Sony Alpha SLT-A55 Samples

The Sony Alpha SLT-A55 features Multi-Frame ISO settings from 100 all the way to 25600. Multi-Frame ISO takes advantage of fast capture speeds to snap multiple frames which are blended to produce an image with lower noise. The exposure time is increased accordingly, up to 5 times. This obviously only works in JPEG mode and is designed to capture images of relatively still subjects in low-light when a tripod is not available.

Here we took pictures of a static scene at each Multi-Frame and regular ISO sensitivity. For consistency, a tripod was used although the self-timer cannot me used in Multi-Frame mode. Naturally, when I tripod is available, it would be better to simply reduce the ISO and take a longer exposure.

The results below tell the complete story. The ISO 100 shot, which normally required 2s of exposure, took 10 seconds to complete in Multi-Frame ISO and suffered from tripod shake since the self-timer cannot be used. This may also explain the slight softness at Multi-Frame ISO 200. Up to ISO 400, normal ISO shots look better than their Multi-Frame counterparts. ISO 800 is pretty much equivalent, with one side showing a hint of noise and the other a hint of softness. This is extremely similar to choosing different noise-reduction settings. Starting at ISO 1600, the Multi-Frame results show a lead of roughly one stop in terms of overall quality and slightly more improvment when looking at chrome noise alone.

Multi-Frame ISO	Normal ISO
MF-ISO 100 - Tripod Shake!	ISO 100
MF-ISO 200	ISO 200
MF-ISO 400	ISO 400
MF-ISO 800	ISO 800
MF-ISO 1600	ISO 1600
MF-ISO 3200	ISO 3200
MF-ISO 6400	ISO 6400
MF-ISO 12800	ISO 12800
MF-ISO 25600