Sony 16-shot Pixel Shift Works in the Field, Trounces the Fujifilm GFX100S, Might Match the PhaseOne IQ4 150
Related: digital sensor, fairy dust aka hot/stuck pixels, Fujifilm, Fujifilm GFX100S, Fujifilm medium format, Fujifilm mirrorless, medium format, noise, Phase One, Phase One digital backs, Phase One IQ4 digital back, pixel shift, Sony, Sony A7R, Sony A7R II, Sony A7R III, Sony A7R IV, Sony A7R V, Sony mirrorless, Sony Pixel Shift, true-color sensor or image
re: Sony pixel shift
I wondered whether Sony 16-shot pixel shift was usable in the field. Would it be better than 4-shot mode, and would it pan-out as an ultra high resolution medium format solution?
So I went and shot my Alpine Creek scene against the Fujifilm GFX100S tonight.
The crop below is at an image size of 180 megapixels. The 60-megapixel sensor of the Sony A7R V with 16-shot makes short work of the GFX100S. And of its own 4-shot mode. Not 240 megapixels worth of detail (lens performance and diffraction impose limits), but 180MP is about right, or you can just cut it in half to 120MP and be blown away by what you get.
This test was not with some easy scene to make it look good; it was 16 frames at 0.8 seconds each along with moving water and foliage that was not entirely still.
There will be practical situational limitations of course eg 16 frames at 4 seconds each might not fly and any wind will be a problem (camera shake), but this first effort makes me wonder whether I might have the equivalent of a PhaseOne IQ4 150 in terms of resolution, and with vastly lower noise*. Something I cannot apply fairly often, but something I can apply quite a lot.
The storage used is annoyingly huge with 16 uncompressed raw files for a single capture. All fixable if Sony gets its act together, via lossless compressed and compressed DNG using Sony motion correction right in camera. With options to save only the stuff I want, and no need whatsoever to do any 'post' other than use the raw file straightaway. It’s such low-hanging fruit that I am baffled why Sony has not already done it. Free money! What’s the holdup, Sony?
Perhaps field shooting will turn up other issues. Perhaps some scenes won’t work out, but since you cannot lose no matter what, it’s a no-brainer for many situations. Given what I am seeing, it appears that I have an about 180 megapixel camera on my hands that I can apply to quite a few real outdoor shooting situations.
I even shot a 2-frame focus stack with the Sony FE 12-24mm f/2.8 GM at 12mm with impressive detail capture. No other camera on the planet can make such an image (that wide, with resolution that high).
* Using 16 frames, the light capture is 16X greater for 4X lower noise, most noise being the square root of the exposure difference. Put another way, ISO 100 is like ISO 6.
Sony A7R V + Voigtlander FE 35mm f/2 APO-Lanthar at f/5.6 vs
Fujifilm GFX100S + Fujifilm GF 35-70mm f/4.5-5.6 @ f/7.1
