Sony Alpha A99

Image quality comparison
Compare the Sony A99 to its competitors in detail, color, noise and noise suppression across a range of ISOs.
In-depth image analysis
In-depth analysis of Sony A99 test images, focusing on factors like color, white balance, sharpness, active D-lighting, dynamic range, low light and print quality.
High ISO NR
Noise suppression is the enemy of detail at High ISO's. See how the Sony A99 performs in this difficult task.
RAW Comparison
Compare the A99 to its competitors (in the raw).

Sony A99 High ISO Noise Reduction

The Sony A99 offers three high ISO noise reduction settings: "Off," "Low," and "Normal," with Normal being the default. The user manual does not say at what ISO high ISO noise reduction kicks in, so we've included crops starting from ISO 50. There's also a separate Multi-frame Noise Reduction option which combines several frames to average out noise.

See for yourself how the four noise reduction settings work under daylight-balanced lighting. Click on any of the crops below to see the corresponding full-sized image.

Sony A99 Noise Reduction Comparison
Daylight-balanced illumination
Off
Low
Normal
Multi-frame
I
S
O

5
0
Multi-frame NR
not supported at
ISO 50
Off
Low
Normal
Multi-frame
I
S
O

1
0
0
Off
Low
Normal
Multi-frame
I
S
O

2
0
0
Off
Low
Normal
Multi-frame
I
S
O

4
0
0
Off
Low
Normal
Multi-frame
I
S
O

8
0
0
Off
Low
Normal
Multi-frame
I
S
O

1
6
0
0
Off
Low
Normal
Multi-frame
I
S
O

3
2
0
0
Off
Low
Normal
Multi-frame
I
S
O

6
4
0
0
Off
Low
Normal
Multi-frame
I
S
O

1
2
8
0
0
Off
Low
Normal
Multi-frame
I
S
O

2
5
6
0
0
Off
Low
Normal
Multi-frame
I
S
O

5
1
2
0
0
ISO 51,200
not supported
without MF NR
ISO 51,200
not supported
without MF NR
ISO 51,200
not supported
without MF NR

It appears the Sony A99 starts to apply noticeable High ISO Noise Reduction at ISO 400, as you can see the varying levels of noise reduction applied from then on. Sony says noise reduction is not applied to RAW files.

Clearly, the Off setting is not really off, as is often the case. It's also interesting that the Off setting smears our red leaf cloth much more than the Low and Normal settings, though chroma and luminance noise is higher. This appears to be a bug. (We have confirmed the same issue exists with v1.0 firmware.) The Low setting leaves a little more luminance noise than the Normal setting. Overall, the Normal setting provides a pretty good balance between noise and detail, but you'll want to shoot in RAW mode for maximum control over the noise versus detail trade-off.

Multi-frame Noise Reduction is not available at ISO 50, but extends ISO range to 51,200. It produces the cleanest images, however detail is a little soft even at low ISOs. Note that Multi-frame Noise Reduction is not available in RAW or RAW+JPEG modes, and the flash, D-Range Optimizer and Auto HDR cannot be used.