Sony: DSLT Alpha owners: What improvements would you make to your camera?

mikeyp2000

77 posts since
Dec 15, 2011

Written on Dec 15, 2011 12:48 PM

A77 firmware enhancement requests:

1) pal/NTSC switchable video for travelling videographers

2) manual mic gain control for audio in video.

3) video button to be customisable (like ael/iso buttons) or have an optional 'double press to record'. I'm not alone in having quite a lot of 5 second movie clips of my feet, usually taken while flipping out the screen.

4) in the dedicated manual video mode (from the mode selector knob on the top left of the camera) allow the normal shutter button to start/stop recording. Using the record button is ergonmically unsound and in manual video mode the shutter button just doesn't do anything

That's all I can think of for video. Here are a few photo ideas

1) make the controls as responsive as the A55/a700. Even with 1.04, there is still some control lag especially annoying in local AF mode and moving the active AF point with the joystick.

2) quicker EVF/LCD switching. Even with 1.04 there is still some lag.

3) implement a Lowest Shutter speed to allow better control over autoiso

4) allow autoiso in M mode (yes I know it wouldn't be truly M mode then, but you would still have the option of selecting ISO manually of course). In this mode, still allow exposure compensation like in A or S modes. (this would be a sport shooters ideal setup and would make many more sales)

5) allow full customisation of the Drive Mode, WB, top plate ev+/-, Movie and smart teleconverter and '?' Buttons. You can already customise the ISO, AEL, AF/MF buttons so it should be simple to extend this to the others. (ironically, you can change the ISO button but not the ? Button at the moment. Surely most users of a camera at this level/cost never use the ? at all)

6) not sure if this is possible but when using smart teleconverter, would it be possible to electronically stabilise the EVF view? This would also be handy when using Focus Magnifier view.

7) implement tethering in the same way as on the a700. (very very important!)

8) some kind of pixel binning to allow saving lower resolution RAW files (16 or 12mp choices would be ideal). I like the freedom/leeway granted by raw in tweaking exposure and WB but rarely need 24mp

9) fix the hung flash issue i described in another thread here

10) In MF mode, when I press the af/mf toggle button (rear top right of camera) the camera AF triggers in AF-S mode. All very nice but please add an option for it to trigger AF-C mode or AF-A mode. This would be roughly equivalent to the canikon 'back button autofocus' that seems so popular with sport shooters

11). When zoomed in (focus magnifier) in AF mode and I notice focus is a bit off' I press the AF/MF button to adjust focus. Sadly, it drops back to the zoomed out view. It would be great if it stayed zoomed in and far more useful.

12) an 'OVF simulation mode' where the EVF always always shows the TTL view ready to take a photo. After taking the pic, have auto review send the pic to the rear LCD only, keeping the EVF in live view mode. When autoreview has timed out, blank or power down the rear LCD. Reason: with the top plate LCD and ability to change settings in the EVF, I don't need the rear LCD for changing settings and often flip it inside out to hide it I'd like to use it for autoreview only but the current 1.04 autoreview shows the image on the LCD and the EVF. With auto review off, the camera handles better but I keep having to press the playback button to chimp my photos.

12) bring back the steady shot indicator scale! The a55, a700 and presumably many other alpha cameras had this little bar scale to show how steady you were holding the camera. Very useful! But sadly it has disappeared from the a77

13) add 'steady shot on/off' to the list of custom features available on the customisable buttons. This would alleviate the missing steady shot switch, lamented by so many a700 upgraders.

14) for the shutdown sequence, park the lens at infinity FIRST. Aftere that I don't care how long it takes to shutdown completely. Try putting a lens like the tamron 90 macro back in your bag before the shutdown is complete. The wind-to-infinity currently as the last step can have dramatic effect on a camera in a crowded bag!

15) what happens to the "brightness" option in the creative styles? The a700 had this but it's just not there any more. Same for zone matching

16) JPG only modes are not available in with RAW. Fair enough but couldn't the camera offer a warning then shoot a jpg anyway? Perhaps panoramas/hdrs could save the raw files as well as the jpg

17) customisable raw+jpg to allow different jpg sizes/qualities to be recorded beside the raw file. Again, the a700 had this.

18) NOise reduction off for JPG files. The a700 had this. The a77 has auto or weak only.

19) EXIF field for copyright info. After all this is supposed to be a semi pro camera isn't it?

20) EXIF info for focus distance and AF point used. (ok this is a minor one but occasionally of interest to me)

21) the AF points are black in live view. Against a dark background, they are almost totally invisible. In LOcal AF mode, as I jog the active AF point around using the joystick, I'm almost guessing which point I have selected and need to to trigger the AF to make the active AF point light up green. Combined with the lag between joystick action and AF point actually changing, this can be a frustrating experience. I can't recall exactly how the a700 handled this but I never had a problem being able to see the AF points perhaps the a77 points could turn red briefly while you are jogging them around and later on when composing, the live view could show them as a black box with a white outline. The screen resolution is so fine, an extra box of white pixels around each black box would hardly be intrusive and enhance the camera greatly.

Well, that's just a few ideas! Don't get me wrong, the a77 is a fabulous camera. My A700 is now sold and the a55 has gone the same way. With a few minor tweaks, the a77 would be unbeatable for me and I'm sure the things I'm asking for are not hardware dependent. In fact, I'd pay for some of the things listed above!

22) Bring back the quick navi user interface (as seen on a700/a900/a850) - often lauded as one of the best ever camera UIs

Cheers

(edit to add point 22)

Message was edited by: mikeyp2000

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mikeyp2000

77 posts since
Dec 15, 2011

Written on Jan 6, 2012 9:35 PM

A few more ideas for the A77:

1) Implement a Contrast Detect AF mode for tripod work. I believe the A580 can do this. Even if it's not fast, it would be useful at times.

2) Invent an Auto-micro focus adjust facility. If contrast detect focus (as in "1" above) it should be simple for the camera to calculate the focus shift from the phase-detect AF sensors and set the MicroFocus Adjustment automatically.

3) Allow multiple Microfocus adjustments for zoom lenses (Eg, wide, middle and long end of the zoom range) It's not uncommon for a zoom lens to have different adjustment needs over the zoom range.

4) If I autofocus then use the focus magnifier to zoom in, it's great but if I notice a focus error and press the AF/MF button on the camera so I can manually adjust the focus, the viewfinder is zoomed out again. The same happens if I use the M/AFC/AFS/C-AF dial on the front of the body. It would be very nice if the view stayed zoomed in.

5) Fix the banding issues seen when taking pictures with HSS flash and electronic front curtain shutter or implement an option to disable EFCS when using flash and HSS shutter speeds.

Cheers

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FidoBoy68

3 posts since
Dec 2, 2011

Written on Jan 15, 2012 2:53 AM

i totally agree with this list of features for future a77 firmware updates. Even considering that A77 is a fabulous camera, all of these fixes could add a perfect final touch to the annoying issues that i'm having after testing it for one month. I specially agree with manual audio level control (and also a on screen audio level meter), a long press or double click over the video recording button (this is really annoying cause right now i record so often 5 sec clips by accident), and also it could be great to allow switch from PAL to NTSC and viceversa, and disable cropping when recording video (even losing the steady shot feature) and allow 2.8 with video recording.

Also RAW panoramas, and HDR in raw mode could be nice.

just my two cents

kind regards,

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magir75

1 posts since
Mar 18, 2012

Written on Mar 18, 2012 8:20 AM

I wonder, whether this thread is still read considering that not that many posts have been made, yet...

The A57 introduced a cropping feature which enlarges the focal length and increases speed in order to achieve 12 frames per second. I think, this feature should be extended further - a huge advantage of the EVF is that it isn't limited to a fixed display ratio and size and it would be great, if I for instance decreasing the image size, the focal length is extended automatically (e.g. 24 MPix -> 12 MPix make a 18-55 lens zoom to 110.

Another issues, which is bothering A55 users is that HDR mode is disabled, when RAW mode is set - why not automatically disable RAW when HDR is selected? Currently, this is quite cumbersome to do.

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p4ult212

14 posts since
Mar 9, 2011

Written on Mar 20, 2012 12:10 PM

Hi, thanks for your feedback! This thread is certainly read - and the feedback provided goes straight into the hands of the worldwide Product Marketing group, so the knowledge we receive goes straight onto the roadmap discussions for future releases!

Many thanks for taking the time to comment - we appreciate your thoughts and contributions!

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mikeyp2000

77 posts since
Dec 15, 2011

Written on Mar 20, 2012 10:02 PM

p4ult212, It's great to know that this stuff is reaching the right people!

Can I be so bold as to add another A77 feature request?
- When in Local AF mode, when selecting Focus Magnifier, it would be handy if the zoom box could be centred on the selected AF point. At the moment, it just zooms to the middle of the frame.

On another note, we would all love a few more public hints about Sony's plans for the future of the Alpha system.

I follow a few online discussion sites dedicated to the Sony Alpha system and there is an underlying sense of frustration that nobody really knows where the Alpha system is headed. For instance, the A700 was discontinued for years without a replacement equivalent model. Now the A900 is headed the same way, being listed as a 'previous model'. Many people are looking at Canon and Nikon for a stability and certainty in their 'serious' photography and the feeling is that Sony are lacking this same commitment.

In my case, if my old A700 had broken down in that long period before the A77 was released, I would most likely be shooting with a Nikon 7000 or Canon 7D by now. It would be amazing if Sony could issue a roadmap or even 'dream map' for how they see the Alpha mount developing over the next few years.

Cheers

(PS - Here's hoping for a big A77 update soon, and not an A78 replacement model instead!)

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Phils.

1 posts since
Mar 23, 2012

Written on Mar 23, 2012 9:22 AM

Can anyone example why the A55 is so noisy when it takes a picture. I had expected that because the mirror doesn't move it would be almost silent when capturing a shot.

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p4ult212

14 posts since
Mar 9, 2011

Written on Apr 10, 2012 9:50 AM

The noise you can hear is the shutter. Of course there is no mirror noise so if you compared the A55 to the A580 (D-SLR version of A55) then the A580 would be noisier because of mirror slap. Not moving the mirror not only gives us advantages for speed of focus, quick frames per second, phase detection AF in movie and live view but it also gives us the advantage that it eliminates the noise of the mirror. However, you will still hear the shutter. If you combine this with the fact that you can shoot up to 10fps of course this means that you will hear the noise of the shutter 10 times in a second - or really 20 times as there are 2 "curtains", a front curtain which starts the exposure and a rear curtain which finishes the exposure. These physically move in front of the sensor to start and stop the exposure.

Not moving the mirror also has the advantage of reducing camera shake for long exposures. Sometimes cameras have a mirror lock up function where you are preparing a long exposure shot on a tripod. You compose the image and prepare the settings but to avoid any slight shake of the camera when the mirror moves up, with some cameras, you can select to lift the mirror before you press the shutter (which will black out the optical viewfinder). As I said, this reduces any camera shake which could be caused by the lifting of the mirror but with SLT there's no need as the mirror does not move.

But to summarise as a short answer (too late!), the A55 is likely to make less noise than it's equivalent A580 due to not moving the mirror but you will still hear the sound of the shutter which could make even more of an impression on you because it can fire at 10fps.

Hope that helps clear up your query :-)

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mikeyp2000

77 posts since
Dec 15, 2011

Written on Apr 16, 2012 10:04 PM

I posted a list of suggestions for improvements above.

It's nice to see that some issues have been addressed in v1.05 for the a77 but most of the suggestions I listed above have yet to be addressed. It seems 1.05 was a bug fix release that also happened to remove much of the operation lag, which is most welcome. The camera now feels and operates in the manner I expected when I first bought it last year.

Sony, please bear in mind that these ideas are not mine alone, but gathered from various forums across the internet. I'm sure some of the ideas are 'firmware' only and some may only be possible with hardware tweaks, but it would still be great if some could be implemented.

My personal priorities are:

Auto Iso improvements (user selectable minimum shutter speed)

Auto Iso allowable in M mode.

Make AF points more visible in EVF (currently they are dark boxes and on a dark background, they are very hard to see)

Make all buttons customisable (Especially the ? button!)

Tethering

In Zoomed in view after autofocusing, if I press AF/MF to allow MF adjustment, it drops back to full screen view. Please allow the view to stay zoomed in.

Exposure bracketing - allow user customisation of total number of shots and EV steps.

Exposure bracketing - allow with IR remote control

Exposure bracketing - allow a mode where one single shutter press shoots the entire sequence

Anyway, here's hoping for a v2 firmware!

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odonix

2 posts since
May 14, 2012

Written on May 14, 2012 10:44 AM

Yes ! Manual Audio PLEASE !!!

The a77 is such a great HDSLR, and could compete with Canon's 5D for filmmaking, if only it had the Manual Audio function ! Which means, Ability to Disable AGC (Automatic Gain Control), and input levels !

Please, please ..!!

Thank you for your concern in loyal costumers !!!

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noisytoys

2 posts since
Jun 24, 2012

Written on Jun 24, 2012 10:07 PM

Timelapse function would be great on my a77!

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Grim_up_North

1 posts since
Jul 19, 2012

Written on Jul 19, 2012 8:41 PM

PLEASE SONY - IF YOU'RE LISTENING

I recently got the A57 mainly because it was way ahead of the competition for features at that level.

However.....

GREATER EV RANGE FOR THE CONTINUOUS BRACKETING FUNCTION!

The Auto HDR would do the trick if it would store all the exposure shots and the HDR composite - WHY ONLY STORE THE HDR AND THE "CORRECT" EXPOSURE IMAGE.

This would allow those who want to play with creating HDR images in post processing software can do. Even a 0.7ev range will not allow "more creative" HDR images to be created.

I cannot see any real reason for not allowing more flexibility with either of these settings - it cannot be that the A77 does so much of a better job of this compared to competition (as it doesn't - and doesn't really within the Sony range).

Please look at this when reviewing future firmawre releases.

Many thanks

PS Otherwise a cracking piece of kit - enjoying my new purchase greatly!

Message was edited by: Grim_up_North

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Sonylicious8

5 posts since
Jul 19, 2012

Written on Jul 19, 2012 6:16 PM

SONY I need HELP

one of my friends dropped my Sony a57 on the floor but luckily no external damages have been made neither to the lens or to the body. The camera seems to work fine but an error seems to continuously appear on screen at all times and the flash sometimes acts up and doesnt take right away!! I tried initializing- taking out battery, changing memory cards but nothing. What can I do??????

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silawre

47 posts since
Dec 13, 2011

Written on Jul 25, 2012 11:26 PM

I have an A65 and A77 and I think they are both amazing. The EVF works well and given the level of the technology at this stage one cannot complain. I do think, however, if you are dedciated to EVF as a viewfinder you need to ensure that it continues to get better and better.

I also think that on any future high end releases work on matching the likes of Canon and Nikon with regard to ISO performance.

I'd like to thank you for producing such amazing cameras and lenses. I also have an a850, some ZA and G series lenses and the quality of the output is breath-taking.

Si

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