Looking for high ISO A77 RAW

Here's a few high ISOs shot in RAW mode on my a77. I converted to DNG, they range from 4000 to 8000:
6400 ISO
6400 ISO
4000 ISO
4000 ISO
8000 ISO

Enjoy!

What version of DNG is that? On the first one when I do a conversion it is scrambled. I use adobe dng converter on it again to covert to "compatible camera raw 5.4 and later" it gives me a black and white scene of a band stage. There is no noise in it.

After brightening the file it had strips that did not line up. Maybe you have a newer dng converter that does not use baseline tiff.

I got an ISO 6400 from member retyred today. No lower ISO versions. I have taken MS Paint screenshots with faces in a public place cut out.
These are linked due to 1920x1080 screensize.

Here is the shot in IDC
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8235/8392362787_b4d569a695_o.jpg

Here is the shot as converted (linear, the same as the sensor reads it) in Images Plus
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8374/8392362827_e80fed8065_o.jpg

Here is Images Plus with curves, NR, Sharpening
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8221/8392362847_049c8f4967_o.jpg

Here is IDC 100% crop
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8336/8392380995_fe5bac5187_o.jpg

Here is Images Plus 100% crop
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8229/8392380957_f0d8b88296_o.jpg

This could have been improved further with more time to adjust routines.

To my eye this makes A77 ISO6400 workable if you are in low light. Some watercolors are to be expected at this ISO. There is still enough detail in a 24mp shot to make it work.

Dont worry about it. DNG converter has gone through many versions. If I had used a newer version the other software might not have recognized it.

The other software is available from a mathematician. Images Plus. He designed it for astronomy. He has many camera control functions for Canon and Nikon. Unfortunate he has not done as much to support Sony. It will open raws from sony depending on how new the camera is.

The big advantages are it opens the file as linear data exactly as the camera records it +de-bayering. You can apply whatever curve you want rather than the standard gamma 2.2 that other software does automatically. It has extensive noise and sharpening routines. It takes a while to learn to use all the features.

It will convert to 32 bit FP or 64 bit integer. Multiple files for HDR can be put in such a big space.

Noise reduction is mostly about smoothing. Doing math functions in FP really wipes out the accumulation of rounding errors as you manipulate the file. The same for sharpening.

The big trick I discovered using this software is treating your file as 12 dimensions. You can split the image into 4 32bit tifs with 3 dimensions. RGB and L (luminance) each with 2 dimensions of space and 1 of value. Run each through a good noise program as a B/W tiff. Optimize the NR for that file. Then recombine to RGB with Images plus.

From that point you will have a tiny amount of noise. Understand that you have coordinated the NR to smooth each channel. Other programs have not figured this out. Their results would be much better if they had. Use standard NR and sharpening on the combined file.

Do everything in 32 bit FP if you can.

This process will let Sony SLTs at high ISO run with FF Canon or Nikon.

A55, A350

Here is the red channel. The noise that you see as bright red and green spots is from brights and darks on the individual channels.

Noise reduction on these has profound effect on the combined file.

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8050/8393076997_dcc4246812_o.jpg

I did some testing of the Nikon D800 with this method. ISO 3200 looks like ISO200 It's basically noise free. ISO 12800 (2x 6400 which I have never used in the real world) retains almost as much detail as a base ISO shot. There is a fine noise pattern in chroma and luminance that is not objectionable. As long as it looks like fine pixels of random noise it looks good.

That brings me to the reason for using this software. It is for scientific use when people need to get the most out of very faint objects. Some deep sky objects may need hrs of exposure to bring them out. Noise mitigation has to be top notch. Actually all you need is the purest conversion of what the sensor provides as possible.

I did the tests on the D800 because raws were available on Imaging resource. They have not provided A77 raws. Sony A99 conversion should be very close to the quality of noise free at ISO6400.

As the ISO climbs you can see the reduction in dynamic range.

Most people will want to use their favorite RAW conversion software instead. Be warned that if the program accumulates noise into clumps, NR on those by channel, will lead to larger lumps of color noise. The reason is the smoothing will not be aligned by color. You will see the color patterns you see in many raw conveters. Its crucial that the noise stay as fine and as random as possible.

Raw Therapee with everything off looks very similar to Images plus. It is a clean conversion. Amaze will mike fine lines render a hair narrower at the expense of a faint artificial look to the image relative to Images plus.

Sony IDC also leaves the noise as fine random pixel level jumps in value.

Both of these will output 16 bit tif which you can use in a program that separates channels. Export to NR then back to 16 bit tif. The advantage is to Images plus that the whole thing can be done in 32 bit fp. It has extensive NR routines including several that preserve fine detail.

You can split channels 3 ways RGBL, CMYL, HSL.
If you go from the original to these splits, Do NR, recombine, then save, you will have an extremely low noise file. If you then average all three methods you have basically a zero noise file. Your file becomes limited by the DR of the sensor. Yes, it's a fair amount of work to do this. Some files are important enough to go through the trouble.

One last thing, avoid any NR smoothing in luminance channel. You must use detail preserving techniques. On the color channels it is less critical. Use pixel smoothing if you have to. Know that it will result in some color lumps in your final file.