Product Listing

Sony Alpha NEX-7 - The Best There Is

By Ng Chong Seng - 9 Dec 2011

Performance (II)

A Great Performer

The NEX-5N’s 16-megapixel sensor is lauded for its impressive performance at high ISO levels. To get to 24 megapixels on the NEX-7 (the A77/A65 too), Sony has to cram 50% more pixels in the same space. Naturally, this raises some concerns with regards to noise/low light performance. From our observations, at low to medium ISO sensitivity settings (especially under favorite light), image quality looked awesome. If you wish to print big, there’s no point in shooting past ISO 3,200; anything past that is more suited for web use (after downsizing, of course) or small A4-sized prints if you don’t mind the grain. Use ISO 12,800 or 16,000 if your objective is to get the shot no matter what, and when image quality is secondary.

ISO Sensitivity Performance
ISO 100 ISO 200
ISO 400 ISO 800
ISO 1,600 ISO 3,200
ISO 6,400 ISO 12,800
ISO 16,000  
* 100% crops; taken with E-mount 18-55mm F3.5-5.6 kit lens, in JPEG, and with High ISO NR setting at Normal.

Resolution quite expectedly took a hit as we progressed up the ISO ladder; but unlike early Alpha cameras and credit to Sony, color noise at high ISOs was well controlled. By default, high ISO noise reduction level is set to Normal. Unfortunately, there’s no way to turn it off completely - the other options are Low and High. And while the NEX-5N has increased the ceiling of the Auto ISO mode to ISO 3,200, the NEX-7 has brought the limit down again to ISO 1,600. To us, that plus its ISO 16,000 top sensitivity (instead of 25,600) is a silent admission from Sony that the NEX-7 has a slightly inferior high ISO performance. Would we have preferred the NEX-5N’s 16-megapixel sensor? The answer is yes, but that’s because our jobs often require us to shoot under low light conditions, and without flash. But for studio or landscape photographers who can’t get enough of details and never go beyond ISO 1,600, the NEX-7 is a godsend. Consider this: the venerable Leica M9 has a top ISO of 2,500.

High ISO Noise Reduction Comparison
ISO 3,200, NR: Low ISO 3,200, NR: Normal ISO 3,200, NR: High

 

Resolution
As expected, the NEX-7's 24.3-megapixel imager resolves a great deal of details, approximately 3,200 LPH (lines per picture height) according to our resolution chart.
* Lens used: E 50mm F1.8 OSS

It's also worth noting that at this point in time, Adobe has not updated Lightroom and Photoshop Camera Raw plug-in to support the raw image format of NEX-7 (the camera hasn't even shipped yet). Other than using Sony's own software (Image Data Converter), the handful of applications that we know of that can open NEX-7's raw files are dcraw (for Mac users, Rawker is a great utility), Phase One's Capture One, and RAWTherapee. From our experience meddling with some raw files taken at high ISOs, with noise reduction turned off in the raw converter, you do get ever slightly more grain than an in-camera JPEG with high ISO noise reduction set to Low. The upside is that you can always adjust the settings to taste. A carefully processed raw file will most certainly reward you with extra details and a sharper image. 

Moving on, we found colors to be largely accurate, even for certain shades of blue and red that are traditionally difficult to capture. The 18-55mm kit lens was a decent performer; slight corner softness was detected, but reduced significantly once we stopped down the lens. There’s automatic in-camera corrections for vignetting, chromatic aberration, and distortion. We’ve tried the new 24mm F1.8 Carl Zeiss and the 50mm F1.8 lenses, and we think both will be a big hit. Both lenses are fast and sharp; the former is an ideal landscape and walkabout lens, the latter is great for portraiture.

The auto white balance system was reliable for the most part; with Tri-Navi, fine-tuning along the blue/amber and magenta/green bands is a breeze. An auto-locking hot-shoe at the crown of the camera accepts the big Alpha flashguns, and is also where you clip on an external microphone (Sony sells two of these). The NEX-7 is the first NEX camera to squeeze in a pop-up flash. At a guide number of 6 at ISO 100, it’s not terribly powerful, but is sufficient for general purpose shots, such as still life or portraits whereby the subjects aren’t far away.

If you really need a powerful flash, you can attach an Alpha flashgun onto the NEX-7, such as this HVL-F43AM that's a guide number of 43.

Video Performance

Like the NEX-5N and SLT-A77/A65, the NEX-7 is capable of recording full HD progressive video (50p for PAL sets, 60p for NTSC) based on the AVCHD 2.0 format. (The NEX-5 does 60i, which is effectively 30p.) At the best quality, bit-rate goes as high as 28Mbps. For a more cinematic look, it’s also possible to record at 25p (24p for NTSC). By the way, there’s no 720p option. For MP4, the maximum resolution is 1440 x 1080 pixels (at 30fps with a bit-rate of 12Mbps).

Pressing the little lone red Movie button at the back of the camera starts the recording, another press stops it; full manual control of shutter speed, aperture, exposure compensation and ISO are provided. Like the NEX-5N, you can stop down the lens aperture all the way in M or A mode, but shutter speed is pegged to a minimum of 1/4 of a second and ISO a maximum of 1,600 across all modes. We advise setting the parameters before hitting the Movie button as the sensitive onboard microphone will pick up the clicking sound of the dials and scroll wheel.

Picture effects can also be applied in videos. However, the NEX-7 doesn't have the Photo Creativity mode that's present on the NEX-C3. In other words, you can't combine picture effects with other shooting and image parameters such as self-timer/continuous advance, color vividness, color tone, brightness, and background defocus to come up with all sorts of interesting effects.

Beyond what's been mentioned, there aren’t many other video-related settings; you could opt for wind noise reduction or an audio-less recording, but that’s about it. In general, video quality is within expectation: vibrant colors and truckloads of detail. And if there was any rolling shutter effect, we didn’t notice it.

Join HWZ's Telegram channel here and catch all the latest tech news!
9.5
  • Performance 9
  • Design 9.5
  • Features 10
  • User-Friendliness 10
  • Value 8.5
The Good
Extremely high resolution (24.3MP)
Best-in-class OLED viewfinder
Innovative Tri-Navi controls
Full HD 50p and 25p video recording
Great shutter responsiveness
The Bad
ISO 3,200 and beyond unsuitable for large prints
Pricey
Our articles may contain affiliate links. If you buy through these links, we may earn a small commission.