Author Topic: Global shutter Sony A9III  (Read 1579 times)

Erik Lund

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Global shutter Sony A9III
« on: November 08, 2023, 12:56:32 »
So Sony managed to develop a global shutter for this new camera. Looks like a winner Sony, pre shooting, 1/80000 and no banding for flash photography.
Erik Lund

Birna Rørslett

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Re: Global shutter Sony A9III
« Reply #1 on: November 08, 2023, 13:38:38 »
Shall we all convert to Sony now, then ???  :) What is life without 1/80 000 sec exposures I wonder. Except for shooting straight into the sun or test out the highest ISO the camera can offer.

Akira

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Re: Global shutter Sony A9III
« Reply #2 on: November 08, 2023, 13:52:37 »
The lowest ISO within the standard range of A9III is 250, so a high speed shutter should be beneficial to compensate for that.  On the other hand, the highest ISO within the standard range is 25600 which can only be extended to 51200, which is rather a bit low for today's standard.  (The highest standard ISO of Nikon Z6II is 51200 and can be extended up to 204800.)  This may suggest that the high ISO performance is not really of top notch.

That said, it seems to be obvious that the omission of the mechanical shutter unit is a big trend.
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Ilkka Nissilä

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Re: Global shutter Sony A9III
« Reply #3 on: November 08, 2023, 14:33:52 »
So Sony managed to develop a global shutter for this new camera. Looks like a winner Sony, pre shooting, 1/80000 and no banding for flash photography.

With the Z8, I haven't seen any banding in either high speed sync shots taken with Nikon SB-9000, Elinchrom Quarda Hybrid with HS head, nor in any sports arenas where I've tried it with.

But I'm sure there is an LED panel somewhere which would trigger some banding, I just haven't run into it yet. ;-) I've had past problems with mechanical shutters when shooting large stages which have big panels as backdrops for the show, those often show problems even with mechanical shutters.

Base ISO 250 suggests the A9 III might not compete for high dynamic range and also it might not be the best choice for panning shots of action with intentional blur. Also when using older studio flashes, ISO 200 gave me problems as the flash energy couldn't be brought down so much that I ended up between f/11 and f/16 to avoid overexposure at ISO 200 (which was the base ISO of the D700, for example). Hmm. Now I realize that by increasing the shutter speed the flash energy recorded by the sensor goes down so exposure can be kept in control that way.

Birna Rørslett

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Re: Global shutter Sony A9III
« Reply #4 on: November 08, 2023, 15:46:24 »
Hopefully, the flashes output the energy in a predictable fashion, without intermittent spikes seen over extremely short durations. Otherwise one has to calibrate flash exposure quite often ....

Erik Lund

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Re: Global shutter Sony A9III
« Reply #5 on: November 09, 2023, 08:22:04 »
I find it interesting that Sony has been able to reach this level of development with a "Global shutter" Dumping the entire amount of data from the sensor in one go and then continue to do it - I'm sure we will se this from Nikon and Canon as well ;)
I have had several times had challenges regarding banding from lights or flash, yes for sure it has been a possibility to work around it.
I'm very sure some pros will put it to good use,,,
Erik Lund

Snoogly

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Re: Global shutter Sony A9III
« Reply #6 on: November 09, 2023, 08:36:59 »
Given the sensor used, is it likely to show up in the Z6iii ? I doubt it though, as consensus seems to be that it’s a premium option, for the time being.
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Ilkka Nissilä

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Re: Global shutter Sony A9III
« Reply #7 on: November 09, 2023, 10:14:58 »
Given the sensor used, is it likely to show up in the Z6iii ? I doubt it though, as consensus seems to be that it’s a premium option, for the time being.

I think the price difference between Z6 series and A9 III is too high - in my opinion, the 1500-3000€ price class is critical as there are a lot of enthusiasts and professionals that can afford and do use cameras in this price class. The A9 III would seem to be a specialist's camera for fast action and pushing the edge of what is possible rather than a general-purpose camera like the Z6 series.

Now, whether Nikon would make a Z8H or Z9H model with 24 MP global shutter sensor, that's always a possibility, but it seems Sony and Nikon, although they are partners in some areas, they're also competitors and don't seem to use the same sensors in most of their cameras these days. I guess there are some things they share and other things they keep from each other where it comes to technology development.

Normally one would expect the GS to lead to an image quality hit, as fast sensors generally do not have as low read noise as the slower ones, and this together with the high cost may put off manufacturers from placing this technology in more mainstream models.

There are previous GS cameras for video applications, such as the Canon C700 GS PL, but the cost is high and DR takes a hit.

Macro_Cosmos

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Re: Global shutter Sony A9III
« Reply #8 on: December 14, 2023, 03:09:03 »
They're calling it the world's first full-frame global shutter camera, when the OnSemi (Kodak) KAI-29050 CCD sensor released in 2010 has been offered for a long time with global shutters (ie Lumera Lt29059), but whatever.

It would be great if there's a consumer camera that's equipped with both types of shutters. Global shutters are great for filming high speed stuff (critters in my instance) as the lack of temporal distortion will provide crisper output. For still images, most people will (or should) prefer the lower readout noise rolling shutter.

The readout noise of global shutter readout is typically 2-2.5 times more. For example, the ZL41 Cell 5.5 offers both types of shutters.
0.9 e-rms vs 2.3 e-rms (rolling vs. global, slow scan mode).
(see attachment)

One day these guys will offer simulated global shutter readout in consumer cameras...  :-\
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