low light

Does dual native ISO on the Panasonic S5 beat the Sony A7S III in low light?

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The Sony A7S series has always been considered the leader in low light at very high ISOs. But at just 12 megapixels, it’s a big sacrifice in resolution to get there especially in the 8K age.

The main thing that strikes me about the current 24 megapixel full frame sensors is they are CLEAN. Certainly ISO 3200 on my Panasonic S5 looks very similarly clean to ISO 3200 on the new Sony A7S III. I’ll be exploring this with my own test soon.

Read moreDoes dual native ISO on the Panasonic S5 beat the Sony A7S III in low light?

Masters of darkness – Panasonic GH5S and Sony A7R III in extreme low light

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Note: My camera is running firmware version 0.2! If the performance changes when updated, I will re-do the test

Does the Panasonic GH5S finally achieve full-frame like performance at ISO 12,800 against the best of the competition?

Here I put the little nocturnal fox in the ring with the Sony A7R III, A7S II, Nikon D850 and the plain old ‘non-video-orientated’ GH5.

Read moreMasters of darkness – Panasonic GH5S and Sony A7R III in extreme low light

Panasonic GH4 vs Sony A7R II in low light – Speed Booster Shootout

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[vimeo]https://vimeo.com/135859807[/vimeo]
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A7R II shot using EOSHD CINEFLAT Profile. Available now with the A7R II Setup Guide

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When you have a Need For Speed there are two people you can call – Shane Hurlbut or Metabones.

The Metabones Speed Booster adapters give us apertures as fast as F0.64 from the rare Canon EF 50mm F1.0.

The XL 0.64x version fits the GH4 and turns the scruffy 2.3x crop 4K into a shiny Super 35mm unicorn. F1.2 becomes F0.88.

The Ultra 0.74x version for E-mount fits the A7R II and turns the Super 35mm mode into full frame, with the benefit of 1 stop gain in low light and a further 1 stop gain in noise performance over the pixel binned full frame mode.

Read morePanasonic GH4 vs Sony A7R II in low light – Speed Booster Shootout

Canon develop positive locking EF mount for new low light camera (Canon ME20F-SH)

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[pullquote]Comment on the forum[/pullquote]

Just over 2 years ago Canon reported the testing of a prototype low light camera which I covered on the blog. Now they have commercialised it for $30,000 and it shoots 4 million ISO. Missed however by almost everyone is the fact this camera has a locking EF mount. Isn’t this something the Canon C300 Mk II should have had?

Read moreCanon develop positive locking EF mount for new low light camera (Canon ME20F-SH)

A more realistic impression of the Sony A7S low light performance at ISO 12,800

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All the high ISO footage from the Sony A7S so far have been highly compressed and streamed on YouTube. Here we have not one but two stages of very aggressive noise reduction being applied to the images. If you want to see it without the heavy compression removing all trace of noise, here’s a full resolution JPEG shot at ISO 12,800 from the camera courtesy of DCFever…

You can download it below…

Read moreA more realistic impression of the Sony A7S low light performance at ISO 12,800