. Perhaps a full head to head between the two models would be in order if I ever get my hands on the a7 III. Thanks for your input.
Interesting video, thanks. One thing to mention, maybe you should test M3 instead of M4 since the last one's SNR isn't the best. The more packed megapixels resulted in about 1 stop loss in noise (A7 III at ISO25600 looks the same as A7 IV at ISO12800), that made M4 a bit controversial for such a purpose.
I've heard this about the a7 III. I would at the very least be interested in testing the Mark III against the Mark IV to see how much difference there is. Either way, you're right that I do need to test the Mark III.
Yeah, I was surprized to see A7 III produces more than a stop less noise than A7R M1 and having noise level very close to A7S despite twice megapixel count. In terms of noise level it's a very capable camera. There may or may be not some nuances in astrophotography in comparison to typical use, but I feel it might be one of the best suited camera for that purpose.
If you’re not a professional, A6500 is the winner. Great low light performance, just enough to post in instagram or for a wallpaper on your laptop. If I’d seen your video 2 years ago I wouldn’t had bought A7 iii 😅😅Thanks for really good review 👍👍
Thanks for saying that. That's really what I hoped this video would do for potential buyers. Wish I could have warned you earlier 😅 I think I agree with how you described the a6500. That being said, I still love mine. Its still the only camera I take on vacation 😅
Great work on the video... It's nice to see that Sony APS-C cameras can still hold their own when it comes to astrophotography. I have had the a6000, a6400 and now the a6700. I have enjoyed taking pictures with the camera, with each offering better quality than the other. I kind of get the feeling that the a6400 does have an edge over the a6500 in terms of quality; but I may be wrong. But for me the a6700 really been good especially with the BSI sensor. The downside at the moment is trying to shoot any Milkyway in the UK is nigh on impossible with the horrible weather. However I still have the a6000 and a6400 but deep sky stuff, especially as I have had them astro modified... Great video again...
Like many others, I always say shoot with what you have. There are still good reasons to own an APS-C, and I look forward to testing out the BSI sensor on the a6700 one day. The sensor on the a6400 probably does have some advantages over the a6500, but for what I do, IBIS is a must. Hope you get some cloudless nights for shooting this summer.
It will be interesting to see what Sony brings later this year as it's expected to have the A7Siv (rumored 24mp) & A7V (prob partial stacked sensor like Z6iii).
I've seen speculation that Sony will be shifting focus over to the FX line and release a successor there while ending the S line. I kind of hope that's not the case, but I guess I'd understand it if they did. Either way, I'll still probably make my studio get the new one 😄 It would be exciting to see a re-engineered a7 this year as you've described. Guess we'll soon see.
I'd love to test the a1 and a9, but I've never even met anyone who owns one 😅Hoping to change that in the future. In-body noise reduction is frowned upon in astrophotography. Many assert that it erases key details like fine stars. I still use it from time to time, but using it in a comparison would be an extra step in an already time-consuming testing process, and it would essentially mask the real comparison that we are going for which is raw sensor noise production. But maybe I'll try adding it to a future comparison between just two cameras. Thanks for the comment.
One thing not stated is shutter speed is increased the higher the pixel count and the size of lens f/# and mm. A faster SS gives way to faster panoramas. Also was camera NR turned on, if not shame shame, for years everyone was saying do not use NR just take multiple shots and do denoise in post but ask yourself what is a extra 10s or even 15s when compared to a full minute doing more images!!! Look just use PhotoPills spot stars to select camera, mm, and f/# to be used. I have all S models as well as the RV and R2 and using the settings and AWB and no filters the S3 and RV are about equal in detail. The S/S2 models have one up on all and that is on camera apps one is "Digital Filter" where you can take two images sky and foreground and different camera setting and get processed in camera jpeg and/or RAW as output and WB selection for sky can be selected vs ground. Lastly today SW will let you upsize but even the A7s's 12MP will print larger than poster size how often will you do that and print companies to upsizing anyway!!!
In-body long-exposure noise reduction can be very impressive, and is definitely worth a try. But there are two major reasons why some photographers may not want to use it for astrophotography. Capturing a timelapse with Long Exposure NR enabled will literally double the time spent on location, and half of that is lost light capture. When you're already spending a couple hours for just a few seconds of video, it is better to find other ways to mitigate noise and leave it disabled. The second reason is stacking. Cameras may be getting better at this, but from my first hand experience, noise reduced frames will often fail to stack in software stacking applications. As for 12MP prints, its true that those images equate to 14in x 9in (35cm x 23cm) at 300 DPI, but I personally have found that 600 DPI is much better for night shots. More megapixels does make for a better mural, but you're right, it's not absolutely necessary. I've shot images for commercial banners, but most people won't need that kind of detail. It's just good to keep in mind. I would definitely advise against upscaling night shots. I work with these machine learning models every single day, and the technology just isn't there yet. Thanks for watching the video!
This is an important question. I'm not sure how much better the a6700 is when compared to the older a6500. Sony introduced a backside illuminated sensor for the a6700 which is supposed to give it noticeably better low light performance. I haven't been able to test this myself, but it is very high on my to-do list.
It would be possible to capture some stars, but it would be way too dark and way too noisy to meaningfully make out the details of the dust clouds and nebulae. In that respect, the a7S really does stand alone.
I'm not regretting my A6400 yet. But wow that ISO noise compared to the A7 IV is really making me doubt my decision. I dont want to make you do something, but it'd be nice if you could compare APS-C lenses on full frame cameras compared to APS-C cameras. That might ease my anxiety when looking at the cost of upgrading.
I have absolutely loved my APS-C a6500 for travel photography. The lenses are inexpensive and a lot smaller to pack around. If you do any kind of on the go shooting, especially handheld, there are major advantages to the APS-C line of cameras, especially when you look at how much cheaper and available the OSS (optical Steady-Shot) lenses are in the smaller form factor. For normal daylight shooting, your camera is still a really great choice, and even for night shots you can still get really awesome results. Most of my IG posts were taken with the a6500. Here's one of my favorites: instagram.com/p/CuvpzsPOOzT/
It would be the second of the top of the line models. I have heard a lot of Sony users say that the a7 III is better than the a7 IV, but in this video we were only testing the newest models from each product line. Had I done this same video a few years ago, I'd have probably said the a7S II is first and the a7 III was second. I've personally never tested the a7 III, but it sure seems like a lot of people prefer it over the newest model in that line.
I personally haven't experimented with altering the camera's sharpness settings. The built in long exposure noise reduction is pretty good, but in recent years I find myself using the denoise process in Adobe Camera Raw more often. The next video I'll be putting out this summer will go over the process, but it's pretty straight forward, just two clicks. For me, the balance with sharpening and noise reduction is easier to find in post with tools from Adobe.
I been thinking of getting the Sony A7 IV but many have said about the stars having a tinge of green in them, myself at the moment is using the old canon 6d which is great for astro but getting a bit heavy for my these days as its built like a tank but I have taken many pics from birds in flight to star trails using bulb mode it's been great. But as many have mentioned about the colour of the stars with the A7 IV i'm unsure about it and have anyone had any green colour issues with it?
I can't say I've noticed that, but I would say that canon does seem to have a slightly different color science, and some do prefer what that produces. For me, it depends on the scene. I actually really like Sony color for night shots. As far as the stars looking green, maybe someone else here knows.
@@DesmondButler thanks for getting back to me, I have been looking at the A7 IV as Alyn Wallace used this model as he did Astrophotography but sadly passed away not to long back also he lived here in Wales a few miles from me, you might have seen him on RUclips... Have you tried the Canon R6ii for astro? as I was also looking at this one.
@@darkshaman7087 I have heard important upgrades were brought to the R6 Mark II, but so far I've only gotten my hands on the Mark I. I will definitely have to test it out in the future. I had not heard about Alyn. That is terrible news. I'm just now reading the articles about his passing. He will certainly be missed here. What an absolute tragedy.
@@DesmondButler the r6ii seems a good camera also I have heard the mk 3 is coming out soon so the price might drop on the mk2, but it's a hard choice between the Sony and the Canon I will have to do some more research into them... I found out Alyn was suffering from an underlying condition also in some of his videos he seems weak, it's a pity as he was so young and such a big loss, he moved from here in Wales and lived in Turkey and that is sadly passed away... If you type in on google about Alyn it will mention about his passing.
Its not just okay, its a really great camera. It is super fast, and has a fantastic auto-focus in normal lighting. In low light, its still better than most cameras I've tested. Really the only major drawback is file management. The 61MP images do fill up your hard drive quickly 😅
On my A7RV I have been getting extremely noisy images at 20”, f2.8, ISO 3200 when set to medium RAW. Almost unusable. Large RAW is better but still a lot of blue pixels. Is this normal? Never had this in my a7iv
The a7 IV will definitely produce noticeably less noise on low light high ISO exposures than the a7R V, but the blue pixels does sound odd. I've had that camera produce some magenta vignetting when the scene is extremely dark, but that's true of most cameras. You might want to reach out to other Sony shooters to see if anyone else has had the issue.
I believe you are referring to ISO invariance. It's a theory that is not without controversy, even among the Sony reps I've worked with directly. It is something I would like to test out more thoroughly though.
Trailed stars aren't good for showing noise reduction algorithms, since they tend to impact more smaller details, so the issues will be more evident with smaller trails or even worse if you're using a tracker that gives you pinpoint stars. If one really wants a camera for astro unfortunately (I say unfortunately because of the prices of lenses and awful 3rd party support) Canon is still the best choice because it's the only one that doesn't ruin the color of the stars.
I've never seen a comparison that demonstrates what you're saying about star color, but I'm willing to believe you given what I have seen with Canon color science in my other tests. But I think your conclusion lacks nuance. I've used the new mirrorless Canon cameras on this channel as well as the EOS 6D that so many rave about, and there is absolutely no way I'm going to prefer one of those over the a7S III for shooting a Milky Way timelapse. For whatever pinpoint stars it may flicker in and out of existence, it more than makes up for in foreground dynamic range and fidelity. Nothing comes close. So it really just depends on what we're talking about. It may very well be the case that if we're not shooting night landscapes but instead anything connected to a telescope lens, some Canon models may have an advantage. In my eagle nebula test shoot video from last year, you can see for yourself that the Canon EOS R6 is clearly outperformed by the Sony a7R V. Which Canon model do you recommend for that type of comparison? If you let me know, I will make it a focus to try to obtain one and test it.
@@DesmondButler I've seen many astrophotographers started using the R after switching from the 6D, however the R6 should also be pretty good. In that comparison the A7rV wins in detail because of the 60mpx but I really don't see much difference in SNR between the two.
@@v0ldy54 It's not just the detail that photographers would be looking for, but also the light capture. It's a little harder to decipher in that nebula comparison I did, but in the Milky Way shootout I did that same summer, you can see that the Sony a7R V reproduces way more light in the exact same situations than the Canon R6. To be getting more detail AND more light when its already split between a lot more pixels is pretty crazy. I've heard that the R6 Mark II is quite a step up from the Mark I in terms of low light performance, so maybe I need to hunt one down for testing.
For Milky Way photography, you're absolutely right. The major difference is the 8k video, which is far superior to 4k for planetary imaging using the "lucky imaging" technique. If you don't care about capturing planets, then the a7R IV is essentially the same product but less expensive. One additional caveat might be high speed wildlife photography, where the AI model on the a7R V is said to be better, but I'd venture to guess its marginal in practice.
I have heard this a few times about the Mark III. I would definitely have to put the two models head to head if I ever got the chance and see how big the gap is.
Aperture is the diameter of the lens. Focal length is the distance from the sensor to the objective lens. Focal ratio is focal length / aperture, and this tells you the speed at which the sensor will gather enough light for a quality image. The number you listed as aperture is actually the focal ratio, so you should base your exposure times off the focal ratio, not the focal length. It is important to distinguish this, as it’s much more important to understand the physics when working with objects that are extremely far away like deep space objects. A larger aperture lens can make up for a longer focal length, so you should not be basing this off the focal length alone. It is important to understand the terminology because it really does matter. The aperture of that lens is 8.571mm. I found that by using focal length / focal ratio, or 24mm/2.8=8.571mm. This really affects what you can and cant photograph. You can think of it like this: the bigger the lens the more light you can gather at once, the shorter the focal length, the faster it gets to the sensor, and vice versa. They both increase the speed, but in different ways. They also have other features that are affected. A bigger lens that gathers more light will have a higher resolution, and a longer focal length increases zoom, while decreasing the field of view, and vice versa.
I am only interested in using these words in terms of how people buy lenses. Every online photography retailer uses aperture in exactly the way that I have used it in this video. You may have your reasons for using it differently, but it is irrelevant to the conversation of how regular consumers can find and use the right gear.
@@christiandwindt Again, we're not talking about telescopes. The images shown were shot on consumer wide angle lenses. If you're still upset about the nomenclature, perhaps you can take your concerns to the comments sections of the lens manufacturers, because I certainly didn't set these standards.
@@christiandwindt Haha, I don't know what to tell you, my friend. I'm here to help people make purchasing decisions, not teach the science of astrophotography (there are plenty of channels that do). Both the lens manufacturers and the camera manufacturers use the word aperture in a way that you don't seem to agree with, but it has nothing to do with me. I use the words and numbers that the vast majority of consumers will freely recognize.
That's... Not what star eater is. Star eater only kicks in if you have pinpoint stars. The only camera here that doesn't have star eater anymore is the a7rV, and that's due to its newer firmware. The same can be observed in any camera released after it.
Those who listened to the video heard it clearly stated that that ISO value would be ridiculous to use and that those test images are strictly for demonstrating the differences between sensors. The point is to prove beyond any argument which cameras perform best against low light noise. This was already accomplished at the lower ISO value, but some viewers are difficult to persuade.
Some really like their star trackers, and some prefer to capture natural timelapses instead. In both cases, a better camera sensor gets you better results.
Major problem and flaw with this video. It's not using native ISOs to compare performance, this kinda of voids all comparisons in a sense. Each came will preform differently and different ISOs. Some will preform better at 3200iso while another camera might beat it at say 6000ISO. It's been long known that each model of camera has their best rated ISO and it's different than other models. A lot of the cameras now have 2 high preforming ISOs sometimes referred to as BASE ISOs. Also the base ISOs are also in relation to picture profiles and the ISOs are different in Video vs Photo even in the same cameras. To do a realistic comparisons you have to look up all the high preforming ISOs for each model of camera and compare them based on that. Otherwise it's best to take what this video shows are a very small grain of salt.
You have just made perfectly clear to every other viewer that you did not watch the video, nor do you seem to comprehend the specific use case here. "Base" ISO, more ubiquitously referred to as native ISO, is a concept explained in depth in this video (something you would know had you actually watched the video). Furthermore, to have set each individual camera to their respective second native ISO values, which I specifically outlined, would in no way assist potential buyers. Conversely, by showing the performance of these cameras at multiple ISO values well above those native levels, a photographer interested in low light landscape image capture will come to understand the differences between these sensors, helping them to choose the right camera for their purposes. Astrophotographers understand this intrinsically. Those interested in a comparison of low light video capture between these models can watch my previous video, which demonstrates the advantage of the second native ISO for dealing with low light video noise: ruclips.net/video/HdPAfAMPnls/видео.htmlsi=jishhtEdOKQTkaPO
Noise on the FF models shouldn't matter. There's no difference between 12mp and 60mp noise when both are viewed at the same size/distance whether on screen or print. DPReview has already debunked this myth. Low mp cameras aren't "better" in low light.
I never once suggested that was a general rule. In this video, I clearly stated that the 61 megapixel R model was the winner in some of my other shootouts. Second native ISO is definitely a significant factor, but even that doesn't tell the whole story. The results here are what they are. You can argue with that all you want; it doesn't change what is clearly observed from the testing. The S model is far superior to the R model at low light landscapes. Pixel count is a factor, but certainly not the single most important factor.
I assume most people watching this video will already understand exposure length equations. These comparison videos aren't tutorials. They're intended to inform potential consumers on the capabilities of different brands and models.
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Bro dropped the best comparison videos ever and thought we wouldn't notice
Haha, thanks man!
+ he has only 946 sub wtf
Seems like if you could afford 2 cameras, then the A7R5 + A7S3 combo looks like a winner, and if you can only afford 1, then the A7IV is a pretty good in-between.
Yeah, I'd say that's a pretty logical conclusion.
FX3 + A7RV 🔥
@@FahadAJT Sounds like you have your bases covered 👍
Just get an A1 then
@@khoatran9482 FX3 or A7s3 is better in video
Dude. This video is mind blowing. Well done!
Thank you good sir!
This is the kind of video I’ve been looking for for a while, thanks man
Glad you found it! Thanks for the comment!
I've had the Sony a7iv since its launch, and 3 weeks ago I bought the 7rv and I felt a huge difference, especially in photography.
What a fantastic video. Great job with the detailed specs with analysis of the real time pictures and videos. It was a very scientific yet entertaining learning experience. Thank you. I expect your channel to blow up.
Thank you!
Thank you for your great comparison. It was exactly what I was looking for.
I'm very glad to hear that! Thanks for commenting!
Seriously the best noise video I have seen. Wow. Thank you!
Glad to hear you found it so useful!
Amazing comparison video! I'm really happy that you included the A6500 since it shows how capable even APSC camera can be in this challenging scenario.
Thanks! I agree, it is important for amateur photographers to understand that they can still capture something they can be proud of on a budget. Furthermore, you can see from some of my earlier comparison videos that Sony APS-C cameras really stand out for low light performance.
@@DesmondButler I don't have the A6500, but the A6000 and I struggle to get clean photos (even after denoising) of the northern lights, but your videos give me hope that the newer models are indeed good enough and I won't have to upgrade to A7.
I don't even have a good lens for night sky photography, but maybe I'll get the Samyang/Rokinon 12mm f2 soon and step up my game.
@@Meg_A_Byte I have absolutely loved that APS-C lens. Well worth the price, my friend. Hope you get to capture some great shots soon!
@@DesmondButler Thank you! I hope that you're doing well and getting some good light!
@@Meg_A_Byte Could be worthwhile to have a closer look at the Sony 11mm f/1.8, Meike 10mm f/2, or Viltrox 13mm f/1.4 instead - each being a better lens than the Samyang/Rokinon.. Also, seems like the A6400/6600 are even a little bit better in low light than the A6500. But all arae definitely way ahead of the A6000..
Great review man.
I own an A7Riv with a 20mm f1.8 for Astro. 15 seconds at 1.8 with 1600-3200 iso is what I get my best photos with. After running a de-noise tool in Lightroom the photos are so good they don’t even need to be stacked.
Thanks! I've been using the Denoise process in Camera Raw (I bet it's very similar to the one in Lightroom) and I have to say that I'm very impressed with how well it removes the noisy pixels. Sounds like you have a great setup!
@@DesmondButler True, never seen an in camera version. I have found it works really well on hard textured surfaces like roads, cars, walls etc. But can make things like grass and trees look horrible.
@@LeBoned Haha, yes, I was going to mention trees if you didn't. It's always the trees that come out a bit odd. But honestly it's surprisingly good with noise among stars, leaving things like satellites and planes alone. It says on Adobe's website that Lightroom is built on the Adobe Camera Raw framework, so we indeed are using the same process.
Are you guys both using the in built denoise tool or a plug-in in your full workflows?
@@timjwes If you have an Adobe subscription that includes Photoshop or Lightroom, there is an included de-noising feature that actually does a really good job of distinguishing noise from important details. It can at times be a little wonky with stars, but it has been getting better. Definitely well within the usability range for time-lapses. It can be accessed from a few places, but I prefer to use it from the Adobe Bridge program's Camera Raw feature. I show you how in my time-lapse tutorial (starting at about 4:20):
ruclips.net/video/655z9GGS4yI/видео.html
Your video is awesome! never seen any other youtuber of this level. hope your channel grow and shoot for the moon
I'm flattered by these compliments 🙏 Thank you!
Excellent video !! Really amazing !
What about "star eating" with these cameras ? Is there any way to avoid this problem ? Which one has the option to turn off star eating ?
I have never done a deeper investigation to test specifically for star eating, but many Sony photographers say that the a7R V's firmware has corrected for this issue.
Excellent video, subscribing!!! You clearly articulated the comparison and each camera's strengths and weaknesses for astro! Well done!!!
Thank you! More to come!
Amazing video, really valuable comparisons, information and thoughts. Thanks for your effort!
Thanks man! Looks like you do some great work on FPV camera comparisons. Very nice 👌
@@DesmondButler yea, been building & flying FPV drones for years, love capturing mountain top footage here in Norway.
Recently bought a Sony A7iv and so I’m spiraling down that wormhole now... Got interested in Astrophotography because northern lights have been quite active this year.
I currently have a 24-105 G lens, which is great but the F4 aperture isn’t ideal for night shots. Requires longer exposures causing blurry stars.
I’ll keep trying though.
11:44 there a photo of the bus in chile in which hotel did you stayed in chile im going there also
This was not the bus in the Atacama Desert, but a different one abandoned in the Utah Desert. That's cool that you're going soon though! Hope you get some amazing photos 👍
Great video comparison Desmond! I liked it so much I went to click the subscribe button. Then noticed I already had. LOL. Keep up the good work.
Haha, glad the videos have been good enough to come back for! Thanks for the comment!
awesome job
Some of my best milkyway shots were taken with my Sony a7iii with Sigma 24-70 f2.8. Exposure was 5 seconds at 12800iso
A lot of commenters love the a7 III. Really great price on it this year too.
@DesmondButler My biggest mistake was selling my a7iii and picking up a Fuji x100vi. That's now being sold and I'm looking at picking up the a7rv with a couple of primes.
I have to say that if noise is your concern, take a series of exposures at your slowest possible shutter speed (without creating start trails) then stack the images in something like DSS.
I would be more concerned about the loss of dynamic range, and find that you're often better off just taking a series of exposures at your native or 2nd native ISO and stacking them.
You'll have much more data to play around with in the end, and little to no noise if you stretch everything properly. (in my experience, if you shoot at either of the native ISOs with most newer Sony mirrorless, you will get nearly zero noise in the results)
Those are useful approaches, but not all astrophotography is stacked or tracked, particularly timelapses. And the fact remains that for extremely deep objects, an ISO value above even the second native ISO of the a7S III is absolutely necessary, so understanding the differences between these sensors is important to potential buyers.
I've have the Sony a7RIII and a7III which were great at the time. Then I purchased both a7SIII then the a1 when they came out. I agree with the performance of the a7SIII and use it for stills in many other projects including capturing lightning during storm chasing. Sharing those images from the a7SIII at 12mp bears no noticeable difference when shared online. Also of note, the a1's low light capabilities have blown me away. So much that I would love a second a1 if I could afford it. I've captured sprites above thunderstorms in the distance in extremely dark situations with exceptional image quality. Overall I can't walk away from the a7SIII and the a1. They're both on the tripods when it's night. Great breakdown, thanks!
I've never had the chance to use the A1, but it sounds like it would be a lot of fun! Thanks for sharing your take!
Please share your website, Instagram or what ever.
@1337ghomri I thought she would have responded to you, but here is her Instagram link: instagram.com/lorigraceaz
Best comparison I've ever seen, thank you so much. By the way, does the a7rV improve its noise while shooting MRaw?
That I do not know. I have only captured images in uncompressed mode with the a7R V. I really ought to do more testing in other raw modes to see if I notice a difference.
Also, thanks!
Very Nice comparison: concerning the astro photographers the Sigma FP is the best concerning dynamic range / noise, it has the lowest read noise, The Nikon Z6 (1 / II) is also better for astro, low read noise. Many of the Sony's tend to have more amplification noise, I once checked the A 7 III vs de Nikon D750 and Z6, the A 7 III had quite some issues there. I can't say anything about the A 7 IV or A 7 R V
I've read a few things that have led me to believe that I need to test the Z6. Hopefully I can get my hands on one soon. Thanks for the comment!
nice comparison. Important to note that if you aren't shooting tracked shots, you aren't going to really see much of the star eater V1 or V2 issues. The raw filtering that treats stars as noise needs them to be sharp and small and that's when they start to disappear, get hollowed out, or turned green (depending on which version of the algorithm is used). Thus, having a bit of trailing significantly reduces the negative effects of the star eating algorithm. What you can also see in these shots is the built in noise reduction for all but the A7RV. The A7RV has more finer grain, but that will nicely stack out.
Thanks for this comment, it sounds like you have some valuable experience with the phenomenon I tried to describe. I've read quite a few different things about the "star eater algorithm". Some have said that that issue was resolved after recent software updates, but I don't have the experience to say one way or another. To be absolutely clear, every one of these cameras had noise reduction turned off. I do know that for video, Sony has added something extra going on in the background with the a7S III that still performs noise reduction at high ISO values, but I'm not aware of any other sneaky noise reduction. The images I've displayed are just the raw images, no tricks, no alterations unless otherwise disclosed.
interestingly enough, you picked the a7rv for comparison. In the astro community its has been proven that this was the first camera that sony finally decided to turn off their star eater algorithm off for. since then it looks like two other cameras no longer suffer from star eater, those are the new a7c cameras. We can only hope for the future cameras sony produces to carry on this trend. as for your method in turning everything off that could maybe affect star eating, you did it right, no issues there. but individual sony models still controls how the camera interprets fine points of light(stars) and at what SS(depending on the gen of the algorithm) it chooses to take action. then it uses its interpretation of those fine points and treats them as fine noise, unfortunately star eating is baked into the cameras raw filtering/processing, it doesnt matter if long exposure noise reduction is turned off. star trailing certainly helps along with the use of a less sharp lens, if the lens cant resolve the points of light then it the camera wont treat the stars as noise. Great review!
@@kururuvai That's fascinating. I really appreciate you guys for leaving these comments. Its such an esoteric element to how these cameras are engineered, and I have had almost no experience with it. As I indicated in the earlier response, I knew Sony had some background algorithms going on for some things, but I wasn't sure how far it goes or which features are affected. To me, it sounds like the main impact would be on deep sky imaging, and perhaps most landscape astrophotography wouldn't be terribly altered by these background processes. Does your experience suggest otherwise though?
@@DesmondButler Sorry, posted the first comment on the wrong account. Deep-sky actually works a little better against the star eating algorithm as the stars tend to cover more pixels. However, then you run into the baked in lens corrections creating circular patterns when you stack and stretch. The star eater is worst with wider lenses (under 200mm) tracked. I almost always shoot tracked, so it was a deal breaker for me. I've used the A7S for a lot of timelapses because it's uneffected by star eating under 30seconds. I've now started using the A7RV, however, and just sent it off for modification because it has solved all these issues and performs well enough in the noise department. You do a great job showing how the A7Siii preserves details, but stacking can solve that problem, too. Allyn Wallace had a great video on the A7Siii showing how much the star eater would remove and dim stars. The A7RV, A7Cii, and A7CR all might be the best current non-cooled astro cameras because they have fixed these issues that other manufacturers still have in some capacity. If I was buying a camera that I planned to use a lot for astro, those three would be my only choice.
Excellent video, very clear and concise analysis. You got a new subscriber right here from this one!
Thank you, good sir.
Wonderful video mate! Please make more vids in the future😊
Thanks! You can count on it 👍
I got the Sony A7R V for doing wildlife photography here in Alaska but did end up getting the Viltrox 16mm 1.8 and did some northern lights photography with it and they turned out really good for me so ended up loving this camera with this lens for night time photography
That does sound like a great night lens 👌
Greeeeeeat review! Me currently have R V and I quite satisfied but can’t wait next S or FX model..
So incredibly happy, that the 6500 gets attention
Glad to hear from my a6500 people 😄 It has been such a great little camera for me. I still prefer it for a lot of things I shoot, and I've even won some contests shooting night landscapes with it.
I have shot the night sky with an a6600 which had the same sensor as the a6600. Wow.
@@lcambilargiu why're you telling me that? One would assume, you'd make that a seperate comment, not an answer....
@@antondeputat8814 I'm happy our APSC setups get love. I've heard that the best camera (and therefore a compelling reason to check out what other people are having success with) is the camera you have. I'm pleased the a6500 got mentioned.
I’m getting the 6500 Astro fixed (as soon as they can get the filter!), so I’m glad it will work fine. I’ll still used the RV along with it, of course.
Nice detailed look with lots of pros and cons, thanks!
Pretty sure I'll go with the α6700 to start, since it'll be a huge leap from my old Sony RX100 II, and having full width 4k60 is important to me (since my astro animations are usually 60fps, to reduce streaking), then maybe one day upgrade to the A7sIV if the limitations start to be an issue.
You can still capture some pretty impressive shots with that APS-C line. I think you'll enjoy the a6700.
I started astro photography with A7iii and was really happy about it. The only issue I have with it is the non flip screen. I had problem shooting it from high and low position. Later I upgraded to Ha moded A7IV, couldn’t be happier. It’s perfect blend of resolution and noise performance.
Those seem to be the two most commonly mentioned models in astrophotography discussion. Some would say that is all due to the affordability, but I'd have to say comparisons show that its more than that. The a7R V is already better than most cameras at low light, and yet the a7 IV is shown to be significantly better. We can see that it isn't on the level of the a7S III, but when you take it without the compromises in resolution and cost, it just makes for a really smart choice.
Wonderful video! You did a great job of showcasing the cameras strengths and weaknesses. I would like to point out to potential buyers of the A7RV that you can also be on the lookout for the A7RIV because they do use the same sensor. Especially in these use cases you won't find much of an upgrade with a lot of the RV's features (minus the articulating screen)
This is all true, I've done a lot of shooting with the a7R IV as well, and it is virtually the same. The one major advantage that I mention is the 8k video. You would rarely ever need that feature, but only the a7R V has it. Thanks for the comment!
@@DesmondButler I totally glanced over the 8k part since I don't do any video work. Astro is something I always wanted to get into as a hobby, but could never justify owning a lens for it exclusively. But this video does a great job of showcasing the weaknesses of a high resolution camera when you start pushing the ISO.
Definitely deserves more views!
I'm a complete noob at these things but to me the image produced by the SIII seemed the best. The colours just seem a little more vivid. Watching this on a large tv in the video's max resolution. Sure, when zooming in I can see some of the detail is lost compared to the others but i don't notice at all when the pics are side by side.
For regular use cases, like posting to IG and stuff, I think SIII is best choice? But probably best to wait for SIV , it is about due for an upgrade, no?
Yes, this was essentially my conclusion in this video. For social media, even platforms that support 4K, the a7S III is the obvious choice. It actually is next in line for an upgrade, but there have been some signals from Sony that they may pivot to focusing on the FX line instead of releasing a fourth in the S line. Either way, we should wait and see. I do love shooting with the a7S III right now though.
Great video! Love it! I'm aiming to upgrade my camera ( a little fuji) to a Sony camera (One of the reasons is Astro photography). This video helped me a lot. Although probably I would choose between A7 CR and A7 CII
Both great choices, and should perform very similarly to their counterparts in this video. I would personally be more inclined to pick the a7C II. As we've seen, it should have noticeably better low light performance, and it is quite a bit less expensive. While it is nice to have larger megapixel images to work with sometimes, the file sizes on the R models do get very cumbersome 😅 Thanks for the comment!
Excellent Job, there is no detail left behind in relation pixel and ISO, everything was exactly the way it is, I do have the A7R V and ZV-E1 which have the same sensor of the A7S III, and I use them mostly A7 R V day time and ZV E1 at night, as someone said before those sensors are the perfect combination, Thanks Desmond for this video.
Sounds like you have a good combo. Thanks for the comment!
Thank you for nice comparison. When upgraded a7riv to a7rv last fall I noticed that a7rv no longer has that star eater long exposure (>3.2s) noise reduction. To my surprise this was not publicly discussed before. My post on dpreview (jtra username) shows it and others have confirmed it. So in this sense all other cameras in this review have spatial noise reduction (bright pixels are darkened when surrounded by dark pixels) so it is not completely fair for those longer exposures. It might be interesting to reduce 60mp to 15mp by computing minimum of the four pixels or lower quartile of them and then compare to 12mp camera. That might get rid of the bright noise in dark shadows on the land.
Thanks for sharing that information from your firsthand testing.
That's an interesting hypothesis regarding reducing the output resolution. I suspect that it won't meaningfully close the gap, given that it features significantly lower native ISO values than the a7S III, but since you've suggested it, I'll have to give it a shot the next time I have them both out on a shoot.
worth to buy in august 2024 a7rV ?
@@end_theinflu If you want 61MP and 8K video, it is a great choice. If you don't need that much resolution, the a7 IV is a much more economical choice.
@@DesmondButler i have already a7iv 😀
Noise reduction algorigthms are still present, although not as bad as they were before in older Sony mirrorless.
Now they don't completely remove stars, but they still mess up star colors, and you can see it in most astrophotos with Sony cameras where you'll find green and purple stars.
Excellent analysis/ comparison, thank you.
Thanks for watching!
this is an awesome video. thank you for your time and effort !
Thanks for checking it out
VERY VERY GOOD EXPLAINE COMPARISON PERFECT JOB
I got A7IV instead of R or S line because: 1. 12mp felt very little to me, well, even 25mp felt not enough,
2. I expect to capture images with lots of detail and highest iso makes it at least somehow sharp, despite some color loss,
3. Instead of going for best hi iso camera, I would remove IR/UV filter on sensor to more than double the light intake, or even use the brightest leans like f0.95 and capture hi res files...
A lot depends on usage, to get the maximum performance in low light S line would do the best when comparing overall colors, using the brightest iso, shooting video, basically not hi res prints.
I shoot mostly in the sun tho, so hi res is more welcome to me.
You chose a great camera, and your reasons make a lot of sense. I bet you've loved shooting with the a7 IV.
@@DesmondButler It's great camera, but the build is not up to its price for everything, I mean that LCD screen when folded out is not totally straight, it's like 3degrees or so off, which sounds a little but when shooting near the ground, it's hard to get it straight even horizontally...
I'm sure I won't ever use it's full capability, but at least there are no constraints...
Very interesting comparison. I find myself to have moved away from Sony for astro. I started with a6300 ->A7 ->A7S and then bought a USED Canon 6D....I NEVER looked back.I'm working on a video on my channel comparing Canon EOS R, 6D, 7R II, 7S, 6300, Nikon Z6 all in a bortle 2 sky as apples to apples as I could get. BUT I didn't have my A7 IV when i went out in the field to compare them so I may go back and try to get some shots with it to be true to Sony's CURRENT offerings. I think it will add a lot to this type of discussion.
I just prefer how Canon renders milky way images. I have a A7 IV now, and from my limited testing with it am just unimpressed with it for astrophotography. There's way less color and natural look to the shots than my 6D. I DO use a star tracker, because then you are getting your signal above the noise floor, and the 'low light performance' no longer matters as much as the way the images look.
The 'budget' option for people really should be the canon 6D (not Mark II that's worse) IF they are wanting a dedicated astro body. if you want the camera for other things, as most do, then I would buy the A6500 as the budget option or a Canon EOS R
The exception here, is that I still use my original A7S for TIMELAPSE of the milky way, as the signal to noise ratio is just so good, you can get great timelapses with short exposure frames. I actually sent it to be full spectrum modified because it is SO GOOD for filming milkyway travels at night.
It sounds like you and I have come to a lot of the same conclusions. I hear you on color science, people do have legitimate reason to prefer Canon, but I would still call this a personal preference rather than an objective standard, and I imagine you'd agree with that.
With only one exception, the comparison videos I've done are all for untracked, uncomposited, authentic single exposure Milky Way images, and for that reason my videos have primarily focused on noise. Perhaps I should do a test using a tripod tracker with the main cameras I've featured. At that point, we would be comparing other aspects than noise, as you rightly pointed out.
My main comparison video from last summer featured the a7R V and the EOS 6D, and I have to tell you that while the 6D is really good, the Sony appeared to produce far less noise. Check it out sometime if you're at all curious:
ruclips.net/video/4OvRnfRykwI/видео.html
Thanks for the comment! It's always cool to hear experience from photographers who are trying similar things to what I do here.
Fantastic video! I love my A7RV!
It is such a great camera for professional photography.
Thanks for making this great video!
Thanks for watching!
Thank you for the great test, I didn't expect apcs camera can do this well, would you like to do a comparison between a6500 and a6700 which has a new sensor and similar than Fuji's
That would be a really good idea. I'm going to try to make that test happen.
Very nice video. Thanks for making such a nice and in-detail comparison! It's actually pretty impressive how good the results are when using them at ISO 3200. I personally think they all have extremely and nicely useful images. Even by using a faster lens, the noise would be less pronounce. The a7 IV really stand out as great value comparing megapixels and noise.
I totally agree, I would be comfortable using any of these to create a print or social media post. They are all within the threshold that good editing could turn into a presentable finished product. And you're right about the a7 IV, a great middle of the road option with strong noise performance and a reasonable price point. Thanks for watching!
Great 👍 job. Thank you for sharing and putting this video together. It helps a lot. Can you do a video on the best light pollution filters and solar filters with these cameras
Thank you! Glad to hear that! A test with filters is not something I have ever tried before, but that could be very interesting. Thanks for the suggestion!
hello desmond... Im just got the A7IV but I had an option to get an A7RIV too... all the comparatives are I saw are not talking about the IV vs the RIV and they copare the IV with the RV... is the RIV a better option? I usualy take my photos with star trakking with a 24mm f2 or with the camara attached to a 9.25' telescope... thanks!
Great questions. So the a7R IV is actually a lot like the a7R V. For nebula photography, they would have almost no noticeable difference since they are both a 61MP sensor. I have attached the a7R IV to my 8 inch SCT to shoot a few different deep sky objects, and it was fantastic. The a7 IV would also be really good, but I do have to say that the R models do give you more deep details, and that makes a huge difference for deep sky objects and stacking.
Great tests, though I'm curious to see one more test. The A7RV has a feature to take small, medium or large sized images without cropping. 16MP, 26MP and 61MP. Would be nice to see how the images hold up against the others if you lower the resolution in-camera. I expect the images to be cleaner, but the A7SIII would probably still beat it regarding noise.
Another viewer suggested trying this. I agree with you that the a7S III would likely still outperform, but I'm curious enough that I might try it if I get the chance.
Me too. Noise is mainly dictated by pixel area and date of the sensor.
great work done with is video mate. I use a7IV and for the price it's truly wonderful in both images and video.
It's such a good hybrid shooter that I find myself frequently recommending it to photographers looking to upgrade.
Concur.
Very good comparison. I would like just to comment that newest models, A7RV, A7RC, A7CII have not longer the star eater issue according to reports in cloudynights. The A7CII has the same sensor as the A7IV but they have managed to solve the star eater problem. Personally, I'm considering an A7CII or Canon R6II, the A7RV looks fantastic but expensive.
Thanks for sharing that info! I've been told that the Canon R6 Mark II has low noise, but I've seen charts that say that the Mark I has lower noise than the Sony a7R V, and that is verifiably false from some of my other comparison videos. I need to test the Mark II though. It seems safe to assume that the a7C II would be a great choice, both economically and for noise.
I own a7s2 and was looking at a74 for all around hybrid.
Now I’ve waiting long enough that I’ll get the a7 mark 5 when it drops.
W it’ll be the a7s4 or the a7 mk5 that comes out in the next 2 months , it’ll be worth it!
I'll be excited to see what we end up getting!
IMO its not what comes out of the camera but the ability to make it look good after post processing. I have seen a robin singing inside a dark bush and had to use 10K iso, the picture was out of focus and -2ev of exposure and yet it was cleaner than my a77ii's 1000iso which is insayn.
Edit: 0:30 subbed.
Haha, thanks for the sub!
I really do hear you though. Some of my favorite Milky Way shots are my earliest. But in the age of AI, there is the temptation to revisit those edits. I now routinely use Adobe's raw denoiser, but I've also used Topaz a little bit. Now we also have generative fill and some other tricks. So my question to you, and maybe anyone else who might be interested in the discussion, is when does an enhanced image stop being the image we captured and just something a computer created? I'm not saying that's what you did with the robin, and maybe what I'm asking becomes totally separate from that, but I guess the contrast we face ourselves with is how things used to be when it was just you, your understanding of photo science, and a canister of film. In this modern era, how do we maintain a threshold for what can genuinely be considered a photo that was actually captured? Where is the line? My whole career is editing, but when does that go too far? I'd love to hear your thoughts.
@@DesmondButler Gah dayng i wasn't expecing any sort of interaction! But yes you make a VERY good question. When I started I used to hate post processing with a passion, because the first exposures I had to "edited" photos were on plane spotting groups where spoilt brats would add fake panning blur effects to their photos taken with €5000 gear back then in 2014 when I started with DSLR-A200 and taking genuine panning shots. But then i realized that wasn't post processing the way one actually post processes; removing noise, enhancing colors and balancing lighting is for me the core of post processing. When you _change_ something you already crossed the limit (but this is FOR ME), say I didn't change the colors of the robin at all, but i did change the colors on the lighting of a chiffchaff twisting it's neck upwards to peck a leaf. I changed the colors to make a halo'ed sunset with an incoming right side sun glare where there was just a slightly orange tint because it was already sunset.
Still, the switch to CMOS sensors pushed people to edit/postprocess/change photos much more than before because CMOS sensors are still unable to deliver the fidelity of the CCD sensor. The world of digital imagery is changing. We firstly post processed to make pictures match what our eyes see; our high contrast AND dynamic range combination, the beautiful glares and our brain's trickery to make faces more beautiful than they actually are. When we love someone's face who has a sharp jawline all covered with acne, the facial features that stand out make our brains magically ignore acne or make it subtle. But if you take a picture with a camera, the acne is as visible as the beautiful facial features, so you either get out the pimples or to a lesser degree, make them less noticeable. But now we edit photos to make everything look like something that is not. For example, the first case I pointed out of the faked panning blur, or now the crazy filtering on faces, for instagram accounts of random people acting like bots as well as for something as popular as Cristiano Ronaldo. Everywhere he appears printed or framed in a still or in an advert, he has a strong jawline and small ears, while on live video his face is completely round and has no jawline corners, heck his face is EVEN shorter from hairline to chin than in photos. Even his wax museum statue has the chin and jawline of the media files. Same as Elon Musk making himself thinner and have a good jawline when he has sadly become a blob that looks like a character alien lifeform from star wars.
About CCD vs CMOS, CCD in my opinion, is something we should go back to. If camera companies are eager to price their cameras way above their real value nowadays, then they can invest on making the barely costlier to produce CCD. Plus, it has global e shutter by default. But they do not because of pure marketing strategy. Why give CCD sensor cameras for €1400 when you can make global shutter exclusive for the higher end professionals? People genuinely think that A9iii is "global shutter for everyone", despite the fact you can only use global shutter and 120fps if you couple a G Master lens and, since a9iii is focused on wildlife and action, you ain't going to put a 85mm 1.4GM as the longest telephoto, you will get the 100-400GM instead, which is roughly 3000 bucks. All in all you will pay 10.000 minimum for global shutter.
Thank you for initiating a very interesting conversation, and thanks in advance. If you reached this very line after reading everything, thanks again!!
@@kingghidorah8106 I like the way you described how we see a face. That is very true, I always feel compelled to remove blemishes I never noticed for exactly the reason you explained. That, and many other facets, really does complicate the question. Haha, thank you for a thoughtful response!
Interesting comparison, thank you! I'd be curious to see how the A6600 or A6700 would perform in this test with a 16mm-ish lens @ f/1.8 (same ISO, same exposure)..
I've never owned a wide angle lens with an aperture under f2.0, but it's on my wish list. I am currently working on getting my hands on the a6700 to do some comparisons. Thanks for the suggestions!
i hope sony drops the price on the A7R3a for Fullframe i want 42mp,or more because the pixel size
Wonder where the A1 stacks up. With dual sensor.
It boasts some pretty impressive stats. Looking forward to testing one out someday.
ive owned the A6700 since launch.. you NEED to compare it it blew me away, I upgraded from the OG A6000 from 2014 haha
I actually did recently get my hands on the a6700. Very fun camera. Full comparison to the a6500 coming soon!
@@DesmondButler oo hell yeah
I like the a7sIII sky video! I wonder if there is a way to take a few seconds of that video and stack the twinkling stars into a frame. Would such a strategy reduce noise compared to a single exposure?
Photo stacking with timelapses would be tricky, since the primary intent is to show changes with the atmosphere and foreground, details that are smeared or omitted by the stacking process. I know that some photographers do create one stacked image and then just comp it into the back of a masked out foreground, but I personally find this to be pretty dishonest. One effective way to maintain star brightness is to get out into the deep desert on a clear night. I've had decent success with that, but I also don't mind a little twinkling.
@@DesmondButler thanks for the thoughtful reply and I suppose you have a point. I found with my setup I can only take 7 second exposures before stars start streaking. I wanted to be taking longer exposures and so...
Also i found that faint stars often look like noisy pixels, to complicate the stacking process and also the de noise you would have to ignore pixels that only appear in a single frame....
I suppose the foreground would be from the base image, or the last image depending, and I don't want clouds... I guess I need to think about what I'm trying to do, another astro photographer was saying that he removes some stars which seemed odd to my thought of trying to include more.
@@lcambilargiu I agree with you, selecting stars for exclusion seems like it would make stacking more difficult. But then again, stacking is a strange and complex process, so maybe he is on to something. I guess if it actually did work, more images fitting inside your stack would be worth losing a couple stars. Very interesting.
@@DesmondButler I am thinking that stacking is more about enhancing the information of the milky part of the image and less about capturing more stars. That seemed funny to me at first.
Holy sh*t! your timelapse at the end of the video looks phenomenal, do you have a tutorial ?
Glad you asked. Here you go:
ruclips.net/video/655z9GGS4yI/видео.htmlsi=UckU_jDQ4ZfK6ELr
Awesome comparison! 👏 A Tutorial about best Timelapse with an A7SIII would be nice 🤝
Here is a tutorial for how I create timelapses:
ruclips.net/video/655z9GGS4yI/видео.html
I recorded this video last year before I had the a7S III, but the process is almost exactly the same. Hope it helps!
@@DesmondButler awesome thanks!
Thanks for sharing. It would have been nice also to have Sony A1 and A6700 in the comparison.
I do need to get my hands on the A1. New content with the a6700 will be coming soon though, so stay tuned!
Full Frame lenses don't really cost more than APS-C because of the awesome third party options available at every focal length. For example, the full frame Viltrox AF 16mm f/1.8 FE is one of the best astro lenses and it costs slightly less than the APS-C Sony E 11mm f/1.8, which is not even equivalent because you'd need an 11mm f/1.2 to match the full frame. Though the Sony is a very good lens and weighs only 1/3rd of the weight.
wow best comparison ever in seen...
Thanks!
Would be interesting to see the old A7III compared with others, since it has lower megapixel count than A7IV and according to DxOmark it performs better
This is a comparison a lot of viewers seem interested in. Perhaps a full head to head between the two models would be in order if I ever get my hands on the a7 III. Thanks for your input.
Interesting video, thanks. One thing to mention, maybe you should test M3 instead of M4 since the last one's SNR isn't the best. The more packed megapixels resulted in about 1 stop loss in noise (A7 III at ISO25600 looks the same as A7 IV at ISO12800), that made M4 a bit controversial for such a purpose.
I've heard this about the a7 III. I would at the very least be interested in testing the Mark III against the Mark IV to see how much difference there is. Either way, you're right that I do need to test the Mark III.
Yeah, I was surprized to see A7 III produces more than a stop less noise than A7R M1 and having noise level very close to A7S despite twice megapixel count. In terms of noise level it's a very capable camera. There may or may be not some nuances in astrophotography in comparison to typical use, but I feel it might be one of the best suited camera for that purpose.
This is why I continue to shoot Astro with my A7lll. Plus, I don’t care for the A7lV flippy screen in landscape orientation.
If you’re not a professional, A6500 is the winner. Great low light performance, just enough to post in instagram or for a wallpaper on your laptop. If I’d seen your video 2 years ago I wouldn’t had bought A7 iii 😅😅Thanks for really good review 👍👍
Thanks for saying that. That's really what I hoped this video would do for potential buyers. Wish I could have warned you earlier 😅 I think I agree with how you described the a6500. That being said, I still love mine. Its still the only camera I take on vacation 😅
Finally found this channel
And the winner is - A7rIII :D those newer sensors are much worse for astro. They have much more noise than the older A7III and A7rIII.
Great work on the video... It's nice to see that Sony APS-C cameras can still hold their own when it comes to astrophotography. I have had the a6000, a6400 and now the a6700. I have enjoyed taking pictures with the camera, with each offering better quality than the other. I kind of get the feeling that the a6400 does have an edge over the a6500 in terms of quality; but I may be wrong. But for me the a6700 really been good especially with the BSI sensor. The downside at the moment is trying to shoot any Milkyway in the UK is nigh on impossible with the horrible weather. However I still have the a6000 and a6400 but deep sky stuff, especially as I have had them astro modified...
Great video again...
Like many others, I always say shoot with what you have. There are still good reasons to own an APS-C, and I look forward to testing out the BSI sensor on the a6700 one day. The sensor on the a6400 probably does have some advantages over the a6500, but for what I do, IBIS is a must. Hope you get some cloudless nights for shooting this summer.
It will be interesting to see what Sony brings later this year as it's expected to have the A7Siv (rumored 24mp) & A7V (prob partial stacked sensor like Z6iii).
I've seen speculation that Sony will be shifting focus over to the FX line and release a successor there while ending the S line. I kind of hope that's not the case, but I guess I'd understand it if they did. Either way, I'll still probably make my studio get the new one 😄 It would be exciting to see a re-engineered a7 this year as you've described. Guess we'll soon see.
Love the video
Why no A1 ?
Why no DXO (or similar/IA noise-canceling ? options?
I'd love to test the a1 and a9, but I've never even met anyone who owns one 😅Hoping to change that in the future.
In-body noise reduction is frowned upon in astrophotography. Many assert that it erases key details like fine stars. I still use it from time to time, but using it in a comparison would be an extra step in an already time-consuming testing process, and it would essentially mask the real comparison that we are going for which is raw sensor noise production. But maybe I'll try adding it to a future comparison between just two cameras. Thanks for the comment.
One thing not stated is shutter speed is increased the higher the pixel count and the size of lens f/# and mm. A faster SS gives way to faster panoramas. Also was camera NR turned on, if not shame shame, for years everyone was saying do not use NR just take multiple shots and do denoise in post but ask yourself what is a extra 10s or even 15s when compared to a full minute doing more images!!! Look just use PhotoPills spot stars to select camera, mm, and f/# to be used. I have all S models as well as the RV and R2 and using the settings and AWB and no filters the S3 and RV are about equal in detail. The S/S2 models have one up on all and that is on camera apps one is "Digital Filter" where you can take two images sky and foreground and different camera setting and get processed in camera jpeg and/or RAW as output and WB selection for sky can be selected vs ground. Lastly today SW will let you upsize but even the A7s's 12MP will print larger than poster size how often will you do that and print companies to upsizing anyway!!!
In-body long-exposure noise reduction can be very impressive, and is definitely worth a try. But there are two major reasons why some photographers may not want to use it for astrophotography. Capturing a timelapse with Long Exposure NR enabled will literally double the time spent on location, and half of that is lost light capture. When you're already spending a couple hours for just a few seconds of video, it is better to find other ways to mitigate noise and leave it disabled. The second reason is stacking. Cameras may be getting better at this, but from my first hand experience, noise reduced frames will often fail to stack in software stacking applications.
As for 12MP prints, its true that those images equate to 14in x 9in (35cm x 23cm) at 300 DPI, but I personally have found that 600 DPI is much better for night shots. More megapixels does make for a better mural, but you're right, it's not absolutely necessary. I've shot images for commercial banners, but most people won't need that kind of detail. It's just good to keep in mind.
I would definitely advise against upscaling night shots. I work with these machine learning models every single day, and the technology just isn't there yet.
Thanks for watching the video!
Thank you 👋🏻🥳
Good morning and great video. Could I compare the a6500 (which I had with great satisfaction) to the new a6700?
This is an important question. I'm not sure how much better the a6700 is when compared to the older a6500. Sony introduced a backside illuminated sensor for the a6700 which is supposed to give it noticeably better low light performance. I haven't been able to test this myself, but it is very high on my to-do list.
@@DesmondButler Very kind in answering me, if I can I will try to take some shots with A7r5 and a6700 and see what comes out at night!
Can you shoot live Milkyway video with A74 ?
It would be possible to capture some stars, but it would be way too dark and way too noisy to meaningfully make out the details of the dust clouds and nebulae. In that respect, the a7S really does stand alone.
THANK SOIL & SCIENCE FOR YOU!
I'm not regretting my A6400 yet. But wow that ISO noise compared to the A7 IV is really making me doubt my decision. I dont want to make you do something, but it'd be nice if you could compare APS-C lenses on full frame cameras compared to APS-C cameras. That might ease my anxiety when looking at the cost of upgrading.
I have absolutely loved my APS-C a6500 for travel photography. The lenses are inexpensive and a lot smaller to pack around. If you do any kind of on the go shooting, especially handheld, there are major advantages to the APS-C line of cameras, especially when you look at how much cheaper and available the OSS (optical Steady-Shot) lenses are in the smaller form factor. For normal daylight shooting, your camera is still a really great choice, and even for night shots you can still get really awesome results. Most of my IG posts were taken with the a6500. Here's one of my favorites: instagram.com/p/CuvpzsPOOzT/
good work!
BUT a7/3 is better by ISO than a7/4, how can 74 can be 2nd for you? or i understand that wrong, it is for this raw?
It would be the second of the top of the line models. I have heard a lot of Sony users say that the a7 III is better than the a7 IV, but in this video we were only testing the newest models from each product line. Had I done this same video a few years ago, I'd have probably said the a7S II is first and the a7 III was second. I've personally never tested the a7 III, but it sure seems like a lot of people prefer it over the newest model in that line.
@@DesmondButler if we speack about S, - 1st is better than s2 and s3 by iso)
but i understud.
A comparison with the nikon Z range would be highly revealing. Their S lenses are good enough.
Thanks for the suggestion. Nikon has been on the to-do list for too long.
I've been using a6500 for a long time, and am thinking about getting an a7rv or a7iv
My problem is that I can't seem to get the right balance between noice reduction and sharpening, do you have any guides or recommendations?
I personally haven't experimented with altering the camera's sharpness settings. The built in long exposure noise reduction is pretty good, but in recent years I find myself using the denoise process in Adobe Camera Raw more often. The next video I'll be putting out this summer will go over the process, but it's pretty straight forward, just two clicks. For me, the balance with sharpening and noise reduction is easier to find in post with tools from Adobe.
Awesome video
I been thinking of getting the Sony A7 IV but many have said about the stars having a tinge of green in them, myself at the moment is using the old canon 6d which is great for astro but getting a bit heavy for my these days as its built like a tank but I have taken many pics from birds in flight to star trails using bulb mode it's been great. But as many have mentioned about the colour of the stars with the A7 IV i'm unsure about it and have anyone had any green colour issues with it?
I can't say I've noticed that, but I would say that canon does seem to have a slightly different color science, and some do prefer what that produces. For me, it depends on the scene. I actually really like Sony color for night shots. As far as the stars looking green, maybe someone else here knows.
@@DesmondButler thanks for getting back to me, I have been looking at the A7 IV as Alyn Wallace used this model as he did Astrophotography but sadly passed away not to long back also he lived here in Wales a few miles from me, you might have seen him on RUclips... Have you tried the Canon R6ii for astro? as I was also looking at this one.
@@darkshaman7087 I have heard important upgrades were brought to the R6 Mark II, but so far I've only gotten my hands on the Mark I. I will definitely have to test it out in the future.
I had not heard about Alyn. That is terrible news. I'm just now reading the articles about his passing. He will certainly be missed here. What an absolute tragedy.
@@DesmondButler the r6ii seems a good camera also I have heard the mk 3 is coming out soon so the price might drop on the mk2, but it's a hard choice between the Sony and the Canon I will have to do some more research into them... I found out Alyn was suffering from an underlying condition also in some of his videos he seems weak, it's a pity as he was so young and such a big loss, he moved from here in Wales and lived in Turkey and that is sadly passed away... If you type in on google about Alyn it will mention about his passing.
I am a new sub I just purchased sony a7rv do you think it's an ok shooter?I shoot Animals soccer ⚽️ swimming 🏊♀️ and the stars.
Its not just okay, its a really great camera. It is super fast, and has a fantastic auto-focus in normal lighting. In low light, its still better than most cameras I've tested. Really the only major drawback is file management. The 61MP images do fill up your hard drive quickly 😅
A7RV 🎉
On my A7RV I have been getting extremely noisy images at 20”, f2.8, ISO 3200 when set to medium RAW. Almost unusable. Large RAW is better but still a lot of blue pixels. Is this normal? Never had this in my a7iv
The a7 IV will definitely produce noticeably less noise on low light high ISO exposures than the a7R V, but the blue pixels does sound odd. I've had that camera produce some magenta vignetting when the scene is extremely dark, but that's true of most cameras. You might want to reach out to other Sony shooters to see if anyone else has had the issue.
a7siii has he dual iso of 100 and 1600; no pint shooting at 12800, u can just brighten up the image in post
I believe you are referring to ISO invariance. It's a theory that is not without controversy, even among the Sony reps I've worked with directly. It is something I would like to test out more thoroughly though.
sony zv-e10
Trailed stars aren't good for showing noise reduction algorithms, since they tend to impact more smaller details, so the issues will be more evident with smaller trails or even worse if you're using a tracker that gives you pinpoint stars.
If one really wants a camera for astro unfortunately (I say unfortunately because of the prices of lenses and awful 3rd party support) Canon is still the best choice because it's the only one that doesn't ruin the color of the stars.
I've never seen a comparison that demonstrates what you're saying about star color, but I'm willing to believe you given what I have seen with Canon color science in my other tests. But I think your conclusion lacks nuance. I've used the new mirrorless Canon cameras on this channel as well as the EOS 6D that so many rave about, and there is absolutely no way I'm going to prefer one of those over the a7S III for shooting a Milky Way timelapse. For whatever pinpoint stars it may flicker in and out of existence, it more than makes up for in foreground dynamic range and fidelity. Nothing comes close. So it really just depends on what we're talking about. It may very well be the case that if we're not shooting night landscapes but instead anything connected to a telescope lens, some Canon models may have an advantage. In my eagle nebula test shoot video from last year, you can see for yourself that the Canon EOS R6 is clearly outperformed by the Sony a7R V. Which Canon model do you recommend for that type of comparison? If you let me know, I will make it a focus to try to obtain one and test it.
@@DesmondButler I've seen many astrophotographers started using the R after switching from the 6D, however the R6 should also be pretty good.
In that comparison the A7rV wins in detail because of the 60mpx but I really don't see much difference in SNR between the two.
@@v0ldy54 It's not just the detail that photographers would be looking for, but also the light capture. It's a little harder to decipher in that nebula comparison I did, but in the Milky Way shootout I did that same summer, you can see that the Sony a7R V reproduces way more light in the exact same situations than the Canon R6. To be getting more detail AND more light when its already split between a lot more pixels is pretty crazy. I've heard that the R6 Mark II is quite a step up from the Mark I in terms of low light performance, so maybe I need to hunt one down for testing.
For that purpose you could easily replace a7RV with a7RIV for less money and get similar results.
For Milky Way photography, you're absolutely right. The major difference is the 8k video, which is far superior to 4k for planetary imaging using the "lucky imaging" technique. If you don't care about capturing planets, then the a7R IV is essentially the same product but less expensive. One additional caveat might be high speed wildlife photography, where the AI model on the a7R V is said to be better, but I'd venture to guess its marginal in practice.
Ultimate Sony Milkyway Shootout! ha ha ha 😄😄
Gotta work hard for those clicks 😄 Thanks for watching!
*laughs in a7RII that hasn’t seen the night sky because it only rains at night, apparently, in central FL*
I hear the same is true for our friends in the UK. Hang in there, my friend. The clear nights have to show up eventually 🤞
St George :)
Good eye
A73 is better than most for this stuff... The low light quality is almost on par with A7s3.. and much much better than everything else you have here.
I have heard this a few times about the Mark III. I would definitely have to put the two models head to head if I ever got the chance and see how big the gap is.
@@DesmondButler I've went from A73 to A1 and I am crying when it comes to DR.
Aperture is the diameter of the lens. Focal length is the distance from the sensor to the objective lens. Focal ratio is focal length / aperture, and this tells you the speed at which the sensor will gather enough light for a quality image. The number you listed as aperture is actually the focal ratio, so you should base your exposure times off the focal ratio, not the focal length. It is important to distinguish this, as it’s much more important to understand the physics when working with objects that are extremely far away like deep space objects. A larger aperture lens can make up for a longer focal length, so you should not be basing this off the focal length alone. It is important to understand the terminology because it really does matter. The aperture of that lens is 8.571mm. I found that by using focal length / focal ratio, or 24mm/2.8=8.571mm. This really affects what you can and cant photograph. You can think of it like this: the bigger the lens the more light you can gather at once, the shorter the focal length, the faster it gets to the sensor, and vice versa. They both increase the speed, but in different ways. They also have other features that are affected. A bigger lens that gathers more light will have a higher resolution, and a longer focal length increases zoom, while decreasing the field of view, and vice versa.
I am only interested in using these words in terms of how people buy lenses. Every online photography retailer uses aperture in exactly the way that I have used it in this video. You may have your reasons for using it differently, but it is irrelevant to the conversation of how regular consumers can find and use the right gear.
@@DesmondButler It’s pretty important to know that f-stop is not the same as aperture when doing astrophotography.
@@christiandwindt Again, we're not talking about telescopes. The images shown were shot on consumer wide angle lenses. If you're still upset about the nomenclature, perhaps you can take your concerns to the comments sections of the lens manufacturers, because I certainly didn't set these standards.
@@DesmondButler 🤦♂️
@@christiandwindt Haha, I don't know what to tell you, my friend. I'm here to help people make purchasing decisions, not teach the science of astrophotography (there are plenty of channels that do). Both the lens manufacturers and the camera manufacturers use the word aperture in a way that you don't seem to agree with, but it has nothing to do with me. I use the words and numbers that the vast majority of consumers will freely recognize.
That's... Not what star eater is. Star eater only kicks in if you have pinpoint stars. The only camera here that doesn't have star eater anymore is the a7rV, and that's due to its newer firmware. The same can be observed in any camera released after it.
Read the provided definition on screen
Who gona shoot milkyway photos iso 25000, what is the point? 😅 ISO is always opposite factor of dynamic range in astrophotography. Keep it mind. ;)
Those who listened to the video heard it clearly stated that that ISO value would be ridiculous to use and that those test images are strictly for demonstrating the differences between sensors. The point is to prove beyond any argument which cameras perform best against low light noise. This was already accomplished at the lower ISO value, but some viewers are difficult to persuade.
Or you could buy a star tracker for 300 dollars and place the camera on long exposure noise reduction
Some really like their star trackers, and some prefer to capture natural timelapses instead. In both cases, a better camera sensor gets you better results.
Major problem and flaw with this video. It's not using native ISOs to compare performance, this kinda of voids all comparisons in a sense. Each came will preform differently and different ISOs. Some will preform better at 3200iso while another camera might beat it at say 6000ISO. It's been long known that each model of camera has their best rated ISO and it's different than other models. A lot of the cameras now have 2 high preforming ISOs sometimes referred to as BASE ISOs. Also the base ISOs are also in relation to picture profiles and the ISOs are different in Video vs Photo even in the same cameras. To do a realistic comparisons you have to look up all the high preforming ISOs for each model of camera and compare them based on that. Otherwise it's best to take what this video shows are a very small grain of salt.
You have just made perfectly clear to every other viewer that you did not watch the video, nor do you seem to comprehend the specific use case here. "Base" ISO, more ubiquitously referred to as native ISO, is a concept explained in depth in this video (something you would know had you actually watched the video). Furthermore, to have set each individual camera to their respective second native ISO values, which I specifically outlined, would in no way assist potential buyers. Conversely, by showing the performance of these cameras at multiple ISO values well above those native levels, a photographer interested in low light landscape image capture will come to understand the differences between these sensors, helping them to choose the right camera for their purposes. Astrophotographers understand this intrinsically.
Those interested in a comparison of low light video capture between these models can watch my previous video, which demonstrates the advantage of the second native ISO for dealing with low light video noise: ruclips.net/video/HdPAfAMPnls/видео.htmlsi=jishhtEdOKQTkaPO
Noise on the FF models shouldn't matter. There's no difference between 12mp and 60mp noise when both are viewed at the same size/distance whether on screen or print. DPReview has already debunked this myth. Low mp cameras aren't "better" in low light.
I never once suggested that was a general rule. In this video, I clearly stated that the 61 megapixel R model was the winner in some of my other shootouts. Second native ISO is definitely a significant factor, but even that doesn't tell the whole story. The results here are what they are. You can argue with that all you want; it doesn't change what is clearly observed from the testing. The S model is far superior to the R model at low light landscapes. Pixel count is a factor, but certainly not the single most important factor.
For sharper stars, start with the NPF Rule.
I assume most people watching this video will already understand exposure length equations. These comparison videos aren't tutorials. They're intended to inform potential consumers on the capabilities of different brands and models.
Just use photo pills, you can plug in your exact camera and it will provide the exact seconds
Another helpful comment from the "This channel doesn't have any content" crew.