Sony A1 Image Quality Looks Terrific, Mostly
Related: Animal Eye AF, Contrast and Phase Detect Autofocus, Eye AF, focusing, noise, pattern noise, Sony, Sony A1, Sony mirrorless, Tigger the Feral Feline Friend
I did a lot of ad-hoc Eye AF shooting today, some human, and some animal. My commentary will be coming soon, with examples.
But this post is about my general impressions of Sony A1 image quality and so I’m choosing to show this image first, which is a torture test of both the sensor quality and Animal Eye AF, with light dim too dim to see details well, handheld with IBIS.
The capture is underexposed by 1.7 stops at ISO 4000, it is pushed a stop and it was shot in garish blue LED light that required WB=50000K Tint=-150 — as extreme as it can get. A small amount of chroma noise reduction was used.
If anything untoward were to be present in the image quality, then it ought to show up, barring things like PDAF banding which noise would mask, so that is best tested at ISO 100. Also, the images just look great, my impression is that they are the best Sony image quality I’ve seen yet.
UPDATE: checking dark tones in RawDigger at ISO 100, I see the cleanest image quality possible; it looks like it’s from medium format in having no spikes or gaps_very smooth and clean. That cross-checks with my reaction to the images.
I’ve added the full-res image to my first Sony A1 Animal Eye AF page, to which I’ll be adding many other examples and commentary.
UPDATE 2: I am sorry to say that the Sony A1 has PDAF banding.
Important to my B&H loaner support — buy cameras/lenses/gear via links on this site.
Tigger says he doesn’t care, so long as he finds a juicy rodent tonight.
Sony A1 + Sony FE 12-24mm f/2.8 GM @ 24mm
RAW: LACA corrected, push 1 stops, +67 Shadows, +30 Whites, +50 Dehaze, +10 Clarity, Chroma NR {10}
[low-res image for bot]
