Yes, wildlife and perhaps professional sport are about the only occasions.

I’ve found that even then, you need to keep noise under control more with 45mp. Maybe it is a Sony sensor peculiarity, but noise creeps in uninvited. And when you enlarge the subject, the noise gets bigger and more obvious too.


I recently looked at some bird photos taken with the Sony A7 compared to the A1 and there’s no doubt that, although the A1 was a sharper image, the A7 had less apparent noise at the same iso.


Of course noise and sharpness can both be addressed in computer. It’s been said many times that the sweet spot for FX sensors is closer to 25mp than 45mp.



Edit: I just realised the new Sony A7 iv is now 33mp. What have they learnt??
 I wonder if they have adopted the A1 menu system or retained the frustrating old A7 mess? Might be worth a look.

Last edited on Wed Sep 17th, 2025 17:44 by