Nikon D7100 vs. Sony A77II: RAW high ISO battle
Introduction
Because I was eager to find out for myself, did an informal Nikon D7100 vs. Sony A77II RAW ISO test yesterday. These results aren’t really scientific, and as I said it’s mainly a test I did for myself, but I’m guessing that many people will be interested in the (high) ISO performance of RAW image files of the A77II compared to a similarly priced model from competitor Nikon.
ISO comparison
Yes I know, crop and lighting are a bit different, different lenses used, but you can always compare the noise of 2 different images at equal ISO settings, just look at noise in dark and coloured areas to get an idea of how they compare.
These are 100% crops, so you can clearly see the ISO noise for my Nikon D7100 vs. Sony A77II comparison.
ISO 1600
Sony A77II ISO 1600
D7100 ISO 1600
As you can clearly see, the Sony A77II does better than the Nikon D7100, there is less noise in blacks and colours.
ISO 3200
Sony A77II ISO 3200
Nikon D7100 ISO 3200
At ISO 3200, the A77M2 does better again, and would be quite usable in a pinch with some noise reduction I think. Although the A7100 seems to have a bit more detail at this level, at the cost of more noise.
Conclusion
It seems that in my little Nikon D7100 vs. Sony A77II ISO battle, the A77M2 comes out a clear winner. With the addition of a better and more flexible AF system than the D7100, Sony is steadily becoming a serious competitor in the mid-range camera market. You can check out all my findings on the A77II here.
Nice comparison, I wonder how you converted the raws? (what settings were used?)
(small typo 🙂 : you wrote iso 16 000 instead of 1600)
ISO 160000, must have had the A7s on my mind already!
Nikon: Lightoom, RAW export to 100% jpg 300 dpi no NR.
A77II: (no lightroom support yet) Sony Image Data converter export to TIFF, no noise reduction then Lightoom, export to 100% jpg 300 dpi no NR.
Hello, I just wanted to add something here. I just decided to buy the A77II over the Nikon D7100, I am not sure about image quality differences, I believe in the end they are prety similar and will depend on the photographer and post processing, but the one thing that sold me on the Sony A77II is the Oled Viewfinder, I use reading glasses and on the Nikon I had to take my glasses off to use the viewfinder comfortably and put my glasses back on to review the image on the LCD display. On the Sony, I only need the Viewfinder for everything, I change all the settings on the viewfinder, I can see how the actual image will turn out, right on the viewfinder, I can review my images right on the viewfinder, so I just adjust the viewfinder to my eye and leave the display closed and protected from damage. This is a great advantage for us that wear reading glasses or any type of eye aid glasses. The Sony Viewfinder is a fantastic tool for me. An other great thing about sony is that for sports and wildlife, you are able to capture 12 frames per second and focusing moving objects with this new Autofocus system is very accurate, most images turn out great. This camera is a fantastic purchase for me. I got it with the 16-50mm sony lens, which is great and I can also use the old minolta lenses.
Hi Fernando, thanks for your valuable input. Did you know there is a new Sony A77M2 firmware coming out later this month with increased Af, up to 2,5 times faster in low light and XAVC-S recording for video?