I’d be interested to see what it does to skin tones in a very dark building - whether it’s roughly the same or not. Looking forward to the rest of your findings! I had saved for the A9iii and could afford it but think I’m gonna go A1 because it’s so much cheaper (and the A9iii won’t make me any more money.)
Thank you for your comparison test! Two comments: Your images show no color noise at all. I own the Sony A9I and can confirm, that it has color noise like every camera 🙂. Either the camera or lightroom already did a strong color denoising on the images. As a second note - I don't know the details of Lightroom, but I expect, that it has profiles for each camera model. When Capture One for example does not know the specific model, it uses a Sony generic profile. So it may happen, that lightroom uses another profile for the A9III and the A9II and the colors may look different, even if the RAW data is identical.
Color noise is an interesting one. I don't have any background knowledge, but I've noticed that the files from my Sony cameras (a6300 and A7C) look pretty bad in Affinity Photo, with awful color noise, but in Lightroom, there's very little of that. In fact, with the A7C there's ONLY luma noise as far as I can tell. Because of that, I don't even mind it that much.
The anti-aliasing filter on the A9iii appears less aggressive too, resulting in sharper images (meaning sharper noise too), but the differences are extremely minimal up until ISO 25,600. I'd say that from ISO 250 to 12,800, there's maybe a 0.1 to 0.3 stop less DR on the A9iii, and then it drops to maybe 0.5 stop less DR. Certainly not like the "1 stop less DR" many of us expected. Considering it's a global shutter ... WOW!
Thanks for doing this test. According to Photons to Photos, A9II has 0.5 stops less dynamic range than the A7III at ISO 250, which means that the A9III's DR may be ~0.75 stops less than the A7III (now a US$1300 5-year old camera) at base ISO. It's DR will even be worse at the higher ISOs. For sports, this is a reasonable but expensive trade-off.
This is not correct. The original a9 lost out in dr against the a7 III, not the a9 II. The a9 II beat the a7 III significantly at all meaningful ISOs, which is to say above 400.
@@AlbertPalmer Absolutely not. The a9 II sensor is noticeably better than the one in the original a9. That, the dual UHS-II cards and updated mechanical shutter mechanism are the differences between the two.
@@youknowwho9247weird I know people who own both and say it’s exactly the same (image quality wise.) but looks like you’re right DXO gives it a 93 vs 92 for the A9
Thx for the test. From my persperctive, this is remarkable. I thought we would see some real problems, but this is neglectable. I don't use ISOs above 16.000 that often, so it wouldn't regard to me. Impressive performance.
at which point you could just go straight for a smaller sensor camera…. Not even ISO 25600 hurts me on 32MP APS-C, meanwhile you guys dont wanna use above 16000 on a 10.000$ camera 😂
any pointers as to why the A9II EVF would show so many artifacts ( purple blue moire ) and has so little resolution especially while half pressing the shutter during focusing?
I'm glad the low-light penalty is not as severe as many feared it might be. Noticeable (at least when pixel peeping) but small when shooting 12800 ISO and below.
The A9/A9II sensor is not ISO-invariant under about ISO 800 according to DPreview, I guess that is why it looses a little in the 3 stops push from ISO 250. If you redo the 3 stops push test above ISO 800 where the A9II sensor is getting more ISO invariant you might get an another result.
Thank you for the comparison! I don't nick pick the iso. I always shoot photographs with any iso up to 6,400. I try not to go past iso 4,000 but if i must, then 6,400 is my limit. I want to go entirely E-shutter now so I would love to see how great the a9iii will do with flash photography.
thanks a lot! promising! Since I take most photos on set/documentary style, the noise performance isnt that important since its almost exclusively used/distributed on the web/instagram/etc. Im really looking forward to this new swivel screen, awesome viewfinder, ergonomics and high framerates and "low" megapixel count (the a1 50MP ist way too much)
For the normal Sony sensors with dual gain, you never push exposure at ISO's below 640. So on A9II it's better to tqke photo at ISO 800 than push ISO 100 3 stops. So this may be why the pushed A9II at ISO 250 looks worse. The A9III is not a dual gain sensor, so it doesn't really matter if you push it at base ISO.
With the global shutter, will it be possible to do drag shutter flash work or flash work with different curtain syncs?? It doesn't have a curtain so I wonder what is possible with slow shutter speeds and strobes.
this is a very interesting point! No curtain, but it still has a start and finish, so you should still be able to pop that flash near the end or start of a long exposure, i would think. pretty sure it does have at least some sort of ability to alter the flash timing.
It might have been better to match WB of the cameras, because warmer photos/colors look brighter in general. Could explain (at least partially) the slight difference.
Great test, thanks. Seems like Sony delivered on their promise that they'd sorted out the challenges of making a global shutter sensor with low light performance that's on par with current rolling shutter sensor technology. I was sceptical, like a lot of people. Now I'm just positively surprised. :) I'm don't do any photography that calls for the A9III, but I don't mind the tech trickling down to future cameras that would make more sense for someone like me.
amazing test!! Thx a lot! I would like to see some test on LED backdrop, because some LED backdrop will look ugly while we shooting at 1/250 or above, is the globle shutter helps in this situation? :)
... thx, finally a real IQ comparison. 👍🏻 in summary, for me this means: between ISO 250 and 12,800 both cameras have roughly the same noise, the A9 II has less noise below and above. And because ISO 100 is missing on the a9 III, the photographer has to take photos under the same conditions with about half the exposure time as with the a9 II. That’s very good in terms of the new GS and for my kind of journalism it will work absolutely fine. 😊 What about the noise level at ISO 125 (extended)?
Don't forget the camera also has a mode where it can stack 32 images together (which you can do at 120fps), resulting in better signal to noise ratio (less noise overall). It would be interesting to see the results of this. My guess is that for anything that has slow movement, this will result in better IQ than what the A9 ii can do.
@@youuuuuuuuuuutube yeah I tried this, but it outputs jpg or tiff file sadly and you need to process it with Sony tool. Not impressed so far, but I need to take some more time to test it out
Owning and using m43 and Sony FF for some years, it's like comparing the two together. You try to say "it's not a huge difference". But it is. You can deliver images from both, but one is better... BTW - it is a substantial difference, IMO. Even at the 'lower of the high' ISOs.
Honestly, when I compare my old Nikon D610 files to modern cameras, I don't see a huge difference in high iso performance. To me, there hasn't been a noticeable improvement in this area in cameras since ~2012. There is some improvement, but not significant. The main improvement has been in autofocus performance and video.
@@ElReySupr3me Yeah, at most 1 stop improvement. Then again, a lot of people are shooting video these days and that's where the camera companies are putting their focus. Also, with today's autofocus, it's much easier to get something in focus at f/1.4. So, ISO performance was great around 2012 and it's a bit better now. However, cameras have improved in most other aspects.
@@Daniel_Zalman fully agree. I learned in the art of photography. Im no pro btw, but the problem is that everything is video now and days. A whole diffball game. Also, what your stating about 1.4 is so true! My 1.2 focuses on the eye all the time. It's crazy how amazing g these ecameras have gotten for autofocus.
… or filming at night - ISO 25600 for example is not problem for the a7S III. The 6K oversampled footage of the a9 III looks also very decent at such high ISO.
@@TW-iu9zy I don't know a lot about video, but I think shutter speed is 1/frame rate, no? So, 24fps or 30 fps, gives you 1/25 or 1/30 shutter speed. Maybe for film you'll need more dog, so you'll shoot f/5.6 or f/8. Yeah, I guess in available light, you may need to crank the ISO in that range.
@@Daniel_Zalman 180 rule means 1/2xfps. So for 24p you have 1/50. For 120fps you can easily break the rule if you want go with higher SS. So with 120fps you need to go 1/250 or faster, and as a result, ISO needs to be high in low light…
… because of the GS. but it‘s not a problem for the group of photographers, the fast shooting a9 III is for - journalist like me or sport/action and event photographer. They can deal with the higher Base ISO. It’s not a camera for the „normal everyday“ shooters … 😏 …
Thanks a lot having demonstrate what we expected from the release of the A9III who is becoming a deal breaker at this price point … Sony can’t stand this position with these results regarding a 4 years old A9II ! Global Shutter at the end of the technological debate should end with an substantial image quality improvement who is actually not the case for the moment with the A9III.
I’d be interested to see what it does to skin tones in a very dark building - whether it’s roughly the same or not. Looking forward to the rest of your findings!
I had saved for the A9iii and could afford it but think I’m gonna go A1 because it’s so much cheaper (and the A9iii won’t make me any more money.)
I think there's more difference in contrast between the two cameras than noise difference.
Excellent comparison, particularly thankful you chose to compare the a9iii with its predecessor to keep the resolution consistent. Great work.
It looks very promising! Can’t wait for another video ❤
Thank you for your comparison test! Two comments: Your images show no color noise at all. I own the Sony A9I and can confirm, that it has color noise like every camera 🙂. Either the camera or lightroom already did a strong color denoising on the images. As a second note - I don't know the details of Lightroom, but I expect, that it has profiles for each camera model. When Capture One for example does not know the specific model, it uses a Sony generic profile. So it may happen, that lightroom uses another profile for the A9III and the A9II and the colors may look different, even if the RAW data is identical.
Color noise is an interesting one. I don't have any background knowledge, but I've noticed that the files from my Sony cameras (a6300 and A7C) look pretty bad in Affinity Photo, with awful color noise, but in Lightroom, there's very little of that. In fact, with the A7C there's ONLY luma noise as far as I can tell. Because of that, I don't even mind it that much.
GREAT comparison! Finally someone doing a head to head test , this is exactly what I have been waiting for! Subscribed!
Thanks your video .still worth to buy Sony A9II?i have Sony A7iv , Thanks
The anti-aliasing filter on the A9iii appears less aggressive too, resulting in sharper images (meaning sharper noise too), but the differences are extremely minimal up until ISO 25,600.
I'd say that from ISO 250 to 12,800, there's maybe a 0.1 to 0.3 stop less DR on the A9iii, and then it drops to maybe 0.5 stop less DR. Certainly not like the "1 stop less DR" many of us expected.
Considering it's a global shutter ... WOW!
the price is more wow than anything else
Thanks for doing this test. According to Photons to Photos, A9II has 0.5 stops less dynamic range than the A7III at ISO 250, which means that the A9III's DR may be ~0.75 stops less than the A7III (now a US$1300 5-year old camera) at base ISO. It's DR will even be worse at the higher ISOs. For sports, this is a reasonable but expensive trade-off.
This is not correct. The original a9 lost out in dr against the a7 III, not the a9 II. The a9 II beat the a7 III significantly at all meaningful ISOs, which is to say above 400.
The A7iii has the best DR of all FF cameras. It has a full 1 stop more DR than the Nikon Z9, for reference.
@@youknowwho9247I thought they had exactly the same sensor?
@@AlbertPalmer Absolutely not. The a9 II sensor is noticeably better than the one in the original a9. That, the dual UHS-II cards and updated mechanical shutter mechanism are the differences between the two.
@@youknowwho9247weird I know people who own both and say it’s exactly the same (image quality wise.) but looks like you’re right DXO gives it a 93 vs 92 for the A9
@10:00 Yes, the A9ii ISO drops DR at 250; I usually go from 100 straight to 640 and skip that in-between.
may I ask you why?
Thx for the test. From my persperctive, this is remarkable. I thought we would see some real problems, but this is neglectable. I don't use ISOs above 16.000 that often, so it wouldn't regard to me. Impressive performance.
at which point you could just go straight for a smaller sensor camera….
Not even ISO 25600 hurts me on 32MP APS-C, meanwhile you guys dont wanna use above 16000 on a 10.000$ camera 😂
So, are you saying it's just a fancier version of a lesser A9ii?
this is a really useful comparison, thank you!
Great comparison, the a9iii still has the pre-production firmware correct ? I would like to see some video comparisons, Thanks
any pointers as to why the A9II EVF would show so many artifacts ( purple blue moire ) and has so little resolution especially while half pressing the shutter during focusing?
It could be the Sony Global Shutter Readout affect the Base ISO in terms of circuitry. Thank you so much for sharing.
I'm glad the low-light penalty is not as severe as many feared it might be. Noticeable (at least when pixel peeping) but small when shooting 12800 ISO and below.
Can you share the iso6400 raw files from both cameras please.
The A9/A9II sensor is not ISO-invariant under about ISO 800 according to DPreview, I guess that is why it looses a little in the 3 stops push from ISO 250. If you redo the 3 stops push test above ISO 800 where the A9II sensor is getting more ISO invariant you might get an another result.
Excellent work, the results look very good. Thank you.
Thank you for the comparison! I don't nick pick the iso. I always shoot photographs with any iso up to 6,400. I try not to go past iso 4,000 but if i must, then 6,400 is my limit. I want to go entirely E-shutter now so I would love to see how great the a9iii will do with flash photography.
Thanks for the test ❤
thanks a lot! promising! Since I take most photos on set/documentary style, the noise performance isnt that important since its almost exclusively used/distributed on the web/instagram/etc. Im really looking forward to this new swivel screen, awesome viewfinder, ergonomics and high framerates and "low" megapixel count (the a1 50MP ist way too much)
For the normal Sony sensors with dual gain, you never push exposure at ISO's below 640. So on A9II it's better to tqke photo at ISO 800 than push ISO 100 3 stops. So this may be why the pushed A9II at ISO 250 looks worse. The A9III is not a dual gain sensor, so it doesn't really matter if you push it at base ISO.
Nice video. I think what would be nice to see is high ISO, low light shots from hotel ballrooms, or conference rooms. Can you do that?
Thanks for that comparison, I was wanting to upgrade to the a9iii
How does the a7iii compare to the a9ii in terms of noise?
what hv eye udecided as far as your gear moving forward ?, Keep using RV, or A1 or A9III ?
With the global shutter, will it be possible to do drag shutter flash work or flash work with different curtain syncs?? It doesn't have a curtain so I wonder what is possible with slow shutter speeds and strobes.
this is a very interesting point! No curtain, but it still has a start and finish, so you should still be able to pop that flash near the end or start of a long exposure, i would think. pretty sure it does have at least some sort of ability to alter the flash timing.
It might have been better to match WB of the cameras, because warmer photos/colors look brighter in general. Could explain (at least partially) the slight difference.
Great test, thanks. Seems like Sony delivered on their promise that they'd sorted out the challenges of making a global shutter sensor with low light performance that's on par with current rolling shutter sensor technology. I was sceptical, like a lot of people. Now I'm just positively surprised. :)
I'm don't do any photography that calls for the A9III, but I don't mind the tech trickling down to future cameras that would make more sense for someone like me.
Can it start recording video while writing photos to the buffer?
Not enough significant differences to warrant a complaint. Well done Sony
Great work, like always 🙂
thx, very useful information
are you not allowed to share RAW files yet?
So can one buy a9 cheap now?
Great tests! Thank you. A9III is looking damn good all things considered.
Great comparison, I'll stick with my 9II. I don't need 120 fps or flash at 1/4000 s.
HI MAGIC
HO SHWOER
Quick question :) are you applying any noise reduction to those samples for high iso performance?
Main question does global shutter allow to overpower the sun with ad200pro as ad400 or ad600 do in HSS?
Depends on how bright the sun is.
amazing test!! Thx a lot! I would like to see some test on LED backdrop, because some LED backdrop will look ugly while we shooting at 1/250 or above, is the globle shutter helps in this situation? :)
yes it does!
you can check dynamic range please ❤🙏🙏
It is already done, about 11.5 stops, not bad but worse than more normal sensors of today
... thx, finally a real IQ comparison. 👍🏻 in summary, for me this means: between ISO 250 and 12,800 both cameras have roughly the same noise, the A9 II has less noise below and above. And because ISO 100 is missing on the a9 III, the photographer has to take photos under the same conditions with about half the exposure time as with the a9 II. That’s very good in terms of the new GS and for my kind of journalism it will work absolutely fine. 😊 What about the noise level at ISO 125 (extended)?
Don't forget the camera also has a mode where it can stack 32 images together (which you can do at 120fps), resulting in better signal to noise ratio (less noise overall). It would be interesting to see the results of this. My guess is that for anything that has slow movement, this will result in better IQ than what the A9 ii can do.
@@youuuuuuuuuuutube yeah I tried this, but it outputs jpg or tiff file sadly and you need to process it with Sony tool. Not impressed so far, but I need to take some more time to test it out
Owning and using m43 and Sony FF for some years, it's like comparing the two together. You try to say "it's not a huge difference". But it is. You can deliver images from both, but one is better... BTW - it is a substantial difference, IMO. Even at the 'lower of the high' ISOs.
A proper test needs all same settings for both cameras including white balance. Still thanks for the effort
Impressive test! Well done.
Thanks!
Honestly, when I compare my old Nikon D610 files to modern cameras, I don't see a huge difference in high iso performance. To me, there hasn't been a noticeable improvement in this area in cameras since ~2012. There is some improvement, but not significant. The main improvement has been in autofocus performance and video.
That’s basically it. Cameras have basically been the same since the year you stated.
@@ElReySupr3me Yeah, at most 1 stop improvement. Then again, a lot of people are shooting video these days and that's where the camera companies are putting their focus. Also, with today's autofocus, it's much easier to get something in focus at f/1.4. So, ISO performance was great around 2012 and it's a bit better now. However, cameras have improved in most other aspects.
@@Daniel_Zalman fully agree. I learned in the art of photography. Im no pro btw, but the problem is that everything is video now and days. A whole diffball game. Also, what your stating about 1.4 is so true! My 1.2 focuses on the eye all the time. It's crazy how amazing g these ecameras have gotten for autofocus.
I think the difference is a 45 MP camera of today gives the same noise performance of a 18mp from 10 years ago which in itself is an achievement .
Just out of curiosity, why would someone shoot a pro camera at ISO 25600? You are practically shooting in the dark in that scenario.
If you need high SS sometimes you need to crank the ISO a lot…
… or filming at night - ISO 25600 for example is not problem for the a7S III. The 6K oversampled footage of the a9 III looks also very decent at such high ISO.
@@pawelmod3292 Yes, that is true, especially if you didn't bring a flash with you.
@@TW-iu9zy I don't know a lot about video, but I think shutter speed is 1/frame rate, no? So, 24fps or 30 fps, gives you 1/25 or 1/30 shutter speed. Maybe for film you'll need more dog, so you'll shoot f/5.6 or f/8. Yeah, I guess in available light, you may need to crank the ISO in that range.
@@Daniel_Zalman 180 rule means 1/2xfps. So for 24p you have 1/50. For 120fps you can easily break the rule if you want go with higher SS. So with 120fps you need to go 1/250 or faster, and as a result, ISO needs to be high in low light…
Base ISO of 250? Huh? Why would they do that?
… because of the GS. but it‘s not a problem for the group of photographers, the fast shooting a9 III is for - journalist like me or sport/action and event photographer. They can deal with the higher Base ISO. It’s not a camera for the „normal everyday“ shooters … 😏 …
5:17min I'ts funny how people like you test high iso :) A real test is something like Iwan Baan's NYC at black out . . .
Thanks a lot having demonstrate what we expected from the release of the A9III who is becoming a deal breaker at this price point … Sony can’t stand this position with these results regarding a 4 years old A9II ! Global Shutter at the end of the technological debate should end with an substantial image quality improvement who is actually not the case for the moment with the A9III.