Sony A9 III Bill Claff charts the A9 III

[AlphaWorld]

Bill Claff has added the A9 III to his comparison on Photons to Photos, and the comparison to the A1 surprised me!

Note the following things:

• The A9 III has a second gain at 800 ISO - I thought it was a single gain sensor, but that's not the case
• From 250 ISO (base for the A9 III) to the last ISO before the A1 cuts over to second gain (500 ISO), the A9 III is very marginally ahead!
• After the A9 III cuts over to second gain, the two track very closely, with the A1 a bit ahead as the ISOs increase

All up, this is better than I expected, especially from the first generation of a new sensor design. Yes, the maximum DR is significantly lower than the A1, but that is due to the base ISO being 250 - the A9 III is 1.3 stops behind because of that. But ISO to ISO, it's essentially the same.

Interesting that 800 ISO has slightly more DR than 500 ISO and noticeably more than 640 ISO. Bill commented on there being more NR applied at 16000 ISO - I might set my ISO limit to avoid that.

I strongly recommend going to Bill's site to play with the DR comparator - https://www.photonstophotos.net///Charts/PDR.htm#Sony ILCE-9M3 will start you with just the A9 III, and you can add whatever comparison you want to try.

 

[Uncle Kevriano]

I literally never take any notice of this stuff, because it's pretty meaningless in real world use.

 

[Paul stuart]

I literally never take any notice of this stuff, because it's pretty meaningless in real world use.

Agreed you can not take a chart with you to take a shot.

 

[Brownie]

Maybe you can't take a chart to look at a shot, but you can sure tell something about the camera's performance if you know what you're looking for. I use Photons to Photos quite regularly when looking at a new camera, and it has served me very well.

On the A9III, every single point has noise reduction applied in-camera. Conversely, there is no noise reduction applied to the A1. The only way the A9III sensor comes close to matching the A1 is to apply NR before it ever gets out of the camera.

I can provide photographic evidence as to how that in-camera NR affects output, but I won't. I'm not trying to crap on this camera, but let's not be unrealistic about what it can do and what it's for. Unless you need stupid-fast speed, there are better choices for every-day photography.