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Sony a7SIII Astrophotography, Geminids. Extreme Low-Light tests. Big Bend, Texas
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 25 ธ.ค. 2020
- Taking my brand new Sony #a7S3 out to the Big Bend of Texas for some extreme low light tests. Speed-run Astrophotopgrahy, The Geminid Meteor Shower and more!
About 2 years ago I nearly purchased the Sony A7s2, which is a consumer grade camera known especially for its low light video capabilities. It would have replaced my T3i that temporarily bit the dust. But I've been historically a Canon guy and instead purchased a Canon 6DmarkII which has been my primary timelapse camera, and a Sony RX10M4, which I've used for everything else video.
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I made this decision thinking that Sony would come out with a new replacement A7s model soon and while that really took a while, it was finally announced over the summer of 2020. And for 4 months I waited for my new Sony A7s3 to arrive . It finally did just in time for my birthday and just ahead of the #GeminidMeteorShower. (a7s3 Review)
So to put this camera to the test I went to one of the darkest places in the United States, Big Bend in West Texas.
Something special about big bend, not only is it dark, there is no air traffic. So every streak you see in these S&Q timelapses is a Geminid Meteor, not planes. And very few satellites either as this is in the middle of the night. And this was right at the peak.
S&Q mode makes meteor shower timelapses an absolute breeze and the results are wonderful compared to efforts I've made in the past.
But even more impressive for these high ISO, 1 frame per second timelapses, is that it had no issue capturing meteor smoke. And let me point out, I didn't notice these naked eye. Seeing these in post sort of blew me away and I didn't expect to capture so many smoke trails. Usually this is reserved for the brightest meteors, yet the A7sIII seemed to capture meteor smoke on even just run-of-the-mill meteors.
I'm just floored by how nice the day to night transitions are on this camera. I know this is likely something all Sony Alpha users are well aware of and used ot but, This is brand new to me and I'll be taking full advantage.
In Big Bend's super dark sky, Zodiacal light is annoyingly bright in person, and the A7S3 captures this phenomenon beautifully.
Now this is the part that really thrilled me, #Astrophotography speed runs. I'll have more examples in an upcoming video but I'll show off two. This is Andromeda. After just 5 over minutes of integration time. 10 seconds, ISO 20,000, and 35 subexposures stacked in DSS. In the past, I have taken hours long images of Andromeda in order to get results this clean.
Or how about just 5 minutes of M45. I actually don't really have much to say other than just, wow. I never thought I'd see the day that I could speed run astrophotography and take images of several targets in one night and still get results like this.
Anyway, I hope you are as excited as I am for future content I bring here. And if you are interested in the Sony A7S3, I hope this additional bit of information was helpful. Thanks for watching, subscribe so you don't miss more cool stuff like you just saw, and until then, I'll see you out there.
A rather huge, surprise feature I discovered is that in Live View and using the in camera frame stacking, You can actually sometimes see the deep sky object you are wanting to photograph. This is fantastic for composing your image without taking lots of test shots, trial and error.
Unmodified or non-astro specific Cameras are generally pretty bad at picking up Hydrogen Alpha Emission nebula which is at the very edge of human vision anyway, and the A7s3 is no different here. But even with these speed run images, I am still impressed I got as much as I did out of the North America nebula, for example. By comparison, my modified t3i picks up this Ha light like it's no one else's business. A modified A7s3 would probably kick some serious ass at Ha and I'm sure someone will be trying it soon.
In Contrast, the same settings and restrictions using the same telescope combination on my Canon 6DmII...It's well. Gross. It looks this bad because at ISO 20,000 and at the bottom of this camera's dynamic range, the color data is pretty aweful. But normally astro on this camera and gear combination would be done at ISO 3200 or 1600 with at least 10 times as much integration time and at least 3 minute long exposures. Bottom line is, I can do far more work in far less time using the A7sIII thanks to the nearly magical low-light performance. That said, the Canon has over double the resolution of the A7SIII. But even if I took a 4 panel mosaic or used some fancy drizzle processing with the Sony, it would still in theory be way less than half the time spent on integration.
Admittedly there's a lot of things I need to learn from this Camera. Studio segments should have been done at like f/8 so the background is more in focus for example. I was using a new lens and just didn't think twice about it. Many of the dark scenes I should have pushed the ISO further---The Slog3 Picture Profile gives a somewhat false sense of what's actually being capture or how it might look in post. I don't have a ton of experience with wide-gamut, pro grade video that HAS to be color graded 100% of the time. Everything about this camera upends my workflow, how I capture video, and what I can do with it. I'm excited to keep learning and see where this goes! Next up is a 'Space Themed Road Trip." Join the conversation on Discord! discord.gg/bNMVrjf
I just recently visited Big Bend on a moonless night, it was a phenomenal experience. Didn't know there wasn't any air traffic, that is awesome!
This vid has got a lot of useful info jam packed into 9 minutes. Return on viewing investment time is one of best I've ever seen. Make more stuff please 👍
Coming right up! I love doing tech videos but I have no money anymore 🤣
if you still want a second body - a ZVE1 might be a good choice, great video
The darkest place in the country? Being an avid reader of Gary Larson's The Far Side, I always thought that it was Elbow, Nebraska! (lol). Thank you for posting, Michael.
I did say “one of” right? Lol.
I just sold my a7riv to buy this. On a recent trip to Moab the night photography was insane which is excepted but conventional landscapes were awesome too. The exposures are almost 3d.
I'm just getting into astrophotography and your videos have been extremely helpful! Like most, I live in a highly light-polluted area so I'll need to scope out a good area outside of my city to capture anything worthwhile.
That’s awesome! A highly mobile rig with a “fast” camera makes traveling for astro so much better. I live in heavy LP as well so I have to make the most of short trips to dark skies.
I can see this camera will be well loved. ❤️
Reading recently that the sensor in the a7s III is actually 48mp configured in a 2x2 bin mode to get the 12mp. The website reporting it apparently got hold of a damaged a7s III, peeled back the surface of the sensor to the CFA and looked at it under a high power microscope. Haven't seen a lot talking about this, but might give some meaning as to why the read noise from the a7s III sensor is a little worse than the a7s II at low ISO despite the a7s II having a FSI sensor.
Great info. Can't wait to see more!
I'm sold. I have been using a Canon R6 exclusively after upgrading from the 6D Mk i, but I am ready to add this to my repertoire and use it exclusively for astro! We've even had some aurora up here in Sequim, WA a few times over the last few years. Cheers!
To hide the jump cuts when talking to the camera just zoom to 130% and re-frame. It's gonna look nicer.
I do this in some of my videos, often to comedic effect or to emphasize something, and occasionally to hide jump cuts. But I actually film myself a little differently now than I used to. I used to memorize short lines and recite them and clip them together, but now I have a teleprompter. So there's just fewer jump cuts now! However the trade off is that I'm not looking directly at the camera as well as I'd like. But yeah every new video has been a chance to fine tune and get better incrementally: th-cam.com/video/djdkseOkHPk/w-d-xo.html
Hey, is M45 called Seven Sisters. @7:20. I shot it yesterday with my canon sx540hs. The stars are exactly the same. Like a "?"
I wonder what deep space Astrophotography results would look like from it?
Update: holy cow!!!!
And it can do so much better than I demonstrated. This is only the beginning!
Nice work mate
Man killer camera don't think IL able to afford one anytime soon but I do have a t6 right now and been loving it but been having a hard time with astrocartography
T6 is a good choice anyway. I didn’t specifically buy this camera only for astro but I’m definitely impressed at how fast it can do it.
Great video, that camera is a beast. :) Cheers from Serbia!
Beautiful
Have you tried the camera with lightning ⚡? I saw a video explaining the rolling-shutter was not good for lightning videos. I wouldn't mind those dark skies hereabouts though.
Good luck with your channel this year. It's one of my favorites, I remember reading something that said "the sky is nature's ever-changing art gallery" that is a great way to describe it's fascination.
Any rolling shutter whatsoever is not good for lightning videos but some cameras make it more managable. And yes I have! It does pretty darn well under most circumstances. Just film at 120fps and good to go. Occasionally a major flash will be less than a frame in length and out of 20-25 frames of worth lightning one might suck and you can just discard it.
Honestly to do significantly better than that you are looking at high speed, global shutter camera systems that /start/ in the $50,000 range.
how did you create your intro video? i've got the a7s2 with a 20mm f1.8 prime, Im wanting to do an all night time lapse while camping to just show the passage of time while i;m sleeping. showing the sky in good detail...ideas?
Wow, Amazing!
Hey mate. What are the best possible settings on the A7Siii for timelapses of stars? Assume stills mode is better than video for it. I can use interval mode if it's good enough for TV (it's for a UK doc on UFOs). Got a 24 - 70 2.8 G, a wide angle Sony G which I believe is f1.8, it might be 2.8 need to check as I've barely used it, a 70 - 200 2.8 and 100 - 400 f5. Assume the best lens is the wide angle and the one with the widest aperture (1.8 wide or the 2.8 24 - 70). Specifically looking to do nice timelapses. The sort you see in broadcast docs. Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Pretty cool video.
Great video.. amazing results with A7S III.. try using a narrow band filter. I have heard that boost little bit of h alpha capturing, though not equal to astro modified camera.
Yeah for sure things like that will be coming. I do have lots of options already with my other camera bodies so I’m in no rush yet.
just tried it on RGB 7s iii, honestly no reason to try, bad results. Probably there is some ways to modify it
This was allways that one day camera for me... It's a shame it's so expensive... But one day...
I really hope you get the opportunity to own one. It is certainly all it was promised to be for me.
How is this camera for taking Astro photos ? I normally shoot photos or do timeline . Would love to hear . Thanks
Amazing video! You have a new subscriber. I wonder what it is about the A7S III that's so good for low light, does it have to do with the lower MP sensor just having less noise interference?
I've been looking at the high MP A7R line vs the not as high A7 line for reptile photography and intuitively felt like I would want an A7R model for better resolution. Though I wonder if there is a sweet spot between sensor size and MP for different types of photography and how one might figure that out. Sorry to ramble! You are a real wealth of knowledge, I'm already recommending your videos to my friends.
Wow, I have to have one!
Wow, I'd never even heard of S&Q mode. That will save a buttload of post-processing time and effort. Near as I can tell, only the Rev3 models have this (along with the sane menu, etc.) right?
I think all recent Sony’s have this but not the s2. S+Q is definitely my new favorite toy. Between LRtimelapse, converting raws or doing extra work in after affects this is a huge shortcut.
I have an S II but will be getting one of these soon. I'd like to see someone push the iso and try smaller apertures and test the ability to get some landscape/sky stills and video with more of the foreground in focus as well as the sky. Current practice is max aperture, but wondering what this camera is capable of without stacking.
Awesome video! I've been waiting for my A7S3 to arrive for nearly three months now. I wasn't really interested in astro in particular, but I've been soaking up every TH-cam video I can find on this camera while I wait, and yours was by far one of the better ones. Western Australia (where I live) has tons of stunning landscape that I'm hoping to do a set of holy grail timelapses. Subscribed!
I heard a thing on another video about something called "star-eater", can you comment on the S3 with this problem?
Thank you so much! I can’t wait to visit Australia. Getting southern sky shots from various landmarks in Oz is a life goal. I can confirm the star eating issue is real. Alyn Wallace did a video recently but you can actually see it in my overhead Milky Way shots in this video as well. really only noticeable in 4K and in the very center where stars were tack sharp. Raw images don’t seem to have this problem however.
@@scienceoutthere I heard it mentioned (might've been Alyn's video) that Sony might update the firmware to give us an option to switch off in-camera noise reduction, but I thought shooting in RAW bypassed in-camera correction.
@@henrytheturnip so raw photo doesn’t do any processing that I’m aware of. But the only way to get raw video currently is via HDMI output to a special recording device. Yeah I really hope Sony hears the feedback on it.
@@scienceoutthere I bought an Atomos Ninja V for mine because I'm mostly videocentric. I didn't think about using it to capture a sequence of stills for timelapse. I'd need to keep it in a bag or something so the screen doesn't light-pollute lol. I'm probably talking nonsense, I need to get my hands on the camera so I can start trying stuff. Happy new year!
@@henrytheturnip here’s hoping it arrives soon. You will love it! Happy new year!
Great video! Thanks for sharing! Let me ask you, if you like to do a time-lapse with high ISO like 12.800 or more and exposures no longer than 5 seconds; is better stills or S&Q video 30 fps? Thanks and Happy New Year!
S&Q is limited to 1s exposure time for each frame. That’s the slowest you can go. So definitely switch to stills!
@@scienceoutthere I think S&Q mode is better if you want to make a time-lapse video all at once. That may be very handy some time. The as7III has large pixels and awesome sensitivity! Thanks!
Thank you for uploading. I had the opportunity to witness a rocket launch in 2018. Memorable experience. I posted a pretty cool montage of the journey to my channel.
Was a star tracker used for this
Yes! iOptron Skyguider Pro
Hey, amazing video but may you could tell me more about some technical details when shooting astro photos. Do you know if the picture profice affects the noise floor? For example in S-LOG 3 the second native ISO is a 12800, but in "stills" ppf it is at 3200 (at least in video mode). And maybe do you whats the best ISO of the A7s III for astrophotography with a minmal noise floore and small grain? :D
In this case I was doing all slog3. But since then Sony gave us S-Cine and I’ve been using that since. I’m very happy with what I’m getting with it straight out of the camera. I need to do some more image sequences and will eventually. I might make some comparison tests for the next astro video?
@@scienceoutthere that would be great 🔥 looking forward what you will so next :)
@@dominikseitz I’m about to finish up a bunch of videos about making timelapses, then some outdoor stuff and then probably back to astro so it’ll be a few!
4:39 is that a Satellite? in the middle croosing the sky to left ?
You are correct! Specifically this would be a geodetic satellite or a tumbling upper rocket stage. My recent UAP video covers this exact topic and how satellites might look in person, on stills or in video!
opening reel phwoar
Did you use a tracker for andromeda? Or any of your stacked deep space shots?
They are all tracked on an ioptron skyguider and the images are stacked. I go over all the other parts I use in a video titled “budget astrophotography and camping” if you are interested in what all I’m using!
@@scienceoutthere I just finished watching your Aurora one and I’ll definitely check out the budget video too.
@@scienceoutthere may I ask what were your settings when shooting the Aurora in real time?
@@snappingwith_pancho 24 fps. 10-bit color. 1/25s. Daylight white balance. ISO 50,000 to 80,000 depending on brightness of the aurora.
@@scienceoutthere oh wow! I’ve never cranked my ISO’s that high before. Haha! So this will be the first. Thank you! I’m praying for some clear skies.
It's kind of dumb to not make non-IR/UV version of cameras, while people will modify it anyway but in more harsh manner. Even not specifically for astrophotography, but just with removed hot filter.... Nice review.
Thanks! Yeah I really wish more cameras would offer this as a stock option….and not charge an absurd amount for it. I get it. They have to tweak the firmware, make custom packaging and manuals and it’s a smaller production run. but is this really worth several hundred more dollars?
@@scienceoutthere They *remove* filter and charge more (charge more for less)... My main concern is a warranty, if something goes wrong on a brand new camera.... Did you modified this camera to full spectrum?
@@rendermanpro I haven’t modified this camera but I did mod a t1i and t3i that were well past their warranty. Canons are fairly straightforward compared to Sony (more complex and more things don’t work right) from what I’ve read. When canon (60da) does the “mod” in the factory they are just using a different white balance filter that lets in more Ha. So it’s the same number of parts, but also with custom firmware to shift the white balance and the light metering for daytime use. And yeah that methodology could be debated but I doubt Canon or Sony would be able to sell a full spectrum modded camera except to just a handful of crazies like you and me that like doing NIR / UV / astro, etc.
Does a7s III still have sony's star eater like mark I and II had? Google sony star eater if u don't know what I mean.
I’ve heard that it’s not really an issue for photos anymore, but still happens in video with very sharp lenses at short focal lengths
2:17 at 11h to 9h . Can you see UFO move ?
th-cam.com/video/keDI4dNX9tg/w-d-xo.html
Hello friend, great video, thank you!!! I am looking for a camera especially for recording moving objects in the night sky (like satellites, UFOs, etc), and as I can see the Sony A7S is the best for this purpose. I'm a newbie and I need to make the right choice, as these equipments are quite expensive. Could you please help me?? Do you think the Mark I can do the job (to get a sharp and clear recording of a moving object in the night sky) or is it worth spending a few more dollars on a Mark II or another option? Or maybe you can indicate a more accessible option (it can be other brands or models)?? I am planning to use a 50mm f/1.4 lens. Thank you very much! :)
Mark II will get the job done albeit just a tad noisier. Future video plan. I’ve recorded upwards of 10,000 hours of night sky with the best cameras available for the task and never once captured something I couldn’t explain. Best of luck!
@@scienceoutthere nice, keep looking and recording and you'll see, they're there all the time, I always see something strange... I just need the right camera to start recording!!! do we have cheaper options than the A7S that do the same job?
@@papacoin7125 I think the main thing is I can identify them. It’s not that they aren’t weird or don’t require some explanation. A7s series is among the best but you’d be pretty happy with any full frame DSLR from the last couple generations from any manuf. the low light capability is pretty good on most of them. The a7sIII is not only super sensitive but also doing 10 bit video and 4k120. No other camera save for the fx3 (it’s cousin) is doing that for under 10k$
@@scienceoutthere you will surely identify then when they do some impossible movement or speed, keep looking! :) And thanks for all the advices!!
Hi, how were you controlling your sony for the deep sky images? Did you have it connected to a laptop or were you limited to the on camera intervalometer?
I just used the in camera intervalometer. It works wonderful enough for these tests. With ISO settings this high, 30 seconds is a ton of time per subexposure. And the results are comparable to what I’ve accomplished with my Txi’s and 6D on 5 times the integration time.
@@scienceoutthere do you use a tracker?
@@GadiantonsRobber iOptron Skyguider Pro.
@@scienceoutthere wow that is just awesome. I just ordered a GT71 and a mount for it. I hope I can get some similar images with my A7SIII!!! Great work!
@@GadiantonsRobber William Optics GT71? That’s what I used. It’s a great scope
How did you modify it?
I didn't. This is a stock camera
Welcome to the dark side
Sony; “Good...Good!”