I feel like one of the bigger reasons why people complain about high megapixel noise is on high MP sensors people feel very inclined to crop into images when they normally would not, which magnifies a lot of noise.
This is accurate at least for me. I got an A7Rii for the low light performance and learned this lesson the hard way. You can crop in for days but you lose low light performance.
There is ONE exception to this. The only reason why Sony can put the second "high" 0db preamp at 12,800 ISO on the S-III is because those photosites are a very large 8+ microns in size. You wont ever see secondary preamps programed THAT high on photosites that are 4, 3 or 2 microns. You will see dual native ISO preamps on those smaller photosites...but they will be set MUCH closer together. (Like 800 and 2500 ISO or even closer than that) This is the main ability of that S-III sensor with giant photosites.
That’s not the entire story. ISO12,800 on my FX3 is clean, but must be overexposed 1 to 2 stops, meaning it’s an equivalent ISO3200 from a different camera. ISO 25,600 is clean, as is ISO 51,200 - this is where the true strength of the dual stage of the Sony “S” cameras and (SLOG3). My A7R5 and the A7IV takes better sharper/more detailed video in the day time (And for the A7IV, basically it’s equally strong at night, while my A7R5 only performs as well in 4K30 APS-C Oversampled) than my FX3, especially if I shot in SLOG3 at the equivalent ISOs (Native 2500/800 in my A7R5). When I’m going out in very low conditions like a night market, concert etc where I would want ISO12,800 to ISO51,200, then that’s where I will definitely be taking my FX3 along.
The A7S III uses a nominal 48MP sensor binned down to 12MP, which unfortunately breaks your explanation. It is speculated that the A7S III is set up like this because each sub unit in the 4x4 "pixel" is tuned to a different sensitivity which, with some extra mojo, allows them to produce more dynamic range at the cost of some noise. The A7S II does use large pixels however. You can find this information online, the sensor was x-rayed (which is how this quirk was discovered) and it made the rounds a little while back.
@@perilthecat It's more complex than that. If it's actually 48MP, then how is the A7S III readout speed so much faster than any comparable 48MP camera? This is evidenced by the A7S IIIs excellent rolling shutter. Pixel binning could allow it, but then the noise performance would be terrible. Yet the noise on it, and the FX6 that shares the same sensor is extremely good. Agree that Sony is using a novel technology, but the quantifiable evidence of the camera's output disproves the theory that it's binning, or has a traditional 48MP sensor. Perhaps a fast, on-sensor subsample? Rapidly reading every pixel, discarding no light, and providing a lower resolution sample to the imaging pipeline? Whatever the answer, it's not a simple one.
Camera manufactures often don't disclose if the camera is line skipping. Or they line skip in higher demand shooting modes like 4k 60. In addition cameras also have dual gain and perform differently if you're filming at the native iso.
Tweener ISO's are just a push or pull from a native ISO, this applies to stills or vids. But the difference is slight. Bodies like the R5 don't skip lines at full 8K and can shoot RAW. So you get the same quality as in stills mode in vids.
Hey Tony, thanks for the content. It gets us thinking and reconsidering which is good. I do disagree though. Completely actually. To put it simply, there is a reason you use the A7Siii to film your videos. You did brush it off like it wasn't that big of a deal but let's think about it for a second. 1. A7Siii runs cooler while having a faster sensor readout providing far less rolling shutter as well as longer battery life all while giving a superior image in terms of color reproduction and micro contrast. 2. You can't zoom the grain on the 12MP and compare to a 60MP 1:1 and say the 12MP looks worse. You simply enlarged the grain of the 12MP, why? When viewed as a whole image side by side you can very clearly see the A7Siii has a much better image. 3. This same result can be seen with the Canon and Fuji samples as well. Better color and contrast with lower MP. 4. The A1 example was again, showing an 8k image vs 4k. The 8k will have more detail of course, but when viewing the images as a whole the A7Siii looks just as good or better and costs $3000 less and has all the advantages mentioned in #1 above. Also, the lower MP cameras use less storage and processing power and therefore require much less computer to process. All around a better experience. The 'trap' is more MP. 🤙
The other thing to consider is that with some of the new and amazing noise reduction software we no longer need to make such a trade off of removing noise and losing detail. I would much rather have the raw image with more detail and more noise to start my workflow.
@Phillip Banes That's not true. Due to the nature of Bayer Pattern you lose a lot of potential when reducing the size early stages. Raw denoiser is always gonna be the best denoiser
@Phillip Banes no. You gotta try dxo raw denoiser. It’s free right now for 31 days, no watermarks.. It’s nothing like what we’re used to with denoise sliders in Lr/Ps/etc. Seriously game changing. I no longer feel the need to upgrade my camera body because of noise.
Yep it’s always been the case and that’s why DXO low light (sports) score for high megapixels cameras is pretty much the same as the score for lower megapixel cameras, as DXO cleverly from day 1 id measuring normalized all sensors to 8MP. So 12mp sensor and 45mp sensor gets downscaled to same common number then measured.
Which is accurate for one type of delivery but not all use cases for cameras. Not everyone just shoots to delver 8MP printed photos. One of the main reasons why people use a higher resolution sensor is to crop so they don't need a APSC body or an optical extender which darkens the image by a stop. They like the flexibility to just shoot a photo and crop it as much as they want.
@@digitaldevigner4080 If you're "cropping as much as you want", and you're taking 24mp of the image, then the noise and light performance is the same as a crop sensor or a full frame with a teleconverter. TCs and crop sensor bodies still seem to me to be the much cheaper option given that just 12MP makes for a very high quality image of a normal size, and that's about my only real gripe with the exorbitant price of high MP bodies. There are much cheaper ways to get the same result.
Some high res cams like a7riii, iv and v have better dxo sports rating than some 24mp models. Resolution alone might not account for noise by common sense.
I’m sorry Tony. The Sony A7S series has no equal for dim, exclusively naturally lit, and exclusively hand-held street photography. Just compare the published native ISOs of the various higher MP cameras to the A7 in the comparison. The A7S SEES IN THE DARK… resolving detail not visible to the unaided human eye. I was blown away by my first A7S as it demonstrated better night vision than a Litton image intensifier night scope. If you have any interest in night, hand-held street photography, rent any A7S for yourself and SEE (no pun intended). My Z9 rests comfortably at home when I go night hunting. There is no contest. A7S paired with a superfast wide angle prime (Sigma 20mm f1.4 Art), smiles all night…
I watched your old video on the same topic and this for a number of times... Couldn't understandbit until I understood your section on read speed and binning. Thanks Tony.
As an old school photographer, remember Kodachrome 25 😂😂, and broadcast engineer, I’ve learned a lot from your videos. You nailed it on HD recording sensor challenges. Keep up the good work and get more “toys”.
In the mid 70s I worked in the National Geographic photo labs. Kodak would sent samples of each Kodachrome run for testing and NGS would then buy the entire run and store it in freezers. It was the norm for the photographers to sometimes shoot several rolls just for one shot. Kodak created a second Kodachrome processing lab in Gaitherburg, MD so NGS could split all the incoming film into two batches, one sent there and the other to Rochester so in the event of a processing mishap there would be a back-up. The first step for magazine production was to make 35mm Ektachome duplicates as working copies for the editors. The lens on that copy camera cost more than my house at the time (houses were much cheaper then). To make prints for display 4x5 to 8 x 10 internegative would be made from the Kodachromes in a normal enlarger. The enlarger used to make the large display prints ran on tracks on the floor with the paper held to a wall by vacuum. The display area where the prints were evaluated had both 5000°K and 3200°K lighting so prints could be color balanced to the lighting where they would be displayed. I
@@TeddyCavachon Wow that’s a great experience. Envy you. Shot many rolls of Kodachrome 25 & 64. Learned proper exposure the hard way. Remember slide projectors😂. I still have vivid memories of the camera club in the early 70s. Professional photographers would mercilessly “tear” my pictures apart for exposure and composition. Speaking of cameras, my first was a Mamiya 1000. No electronics except for an inaccurate light meter. Did I mention also an old Roliflex. Great memories.
3:05 - unpopular opinion - if you were to simply ask me 'which photo do you prefer', I actually would say the R6. Based on what I notice first and foremost, and based on my own priorities, the colours are more saturated and accurate, the contrast is noticeably better, the grain looks consistent and natural, the image looks less processed, and just noticeably crisper edges. The R5 image on the right is more detailed - granted - but my eye is far quicker drawn to the smeary look of Lightroom's noise reduction and the lower contrast, more processed look. I'm a happy owner of an R5 and an R6, but the reason I reach for the R6 more readily for low light work, family dinners etc, is that the files are simply easier to look good with minimal work. I think some of it comes down to how much I dislike the look of Lightroom's luminance noise reduction. I am a big fan of Topaz DeNoise - which I use for wildlife photography but only on special images I intend to print or publish somewhere larger than social media - however the workflow simply isn't fast or convenient enough for bulk editing hundreds of photos from a party or other low light event.
I think it is fair to say that for most cameras the video quality still remains better on lower megapixel sensor variants -- not because of the sensor altered features, but because of the limited readout ability with more megapixels!
So if you took HDMI out raw and processed externally where there were less limitations would it be better or equivalent? Or if processors get better and 48 megapixel would give you 8k video, it would be the best? Seems like it is all a processing problem and video has to process, stills are just capturing one image.
@@TonyAndChelsea I am not discrediting you in this regard. You did acknowledge the readout limitations has an impact. And yes, ultimately the comparison has to be apples to apples (ex: A7SIII is far superior vs A7RIV for 4K video). I think this is the justification Sony is articulating to illustrate that 12MP > 61MP for low light. I think you are misinterpreting their message and generalizing it.
@@iDocSonic I have not tried this HDMI out method, but I think it is a great suggestion! Yeah unfortunately we are still at a point where the processor remains a big bottleneck in capturing high quality video.
I feel like most of this is about resolution only here. Not low light high iso noise. You can read Paris and Barcelona at 400% because the a7riv has 5 times the resolution of the a7siii. I'd like to see real pictures at a low light event. And see which are more usable than others.
Those are real pictures aren't they? The point is that with real pictures, you are going to process them, and what you really care about is which gives a better image in the end, no? It's less useful to compare some isolated variable than it is to say 'which sensor provides better final images in low light'.
I agree. Low light capability is much more than end resolution using sliders - you have to consider the dynamic range and colour accuracy - both of wich are not possible to examine by photographing a world map.
Go to Dpreview website and use their Studio scene comparison tool found under Sample Images. There is a Size button, to zoom different megapixel pictures to the same visual size like Tony did. You can compare upto 4 cameras at high iso say 25600, and the scene has gradient bars, detail text, and various elements to compare resolution, dynamic range, color response, etc…. In general Tony is correct. Being a Canon user, I’ve held onto my 2016 50 MP 5DSR for that exact reason. Achievable images on high mpix are not worse, but often sharper with more detail. However, it also depends on how you Denoise. Some programs do a better job than others… so some may smear more detail on the noisier high megapix camera. It is a valid point that the absolute difference between 50 mpix vs say 20 mpix is not leaps and bounds, seen only while pixel peeping. Printed or on a phone, will look similar.
I think many go wrong in the exact way that you show in the video: they zoom to 100% and see more noise. But if you apply denoising at full resolution and then export the image at the same resolution as a lower megapixel camera, you will get slightly better results. The issue is that people like to crop their high mp images which magnifies the noise.
Also easy to fall into the trap of thinking a 400mm will become 600mp because of the high megapixels, but you're also magnifying the noise and the flaws in your lens
You are a major part of camera evolution and you have taught me a lot in the past. I've always liked your practical approach which is indisputable. Thanks
Including some BS about the multiplication of the f stop by the crop factor. A 50mm f2 apsc lens will have the same light transmission and bokeh as the 50mm full frame. The only difference being the apsc image will be smaller/cropped by a 1.5/1.6 factor. Everything else is the same, including the light transmission and bokeh quality. An f2 apsc is not an f3, because they let the same amount of light in.
Tony, great information when considering the ability to take and produce still images. However, in my experience the Sony A7Siii will out perform a larger megapixel camera like the 24MP Nikon Z6 when it comes to video in extreme low-light situations. I live in Alaska and use the A7Siii for Northern Lights video. I purchased the Nikon Z6 thinking that it would be able to perform at the same level as the Sony A7Sii/iii. They weren't even close. In this case the Sony A7Sii/iii out-performed the Nikon Z6!
Edward, you should try Canon ME20F-SH. It is said to be still better than a7s III. By the way, which camera - a7s II or a7s III - is better for low-light video?
Lol, was it something I said? This comparison is fine for the practical aspect of what it demonstrates, showing that higher resolution sensors capture higher resolution details, but that's as equally true of low ISO levels in bright light. (The A7S III has a 48MP sensor btw, it's binned down to 12MP) Your bucket analogy is incomplete, because it fails to recognize the sources of noise and signal. The pixels of each sensor are not necessarily equal (ignoring size) when it comes to generating a signal from a certain number of photons. This is called quantum efficiency. To borrow a description of the benefits of a BSI vs FSI sensor that just happens to sum it up nicely, from a producer of astrophotography cameras (QHYCCD) where these nitpicks make a big difference: "As a result, more incoming photons strike the photosensitive layer and more electrons are generated and captured in the pixel well. This ratio of photon to electron production is called quantum efficiency. The higher the quantum efficiency the more efficient the sensor is at converting photons to electrons and hence the more sensitive the sensor is to capturing an image of something dim." If you're going to compare the ability to gather signal in low light between different sensors, you need to correct for the sensor's pixels' quantum efficiency. They don't all capture the same amount of rain even if they were the same size, to frame it in your analogy. And your analogy ignores that if each bucket needs 5 rain drops to generate 1 exposure value of signal, then the 9 small buckets will each generate less signal than the 1 large bucket, all other factors being equal. Which means even if you average those 9 buckets the total level of signal that they generate will be less than the 1 bucket spread over the same area. As well, there is the reality of noise and its' sources. To again adapt your analogy, depending on the sensor you are talking about, the one bucket may or may not be introducing the same amount of noise as the nine. Each of the nine could be individually introducing more noise, and thus total noise, or less noise individually but more total noise, or the one could be introducing more noise total than the nine. Noise comes from a variety of areas, both analog and digital. It's a little more complicated to delve into things like input-referred read noise, read noise, analog and digital gain. There's the fact that each camera will have different numbers of ADCs (analog to digital converters) which kick in at different levels. That makes comparing between cameras at the same ISO not so much a test of whether big or small pixels are better for low light but whether that individual camera at that ISO is better than another individual camera at the same ISO. There's also the fact that sensor density best matches itself with optical resolving capability at different focal lengths. Generally speaking, the more telephoto you go the lower the MP sensor you want, as you will otherwise be super-sampling to no benefit in resolution but with a noise penalty (this comes from astronomy where we're using 4000mm focal lengths, mind you). The opposite is true, denser sensors are generally a better match for wider angles. Which is why this video, while demonstrating the slightly (im)practical results of it's simple comparisons, doesn't actually contend with what's going on. And I'm not exactly sure what myth is busted. Bigger pixels - assuming factors such as quantum efficiency are controlled for - are much more capable of generating better SNR. That's a completely different duck from whether high resolution sensors capture more resolution than lower resolution ones.
We may need better empirical analysis to understand more fully the relationship between pixel count and sensor noise for a given line of cameras from a given manufacturer. Tony's brief demonstration seems incomplete to me. It may be subject to experimenter bias and sampling error, as well as a flawed experimental design. We could start by comparing the images produced by the Sony a7R V (61 megapixels) vs the Sony a7 IV (33 megapixels) using a variety of lenses for the Sony E-mount, both entry level and state of the art. We could have professional photographers take hundreds of duplicate images in natural and artificial light, low light, indoors, and outside before examining the results, drawing a conclusion, and moving onto other camera comparisons from Cannon, Nikon, and Fujifilm. Taking this approach would be more scientific, in my opinion, than what Tony did for this video.
@@chesslover8829 I think it would be even more scientific to take cameras apart, scope the sensor analog output, the A/D data, truly measure noise at the analog and at the quantization stages, and do this for various light values. Aggregate results through various binning techniques (probabilistic energy distribution), and come up with envelope error bars that one must now, somehow, objectively, compare between cameras. In other words, go back to the design basics, being privy to the camera manufacturer’s secret pre-amp specifications S/N etc., manufacturing variances…. WOW… not easy.
@billr3053 you don’t need to do any of that actually, Bill Claff of photonstophotos has all the info you could ever want about any camera released in the last decade and a half. Tony has even used some of it when he dipped his toe in the ISO-invariant pool a few years back. Now, just as then, he found a nugget of interest but made a video before looking far enough into it. He missed an opportunity to teach people about how to choose a sensor for their use case, instead choosing to make some faulty generalizations and then run some tests that confirm that higher res sensors produce higher resolution images. Truly groundbreaking
@chesslover8829 You don’t really even need to do any of that, all the relevant information exists already, and any side by side tests like Tony did will be inherently flawed. He’s trying to make a generalization about an oversimplification of how sensors compare. You can’t draw any consistent conclusions from that, because it ignores too many variables in the first place. And he didn’t really have a cohesive “thing” he was trying to show. What does “best” mean? Lowest noise? Most detailed? Most dynamic range? Most sensitive in the shadows? I’m honestly at a loss,
I’ll add an addendum, because it goes unremarked: This “test” completely ignores the spatial filtering that manufacturers such as Sony bake into their RAWs, one purpose of which is to reduce noise in the final image. You can’t turn it off and it’s a different algorithm in every camera (and sometimes changes based on firmware version). To my knowledge the only manufacturer to forgo this was Canon in its DSLRs. This inherently makes a test such as this a fool’s errand, because there are too many uncontrolled variables. And there’s no such thing as “equivalent aperture” for sensor noise and SNR, regardless of format. Imagine taking a photo with a D850, and then changing nothing else you drop it into DX mode and take another photo. What differences will you notice when you compare the two images at the same display resolution? This video is misleading and a missed opportunity
I love your videos. Aside from how informative they are, I really enjoy the technical explanation. Is it just me, or is there a sneaky, cheeky reference to Super Troopers? "Enhance" 🤣😂
wouldn't many smaller pixels have more edges, thus losing some light on the edges between pixels? like, your results speak for themselves, but I am honestly shocked by them. great work ♥
@@UXXV Nope, sensors since 2007 have gapless micro lenses to eliminate that. And it was exceedly small that loss in the first place. Today if you compare bodies at the same output size, you will find that bodies like the R6 and R5 perform the same noise wise. But you gain all the advantages that extra resolution gives you.
@@johnrus7661 it wasnt the gaps between I was referring to, it was the edges. I remember how Fuji designed their hex SuperCCDs to try and combat gaps 20+ years ago.
@@UXXV It is clear you didn't read anything I said and know shit about photography. Edges, gaps. It's the same shit. There is not 100% coverage. You are a class act fool.
Thank you, thank you, thank you. It's the amount of light that falls on the sensor that really matters. So keep ISO low because it is a volume control for noise. It's reinforces the old adage that the three most important things in photography is light, light, light.
This is the type of video that gave me a reason to subscribe. There may be other reasons to go with a lower-resolution sensor, especially for video, and that is for less rolling shutter or higher frame rates, depending on the specific read speeds of the sensors involved.
The A7S 1 and 3 have better dynamic range performance at high ISOs than the A7R IV. Tony is right about high megapixel cameras producing better detail at high ISOs - but the test here needs to compare dynamic range performance and colour sensitivity as well if the purpose is to make conclusions about overall image quality.
Tony thank you for your truth about these camera. Also the photo at 9:31 shows huge quality difference in the Fuil-frame vs APS-C photo. Also your wife is eternally beautiful and amazing. congrats on the two of you both being great in photography and also making most of your videos together, where I can see and feel the love and respect that you have for each other. Best wishes to both of you in ever way. I'd had 2 marriages and for years they were heaven on Earth, even though they ended at my decision, I would do them again they were that awesome. I am still friends with them both. I'm single now at my preference for now. Peace out. Love live amazing cameras and photography and women. LOL!
I saw the method he used to get everyone confused, he scaled the high megapixel camera to 100% while scaling the lower megapixel camera to 400% but he never scaled the high megapixel camera to 400%
No he did scale it properly. The 12mp, image needs to be blown up more, because the computer thinks the photo is smaller then the 60mp photo. When in reality theyre both the same physical size.
I can't believe that in 2023 people still get confused by DPI/PPI and need absolute basics explained. Though actually it makes sense... No one ever prints anymore, and those fancy phones of whatever resolution screens and cameras do everything to obscure that knowledge for marketing reasons.
THANK YOU. I have been thinking about this for a long time now since I got into cameras and photography a few months ago, and I just couldn't make the things people said add up to make sense. There is also a half-myth going around that full-frame cameras are better in low-light than APS-C because the sensor is larger and because they have larger pixels. Yes full-frame cameras are better low-light than APS-C but ONLY because in full frame the subject projection on the sensor can be larger, which means more light gathered. but for a bird photographer like myself, where the bird is at a fixed distance, then no matter what sensor you have, the bird will take up the same amount of millimeters on your sensor, which means it doesn't matter if you have the full-frame Sony A7RV or the Sony A6700. They have similar sensor technologies, and if the bird projected on the sensor does not take up more space than the APS-C sensor size, then you will not get better lowlight performance in the A7RV, nor any other full-frame camera with the same sensor technology! So low-light performance is a function of subject size on the sensor, not of the sensor size per se.
Always thought-provoking, Tony! Your conclusion comports with my own conclusion about low light performance owning first the a7s III, then the a7 IV, and now the a7R V.
There's so much more to it than pixel size and density! Each camera model is slightly different, even with the same sensor (the A7Rii, A7Riii and A99ii all share the same sensor, but don't have identical performance in low light), so a blanket statement like 'lower mega pixels is better in low light' is so banal it could only be terrible advice. I know if I compare my 2016 42mp A99ii to my 2006 10mp Sony A100 (CCD sensor!), the lower mega pixel camera is definitely not better in low light - ISO 400 in the old A100 is about equivalent to ISO 25600! Excellent work Tony, thanks!
Tony confuses the issue here by oversimplifying. Sensors have a lot of factors to deal with besides light gathering. a 20 MP sensor will have different signal to noise depending on whether it is medium format, full frame or APSC. The medium format will have larger photo sites which gather more light for each pixel than the full frame, and likewise for full frame compared to APSC. More light per pixel equals better signal to noise ratio. Using his bucket example how much water was in ONE of the nine buckets compared to the one big bucket? The total light gathered by the entire sensor is irrelevant to the inherent noise. The noise is always there. In broad daylight the signal is strong enough to drown out any noise. It's only when we run out of leeway on the other ends of the triangle and must crank the exposure (gain) that the signal to noise becomes a force to contend with. As he mentions himself, but breezes right past. You have readout to contend with. Higher density sensors take more voltage and generate more heat than lower density ones. What is really going on is that the noise is finer on higher resolution sensors, because the sensor is finer. The manifestation of thermal randomness will have bigger chunks on a lower res sensor. For this to be scientific he would have explored ISO settings with compensation to keep them all the same exposure.
Sony a7siii sensor has a 48mp native resolution. It combines pixels in 4 pixel stacks to achive better image quality for 4k video. It allows the camera to turn on a secont readout method after iso 1600 for basic picture profile, or after 12 800 for slog3, when the noise completely dissapear. It can also achive a larger dynamic range by using subpixels at different exposure levels. That is the true advantage over larger mp cameras, and that is what sony refers to on its website. I dont know how it works for photo, maybe the extra data lose during lightroom workflow.
Small pixels will always have greater noise PER PIXEL, BUT: Downsampling a higher resolution to a lower one on the resulting image will remove much of the noise due to the averaging lowpass effect, which is a big advantage of high res sensors. Anyway, high MPIX will only cause more processing work and more disk space requirement. In case you do not need the high resolution or your workflow involves downsampling anyway, there is no benefit from high MPIX sensors.
One thing is missing. If you want to take bright details simultaneously to dark shadow details, lower megapixel sensor probably would have different exposure settings but also better detailed image. You may try to compare those cameras in video using SLog or CLog and zebras. You don't need a high ISO for that, you probably should use a lowest native one and compare it
Dpreview has a web page where you can compare the same image taken from several different cameras. The lower mpx image usually looks cleaner, but there is an option to down sample them all to the same resolution. At the same resolution the noise difference virtually goes away.
I won’t believe this until I see a comparison with LESS LIGHT! And Tony you should know, that it’ll be much more interesting when the noise ruins the few photons collected by a small “bucket” while the more photons collected with the bigger “buckets” will have a far better noise to signal ratio thus showing more information. Who are you kidding,Tony?
I agree. With my A7R III it doesnt do bad in low light. But Ive also noticed I get more noise at ISO 400 or 640 than I do at ISO 1600. Maybe next video can go into detail about why this is so for those that dont understand how my higher ISO 1600 produces cleaner low light photos than at ISO 400 or 640.
Exposing right in camera using a high iso will always produce better results than using a lower iso and increasing the exposure in post-production, regardless of sensor. Provided you don’t clip any highlights.
If you shoot a higher iso in camera as opposed to stretching it in post, you avoid adding digital noise to the image. Also the camera is duel band iso settings. The higher band is less noisy than the low band iso settings.
I have also noticed this issue on my Sony A7Riii. Not sure why and trying to understand how I can get less noisy images when using 400-800 iso. Sometimes I shoot in auto mode and it still picks 400 iso and the image is very noisy. I use the Tamron 28-200mm lens. Not sure if that has anything to do.
@@iShootWild it has to do with the processor I believe. The images start getting clean again around 1200 ISO. This is why I said he should mention this in the next video. There are a lot of photographers that aeent awear of this.
Thank goodness for some sense and logic applied to this. I've long argued that the only comparison should be after optimum processing and then downsizing to the lowest resolution of the two. It's the main reason I use a GFX100s.
Excellent video, as someone who shoots handheld in low light environments, exactly what I needed to confirm my own experience. One follow up question. Does the stacked sensor in the Sony A1 make any difference shooting low light against say the new a7Rv. Thanks.
We’re talking apparent noise here (which is what matters anyway) because pixels produce noise. More of them=more noise. There’s read, bias, gain and thermal noise and its more of an issue in astrophotography and nightscape photography. Particularly in astrophotography with a telescope stacking hundreds of 5 min long exposures of very faint objects. In these situations you really see how noisy sensors can be. And high mp sensors have more of it, but they also produce more detailed images. At some point though the detailed resolution becomes useless because it can’t be perceived. It’s just noisier.
I’d suggest that one exception to this rule would be astrophotography. A lower megapixel sensor will allow longer shutter speeds without visible star trailing. This allows either lower iso or more light gathering at the same iso (longer shutter), both of which are likely to produce a superior image. I know that’s a pretty niche scenario but a valid one nonetheless.
@@draughonc the important thing for me is ‘noticeable’ star trailing. A star trail will usually be caused because a star moves across your image, but stays the same height. So in a lower megapixel camera, a star might move 1pixel across, in the same amount of time that would be 5 pixels across in a sensor with 5 times resolution (an extreme example). A 1x2 trail will be far less noticeable than a 1x5 trail. Admittedly, the lower resolution will have other drawbacks. I’m just talking here about getting a cleaner image due to lower resolution, not what is overall a better way to capture an image.
Larger pixels have less detail, so you can leave the shutter open longer before seeing motion blur. In the case for stars the Asiii with the 55mm lens, you can use 8second shutter speed before seeing star trails. The A7riv would only be 6 seconds.
I think the main argument of high megapixels fans is that you can always scale the image down. Then star trails will not be more visible than with a low megapixel camera. But why buy a high megapixel camera and then scale it down? A high resolution restricts your photographic freedom a lot unless you want to scale the photos down in the end anyway. That really seems like a typical Tony argument, who also thinks that iPhones can compete with real cameras.
Although your result are clear, and I must agree, there is this but: every pixel on the image sensor is like a square bucket, and these have walls, walls that have a minimum thickness. These walls take away some light. The more pixels on one area, the more light is lost. Then again I don't know the numbers of how thick these walls and if they found a way to lose less light there. Do you know?
when i rented a sony a9 years ago that thing was nuts, could shoot in pretty shitty light conditions but still somehow managed to recover shadows and some exp when editing. wild camera. Also borrowed a gfx 50r from a friend for a shoot and that thing also recovered A LOT in editing. but the sony still felt like it took better night shots.
Didn't this used to be true before sensors had gapless pixels? To use your bucket metaphor, some water used to be lost hitting the edge of the buckets. I believe it used to be the same with pixels in sensors.
True, but it must be said that Canon still uses front-side illuminated sensors on most of their cameras including R5 and R6, and they still do fine at high ISO.
Thank you. I purchased an R6 initially. Six months later I realized the error of my ways and I sold it in favor of an R5. The reality you explain here was one part of my decision to trade up. I like having the extra megapixel sensor. I'm persuaded that when you take everything into consideration the R5 is actually the better camera (over the R6) in low light. If your concern is low light performance - get the R5, not the R6.
This comparison is ridiculously unfair. Scaling the 12mp image to that of a 60mp image would OBVIOUSLY put the 12mp image to a huge disadvantage! ISO performance is not really tested well here considering you are just facing a wall with 2 static light sources behind you. The A7siii should be set at the correct ISO levels and Shutter speed where that map portrait is detailed enough. Then match the A7riv exposure levels to the A7siii result. The A7riv should result in a much darker image to match the noise levels to that of the A7siii.
I've noticed that myself in several cases (less MP is cleaner, but more MP is more detailed so the final result is similar), but the idea that "less MP is better for low light" still lived in my mind. Thanks Tony & Chelsea for this revelation!
But it doesn't take in consideration that when you're using a high megapixel sensor you need to pair it with a very sharp lens in order to take advantage of the higher megapixel, so it makes the whole combo quite expensive, 20 or 24 megapixel on a full frame sensor for me are still great
The advantage will be less with a softer lens. But the image will still always be better on the higher resolution camera if you use the same lens. But today even entry level lenses tends to razor sharp around f5.6-8.
@@80-80. if so why for instance fuji made a list with the lenses that work better with the new 40 megapixel sensor... For me it's because the higher megapixel sensor will emphasize the cons of a lens, ad CA and low sharpness, it will make it appear even worse on a high megapixel sensor
@redis8298 I think you're right. A higher pixel density just might expose CA and LoCA of a lens that's not APO. Improper focus and exposure as well as camera shake and subject motion all rob IQ.
@@redis8298 Fuji published the list primarily to sell their high-end fixed focal lengths. It's true that you really benefit from them because they are already extremely sharp in general (comparable to Canon-L, Sigma art or Sony GM) but in practice, when you look at the images in a normalised view, you won't see any disadvantage in the image with a 40MP sensor. Of course, if you look at a 26MP and 40MP image and both at 150%, the crop on the 40MP is much smaller compared to the total image area because you are closer to a possible resolution limit of a lens. I have professionally tested all kinds of Fuji lenses with the X-H2 and the X-T5, you don't really need the new lenses, but if you don't have one yet, it makes sense to go for the latest technology.
I almost fell for the same marketing. I almost bought an A7S3 for my astrophotography instead of the A1, because I believed that the smaller pixels would give me better astro photos. Instead, I decided to grab the A1 and haven't looked back.
Thanks Tony, I did think larger pixels were more sensitive to light and had less noise but it makes sense that the most important thing to consider is total light across the sensor area. I guess one variable to consider is dual gain circuits. E.g. my black magic pocket 4k has dual native ISO at 400 and 3200 and it's a bit of a low light beast at 3200.
I have found on my higher megapixel camera that anything shot above iso 3200 has too much noise. It may have more detail, but I find the noise less desirable in the final product.
@@sexysilversurfer I have Lightroom, Topaz, and Luminar Neo. Sometimes Topaz will save a photo, but it depends. When I make timelapses from the photos I use Davinci Resolve to get rid of the noise and it works pretty good sometimes. I guess I just need a faster wider lens for astrophotography which is where I really want to go higher ISO but find the results disappointing.
Bless you Tony! I went with a Nikon D800 for shooting live concerts. To the standard thinking of the time that is the opposite of what is recommended. The D800 is awesome in low light and allows for cropping a lot better than some other cameras.
Thanks for the video. There's actually one pretty important component to the Sony test that you may have missed, which is that the a7S III's sensor is not actually 12MP. Surprisingly, the IMX510 found in the a7S III is a 48MP quad-bayer sensor with 2x2 pixel binning, so the pixel size is actually fairly similar to that of the a7R IV's 61MP IMX451 sensor, and especially close to that of the a1's 50MP IMX610 sensor. Binning doesn't get around all of the penalties that are associated with smaller pixels (increased readout noise, lower fill factor, etc.), so it's not very surprising to see that the two cameras have incredibly similar noise levels. As far as I know this isn't documented anywhere by Sony.
This is the 1st time i read this anywhere, i want to upgrade my a7iii. I do a lot of low light events & astro, i was leaning towards A1 but that high MP worries me on the low light and dont want to rent all these cameras
Completely agree, this is exactly what we found in comparisons we did too. High resolution sensors always outperform low resolution sensors of the same size and generation when shot at high ISO.
Always good to see such videos to dispel the myth. Dpreview also produced a pretty good video about it, showing that the 60MP sensor produced better images than the 12MP one even in low light. The denoising algorithm simply works better with more pixels.
This realization hit me when I replaced my a7ii with an a7Rii. The “R” actually seemed to have better low light performance mainly because I could shoot at higher ISO’s and apply more aggressive noise reduction in post to compensate while losing very little detail in the bargain. (Being a BSI sensor probably didn’t hurt). 😉
I got the A7 II and I'm bitter about all the good stuff that the R II has going for it that I don't get, like the lower noise, being able to charge while running, and subject tracking that actually works (on the A7 II it completely drifts away immediately).
@@404Anymouse I have the 7ii and ater 7 years of owning it i can say that it is a nice camera to learn, but the autofocus sucks, working it as a videocamera is a nightmare, but well is the second A7line, almost 10 years have passed since its launch, we cannot ask more from it
No, because he cheated using the same ISO but makes you think he talks about brightness. You wouldn't have to use that high of ISO with an A7s vs. an A7r for the same brightness. THAT is the advantage and people that need an A7s for video know that. For general use no one would ever buy an A7s.
Hi Tony, great video. I also find that the same amount of noise on two sensors for the same framing, will look less "noisy" with double the MPX as the noise is "half the size" for the high mpx camera in the final image even if all post processing is the same. I wonder if that made sense?
It does, noise in a high MPX sensor has "higher spatial frequency" so even if there is "more noise" it is occurring at a spatial frequency higher than the equivalent lower resolution sensor. Put another way, a low resolution sensor is nearly identical to a high resolution sensor where pixels are forcibly binned to the lower resolution. Only little detail left out is that there can be slight overhead in the sensor surface area, biasing the argument against what Tony is saying here, (by the bucket analogy, the bucket walls have some thickness that has to be considered, so a single large bucket collects a little more water... However, the spatial advantage allows noise reduction to overwhelmingly perform better with higher resolution anyways so Tony is correct for all practical purposes.
Bucket analogy works against him. You would collect slightly more water with the one large bucket because, with the multiple buckets, there would be more loss when water hits the rims inbetween buckets (even with square buckets).
Correct. And the areas separating each pixel can take up a significant percentage of a sensors light-facing area. Backlit image sensors diminish this, but do not remove it entirely. So a sensor with fewer, large sensels will gather more light than a sensor with many, smaller sensels. In some cases, far more light. Tony knows this. Believe he only says these things to troll and drive engagement.
@@colinhoward2200 The analogy aspect is even generous because water that hits the rim of a bucket may partially splash in the bucket but light photons that hit the "rim" of a pixel are lost. So it's actually even worse than this analogy leads on.
@@miggetymike1 Lemme be pedantic to the max. Photons hitting the “rim” / edge / frame have a probabilistic chance of hitting the sensel - like a normal distribution curve. If pixel lens design, offset centers depending on axial distance to account for acute angle of incidence, and BSI are all at play then we can assume zero wall thickness is correct for the rain buckets. Or that the container walls are razor sharp and split water droplets probabilistically.
I had felt for marketing..thought I pretty much know the general principles of photography and cameras :) turns out- noot.. thank you very much, learned something new today! :)
I always thought lower megapixels = better low light performance. The Nikon Z APS-C are very, very good at low light and that is a 21 Mp sensor I think.
The amount of light hitting the sensor is controled by aperture and shutter speed. So with the same amount of light collected the higher MP sensor does better. The lower MP pixels are bigger so they can collect more light per pixel than a higher MP sensor, before blowing out the highlights.
Great, as always. Thanks. A few off topic comments perhaps for another episode: - Sharpness may not be everything. So here is another myth: 'Fewer, larger pixels are far better for dynamic range than more, smaller pixels'. - Moreover, for adapted lenses or more 'budget friendly' lenses (non professional) what is really the tradeoff between high megapixels and lower pixel pich?
1:07 this finally made me understand whats going on here. Thank you! Yet it would be nice to see that results are the same in actual low light situation. Low amount of light on the sensor.
Every few years this myth needs busting, thanks for this video. Two identical exposures on identical-sized sensors capture the same amount of light, regardless of how big the photosites are.
Sorry Tony, I have to disagree here in regards to “real world” low light usage. I set up an ARs3 & an A7r4 next to each other with identical settings & lenses & shot a Milky Way Time lapse, & the A7s3’s images were much clearer & less noisy. I understand what you are saying in regards to scaling( 12mp v 61mp) but I’m just giving you a “real world” example. Lol keep up the great work. 👍
“Cleaner”, “less noisy”… but you forgot about the last mitigating factor: “more detailed”. Perhaps in your astro-photography scenario, with just point sources of light, the “more detailed” part is not as differentiated. Just a guess…. and something to consider. It’s an ‘unusual’ subject matter to be sure. Not like rendering cursive scripts from a map.
@@billr3053 when viewing as a 4k render, the extra detail of the r4 was unusable to where the noise couldn’t be removed to a satisfactory result, so for astro timelapses viewing in 4k, the s3 gave a cleaner result without detail loss.
@@nashhall694 Interesting. Astro photography is my weak point. I’ll take your word for it but as I said that “unusual” subject matter may emphasize other strengths of a larger sensel-laden surface. As opposed to a wall map whose EV has been cranked to 18% gray level unlike a black sky for example that is supposed to remain black. I just thought of that. :)
He doesn't define what he means by "BEST" and this is a good illustration. From his tests he obviously considers capturing finer details to be the issue at play, which.. like the sensor has 5x the resolution, of course it's going to capture finer details. But there are so many factors at play, and the RUclips incentive structure is at odds with the fact that there is no one definition of "best" when it comes to image quality. Is it detail? Dynamic range? Noise? Accurate color? If one's objective is low light and high ISO, besides astrophotography being the perfect medium to test this in, one might also conclude that you'd be more interested in comparing noise or dynamic range (specifically the shadows). This video just.. it doesn't make any sense to me. It's trying to make a simple generalization about a multifactorial system based on a single factor. It's just doesn't demonstrate anything useful. Unless you consider showing that a higher resolution camera captures finer details than a lower resolution camera to be useful in some way.
Downsampling 4k video to 1080p also produces often better 1080p quality. Are there any modern high resolution full-frame cameras suitable for astro-videography?
Yes, I think that phenomenon is less a myth and more a tech limitation that has recently been ironed out. DSLRs suffered from this much more than the latest mirrorless offerings. For example, my 36mp Nikon D800 starts showing visible noise at around ISO 800, while my 16mp D4S never has noise at ISO 800, and only ever starts showing noise at around ISO 2500
There is also a possibility that at least in some instances in past people didn't scale images when comparing (they didn't upscale a smaller megapixel image to the size of a larger one), so they would view both low and high megapixel images at the pixel level, and when viewing them that way, of course higher megapixel camera will appear more noisy, since pixels are smaller, and thus the same number of pixels will cover smaller surface, and thus "gather" less light.
Thanks for this! I've virtually given up on trying to correct the plethora of people that continue to parrot the erroneous concept of high mp being noisier for still images, even though DXOMARK numbers clearly demonstrate exactly what you're saying. When I got my a7Riv 2.5 yrs ago, and zoomed in to 100% pixels, I was initially shocked at the illusion of more noise, but quickly realized that the pixel level view was GREATLY magnifying any noise (compared to lower MP sensors) by taking a MUCH deeper dive into the image. This is a concept that has been so lost, to so many, that it's difficult to get folks to understand. Thanks again!
This has been my anecdotal experience with same generation sensors. I’ve shifted to higher megapixels for my night work, like the Fuji-xh2 and the Leica m11. Thanks for doing the objective look
Your heading for the video is wrong: " MYTH BUSTED: HIGH MEGAPIXELS IS BEST FOR LOW LIGHT". The myth is that LOW megapixel cameras are best for low light.
When you scaled the 12MP image did you scale it to the same size as the 60MP image or vice versa? If it's the former, there's a fatal flaw that you're upscaling a 12MP image to a 60MP image and any small noise will be magnified largely. If done vice versa, you're downscaling a 60MP image to a 12MP image which then makes it even more useless since then you're using a 60MP camera as a 12MP camera so what's the comparison being done for in the first place unless done pixel to pixel equally unless you plan to always print a 60MP image on a
Great video! I remember you being the first to make me realize this when you mentioned it about the D850. But to nitpick, the myth being busted is that low megapixel is best for low light and high ISO, hence my confusion at the title at first :)
@@tubularificationed what is noiser, one huge basket collecting charge connected to one ADC or 4 smaller baskets connected to 4 ADC and averaged in software? Ofc it depend of ADC quality. If you get very good ADC it almost same, but in practice i very doubt. And ADC work in very hard conditions (crosstalk with adjucent lines/sensels, geometric tolerance of circuit elements must be 4 times finer, etc)
I'd say that 4 smaller baskets are privileged. - tolerance errors are evening out better, if you have 4 small buckets rather than 1 big one. - the same goes for dead pixels (or stuck pixels). Faults have only 25% effect rather than 100%. Repairing faults (e.g. interpolation between neighboring pixels) is also better, because at high resolutions, micro contrast edges are recorded more smoothly, which helps concealing mathematical interpolations. - all demosaicking / debayering artifacts also benefit from high resolutions, for related reasons. Because also demosaicking is some sort of interpolation between neighboring pixels. - 4 small pixels only accumulate 25% of electrical charges each, i.e. only would generate 25% of cross talk, and that would only affect 25% of the spatial neighborhood. But in general, ADCs and other electronics are so properly designed (already since long), that such issues play zero role since many years anyway. Which can be verified by inspecting any high-res photo taken during the last 10 years or so 😉 (or actually the entire era since when high-res sensors existed).
I ordered a Sony a7RV last night and I’m not gonna lie, this lowlight thing was a concern before I decided to purchase the camera after all. I’m glad there’s really not much to worry about.
Thank you for this. Thirty-six hours ago I compared performance of my 33mp a7iv with that of my 61mp a7Riv. On a mountain summit I shot starry sky landscapes at ISO 3200 and 6400 using a Zeiss Loxia 21 wide open at f/2.8. Viewed at 200% on a 27" monitor there was no benefit to using the lower pixel count, same size, sensor. Shots from both cameras benefited from good noise reduction and Topaz DeNoise worked well.
Thanks for the video. Have you tried comparing high resolution cameras/sensors vs their low resolution counterparts for something like astrophotography and would (did) you get similar results?
I come at this from an astrophotography angle. For a given technology level larger pixels (fewer pixels in a given area) gives you a better SNR. But if you use different tech (including noise reduction firmware, more modern pixel tech, etc.) then the smaller pixels (more pixels in the same area) may do as well or better than the larger pixels. So you cannot simply say that more pixels gives you less noise than do fewer pixels - or that fewer pixels means less noise. And when it comes to low light the issue isn't exactly noise which is paramount, it is the SNR. One other note? There are some cameras which use noise reduction circuitry. That makes normal testing look better but can end up tossing out some stars and similar which it thinks are noise but are actually signal. When that happens then the SNR for that pixel (or set of pixels) goes to zero and if your testing is simplistic it might look like the camera isn't noisy but it is doing at the expense of signal. It really isn't a simple issue and you can't accurately claim that in low light that more pixels is better - or worse. There really is much more that goes into it.
Tony, I know ISO is just q number as you said, but what does the uniquely high ISO of the A7S3 provide over the A1 provide in terms of image quality? Thanks in advance.
Comparing SOOC images is pointless, how many people are actually using SOOC RAW images. In the real world, as a landscape astrophotographer who shoots in proper low light conditions, I rely heavily on pulling detail out of the shadows in which case lower megapixel cameras (or more correctly, cameras with a higher pixel pitch) have a massive advantage.
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I feel like one of the bigger reasons why people complain about high megapixel noise is on high MP sensors people feel very inclined to crop into images when they normally would not, which magnifies a lot of noise.
THIS.
The only reason is just because people don’t have enough money to buy both testing
This is accurate at least for me.
I got an A7Rii for the low light performance and learned this lesson the hard way. You can crop in for days but you lose low light performance.
I hate cropping for this very reason. At the same time, noise at ISO1600 for my 16MP camera is nowhere near the noise for my 46MP one.
I was guilty of this when I first started out
There is ONE exception to this. The only reason why Sony can put the second "high" 0db preamp at 12,800 ISO on the S-III is because those photosites are a very large 8+ microns in size. You wont ever see secondary preamps programed THAT high on photosites that are 4, 3 or 2 microns. You will see dual native ISO preamps on those smaller photosites...but they will be set MUCH closer together. (Like 800 and 2500 ISO or even closer than that) This is the main ability of that S-III sensor with giant photosites.
lol someone that knows. u should be making the video
That’s not the entire story. ISO12,800 on my FX3 is clean, but must be overexposed 1 to 2 stops, meaning it’s an equivalent ISO3200 from a different camera. ISO 25,600 is clean, as is ISO 51,200 - this is where the true strength of the dual stage of the Sony “S” cameras and (SLOG3). My A7R5 and the A7IV takes better sharper/more detailed video in the day time (And for the A7IV, basically it’s equally strong at night, while my A7R5 only performs as well in 4K30 APS-C Oversampled) than my FX3, especially if I shot in SLOG3 at the equivalent ISOs (Native 2500/800 in my A7R5). When I’m going out in very low conditions like a night market, concert etc where I would want ISO12,800 to ISO51,200, then that’s where I will definitely be taking my FX3 along.
The A7S III uses a nominal 48MP sensor binned down to 12MP, which unfortunately breaks your explanation. It is speculated that the A7S III is set up like this because each sub unit in the 4x4 "pixel" is tuned to a different sensitivity which, with some extra mojo, allows them to produce more dynamic range at the cost of some noise. The A7S II does use large pixels however. You can find this information online, the sensor was x-rayed (which is how this quirk was discovered) and it made the rounds a little while back.
So we’re the pictures taken in low light or was a high ISO used?
@@perilthecat It's more complex than that. If it's actually 48MP, then how is the A7S III readout speed so much faster than any comparable 48MP camera? This is evidenced by the A7S IIIs excellent rolling shutter.
Pixel binning could allow it, but then the noise performance would be terrible. Yet the noise on it, and the FX6 that shares the same sensor is extremely good.
Agree that Sony is using a novel technology, but the quantifiable evidence of the camera's output disproves the theory that it's binning, or has a traditional 48MP sensor.
Perhaps a fast, on-sensor subsample? Rapidly reading every pixel, discarding no light, and providing a lower resolution sample to the imaging pipeline? Whatever the answer, it's not a simple one.
Camera manufactures often don't disclose if the camera is line skipping. Or they line skip in higher demand shooting modes like 4k 60. In addition cameras also have dual gain and perform differently if you're filming at the native iso.
Tweener ISO's are just a push or pull from a native ISO, this applies to stills or vids. But the difference is slight. Bodies like the R5 don't skip lines at full 8K and can shoot RAW. So you get the same quality as in stills mode in vids.
Hey Tony, thanks for the content. It gets us thinking and reconsidering which is good. I do disagree though. Completely actually. To put it simply, there is a reason you use the A7Siii to film your videos. You did brush it off like it wasn't that big of a deal but let's think about it for a second.
1. A7Siii runs cooler while having a faster sensor readout providing far less rolling shutter as well as longer battery life all while giving a superior image in terms of color reproduction and micro contrast.
2. You can't zoom the grain on the 12MP and compare to a 60MP 1:1 and say the 12MP looks worse. You simply enlarged the grain of the 12MP, why? When viewed as a whole image side by side you can very clearly see the A7Siii has a much better image.
3. This same result can be seen with the Canon and Fuji samples as well. Better color and contrast with lower MP.
4. The A1 example was again, showing an 8k image vs 4k. The 8k will have more detail of course, but when viewing the images as a whole the A7Siii looks just as good or better and costs $3000 less and has all the advantages mentioned in #1 above.
Also, the lower MP cameras use less storage and processing power and therefore require much less computer to process. All around a better experience. The 'trap' is more MP. 🤙
The other thing to consider is that with some of the new and amazing noise reduction software we no longer need to make such a trade off of removing noise and losing detail. I would much rather have the raw image with more detail and more noise to start my workflow.
So you want to go over layers with different AI noise reduction and have a complex workflow, extra software? I don't think so for me.
@@Hubieee price to pay for more detail
@@Hubieee try it once for raw denoisers and you would change your mind.
@Phillip Banes That's not true. Due to the nature of Bayer Pattern you lose a lot of potential when reducing the size early stages. Raw denoiser is always gonna be the best denoiser
@Phillip Banes no. You gotta try dxo raw denoiser. It’s free right now for 31 days, no watermarks.. It’s nothing like what we’re used to with denoise sliders in Lr/Ps/etc. Seriously game changing. I no longer feel the need to upgrade my camera body because of noise.
Yep it’s always been the case and that’s why DXO low light (sports) score for high megapixels cameras is pretty much the same as the score for lower megapixel cameras, as DXO cleverly from day 1 id measuring normalized all sensors to 8MP. So 12mp sensor and 45mp sensor gets downscaled to same common number then measured.
The 12mp image should not be downscaled or upscaled just for comparisons. That's a completely unrealistic way to compare photos.
And that's why I look at the "screen" measurements and not just the "print" measurements.
Which is accurate for one type of delivery but not all use cases for cameras. Not everyone just shoots to delver 8MP printed photos. One of the main reasons why people use a higher resolution sensor is to crop so they don't need a APSC body or an optical extender which darkens the image by a stop. They like the flexibility to just shoot a photo and crop it as much as they want.
@@digitaldevigner4080 If you're "cropping as much as you want", and you're taking 24mp of the image, then the noise and light performance is the same as a crop sensor or a full frame with a teleconverter.
TCs and crop sensor bodies still seem to me to be the much cheaper option given that just 12MP makes for a very high quality image of a normal size, and that's about my only real gripe with the exorbitant price of high MP bodies. There are much cheaper ways to get the same result.
Some high res cams like a7riii, iv and v have better dxo sports rating than some 24mp models. Resolution alone might not account for noise by common sense.
I’m sorry Tony. The Sony A7S series has no equal for dim, exclusively naturally lit, and exclusively hand-held street photography. Just compare the published native ISOs of the various higher MP cameras to the A7 in the comparison. The A7S SEES IN THE DARK… resolving detail not visible to the unaided human eye. I was blown away by my first A7S as it demonstrated better night vision than a Litton image intensifier night scope. If you have any interest in night, hand-held street photography, rent any A7S for yourself and SEE (no pun intended). My Z9 rests comfortably at home when I go night hunting. There is no contest. A7S paired with a superfast wide angle prime (Sigma 20mm f1.4 Art), smiles all night…
I watched your old video on the same topic and this for a number of times... Couldn't understandbit until I understood your section on read speed and binning. Thanks Tony.
As an old school photographer, remember Kodachrome 25 😂😂, and broadcast engineer, I’ve learned a lot from your videos. You nailed it on HD recording sensor challenges. Keep up the good work and get more “toys”.
In the mid 70s I worked in the National Geographic photo labs. Kodak would sent samples of each Kodachrome run for testing and NGS would then buy the entire run and store it in freezers. It was the norm for the photographers to sometimes shoot several rolls just for one shot. Kodak created a second Kodachrome processing lab in Gaitherburg, MD so NGS could split all the incoming film into two batches, one sent there and the other to Rochester so in the event of a processing mishap there would be a back-up.
The first step for magazine production was to make 35mm Ektachome duplicates as working copies for the editors. The lens on that copy camera cost more than my house at the time (houses were much cheaper then). To make prints for display 4x5 to 8 x 10 internegative would be made from the Kodachromes in a normal enlarger. The enlarger used to make the large display prints ran on tracks on the floor with the paper held to a wall by vacuum. The display area where the prints were evaluated had both 5000°K and 3200°K lighting so prints could be color balanced to the lighting where they would be displayed.
I
@@TeddyCavachon Wow that’s a great experience. Envy you. Shot many rolls of Kodachrome 25 & 64. Learned proper exposure the hard way.
Remember slide projectors😂. I still have vivid memories of the camera club in the early 70s. Professional photographers would mercilessly “tear” my pictures apart for exposure and composition.
Speaking of cameras, my first was a Mamiya 1000. No electronics except for an inaccurate light meter. Did I mention also an old Roliflex. Great memories.
3:05 - unpopular opinion - if you were to simply ask me 'which photo do you prefer', I actually would say the R6. Based on what I notice first and foremost, and based on my own priorities, the colours are more saturated and accurate, the contrast is noticeably better, the grain looks consistent and natural, the image looks less processed, and just noticeably crisper edges. The R5 image on the right is more detailed - granted - but my eye is far quicker drawn to the smeary look of Lightroom's noise reduction and the lower contrast, more processed look.
I'm a happy owner of an R5 and an R6, but the reason I reach for the R6 more readily for low light work, family dinners etc, is that the files are simply easier to look good with minimal work. I think some of it comes down to how much I dislike the look of Lightroom's luminance noise reduction. I am a big fan of Topaz DeNoise - which I use for wildlife photography but only on special images I intend to print or publish somewhere larger than social media - however the workflow simply isn't fast or convenient enough for bulk editing hundreds of photos from a party or other low light event.
I think it is fair to say that for most cameras the video quality still remains better on lower megapixel sensor variants -- not because of the sensor altered features, but because of the limited readout ability with more megapixels!
So if you took HDMI out raw and processed externally where there were less limitations would it be better or equivalent? Or if processors get better and 48 megapixel would give you 8k video, it would be the best? Seems like it is all a processing problem and video has to process, stills are just capturing one image.
I do cover this but you can't really just say "most cameras" because it varies by specific models and the resolution/frame rate you film at.
@@TonyAndChelsea I am not discrediting you in this regard. You did acknowledge the readout limitations has an impact.
And yes, ultimately the comparison has to be apples to apples (ex: A7SIII is far superior vs A7RIV for 4K video). I think this is the justification Sony is articulating to illustrate that 12MP > 61MP for low light. I think you are misinterpreting their message and generalizing it.
@@iDocSonic I have not tried this HDMI out method, but I think it is a great suggestion!
Yeah unfortunately we are still at a point where the processor remains a big bottleneck in capturing high quality video.
@@iDocSonic no. The HDMI is output is still pixel skipped. You're not outputting 60 megapixels over HDMI. You're mixing up things.
I feel like most of this is about resolution only here. Not low light high iso noise. You can read Paris and Barcelona at 400% because the a7riv has 5 times the resolution of the a7siii. I'd like to see real pictures at a low light event. And see which are more usable than others.
True!
Those are real pictures aren't they? The point is that with real pictures, you are going to process them, and what you really care about is which gives a better image in the end, no? It's less useful to compare some isolated variable than it is to say 'which sensor provides better final images in low light'.
I agree. Low light capability is much more than end resolution using sliders - you have to consider the dynamic range and colour accuracy - both of wich are not possible to examine by photographing a world map.
Go to Dpreview website and use their Studio scene comparison tool found under Sample Images. There is a Size button, to zoom different megapixel pictures to the same visual size like Tony did.
You can compare upto 4 cameras at high iso say 25600, and the scene has gradient bars, detail text, and various elements to compare resolution, dynamic range, color response, etc…. In general Tony is correct.
Being a Canon user, I’ve held onto my 2016 50 MP 5DSR for that exact reason. Achievable images on high mpix are not worse, but often sharper with more detail. However, it also depends on how you Denoise. Some programs do a better job than others… so some may smear more detail on the noisier high megapix camera.
It is a valid point that the absolute difference between 50 mpix vs say 20 mpix is not leaps and bounds, seen only while pixel peeping. Printed or on a phone, will look similar.
I think many go wrong in the exact way that you show in the video: they zoom to 100% and see more noise. But if you apply denoising at full resolution and then export the image at the same resolution as a lower megapixel camera, you will get slightly better results.
The issue is that people like to crop their high mp images which magnifies the noise.
Also easy to fall into the trap of thinking a 400mm will become 600mp because of the high megapixels, but you're also magnifying the noise and the flaws in your lens
Just imagine already knowing this because you practice this daily... Thanks for revisiting
You are a major part of camera evolution and you have taught me a lot in the past.
I've always liked your practical approach which is indisputable.
Thanks
Including some BS about the multiplication of the f stop by the crop factor. A 50mm f2 apsc lens will have the same light transmission and bokeh as the 50mm full frame. The only difference being the apsc image will be smaller/cropped by a 1.5/1.6 factor. Everything else is the same, including the light transmission and bokeh quality. An f2 apsc is not an f3, because they let the same amount of light in.
@@itacatv2146 bokeh is relative to depth of field though, and depth of field Is changed when going from APS C to FF...
Great news, as a wedding photographer I can buy the Z8 after all. 😉
@@acronymphotography Nobody cares but congrats I guess.
I decided the R3 wasn't because of NP,but generally for speed. Thanks for the advice and will use it in the future.
Tony, great information when considering the ability to take and produce still images. However, in my experience the Sony A7Siii will out perform a larger megapixel camera like the 24MP Nikon Z6 when it comes to video in extreme low-light situations. I live in Alaska and use the A7Siii for Northern Lights video. I purchased the Nikon Z6 thinking that it would be able to perform at the same level as the Sony A7Sii/iii. They weren't even close. In this case the Sony A7Sii/iii out-performed the Nikon Z6!
Edward, you should try Canon ME20F-SH. It is said to be still better than a7s III. By the way, which camera - a7s II or a7s III - is better for low-light video?
that's the kind of videos that show tony's worth. So long no see.
Agree and e.g. DXOmark has proven this in their test charts for years as well ... when you compare the print and not the screen measurement.
Learning something new every time I see your videos, thank you for freely sharing your knowledge
Lol, was it something I said?
This comparison is fine for the practical aspect of what it demonstrates, showing that higher resolution sensors capture higher resolution details, but that's as equally true of low ISO levels in bright light. (The A7S III has a 48MP sensor btw, it's binned down to 12MP)
Your bucket analogy is incomplete, because it fails to recognize the sources of noise and signal. The pixels of each sensor are not necessarily equal (ignoring size) when it comes to generating a signal from a certain number of photons. This is called quantum efficiency. To borrow a description of the benefits of a BSI vs FSI sensor that just happens to sum it up nicely, from a producer of astrophotography cameras (QHYCCD) where these nitpicks make a big difference:
"As a result, more incoming photons strike the photosensitive layer and more electrons are generated and captured in the pixel well. This ratio of photon to electron production is called quantum efficiency. The higher the quantum efficiency the more efficient the sensor is at converting photons to electrons and hence the more sensitive the sensor is to capturing an image of something dim."
If you're going to compare the ability to gather signal in low light between different sensors, you need to correct for the sensor's pixels' quantum efficiency. They don't all capture the same amount of rain even if they were the same size, to frame it in your analogy. And your analogy ignores that if each bucket needs 5 rain drops to generate 1 exposure value of signal, then the 9 small buckets will each generate less signal than the 1 large bucket, all other factors being equal. Which means even if you average those 9 buckets the total level of signal that they generate will be less than the 1 bucket spread over the same area.
As well, there is the reality of noise and its' sources. To again adapt your analogy, depending on the sensor you are talking about, the one bucket may or may not be introducing the same amount of noise as the nine. Each of the nine could be individually introducing more noise, and thus total noise, or less noise individually but more total noise, or the one could be introducing more noise total than the nine. Noise comes from a variety of areas, both analog and digital. It's a little more complicated to delve into things like input-referred read noise, read noise, analog and digital gain. There's the fact that each camera will have different numbers of ADCs (analog to digital converters) which kick in at different levels. That makes comparing between cameras at the same ISO not so much a test of whether big or small pixels are better for low light but whether that individual camera at that ISO is better than another individual camera at the same ISO.
There's also the fact that sensor density best matches itself with optical resolving capability at different focal lengths. Generally speaking, the more telephoto you go the lower the MP sensor you want, as you will otherwise be super-sampling to no benefit in resolution but with a noise penalty (this comes from astronomy where we're using 4000mm focal lengths, mind you). The opposite is true, denser sensors are generally a better match for wider angles.
Which is why this video, while demonstrating the slightly (im)practical results of it's simple comparisons, doesn't actually contend with what's going on. And I'm not exactly sure what myth is busted. Bigger pixels - assuming factors such as quantum efficiency are controlled for - are much more capable of generating better SNR. That's a completely different duck from whether high resolution sensors capture more resolution than lower resolution ones.
We may need better empirical analysis to understand more fully the relationship between pixel count and sensor noise for a given line of cameras from a given manufacturer. Tony's brief demonstration seems incomplete to me. It may be subject to experimenter bias and sampling error, as well as a flawed experimental design. We could start by comparing the images produced by the Sony a7R V (61 megapixels) vs the Sony a7 IV (33 megapixels) using a variety of lenses for the Sony E-mount, both entry level and state of the art. We could have professional photographers take hundreds of duplicate images in natural and artificial light, low light, indoors, and outside before examining the results, drawing a conclusion, and moving onto other camera comparisons from Cannon, Nikon, and Fujifilm. Taking this approach would be more scientific, in my opinion, than what Tony did for this video.
@@chesslover8829 I think it would be even more scientific to take cameras apart, scope the sensor analog output, the A/D data, truly measure noise at the analog and at the quantization stages, and do this for various light values. Aggregate results through various binning techniques (probabilistic energy distribution), and come up with envelope error bars that one must now, somehow, objectively, compare between cameras. In other words, go back to the design basics, being privy to the camera manufacturer’s secret pre-amp specifications S/N etc., manufacturing variances…. WOW… not easy.
@billr3053 you don’t need to do any of that actually, Bill Claff of photonstophotos has all the info you could ever want about any camera released in the last decade and a half. Tony has even used some of it when he dipped his toe in the ISO-invariant pool a few years back.
Now, just as then, he found a nugget of interest but made a video before looking far enough into it. He missed an opportunity to teach people about how to choose a sensor for their use case, instead choosing to make some faulty generalizations and then run some tests that confirm that higher res sensors produce higher resolution images. Truly groundbreaking
@chesslover8829 You don’t really even need to do any of that, all the relevant information exists already, and any side by side tests like Tony did will be inherently flawed. He’s trying to make a generalization about an oversimplification of how sensors compare. You can’t draw any consistent conclusions from that, because it ignores too many variables in the first place.
And he didn’t really have a cohesive “thing” he was trying to show. What does “best” mean? Lowest noise? Most detailed? Most dynamic range? Most sensitive in the shadows?
I’m honestly at a loss,
I’ll add an addendum, because it goes unremarked:
This “test” completely ignores the spatial filtering that manufacturers such as Sony bake into their RAWs, one purpose of which is to reduce noise in the final image. You can’t turn it off and it’s a different algorithm in every camera (and sometimes changes based on firmware version). To my knowledge the only manufacturer to forgo this was Canon in its DSLRs. This inherently makes a test such as this a fool’s errand, because there are too many uncontrolled variables.
And there’s no such thing as “equivalent aperture” for sensor noise and SNR, regardless of format. Imagine taking a photo with a D850, and then changing nothing else you drop it into DX mode and take another photo. What differences will you notice when you compare the two images at the same display resolution?
This video is misleading and a missed opportunity
I love your videos. Aside from how informative they are, I really enjoy the technical explanation. Is it just me, or is there a sneaky, cheeky reference to Super Troopers? "Enhance" 🤣😂
wouldn't many smaller pixels have more edges, thus losing some light on the edges between pixels? like, your results speak for themselves, but I am honestly shocked by them. great work ♥
Yes. 9 buckets would not collect the same amount of water due to the edges.
@@UXXV Except, that the added resolution probably more than makes up for the gaps!
@@UXXV Nope, sensors since 2007 have gapless micro lenses to eliminate that. And it was exceedly small that loss in the first place. Today if you compare bodies at the same output size, you will find that bodies like the R6 and R5 perform the same noise wise. But you gain all the advantages that extra resolution gives you.
@@johnrus7661 it wasnt the gaps between I was referring to, it was the edges. I remember how Fuji designed their hex SuperCCDs to try and combat gaps 20+ years ago.
@@UXXV It is clear you didn't read anything I said and know shit about photography.
Edges, gaps. It's the same shit. There is not 100% coverage.
You are a class act fool.
Thank you, thank you, thank you. It's the amount of light that falls on the sensor that really matters. So keep ISO low because it is a volume control for noise. It's reinforces the old adage that the three most important things in photography is light, light, light.
This is the type of video that gave me a reason to subscribe. There may be other reasons to go with a lower-resolution sensor, especially for video, and that is for less rolling shutter or higher frame rates, depending on the specific read speeds of the sensors involved.
Scalling is the key as well as equivalency. Nicely done.
The A7S 1 and 3 have better dynamic range performance at high ISOs than the A7R IV. Tony is right about high megapixel cameras producing better detail at high ISOs - but the test here needs to compare dynamic range performance and colour sensitivity as well if the purpose is to make conclusions about overall image quality.
Good point. Tony?
His test was composed of only reading text.
Tony thank you for your truth about these camera. Also the photo at 9:31 shows huge quality difference in the Fuil-frame vs APS-C photo. Also your wife is eternally beautiful and amazing. congrats on the two of you both being great in photography and also making most of your videos together, where I can see and feel the love and respect that you have for each other. Best wishes to both of you in ever way. I'd had 2 marriages and for years they were heaven on Earth, even though they ended at my decision, I would do them again they were that awesome. I am still friends with them both. I'm single now at my preference for now. Peace out. Love live amazing cameras and photography and women. LOL!
A brilliant, yet simple analogy to explain light collection via pixels! Made things clearer for me at any rate. Great work.
Great insights, thank you!
I saw the method he used to get everyone confused, he scaled the high megapixel camera to 100% while scaling the lower megapixel camera to 400% but he never scaled the high megapixel camera to 400%
No he did scale it properly. The 12mp, image needs to be blown up more, because the computer thinks the photo is smaller then the 60mp photo. When in reality theyre both the same physical size.
I can't believe that in 2023 people still get confused by DPI/PPI and need absolute basics explained.
Though actually it makes sense... No one ever prints anymore, and those fancy phones of whatever resolution screens and cameras do everything to obscure that knowledge for marketing reasons.
@@Lishtenbird Maybe this person is just new? I dano... But yeah actually printing the photos, would be helpfull in learning this stuff.
THANK YOU. I have been thinking about this for a long time now since I got into cameras and photography a few months ago, and I just couldn't make the things people said add up to make sense. There is also a half-myth going around that full-frame cameras are better in low-light than APS-C because the sensor is larger and because they have larger pixels. Yes full-frame cameras are better low-light than APS-C but ONLY because in full frame the subject projection on the sensor can be larger, which means more light gathered. but for a bird photographer like myself, where the bird is at a fixed distance, then no matter what sensor you have, the bird will take up the same amount of millimeters on your sensor, which means it doesn't matter if you have the full-frame Sony A7RV or the Sony A6700. They have similar sensor technologies, and if the bird projected on the sensor does not take up more space than the APS-C sensor size, then you will not get better lowlight performance in the A7RV, nor any other full-frame camera with the same sensor technology! So low-light performance is a function of subject size on the sensor, not of the sensor size per se.
Always thought-provoking, Tony! Your conclusion comports with my own conclusion about low light performance owning first the a7s III, then the a7 IV, and now the a7R V.
Well if two of the biggest names on youtube regarding photography both agree on this then that is good enough for me!!!
There's so much more to it than pixel size and density! Each camera model is slightly different, even with the same sensor (the A7Rii, A7Riii and A99ii all share the same sensor, but don't have identical performance in low light), so a blanket statement like 'lower mega pixels is better in low light' is so banal it could only be terrible advice. I know if I compare my 2016 42mp A99ii to my 2006 10mp Sony A100 (CCD sensor!), the lower mega pixel camera is definitely not better in low light - ISO 400 in the old A100 is about equivalent to ISO 25600! Excellent work Tony, thanks!
Tony confuses the issue here by oversimplifying.
Sensors have a lot of factors to deal with besides light gathering.
a 20 MP sensor will have different signal to noise depending on whether it is medium format, full frame or APSC.
The medium format will have larger photo sites which gather more light for each pixel than the full frame, and likewise for full frame compared to APSC.
More light per pixel equals better signal to noise ratio.
Using his bucket example how much water was in ONE of the nine buckets compared to the one big bucket?
The total light gathered by the entire sensor is irrelevant to the inherent noise.
The noise is always there. In broad daylight the signal is strong enough to drown out any noise.
It's only when we run out of leeway on the other ends of the triangle and must crank the exposure (gain) that the signal to noise becomes a force to contend with.
As he mentions himself, but breezes right past. You have readout to contend with.
Higher density sensors take more voltage and generate more heat than lower density ones.
What is really going on is that the noise is finer on higher resolution sensors, because the sensor is finer.
The manifestation of thermal randomness will have bigger chunks on a lower res sensor.
For this to be scientific he would have explored ISO settings with compensation to keep them all the same exposure.
Sony a7siii sensor has a 48mp native resolution. It combines pixels in 4 pixel stacks to achive better image quality for 4k video. It allows the camera to turn on a secont readout method after iso 1600 for basic picture profile, or after 12 800 for slog3, when the noise completely dissapear. It can also achive a larger dynamic range by using subpixels at different exposure levels. That is the true advantage over larger mp cameras, and that is what sony refers to on its website. I dont know how it works for photo, maybe the extra data lose during lightroom workflow.
Small pixels will always have greater noise PER PIXEL, BUT: Downsampling a higher resolution to a lower one on the resulting image will remove much of the noise due to the averaging lowpass effect, which is a big advantage of high res sensors. Anyway, high MPIX will only cause more processing work and more disk space requirement. In case you do not need the high resolution or your workflow involves downsampling anyway, there is no benefit from high MPIX sensors.
Good video Tony finally someone else sees this I thought I was hallucinating for the past 4 years 😂
One thing is missing. If you want to take bright details simultaneously to dark shadow details, lower megapixel sensor probably would have different exposure settings but also better detailed image. You may try to compare those cameras in video using SLog or CLog and zebras. You don't need a high ISO for that, you probably should use a lowest native one and compare it
What are you talking about, it's so disconnected I can't understand what you are trying to get at.
This literally sounds like it was written by an AI that was given a few camera terms to throw around.
Dpreview has a web page where you can compare the same image taken from several different cameras. The lower mpx image usually looks cleaner, but there is an option to down sample them all to the same resolution. At the same resolution the noise difference virtually goes away.
You mean, comparing say a native 26mp apsc, and a 61 mp camera on apsc mode, they will have the same noise profile?
I won’t believe this until I see a comparison with LESS LIGHT! And Tony you should know, that it’ll be much more interesting when the noise ruins the few photons collected by a small “bucket” while the more photons collected with the bigger “buckets” will have a far better noise to signal ratio thus showing more information. Who are you kidding,Tony?
This is one of the best videos I’ve seen in a long time. You always have good videos, but this one is great!
Thanks!
I agree. With my A7R III it doesnt do bad in low light. But Ive also noticed I get more noise at ISO 400 or 640 than I do at ISO 1600. Maybe next video can go into detail about why this is so for those that dont understand how my higher ISO 1600 produces cleaner low light photos than at ISO 400 or 640.
Exposing right in camera using a high iso will always produce better results than using a lower iso and increasing the exposure in post-production, regardless of sensor. Provided you don’t clip any highlights.
@@EmilWall correft exposure or not my A7R III does better and less noise photos at 1600 and 3200 ISO than an 400, 640, or even 800 ISO.
If you shoot a higher iso in camera as opposed to stretching it in post, you avoid adding digital noise to the image. Also the camera is duel band iso settings. The higher band is less noisy than the low band iso settings.
I have also noticed this issue on my Sony A7Riii. Not sure why and trying to understand how I can get less noisy images when using 400-800 iso. Sometimes I shoot in auto mode and it still picks 400 iso and the image is very noisy. I use the Tamron 28-200mm lens. Not sure if that has anything to do.
@@iShootWild it has to do with the processor I believe. The images start getting clean again around 1200 ISO. This is why I said he should mention this in the next video. There are a lot of photographers that aeent awear of this.
Thank goodness for some sense and logic applied to this. I've long argued that the only comparison should be after optimum processing and then downsizing to the lowest resolution of the two. It's the main reason I use a GFX100s.
It’s so fun to watch Tony when he’s needing out on camera tech! 😂 keep it up Tony! You’re doing GREAT!
Thank you for shooting on the a7sIII in 4K, so much better quality.
Excellent video, as someone who shoots handheld in low light environments, exactly what I needed to confirm my own experience. One follow up question. Does the stacked sensor in the Sony A1 make any difference shooting low light against say the new a7Rv. Thanks.
We’re talking apparent noise here (which is what matters anyway) because pixels produce noise. More of them=more noise. There’s read, bias, gain and thermal noise and its more of an issue in astrophotography and nightscape photography. Particularly in astrophotography with a telescope stacking hundreds of 5 min long exposures of very faint objects. In these situations you really see how noisy sensors can be. And high mp sensors have more of it, but they also produce more detailed images. At some point though the detailed resolution becomes useless because it can’t be perceived. It’s just noisier.
I’d suggest that one exception to this rule would be astrophotography. A lower megapixel sensor will allow longer shutter speeds without visible star trailing. This allows either lower iso or more light gathering at the same iso (longer shutter), both of which are likely to produce a superior image. I know that’s a pretty niche scenario but a valid one nonetheless.
How is the size of pixels related to shutter speed?
@@draughonc the important thing for me is ‘noticeable’ star trailing. A star trail will usually be caused because a star moves across your image, but stays the same height. So in a lower megapixel camera, a star might move 1pixel across, in the same amount of time that would be 5 pixels across in a sensor with 5 times resolution (an extreme example). A 1x2 trail will be far less noticeable than a 1x5 trail. Admittedly, the lower resolution will have other drawbacks. I’m just talking here about getting a cleaner image due to lower resolution, not what is overall a better way to capture an image.
Larger pixels have less detail, so you can leave the shutter open longer before seeing motion blur. In the case for stars the Asiii with the 55mm lens, you can use 8second shutter speed before seeing star trails. The A7riv would only be 6 seconds.
I think the main argument of high megapixels fans is that you can always scale the image down. Then star trails will not be more visible than with a low megapixel camera. But why buy a high megapixel camera and then scale it down? A high resolution restricts your photographic freedom a lot unless you want to scale the photos down in the end anyway.
That really seems like a typical Tony argument, who also thinks that iPhones can compete with real cameras.
Although your result are clear, and I must agree, there is this but: every pixel on the image sensor is like a square bucket, and these have walls, walls that have a minimum thickness. These walls take away some light. The more pixels on one area, the more light is lost. Then again I don't know the numbers of how thick these walls and if they found a way to lose less light there. Do you know?
when i rented a sony a9 years ago that thing was nuts, could shoot in pretty shitty light conditions but still somehow managed to recover shadows and some exp when editing. wild camera. Also borrowed a gfx 50r from a friend for a shoot and that thing also recovered A LOT in editing. but the sony still felt like it took better night shots.
Great to see you both still making videos! It's been a while since I've been back in the game.
Didn't this used to be true before sensors had gapless pixels? To use your bucket metaphor, some water used to be lost hitting the edge of the buckets. I believe it used to be the same with pixels in sensors.
True, but it must be said that Canon still uses front-side illuminated sensors on most of their cameras including R5 and R6, and they still do fine at high ISO.
Thank you. I purchased an R6 initially. Six months later I realized the error of my ways and I sold it in favor of an R5. The reality you explain here was one part of my decision to trade up. I like having the extra megapixel sensor. I'm persuaded that when you take everything into consideration the R5 is actually the better camera (over the R6) in low light. If your concern is low light performance - get the R5, not the R6.
PLEASE talk about how Dual Native ISO's compare with high & low MP Cameras in regard to noise.
This comparison is ridiculously unfair. Scaling the 12mp image to that of a 60mp image would OBVIOUSLY put the 12mp image to a huge disadvantage!
ISO performance is not really tested well here considering you are just facing a wall with 2 static light sources behind you.
The A7siii should be set at the correct ISO levels and Shutter speed where that map portrait is detailed enough. Then match the A7riv exposure levels to the A7siii result. The A7riv should result in a much darker image to match the noise levels to that of the A7siii.
I've noticed that myself in several cases (less MP is cleaner, but more MP is more detailed so the final result is similar), but the idea that "less MP is better for low light" still lived in my mind. Thanks Tony & Chelsea for this revelation!
Finally someone has made a good video about this which was obvious already when D800 came out.
On the Fujifilm GFX 100s (102mp) the noise is extremely small compared to the size of the photos. At ISO 12800 the image quality is insane.
well.. it's also a medium format camera.... completely different sensor size...
Tony's mannerisms in the opening scene reminded me of the juiceman, Jay Kordich.
Thanks for the great video. I don't like to resize all my High MP pics, so I go for lower pixels. Just buy what fits your needs.
That's true. you just saved me alot of money
nice seeing this in 1440p/4k instead of 1080p.
But it doesn't take in consideration that when you're using a high megapixel sensor you need to pair it with a very sharp lens in order to take advantage of the higher megapixel, so it makes the whole combo quite expensive, 20 or 24 megapixel on a full frame sensor for me are still great
The advantage will be less with a softer lens. But the image will still always be better on the higher resolution camera if you use the same lens. But today even entry level lenses tends to razor sharp around f5.6-8.
@@80-80. if so why for instance fuji made a list with the lenses that work better with the new 40 megapixel sensor... For me it's because the higher megapixel sensor will emphasize the cons of a lens, ad CA and low sharpness, it will make it appear even worse on a high megapixel sensor
@redis8298 I think you're right. A higher pixel density just might expose CA and LoCA of a lens that's not APO. Improper focus and exposure as well as camera shake and subject motion all rob IQ.
@@redis8298 Fuji published the list primarily to sell their high-end fixed focal lengths. It's true that you really benefit from them because they are already extremely sharp in general (comparable to Canon-L, Sigma art or Sony GM) but in practice, when you look at the images in a normalised view, you won't see any disadvantage in the image with a 40MP sensor. Of course, if you look at a 26MP and 40MP image and both at 150%, the crop on the 40MP is much smaller compared to the total image area because you are closer to a possible resolution limit of a lens. I have professionally tested all kinds of Fuji lenses with the X-H2 and the X-T5, you don't really need the new lenses, but if you don't have one yet, it makes sense to go for the latest technology.
I almost fell for the same marketing. I almost bought an A7S3 for my astrophotography instead of the A1, because I believed that the smaller pixels would give me better astro photos. Instead, I decided to grab the A1 and haven't looked back.
Thanks Tony, I did think larger pixels were more sensitive to light and had less noise but it makes sense that the most important thing to consider is total light across the sensor area. I guess one variable to consider is dual gain circuits. E.g. my black magic pocket 4k has dual native ISO at 400 and 3200 and it's a bit of a low light beast at 3200.
I have found on my higher megapixel camera that anything shot above iso 3200 has too much noise. It may have more detail, but I find the noise less desirable in the final product.
@@ElMundoDurowhat noise reduction software are you using?
@@sexysilversurfer I have Lightroom, Topaz, and Luminar Neo. Sometimes Topaz will save a photo, but it depends. When I make timelapses from the photos I use Davinci Resolve to get rid of the noise and it works pretty good sometimes. I guess I just need a faster wider lens for astrophotography which is where I really want to go higher ISO but find the results disappointing.
@@ElMundoDuro looks like you have tried the main options for noise reduction.
@@sexysilversurfer except the best one… DxO Pureraw. Doesn’t leave images looking as plasticy as topaz, and seems to keep more detail.
This is very enlightening, especially since I bought myself a Canon R5C recently. Thank you!!
Bless you Tony! I went with a Nikon D800 for shooting live concerts. To the standard thinking of the time that is the opposite of what is recommended. The D800 is awesome in low light and allows for cropping a lot better than some other cameras.
Thanks for the video. There's actually one pretty important component to the Sony test that you may have missed, which is that the a7S III's sensor is not actually 12MP. Surprisingly, the IMX510 found in the a7S III is a 48MP quad-bayer sensor with 2x2 pixel binning, so the pixel size is actually fairly similar to that of the a7R IV's 61MP IMX451 sensor, and especially close to that of the a1's 50MP IMX610 sensor. Binning doesn't get around all of the penalties that are associated with smaller pixels (increased readout noise, lower fill factor, etc.), so it's not very surprising to see that the two cameras have incredibly similar noise levels. As far as I know this isn't documented anywhere by Sony.
This is the 1st time i read this anywhere, i want to upgrade my a7iii. I do a lot of low light events & astro, i was leaning towards A1 but that high MP worries me on the low light and dont want to rent all these cameras
Completely agree, this is exactly what we found in comparisons we did too. High resolution sensors always outperform low resolution sensors of the same size and generation when shot at high ISO.
Always good to see such videos to dispel the myth. Dpreview also produced a pretty good video about it, showing that the 60MP sensor produced better images than the 12MP one even in low light. The denoising algorithm simply works better with more pixels.
This realization hit me when I replaced my a7ii with an a7Rii. The “R” actually seemed to have better low light performance mainly because I could shoot at higher ISO’s and apply more aggressive noise reduction in post to compensate while losing very little detail in the bargain.
(Being a BSI sensor probably didn’t hurt). 😉
I got the A7 II and I'm bitter about all the good stuff that the R II has going for it that I don't get, like the lower noise, being able to charge while running, and subject tracking that actually works (on the A7 II it completely drifts away immediately).
@@404Anymouse I have the 7ii and ater 7 years of owning it i can say that it is a nice camera to learn, but the autofocus sucks, working it as a videocamera is a nightmare, but well is the second A7line, almost 10 years have passed since its launch, we cannot ask more from it
The a7Rii has a backlit sensor which helps significantly with low light performance, while the a7ii does not.
BSI-CMOS is about full f-stop better than CMOS and that's substantial difference
Yep, tried to tell this at a forum, not an easy task. It is something you learn through experiences and learn from them.
Perfect video.
No, because he cheated using the same ISO but makes you think he talks about brightness. You wouldn't have to use that high of ISO with an A7s vs. an A7r for the same brightness. THAT is the advantage and people that need an A7s for video know that. For general use no one would ever buy an A7s.
Excellent clarification! Thank you!
Hi Tony, great video. I also find that the same amount of noise on two sensors for the same framing, will look less "noisy" with double the MPX as the noise is "half the size" for the high mpx camera in the final image even if all post processing is the same. I wonder if that made sense?
It does, noise in a high MPX sensor has "higher spatial frequency" so even if there is "more noise" it is occurring at a spatial frequency higher than the equivalent lower resolution sensor. Put another way, a low resolution sensor is nearly identical to a high resolution sensor where pixels are forcibly binned to the lower resolution. Only little detail left out is that there can be slight overhead in the sensor surface area, biasing the argument against what Tony is saying here, (by the bucket analogy, the bucket walls have some thickness that has to be considered, so a single large bucket collects a little more water... However, the spatial advantage allows noise reduction to overwhelmingly perform better with higher resolution anyways so Tony is correct for all practical purposes.
3:04 Perfect use of "Enhance" 👌 Great video!
Bucket analogy works against him. You would collect slightly more water with the one large bucket because, with the multiple buckets, there would be more loss when water hits the rims inbetween buckets (even with square buckets).
You're right.
It was only an analogy - you have tried to over-think it.
Correct. And the areas separating each pixel can take up a significant percentage of a sensors light-facing area. Backlit image sensors diminish this, but do not remove it entirely. So a sensor with fewer, large sensels will gather more light than a sensor with many, smaller sensels. In some cases, far more light.
Tony knows this. Believe he only says these things to troll and drive engagement.
@@colinhoward2200 The analogy aspect is even generous because water that hits the rim of a bucket may partially splash in the bucket but light photons that hit the "rim" of a pixel are lost. So it's actually even worse than this analogy leads on.
@@miggetymike1 Lemme be pedantic to the max. Photons hitting the “rim” / edge / frame have a probabilistic chance of hitting the sensel - like a normal distribution curve. If pixel lens design, offset centers depending on axial distance to account for acute angle of incidence, and BSI are all at play then we can assume zero wall thickness is correct for the rain buckets. Or that the container walls are razor sharp and split water droplets probabilistically.
I had felt for marketing..thought I pretty much know the general principles of photography and cameras :) turns out- noot.. thank you very much, learned something new today! :)
I always thought lower megapixels = better low light performance. The Nikon Z APS-C are very, very good at low light and that is a 21 Mp sensor I think.
The amount of light hitting the sensor is controled by aperture and shutter speed. So with the same amount of light collected the higher MP sensor does better. The lower MP pixels are bigger so they can collect more light per pixel than a higher MP sensor, before blowing out the highlights.
Super interesting as per usual!
Great, as always. Thanks. A few off topic comments perhaps for another episode:
- Sharpness may not be everything. So here is another myth: 'Fewer, larger pixels are far better for dynamic range than more, smaller pixels'.
- Moreover, for adapted lenses or more 'budget friendly' lenses (non professional) what is really the tradeoff between high megapixels and lower pixel pich?
1:07 this finally made me understand whats going on here. Thank you!
Yet it would be nice to see that results are the same in actual low light situation. Low amount of light on the sensor.
Every few years this myth needs busting, thanks for this video. Two identical exposures on identical-sized sensors capture the same amount of light, regardless of how big the photosites are.
Thermal noise is higher with more megapixels, and this is significant in low light long exposure, like astrophotography.
Sorry Tony, I have to disagree here in regards to “real world” low light usage. I set up an ARs3 & an A7r4 next to each other with identical settings & lenses & shot a Milky Way Time lapse, & the A7s3’s images were much clearer & less noisy. I understand what you are saying in regards to scaling( 12mp v 61mp) but I’m just giving you a “real world” example. Lol keep up the great work. 👍
“Cleaner”, “less noisy”… but you forgot about the last mitigating factor: “more detailed”. Perhaps in your astro-photography scenario, with just point sources of light, the “more detailed” part is not as differentiated. Just a guess…. and something to consider. It’s an ‘unusual’ subject matter to be sure. Not like rendering cursive scripts from a map.
@@billr3053 when viewing as a 4k render, the extra detail of the r4 was unusable to where the noise couldn’t be removed to a satisfactory result, so for astro timelapses viewing in 4k, the s3 gave a cleaner result without detail loss.
@@nashhall694 Interesting. Astro photography is my weak point. I’ll take your word for it but as I said that “unusual” subject matter may emphasize other strengths of a larger sensel-laden surface. As opposed to a wall map whose EV has been cranked to 18% gray level unlike a black sky for example that is supposed to remain black. I just thought of that. :)
He doesn't define what he means by "BEST" and this is a good illustration. From his tests he obviously considers capturing finer details to be the issue at play, which.. like the sensor has 5x the resolution, of course it's going to capture finer details. But there are so many factors at play, and the RUclips incentive structure is at odds with the fact that there is no one definition of "best" when it comes to image quality. Is it detail? Dynamic range? Noise? Accurate color?
If one's objective is low light and high ISO, besides astrophotography being the perfect medium to test this in, one might also conclude that you'd be more interested in comparing noise or dynamic range (specifically the shadows). This video just.. it doesn't make any sense to me. It's trying to make a simple generalization about a multifactorial system based on a single factor. It's just doesn't demonstrate anything useful. Unless you consider showing that a higher resolution camera captures finer details than a lower resolution camera to be useful in some way.
Thermal noise is worse with high megapixel cameras. Your eyes are not lying to you!
Downsampling 4k video to 1080p also produces often better 1080p quality.
Are there any modern high resolution full-frame cameras suitable for astro-videography?
Yes, I think that phenomenon is less a myth and more a tech limitation that has recently been ironed out. DSLRs suffered from this much more than the latest mirrorless offerings. For example, my 36mp Nikon D800 starts showing visible noise at around ISO 800, while my 16mp D4S never has noise at ISO 800, and only ever starts showing noise at around ISO 2500
There is also a possibility that at least in some instances in past people didn't scale images when comparing (they didn't upscale a smaller megapixel image to the size of a larger one), so they would view both low and high megapixel images at the pixel level, and when viewing them that way, of course higher megapixel camera will appear more noisy, since pixels are smaller, and thus the same number of pixels will cover smaller surface, and thus "gather" less light.
Thanks for this! I've virtually given up on trying to correct the plethora of people that continue to parrot the erroneous concept of high mp being noisier for still images, even though DXOMARK numbers clearly demonstrate exactly what you're saying. When I got my a7Riv 2.5 yrs ago, and zoomed in to 100% pixels, I was initially shocked at the illusion of more noise, but quickly realized that the pixel level view was GREATLY magnifying any noise (compared to lower MP sensors) by taking a MUCH deeper dive into the image. This is a concept that has been so lost, to so many, that it's difficult to get folks to understand. Thanks again!
This has been my anecdotal experience with same generation sensors. I’ve shifted to higher megapixels for my night work, like the Fuji-xh2 and the Leica m11. Thanks for doing the objective look
Your heading for the video is wrong: " MYTH BUSTED: HIGH MEGAPIXELS IS BEST FOR LOW LIGHT". The myth is that LOW megapixel cameras are best for low light.
When you scaled the 12MP image did you scale it to the same size as the 60MP image or vice versa? If it's the former, there's a fatal flaw that you're upscaling a 12MP image to a 60MP image and any small noise will be magnified largely.
If done vice versa, you're downscaling a 60MP image to a 12MP image which then makes it even more useless since then you're using a 60MP camera as a 12MP camera so what's the comparison being done for in the first place unless done pixel to pixel equally unless you plan to always print a 60MP image on a
lol what are you on about? its not 2001 anymore
@@heat1235 : What are YOU on about? You want higher MP, why not use the new 104 MP sensor on your smartphone instead? ;)
Great video! I remember you being the first to make me realize this when you mentioned it about the D850.
But to nitpick, the myth being busted is that low megapixel is best for low light and high ISO, hence my confusion at the title at first :)
Please talk about another myth: Do lower pixel counts (on same sensor size) contribute to better dynamic range?
As you say, it is just a myth as well. Lower pixel counts (on same sensor size) wouldn't contribute to better dynamic range.
@@tubularificationed what is noiser, one huge basket collecting charge connected to one ADC or 4 smaller baskets connected to 4 ADC and averaged in software? Ofc it depend of ADC quality. If you get very good ADC it almost same, but in practice i very doubt. And ADC work in very hard conditions (crosstalk with adjucent lines/sensels, geometric tolerance of circuit elements must be 4 times finer, etc)
I'd say that 4 smaller baskets are privileged.
- tolerance errors are evening out better, if you have 4 small buckets rather than 1 big one.
- the same goes for dead pixels (or stuck pixels). Faults have only 25% effect rather than 100%. Repairing faults (e.g. interpolation between neighboring pixels) is also better, because at high resolutions, micro contrast edges are recorded more smoothly, which helps concealing mathematical interpolations.
- all demosaicking / debayering artifacts also benefit from high resolutions, for related reasons. Because also demosaicking is some sort of interpolation between neighboring pixels.
- 4 small pixels only accumulate 25% of electrical charges each, i.e. only would generate 25% of cross talk, and that would only affect 25% of the spatial neighborhood.
But in general, ADCs and other electronics are so properly designed (already since long), that such issues play zero role since many years anyway.
Which can be verified by inspecting any high-res photo taken during the last 10 years or so 😉 (or actually the entire era since when high-res sensors existed).
@@tubularificationed nice trolling, respect.
This chanel deserves name in hall of fame of photography University.
I ordered a Sony a7RV last night and I’m not gonna lie, this lowlight thing was a concern before I decided to purchase the camera after all. I’m glad there’s really not much to worry about.
Thank you for this. Thirty-six hours ago I compared performance of my 33mp a7iv with that of my 61mp a7Riv. On a mountain summit I shot starry sky landscapes at ISO 3200 and 6400 using a Zeiss Loxia 21 wide open at f/2.8. Viewed at 200% on a 27" monitor there was no benefit to using the lower pixel count, same size, sensor. Shots from both cameras benefited from good noise reduction and Topaz DeNoise worked well.
@ricksanchez7250 Did you also test and what did you find? I had expected the large px 33mp sensor to outperform the 61mp but it did not.
Thanks for the video. Have you tried comparing high resolution cameras/sensors vs their low resolution counterparts for something like astrophotography and would (did) you get similar results?
DSLR for astro always go for lower megapixel. You'll get lower read noise and better dynamic range.
@@MattDvc did you watch the video? 😂
@@EverythingCameFromNothing my comment is not based on the video, but experience using 24mp z6 and 45mp z7 for astrophotography.
@@MattDvc Did you compare the images at the same magnification OR equivalent sizes?
I’d be interested to see some of your examples
@@EverythingCameFromNothing it's not how astrophotography works mate.
I come at this from an astrophotography angle. For a given technology level larger pixels (fewer pixels in a given area) gives you a better SNR. But if you use different tech (including noise reduction firmware, more modern pixel tech, etc.) then the smaller pixels (more pixels in the same area) may do as well or better than the larger pixels.
So you cannot simply say that more pixels gives you less noise than do fewer pixels - or that fewer pixels means less noise.
And when it comes to low light the issue isn't exactly noise which is paramount, it is the SNR.
One other note? There are some cameras which use noise reduction circuitry. That makes normal testing look better but can end up tossing out some stars and similar which it thinks are noise but are actually signal. When that happens then the SNR for that pixel (or set of pixels) goes to zero and if your testing is simplistic it might look like the camera isn't noisy but it is doing at the expense of signal.
It really isn't a simple issue and you can't accurately claim that in low light that more pixels is better - or worse. There really is much more that goes into it.
Tony, I know ISO is just q number as you said, but what does the uniquely high ISO of the A7S3 provide over the A1 provide in terms of image quality? Thanks in advance.
Could be higher dynamic range at higher ISO's...
Comparing SOOC images is pointless, how many people are actually using SOOC RAW images. In the real world, as a landscape astrophotographer who shoots in proper low light conditions, I rely heavily on pulling detail out of the shadows in which case lower megapixel cameras (or more correctly, cameras with a higher pixel pitch) have a massive advantage.