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Author Topic: Sony Alpha 7RII - What features drop the camera out of 14 bit mode?  (Read 7477 times)

Lust4Life

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I have moved from medium format to DSLR with the Sony Alpha 7RII.

I have heard there are modes/features in the camera  that drop it out of 14 bit RAW mode.
Is there a listing of these modes as I shoot only RAW and must stay in 14 bit mode.

davidgp

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Hi,

Fred Miranda has a nice list http://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/1379163

Also, Jim has a nice blog post about the consequences: http://blog.kasson.com/the-last-word/sony-a7ii-12-bit-modes-effect-on-shadows/

Regards,

David


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Kiwi Paul

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As well as the modes identified in the links below I also suspect it drops to 12Bit if using "Crop Mode" when using APS-C lenses or manually selecting crop mode with FE lenses. So best to post crop rather than use crop mode.

No it doesn't, I've since done some checks and switching to crop mode the camera remins at 14bit.

Hi,

Fred Miranda has a nice list http://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/1379163

Also, Jim has a nice blog post about the consequences: http://blog.kasson.com/the-last-word/sony-a7ii-12-bit-modes-effect-on-shadows/

Regards,

David


http://dgpfotografia.com
« Last Edit: May 06, 2017, 01:21:35 am by Kiwi Paul »
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Lust4Life

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Thanks for the links.

I find this as an undisclosed serious flaw in the camera.
In my landscape work, the camera is proving to be flawed in its color depth as it isn't even a true 14 bit RAW file.

Not happy with it after about 3 months of testing compared to the H5D 50c WiFi I had.
I shoot color, then convert files to B&W.
The conversion of a 16 bit Hassie file verse the file from the 7RII shows a dramatically better gradation of the sky/clouds with the Hassie.

Expect my life with the Sony is going to be short lived.

bclaff

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...
Also, Jim has a nice blog post about the consequences: http://blog.kasson.com/the-last-word/sony-a7ii-12-bit-modes-effect-on-shadows/
...
Buried in Jim's excellent blog post is the fact that even 14-bit files are actually 13-bit.
There are quite a few Sony cameras with raw files that exceed actual bit-depth by either 1 or 2 bits.
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Guillermo Luijk

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Re: Sony Alpha 7RII - What features drop the camera out of 14 bit mode?
« Reply #5 on: June 02, 2017, 06:37:37 pm »

The conversion of a 16 bit Hassie file verse the file from the 7RII shows a dramatically better gradation of the sky/clouds with the Hassie.

I bet you can't show any bad gradation in sky/clouds with the Sony. In fact I bet you can't show two images taken with both cameras over the same scene where the gradation of sky/clouds is any better in your Hassie than in your Sony. The reason is simple math: both cameras produce RAW files with such a number of tonal levels in the sky/cloud areas that no device can display nor any human visual system can distinguish.

These are the number of different RAW values that 10/12/14 bit RAW files linearly encode:



Regards

ErikKaffehr

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Re: Sony Alpha 7RII - What features drop the camera out of 14 bit mode?
« Reply #6 on: June 02, 2017, 09:17:15 pm »

Hi Jack,

It could would be nice if you would post some examples, preferably with raw files? IMHO Guillermo is right, highlight areas have large amount of shot noise, so that would absolutely dominate.

Do you happen to use a polariser? That would explain some issues. A polariser could make the red channel very dark. The Sony is probably balanced for available light while Hasselblad may be for studio/daylight.

This image compares highlight handling on three different cameras, P45+ (fake 16 bit), Sony A900 (12 bit) Sony A7rII (14 bits in a 16 bit envelope):
https://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/58984278

The second attachment shows the raw data from the white patch of the colour checker in the green channel. You can see that the raw data for that single patch is distributed over more than 1000 different number. Standard of deviation is 249. So, it doesn't really matter if that patch is represented by 12, 14 or 16 bits. In the highlight range even 12 bits has excess precision.

I am not saying that Hassy or whatever doesn't have better highlights, just saying that 12, 14 or 16 bits has nothing to do with that.

Best regards
Erik

I bet you can't show any bad gradation in sky/clouds with the Sony. In fact I bet you can't show two images taken with both cameras over the same scene where the gradation of sky/clouds is any better in your Hassie than in your Sony. The reason is simple math: both cameras produce RAW files with such a number of tonal levels in the sky/cloud areas that no device can display nor any human visual system can distinguish.

These are the number of different RAW values that 10/12/14 bit RAW files linearly encode:


Regards
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Erik Kaffehr
 
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