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How much better are modern mirrorless sensors compared to 10~ years ago?

Nikon D800 Nikon Z6 Equipment Mirrorless DSLR
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Niklas Adelt avatar
Niklas Adelt avatar
Hello everyone,

I currently use a D800 for my aurora and nightscape photography and was wondering if upgrading to a mirrorless is worth it. 

I am still largely happy with how the D800 performs, but I’m also interested in Nikon or Sony mirrorless cameras due to some new lenses being a step up from what is available for the F-mount.
 
Another aspect is sensor performance. I’m interested in a z6 as I’ve heard good things about its low light performance. Does anyone have direct experience going from a somewhat older DSLR to modern mirrorless? Did your images get noticably less noisy? Any resources for direct comparisons?
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andrea tasselli avatar
andrea tasselli avatar
As with many things, they are considerably better, even more so in terms of read-out noise. But they are expensive, especially the Sony ones. In fact they are more expensive than dedicated astronomical cameras so unless you are keen to shoot on the go and travel light it might not worth the candle.
V avatar
V avatar
andrea tasselli:
As with many things, they are considerably better, even more so in terms of read-out noise. But they are expensive, especially the Sony ones. In fact they are more expensive than dedicated astronomical cameras so unless you are keen to shoot on the go and travel light it might not worth the candle.

Agree with this, there are some cameras like Sony A1 that cost more than the top of the line astronomy cameras, by thousands.

I'd just buy an astrocam like 2600, 2400 (Very good, but color only, I love mine) , or 6200 if you want a new sensor for astrophotography.

But if you are dead set on mirrorless, I am a sony buff. A7III is about as good as it can get for under 2000, if you choose to bite the bullet, A7IV, A7SIII, maybe even the aforementioned A1 (It's insanely good, but very expensive)
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Tony Gondola avatar
Tony Gondola avatar
The Lumix GH5 is also very nice, this M-8 photo was done with one:

https://astrob.in/s5rwut/0/
Oscar avatar
Oscar avatar
I see a lot of A7III nightscape photos

you really don't need more than that

if you see some noise in your photos, just use Topaz Denoise to remove it
Arun H avatar
Arun H avatar
The graph below shows how the D800 compares to modern cameras in dynamic range. The D800 is actually really good. Modern mirrorless cameras do have an advantage, but in things like readout speed for video and for autofocus, specifically subject identification and tracking. These things are not very important for deep sky photography. If upgrading, I would do so more for the benefits in day to day photography than for astro work. I switched from a Canon 5D Mark IV to an R6 Mark II, and the difference in things like subject tracking and AF accuracy is significant. But it was not for deep sky work.

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Arun H avatar
Arun H avatar
Also - you asked about direct comparison resources.

Bill Claff's website (where I got this graph from) is a great site: https://www.photonstophotos.net/

DPR also allows you to do comparisons, just go to any camera review that they have done and the image quality section. For example, here is the Z6 versus D800 versus A7R Mark 3 at ISO 1600, all sized to the same resolution. Here is the link:https://www.dpreview.com/reviews/nikon-z6/6

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David Moore avatar
David Moore avatar
The Sony A7 111 is a brilliant camera I have used a lot for landscapes mainly but also deep sky and aurora images. It is also nice and light.