Sony Alpha A77 Digital Camera Review

Noise Reduction

Noise performance is a weak point with the A77. The overall score is fine, but the sensor gets pretty noisy at higher ISOs and aggressive noise reduction starts to degrade fine detail as low as ISO 800.
More on how we test noise.

Detail Loss

Even at the lowest noise reduction setting, fine details like hair and tight patterns in fabrics get mushy at ISO 800 and totally sloppy by ISO 3200. The effect is even more exaggerated at the normal and high NR levels; even at ISO 400 with NR set to high, crispness starts to suffer.

ISO Options

The A77 offers ISO settingsfrom ISO 50 through ISO 16000. We started our tests at ISO 100, since that's the lowest native setting; the settings below that are really just ISO 100 with an exaggerated highlight curve. Users can select ISOs in steps of 1/3EV, and set high and low caps on the automatic ISO system. All ISO settings are available at full resolution.

ISO 25600 is selectable, but only in the multi-frame noise reduction setting. This isn't included in the normal ISO range because it requires creating a composite of several frames in order to keep noise to an acceptable level.