Firmware update announced for A850/A900

Specifically for the discussion of the A-mount DSLR range
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Lonnie Utah
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Re: Firmware update announced for A850/A900

Unread post by Lonnie Utah »

David Kilpatrick wrote:ISO - no change. Before and after shots have slightly different noise distribution, but no more so than any two shots separated by a few minutes. There is no significant (visible) improvement in high ISO or normal ISO performance, and indeed the information did not suggest that there would be.
:(
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Re: Firmware update announced for A850/A900

Unread post by David Kilpatrick »

Whether it keeps them or not, I can't tell as I had removed all of mine - they did not seem to be helping. So any lens I fit showed zero before, and zero after...

David
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Re: Firmware update announced for A850/A900

Unread post by David Kilpatrick »

Agorabasta - just ACR. In raw, I don't have any real interest in JPEGs at high ISO. I'm sure if there were improvements, Sony would have said so.

David
Mike-Photos
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Did the update...

Unread post by Mike-Photos »

Menu setting changed to start at the top.
Time changed by an hour and 12 minutes. I know because I recently adjusted for daylight savings.

I'll re-check my macro lens for focus on the weekend. I'm taking photos of butterflies on Monday, and it would be great if the focus speed improves on the macro, which can hunt a lot. I use manual focus a lot of the time, but if it's much improved I can auto focus more. Will report back next week.
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Re: Firmware update announced for A850/A900

Unread post by agorabasta »

David Kilpatrick wrote:Agorabasta - just ACR. In raw, I don't have any real interest in JPEGs at high ISO. I'm sure if there were improvements, Sony would have said so.

David
The problem is that the current ACR does a very good job at filtering out the stray 'warm' pixels right at the demosaicing stage. And exactly those warm pixels were the primary 'offenders' with the a900 noise. The noise was simply too disorderly non-Gaussian. In order to see any change now you'd need a less complex SW algorithm than the current ACR is.
01af
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Re: AF micro-adjustment

Unread post by 01af »

David Kilpatrick wrote:I can't tell as I had removed all of mine - they did not seem to be helping.
I put quite some time and effort in finding the proper AF micro-adjustments for some of my most-used lenses ... and what I found is this: It's incredibly hard to find settings that actually improve things rather than messing things up, and it's scaringly easy to get carried away. I guess that's why AF micro-adjustment isn't available in entry-level and mid-level camera models. For any given lens, whenever you think you found a good setting then you have to re-check and then re-check again, under many different shooting conditions, to make sure it actually is an improvement. You also need to know, among other things, what aperture-related focus shift is and which of your lenses suffer from this and how. It's an awful lot of work to get it right for more than one or two lenses.

However if you get it right then it can turn an apparently mediocre lens into a really good one, or a good lens into an excellent one. Typically, good settings are in the ±0 to -5 range. Significantly higher values may indicate a hardware problem ... or a bad user error. Positive values are rare (does this say something?). In my opinion, less-than-perfect focus is the most-prevalent single reason for substandard lens performance. That's why I am always more interested in AF accuracy than AF speed.
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Re: Firmware update announced for A850/A900

Unread post by agorabasta »

Olaf, in a perfect world you could have a fast PDAF with a fine CDAF microadjustment. In a yet more perfect world you could have those CDAF microadjustments recorded and analysed/catalogued so that less fine CDAF is even needed at the time of shot.
Mike-Photos
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Re: AF micro-adjustment

Unread post by Mike-Photos »

01af wrote:
David Kilpatrick wrote:I can't tell as I had removed all of mine - they did not seem to be helping.
I put quite some time and effort in finding the proper AF micro-adjustments for some of my most-used lenses ... and what I found is this: It's incredibly hard to find settings that actually improve things rather than messing things up, and it's scaringly easy to get carried away. I guess that's why AF micro-adjustment isn't available in entry-level and mid-level camera models. For any given lens, whenever you think you found a good setting then you have to re-check and then re-check again, under many different shooting conditions, to make sure it actually is an improvement. You also need to know, among other things, what aperture-related focus shift is and which of your lenses suffer from this and how. It's an awful lot of work to get it right for more than one or two lenses.

However if you get it right then it can turn an apparently mediocre lens into a really good one, or a good lens into an excellent one. Typically, good settings are in the ±0 to -5 range. Significantly higher values may indicate a hardware problem ... or a bad user error. Positive values are rare (does this say something?). In my opinion, less-than-perfect focus is the most-prevalent single reason for substandard lens performance. That's why I am always more interested in AF accuracy than AF speed.
I was quite surprised at my -9 result, and I checked it a number of times - I use Lens Align.
Practically speaking, my macro results with the adjustment are visibly better than before.
Mike
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Dusty
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Re: Firmware update announced for A850/A900

Unread post by Dusty »

Now if they'll only get out an update for the 350, they would make me happy!

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bfitzgerald
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Re: Firmware update announced for A850/A900

Unread post by bfitzgerald »

A lens release on/off for the A2xx-3xx range and previous A5xx models would go down well. But unlikely to happen.
It's great they did one (bit late to say the least but hey it's here) shame the older models don't get any attention.

Personally I think they need to overhaul the entire firmware across the board, if it took them that long what was the delay for?
Still it seems Sony do listen (eventually)..but not completely and not for folks who don't dump big cash on bodies ;-)
stevecim
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Re: Firmware update announced for A850/A900

Unread post by stevecim »

I would be happy if they fixed fixed the black frame problem with the A550 :)
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bakubo
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Re: Firmware update announced for A850/A900

Unread post by bakubo »

stevecim wrote:I would be happy if they fixed fixed the black frame problem with the A550 :)
What is that? Never heard of it. Is it the same as the infamous KM 7D FFB (first frame black) problem?
Lonnie Utah
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Re: Firmware update announced for A850/A900

Unread post by Lonnie Utah »

Anyone have the link to the US download site?

Thx in advance.
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kysham
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Re: Firmware update announced for A850/A900

Unread post by kysham »

agorabasta wrote:Olaf, in a perfect world you could have a fast PDAF with a fine CDAF microadjustment. In a yet more perfect world you could have those CDAF microadjustments recorded and analysed/catalogued so that less fine CDAF is even needed at the time of shot.
In the ultimate extremely perfect world..... no adjustments required. :lol:
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Re: Firmware update announced for A850/A900

Unread post by David Kilpatrick »

Europe, Asia and US download site links are all on the main website page:

http://www.photoclubalpha.com/2010/12/0 ... e-upgrade/

David
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