Cameracraft magazine – Taking your practical photography further
Sony has sent out emails from My Sony EU support telling owners of NEX cameras that a new firmware upgrade is available.
However, the email refers to the upgrade to v03 issued on October 14th 2010.
Sorry folks!
Update: I’m told by a Sony exec that they were ‘testing a new email system’!
It’s 2.13am in Scotland, and I can’t possibly handle the volume of press material which has just flooded in from Sony at the CES show in Las Vegas.
Exmor-R is really rolled out in force – back-illuminated CMOS sensors all round. Simulataneous still capture during video without interruption has arrived in the consumer cameras, both by using two sensors (two cameras in one camera) or by sheer processing power (capture during 1080/50i recording, but not during 1080/50p).
Sony’s foresight in grabbing hold of certain image-blending technologies – the patents/processors which have already made Night Shot and Twilight, multishot panorama and 3D panorama, HDR multishot all possible – is extended to use multi shot with multiple focus positions, to create artificial bokeh effects (DSLR-like differential focus) and also simulated 3D in which two exposures made at two focus distance positions are offset to create a 3D-like result.
All this stuff is very important for the future of DSLRs – it must lead in due course to multishot focus stacking in-camera in DSLRs, just as it leads to the reverse in small sensor consumer cams, and also new 3D modes.
My crystal ball says that two years from now, you will be able to take ‘a shot’ with a camera and by capturing multiple frames in an extremely short duration, it will be possible SELECT YOUR FOCUS PLANE afterwards and ELIMINATE ALL NOISE regardless of ISO. In-camera and in computer alike. And you’ll be able to decide how much depth of field you want and preview the effect and save the result. One day there will be a raw file which uses a cubic model not a Cartesian model, XY coordinates for the image dimension, then many layers stacked to represent multiple focus planes.
Sony just brought this future – I can remember we discussed the concept of the ‘cubic’ image file way back in the 1990s in our office rambles – closer to reality.
See:
http://presscentre.sony.eu/Content/Detail.aspx?ReleaseID=6368&NewsAreaID=2&ClientID=1
And have a dig round, there’s a stack more into rolling out from Sony, and a lot of important stuff is hiding in the detail.
Also log in to Sony’s blog page:
http://blog.discover.sonystyle.com/follow-sony-electronics-news-live-from-ces-2011
This should bring you updated info links.
– DK
Here’s an article on our sister website, dPhotoexpert, which may interest Photoclubalpha readers who shoot for libraries or on-line stock sites:
This video was made on December 23rd using the Alpha 55 (AVCHD recording) hand held, with SS enabled, and the Carl Zeiss 16-80mm zoom. This video has been uploaded in full 1080p HD and can be viewed at high resolution if you have a fast enough connection. The soundtrack is a classical guitar piece I wrote ten years ago, on the last day of the year 2000, when snow was falling by moonlight which I guess the music represents a bit better than mid-day.
Some camera-mic sound has been left in place for two of the takes, and the shot of the stone wall uses active phase detection AF during video. This was not possible for most takes, as the snowflakes falling made the focus constantly change as they passed the focus zones!
Hope you enjoy it! The camera got very wet with snow – you can see where flakes landed on the lens filter – and ended up being wiped down many times. Eventually, after going into a shop for a few minutes, everything steamed up. But it seems fine after letting it dry out and warm up. It was not very cold, around 1°C for snow to be falling like this.
– David
Once I had a quarterplate hand-and-stand camera, vintage 1920s. Attached to the front standard was a small reflex viewfinder, giving a miniature composition you could use at waist or chest level. On the same standard was a folding wire frame, with a companion eye-sighting window flipping up from the side of the body. This gave a direct view from eye level. But for the most accurate framing and focusing, a groundglass screen at back could be used with the shutter open and a viewing hood folded out.
Those three ways of viewing have never been available in a modern SLR. Until now! The Alpha 580 (for which you can also read 560 throughout this review, give or take the sensor) is the first modern SLR to offer three entirely different viewfinder systems, all with their own unique focus and exposure methods. There have been cameras made by Alpa and Praktina which had optical finders tucked in alongside their pentaprism, and Rollei invented a finder which could switch from eye-level to waist level at the flick of a lever. But the Alpha 580 offers three through-the-lens systems and it’s unlikely any DSLR will do so again.
This is a 10-page article – please use the navigation bar at the bottom to move on to the next page, or click the ‘Continue Reading’ link to view as a single long article (this function is not very reliable though and may produce an ‘undefined’ error)
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It’s taken me a long time to get round to writing a review of the Alpha 55. You don’t get to use a new type of camera very often, and this camera blends elements which have all been used before in a completely new way. This review is pretty from the point of view of the still photographer not the video shooter. This is a multi page report. There’s a lot of it. Please use the navigation for pages 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and on to keep the pages a reasonable size – even if it’s rather hard to spot it… or click the Read More link to get it as one big scrolling monster.
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I’ve finally got round to trying a ‘proper’ videocast – perhaps the first of regular short demonstrations – with the Alpha 55 offering me HD filming while demonstrating the NEX-5. And I can use the NEX-5 to film stuff about the Alpha 55. A Canon 60D helped, though its inability to refocus during filming (which the NEX-5 and Alpha 55 can do) proved a small problem. The sound from the Canon was used, mainly because it had been set with a manual level, while the Sony was using an external condensor mic that pickup up some serious interference from the lights.
The lighting is nothing more than one 30W daylight colour energy saver and one 20W – using an angle desk lamp from IKEA and a spare table lamp. The background is a Calumet (Lastolite in disguise) canvas. To do the filming, I ran a 7 inch Lilliput monitor from the HDMI output of the Alpha 55, and mounted it facing me on a bar right next to the camera. The Canon was set up as a second camera and left running from that position. Editing, including cutting and pasting the soundtrack and parts of the Canon video, was in iMovie 11.
This is a full 1080p HD YouTube film – if you can view it (bandwidth is an issue) try the higher resolutions. The Alpha 55 consistently overheated at around 7 minutes, showing me a temperature warning then shutting off. The room was not warm and the camera screen was both not active, and moved away from the camera back. My first attempt at this film was spoiled by the overheating issue, perhaps because SSS was left on in error. However, on a tripod SSS is not active to any extent when shooting video (it does not have the same problems of creating blur, which happen with still images due to the way mirror or shutter vibration are reflected by the tripod). Previous time limited movies I’ve made have been hand held and of course SSS is both used and expected to be very active.
– David Kilpatrick
Sony today announced upgrades and a road map which will keep NEX E-system adopters more than happy – especially those who have added NEX to their Alpha outfit. Diehard Alpha purists will be less delighted.
At the photokina press conference, a two-year rollout of additional NEX lenses was announced including a fast Carl Zeiss wide-angle, a premium quality G-series standard zoom, a macro lens, a portrait lens, a wide-angle zoom, and a prime telephoto.
Firmware upgrades for NEX-3 and NEX-5 to enable Aperture presetting for video, and AF operation of SAM and SSM Alpha mount lenses with the Sony adaptor, were promised for October with a similar upgrade for the NEX VG-10 in November. The NEX 3 and 5 upgrades will allow assignable functions for the buttons, including direct access to ISO setting or HDR (amongst other choices).
Sony went out of their way – as on their stand – to highlight the explosion of 3rd party adaptors making almost every lens in existence usable with the NEX body’s 18mm register. They announced they were already working with partners to enable production of NEX adaptors and even NEX compatible lenses, but could not reveal anything yet. The opening up of the system to 3rd party makers would, said Toru Katsumoto, help revive photography itself.
With NEX now accounting for half of all mirrorless/compact interchangeable lens sector sales, they were confident of its future.
The bad news, for many, will be that the Alpha 700 replacement – optimistically shown with a vertical grip, 500mm f/4 G SSM lens and a new flash – will have a fixed Translucent mirror just like the A33 and A55. Paul Genge of Sony UK confirmed to us after the presentation that it will not have a flip-up mode to allow shooting without this extra sheet of glass in place.
As tests of the A33 and A55 have shown clearly, the Translucent mirror creates visible bright-edge ghosting or secondary imaging in the vertical direction. For many users, this will be a no-go option; they will look at the Pentax K-5 and the Nikon D7000 and see a ‘pure’ optical path from lens to sensor (although we all know the cover glass assembly of the sensor removes this possibility).
Perhaps the real A700 of tomorrow will be the Sigma SD-1 – the 1.5X factor, beautifully designed, 15 megapixel (true!) Foveon machine claimed as ever to match a much larger real pixel count – 48 megapixels. Well, Sigma need not make such claims. 15 megapixels is enough. It was enough with Bayer pixels. 15 real Foven RGB coincident location pixels will be one amazing camera.
Today was a wonderful day. Summer temperatures. Everyone was sitting round outside in the open spaces at photokina and it was like a big barbecue party with all the wurst-stalls grilling away. The sunniest photokina we’ve ever been to. And there is an amazing level of optimism here about trade and the market. We had a recession – unless someone screws it up, we are in for a boom again. There is so much fantastic stuff coming and China is both the market and the innovator in so many ways.
– D&SK, reporting from outside the Restauration K A Pütz Brauhaus, with 2nd small Kölsch
Additional notes: I filmed the entire conference on my NEX-5, which overheated losing 1 minute midway (pull out the LCD assembly and have the screen away from the body – this stops it overheating so fast, my mistake). But I need my big iMac and fast broadband to edit this and put up several YouTube sections, I can not do so from photokina pressroom or hotel wifi. It will be posted next week.
The image shown of the A7XX (the ‘Advanced Alpha’) is the same mag-alloy body (strap lugs give this away) ‘750’ that was seen at PMA, it’s actually like a slightly rounded Pentax K-5 in size and heft from the description and screen views. Because it will use Translucent mirror technology, you must not assume outright that this means no optical finder. It may use the semi-silvered mirror at 45 degrees, and have a new AF method, quite unlike the A33/A55 – and it could have a really good glass prism finder. But the mirror, like the old Canon Pellix and RT models, would be fixed. We simply do not know but the shape and size indicates it’s not necessarily an SLT in the A33/55 mould. I could devise an AF detector capable of reading from a focus screen (just as the human eye does). Anyone with basic optronics/optics knowledge can see that there are many potential ways to achieve AF, and they do not preclude fitting an optical focusing screen. There are also ways of achieving superior on-sensor contrast detection AF. – DK
Samsung and Sony are set for a battle royal over the next couple of years. At photokina, Samsung’s Monday 20th press conference made great store of ‘all our own work’ – that everything in the NX100 was sourced within Samsung. From the floor, a question far cheekier than I would have dared ask – ‘Are you working on making low noise sensors?’ – from Samsung, a deadpan reply that they were, indeed, working on lower noise sensors.
The NX100 is superficially a great concept, but the design based on ‘a dewdrop forming on a leaf’ has been seen before (it slips out the hand as easily as a dewdrop from a leaf) and is based on the idea that today’s rear-screen composers use two hands to hold the camera. Well, I have news for Samsung; they don’t. They generally use one. Even I do. So having aperture control from the focus ring of the lens, like an old-fashioned compact or rangefinder leaf-shutter model, is not a winner when your left hand is not actually going to be anywhere near the camera.
At the Pentax stand, marketing chief for the UK Marilyn Dixon proudly showed the K-5. I will admit, this is the camera Sony should have been showing. “We must tell you straight away that this camera uses a Sony sensor”, she said. “Sony make very good sensors”. What of Samsung? She was not sure if they were still selling any K-mount cameras. Pentax might never have used a Samsung sensor, ever, from the impression gained. They were using Sony sensors and Sony were the best.
Samsung previewed a line of rollout lenses from 2010 to 2012 for the NX100. The last phase included an 18-200mm and a 16mm f/2.8 pancake – they were going to match Sony blow for blow, and add half a dozen of the lenses which Sony NEX adopters most wanted. And they said they would issue a firmware update for the NX10 to allow it to use the new i-Fn (assignable function to the focus ring) lenes. But they had little care whether NX10 or NX100 were fully cross compatible with the glass in their owners’ hands now and to follow. Clearly the NX10 is a past episode; the NX100 is the real thing.
What a contrast at Pentax! No plans for an EVIL future. But – did you know that every Pentax lens with an ultrasonic motor also has a screw drive? And every screw drive body can also operate those lenses, and every new body can operate both types?
We have yet to visit Sony, but there is nothing new – A33, A55, A560, A580. There is nothing with the magnesium body, weather seals, superb glass prism, workable contrast-detect AF, and lovely compact but chunky size of the K-5. It has been left to Nikon (D7000, based on D90) and Pentax to be the first to exploit the new Sony 16 megapixel sensor in a semiprofessional body.
And Panasonic – they were great, inviting us on to an empty half-finished stand to see the latest stuff. Including a 14mm f/2.5 pancake looking so much like the NEX 16mm!
Samsung said that this year’s 1.4 million mirrorless camera sales would rise to over 15 million and eclipse DSLR sales by 2015. Maybe they are right. They also say they will be the leader. Who knows?
– David Kilpatrick
Sometimes earlier this year, early Spring I think, I had a vivid and detailed dream during a slow waking-up hour. It was the kind of dream which feels rational not random. I knew what I was doing in it – in control!
This time, I described the dream to my wife and son; he knows a lot about this stuff, and thought it was an accurate dream. It was possible. Now Sony is about to release the camera I was using in the dream.
Here is the dream.
I am walking across a kind of pier or boardwalk construction at the edge of water. It’s not in Britain. It’s warm and sunny, and it could be in the USA. The boards are raised above what would be the shore, and there are wooden buildings left and right of me. Ahead, I can see the lake water, and boat moorings with a jetty. To the left of me is the largest building, which is a shop or museum; something to visit. There are ornamental shrubs placed on planters or pots, and there are some notices or signs on the building. To the right, the wooden building is functional; it could be a boat house, a yacht club, or something like that. There are pine woods beyond.
My job is to move to the four corners of this scene, and other positions, taking care to make a complete set of images from a range of camera placements and angles. I’m using a wide-angle lens, and my camera is equipped with GPS which records the exact position and orientation of the camera for every shot.
I do not worry about people in the pictures because the software will ignore them, nor about the light, but it is a beautiful day anyway. I am taking the pictures for a project and this is paid work. This is actually what I do for a living (in the dream). I am visiting hundreds of the most frequently-photographed places in the world, and producing a set of pictures of each one.
But it’s not what I am doing which is the interesting bit. It’s what I know about it. In the dream, I have all the knowledge about what I am doing that I would have if it was real.
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Time and space
Here’s how my pictures are being used. Each set of images with its GPS coordinates is fed into a system which constructs a 3D model of the environment. It is capable of recognising identical elements seen from different angles, and uses the GPS data to help identify them. With two 2D views of a building from different positions, it can use the focus distance and lens angle information to compensate for small inaccuracies in the GPS data, and wireframe the exact design and scale of the structure.
It identifies textures and objects like foliage, text on signs, clouds, and people. Once my entire set of images from this place has been processed (I am aware they are being transmitted as I take the pictures) new photographs which never existed can be created. A virtual camera can be positioned anywhere within the area I photographed, and my few dozen still images from fixed positions enable a new view to be constructed with complete accuracy.
I’ve used the result (in my dream) and it has incredibly high resolution because of the correlated image information. It’s a bit like Sony’s multi-shot or HDR or panorama technology, but instead of aligning two very similar images, it maps the coincident key points of entirely different views of the same scene. Where a walk-through VR allows viewing all angles from one position, this allows viewing any angle from any position.
And it goes beyond that to add a timeline.
The system I’m working for gathers millions of photographs from people all over the world. I’m photographing these key locations because they are the most photographed in the world. Camera phone images now record GPS data, and also record the date. So (at this future time) do most digital cameras and video cameras.
The system can find images matching every location by trawling the web; from Flickr, Facebook or whatever is out there. It can analyse the images to see whether they actually match the location they appear to be from. For every location, the system gathers in as many more pictures as it can find.
The first result of this is more detail. The second is that the viewer can change the season or weather conditions in which the location is seen. It can be viewed at night, in snow, in rain, at sunset; whatever. My image-set provides the framework, but seasonal changes can be created from the ‘found’ images of the place.
The second result is the timeline. Old photographs of these places have been fed into the system. For some popular spots, it’s possible to track the environment backwards for over 100 years. Trees change size, buildings appear and disappear. By turning on ‘people’ (which the software can remove) the crowds, groups or individuals who were in the scene at any time can be shown. And the 3D environment is still enabled because all the old photographs are co-ordinate mapped to the new information.
I do not have to work all this out in my dream, because I already know it. I am working with this awareness. The entire thing is known to me, without having to think about it. I also know that future pictures captured from internet will continue to add to the timeline and the ‘people’ function, so in five years’ time the seasons and the visitors to this place can be viewed almost by the minute.
The dark side
Because this is a dream, I do not have to think or rationalise to get this understanding; it was included with the dream. As I wake up, I realise what I have been dreaming and then make an effort to ‘save to memory’. That also kicks in the thinking process.
I start to wonder who was hiring me to do this survey-type photography, because in the dream that is one thing I don’t know. I realise how exciting it is to be able to use this Google-Earth or Google-Street type application to view not only any part and any angle of these tourist locations, but any season or time of day, and many past times in their history.
When I describe it to him, Richard suggests it’s probably Microsoft. He likes the collation of web-sourced images covering seasons, and maybe decades of past time. He thinks it is all possible and the core technology exists right now. I should patent it and give it a name!
But there is one thing which I understood just as I was waking up; the system can recognise people. Not just as people to be ‘removed’ from a scene or turned back on; it can recognise faces. The movements of one individual can be reconstructed within that location, and it can use a ‘cloud’ of gathered pictures taken at the same time to do so. This is not just virtual tourism and virtual history. In other locations – not beautiful waterside boardwalk quays – it is surveillance brought to a new level.
Sony A55 and A580
Sony’s new models with built-in GPS are the first cameras which will record the data my dream required. The GPS is not the typical latitude-longitude only. It also records height above sea level (elevation) and the direction the camera is pointing (orientation). The camera-data information records the focus distance and point of focus, and the angle of view of the lens (focal length), the time, and the measured light level and apparent colour temperature. Maybe in the A55 the spirit level function also records horizon tilt and position.
OK, the camera I was using in the dream was more like a 5 x 4 on a tripod. But that could be just a dream – like the giant fish which leapt on to boards and brought the jetty crashing down into the water a second before I woke up…
– David Kilpatrick
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