2011-03-22

Sony Photo Samples - HX7V, HX9V, HX100V, TX100V, TX10, WX10, WX7 analyzed


all cameras above have the same Sony sensor - all photos below are original size and quality crops
This post analyzes the official sample photos from Sony to show the strong and weak points of the Sony EXMOR R 16MP 1/2.3" (7.7 mm) sensor



Sony HX7V sample photos
Sony WX7 sample photos

The first thing we notice after downloading the 4 images is the huge difference in size. It ranges from 2.4MB to 6.1MB


Sony HX7V - if you look closely you can make out the fine hairs (fuzz) on the chin and the single hairs what get picked up quite clearly, between upper lip and the teeth you see a fine white line where the sharpening kicked in


Sony HX7V - if you look closely you can make out the fine hairs (fuzz) on the ear and the loosing of detail in the earlobe shadow area.

Sony HX7V - the eyebrows have no change against the smothering smoother and sadly the eyes loose all detail too in this soft lit picture

Sony HX7V - the lack of contrast makes the face look flat and contourless. the mouth region already starts to show compression artifacts in base ISO

Sony HX7V - the lack of contrast and good light already shows compression artifacts at the fingers in base ISO

Sony HX7V - what amazes me here is that needle holes of the stitching are captured, the dark areas of the hair have lost all deail

Sony WX7 - the mouth region already starts to show compression artifacts in base ISO, the eyebrows again have no change against the smothering smoother but the details from the eyes is quite OK

Sony WX7 - sadly the hair is a victim of the smothering smoother again here but in the high contrast area the lace shows full detail

Sony WX7 - the darker it gets the more detail is lost in the hair, the colors are quite nice and fine differences are picked up.

Sony WX7 - I have no idea why Sony picked this photo, you on you own with this one.



After taking a closer look at all the pictures so far and the original Sony samples above we see where the 16MP Exmor shines and where the limitations are.
It picks up an astonishing amount of detail in well lit areas at base ISO but the tiny sensor cells fail very quick to produce a usable full size result when the light is less than perfect or the ISO has to go up.
The 16MP sensor produces very usable 16MP pictures in well lit high contrast situations, in all other situations you best bet for a good picture is to reduce the size to 8MP if you stay up to ISO 400 and go down to 4MP for shots up to ISO 1600. ISO 3200 works well in full HD resolution.

So it is pretty much as I told you at the beginning of my blog in the  posting:
Sony HX9V think 4MP not 16MP and be happy

3 comments:

  1. so ya think i shoulodnt get the hx100v

    ReplyDelete
  2. nah, I think I shouldn´t get the HX100V cause she´s ta big fo ma pocket, you should get whatcha want

    ReplyDelete
  3. Séduit par tous les commentaires d'experts sur les sites de tests photos et par toutes les options novatrices de Sony telle que photo-panorama et photo 3D et photos en basse lumière, j'avais l'intention de m'offrir cet appareil-photo qui me paraissait parfait.Mais après avoir téléchargé les meme photos que vous sur le net je suis vraiment hésitant à cause de tous ces défauts en taille réelle et surtout étonné par le manque de détails et la qualité des photos portrait à ISO 100 et ISO 125. mon Canon Ixus 860 IS fait de meilleurs photos portraits riche de détails et couleur.
    Est-ce normal ? Il faut que je prenne moi meme des photos avec pour m'assurer

    ReplyDelete

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