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Wow a digital camera that lets you shoot with 100,000 ISO or ASA film equivalent. The author says he shot some stuff in the middle of the night at Manhattan Beach without a flash. Cool. (I used to live in Manhattan Beach the last time I lived in Los Angeles) Back in the old days of real film I usually shot with 1000 or 1600 ISO or ASA film because I don't like using flashes.
Review: Shoot in the dark with Sony's A7S Jefferson Graham, USA TODAY 10:21 a.m. EDT October 11, 2014 MANHATTAN BEACH, Calif. — You've got to give it to the engineers at Sony — its TVs, tablets and other tech devices may face pressure from competitors, but when it comes to hot, ground-breaking cameras, Sony is leading the pack right now. Canon and Nikon still dominate with serious photographers, but for this year at least, Sony has a red hot, envelope-pushing camera. Sony's $2,700 (body only) A7S isn't aimed at the iPhone crowd. It's a pro-level camera with manual controls, fine focus, super-sharp images and the ability to change what you see by using different lenses for wide, medium and super close-up shots. The A7S is the best new pro-level camera I've seen since 2013's Canon 70D, and the results are just as jaw-dropping: • It's super light and compact, about half the weight of my bulky Canon 5D Mark III SLR. • It can shoot photos in absolute silence — without the familiar rat-a-tat shutter sound associated with big cameras. • It really excels in video, where it surpasses even the Canon 5D, which is beloved by photographers and videographers for its cinematic look and the full-frame image sensor that's 20 times the size of a typical camcorder. The A7S also has a full-frame sensor — but it can shoot in lower light with mostly excellent results than any camera I've used before. Add in that the A7S can also shoot video in higher resolution than most cameras — at 4K — or four times the resolution of standard HD. (But that's with an asterisk*. More on that in a minute.) This is a "mirrorless" camera, one of several alternatives to big, bulky SLRs that ditch the mirror to offer a smaller yet robust camera. It is Sony's new top of the line model. With this camera, you could shoot dimly lit nighttime, indoor sporting events, ballet recitals, school plays and the like, and be able to stop action without a flash. Excuse me for getting geeky right now, but you get there by cranking up the ISO — which measures the amount of light the camera sees. And the advancement here is that the A7S can shoot in higher ISOs than had previously been imaginable. The general rule of thumb is you need to shoot low ISOs for better image quality, but to let more light in, you need to reach for a higher ISO. Most shooters won't go higher than 1600 before they start to see noise — little artifacts — start to degrade the overall image quality. While Sony says its everyday acceptable range is around 25,600, I found the cap to be at around 10,000, and vastly superior to the 5D at that level and even higher in terms of sharpness and acceptable noise — especially in video. Watch the accompanying video for my ISO tests — highlighted by a visit to the kitchen pantry, where we filmed in near total darkness on both the 5D and A7S back to back. See which images you prefer. Also look at the image gallery here, which has many examples of photos taken before sunup beginning at 5 a.m. in my hometown of Manhattan Beach, Calif., at 40,000 ISO and up. Too noisy? You decide. So how does Sony do it? Fewer megapixels = bigger pixels. Most high-end DSLRs have 20 or so megapixels, while the A7S has only 12. But Sony says its pixels are larger, and thus, can bring in more light. Now, for the *asterisk. The A7S can shoot 4K video, but, only if with an external 4K recorder, which can cost at least $2,000. How can that be? The cute Pansonic GH4, reviewed here recently, records in 4K, straight to a memory card, and so does the new, tiny GoPro Hero 4 Black edition. Sony says because its pixels (and image sensor) are so much larger than those on these two cameras, it needs the recorder. Otherwise the camera would heat up and become inoperable. It also says its 4K is higher res 4K, because of the bigger pixels. Is the camera perfect? Of course not. Here are my quibbles, which I'd love to see fixed in future editions: • The record button for video is in an odd place, the side of the camera. Reaching for it is awkward. It's in a place that causes camera shake when you turn it on and off. • I love having an LCD with a flip screen, but this one is useless. It goes up and down, but doesn't swivel right and left, which would be way more helpful for video selfies and the like. • The hot shoe is quirky. It wouldn't fire when I popped in a non-Sony flash, and I had to work at it for quite some time until a remote trigger device in the hot shoe could pop the shutter. If you're thinking of making the switch from Canon or Nikon to Sony, know that there are only a handful of Sony full-frame lenses, currently seven, that are available for the A7S, and about 15 lenses that have to be cropped. You can spring for a pricey lens adapter that will let you use your non-Sony E-mount lens with the A7S, but you'll have to spend $300 or more. Morning in Manhattan Beach, shot on Sony A7S, handheld, Morning in Manhattan Beach, shot on Sony A7S, handheld, at 40,000 ISO. The image is very grainy, but moody.(Photo: Jefferson Graham) But if the idea of shooting on the beach in near darkness at 9 p.m. (I've done it,) at 100,000 ISO and getting an acceptable image appeals to you, and you'd like to lighten your load with a super compact, yet high quality pro-level camera, take a good look at the A7S. Follow Jefferson Graham on Twitter.
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