topic DSLT Alpha owners: What improvements would you make to your camera? in Alpha & NEX interchangeable lens cameras

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

p4ult212 — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 09:54:26 GMT

We constantly strive to improve our products, so we’d really appreciate your feedback on what changes you would make to your Sony DSLT camera to make it even better. Whether it’s to do with the design, usability or specific features just let us know what camera you use and what changes you’d make.

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

-mudo- — Sun, 03 Jul 2011 15:31:58 GMT

A55, probably also A33/35

Firmware issue:

Pressing the DOF button while zoomed in (with delete key in live view) resets the zoom.

Steps to reproduce:

- configure delete button for live view zoom

- press delete button in live view to zoom in

- press the DOF button

Result: zoom is reset to show the entire image.

Expected behaviour: image should remain zoomed in to allow for precise DOF control.

Body layout:

On a live view centered camera the button to zoom in should be easy to reach. The delete button however is the button that is the most complicated to reach when holding the camera. A dedicated button on a better position would be preferable.

Body design:

The cover for the USB connection only just allows the USB plug to fit in. It seems like the flexible plastic "hinge" might break soon when used regularly.

Nachricht geändert durch -mudo-

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

Paperoga63 — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 08:21:46 GMT

I used the A55 once for a friend's concert shooting, the photo are there:

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.1707832470036.89013.1664804755&l=837713a3f8

using the 35f18, and a old Beercan with also a HVL-f58 in wireless mode.

I loved the lightness of the camera and also the image quality, but I found the buffer is really poor when you shoot in rapid sequence the machine is blanking the viewfinder and you lose the scene, I still remain on my A700

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

VALASANTE — Sat, 16 Jul 2011 13:12:29 GMT

Imrpvement of the heating problem in the video mode

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

j.j.rutter — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 07:43:25 GMT

I have an A33 but find it really annoying that the screen blanks for so long while taking rapid action shots. Only the first shot is likely to be well centred while panning, the next couple might work but after that a fast moving object is usually lost. The lack of a mirror to move should make the thing faster than an SLR, not slower, surely this "feature" could be reduced or removed?

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

Paperoga63 — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 07:52:57 GMT

You're right: is very annoyng, but this behaviour is related to the class of the camera, the A-77 will be completely different and much more "pro" also in this, i'm beginnin to think to resell my A700

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

-mudo- — Sat, 06 Aug 2011 07:48:21 GMT

More ideas.

1. User modes like on a900/850.

Changing the settings by hand is way too slow, as there ar no dedicated buttons for SSS f. ex.

2. Peeking (with adjustable sensitivity, no like on NEX).

There are cases where AF is inferior, so manual focus should be as easy as possible - now with SLT this could finally be very easy for APS-C cameras, so please implement it.

3. RAW histogram and expose to the right.

Digital cameras have specific requirements when it comes to exposure: maximum quality is achieved by giving some extra exposure (depending on sensor characteristics) while ensuring that no highlights are clipped. It is therefore necessary to determine exposure accordingly. One might think this is easy with a camera that does the metering with the main sensor: the automatic functions have to use according algorithms, and the live histogram helping with manual exposure has to be based on raw sensor data. Alas, both is not the case. Exposure is determined like for slide film in the old days, and seems near perfect - just for the wrong media.

Suggestion:

base histogram on raw data whenever the camera is set to raw or raw+jpeg. In addition, either
- expose to the right automatically in above case, or
- give configuration option to do so.

In both cases, process jpeg and embedded jpeg so that the resulting jpeg is properly exposed.

It seems the above has been discussed for years, some people go to great lenghts to get a histogram that resembles the one from raw data as much as possible, and demanding users try to expose to the right using the inaccurate camera histogram together with bracketing. Isn't it strange that such crude measures are necessary in these days? For me, it was a really frustrating experience: on film, I could easily get perfect exposure without bracketing in a few seconds using a spot meter and some knowledge. No knowledge however will help me with current digital cameras, the only thing I can do is to do bracketing, hope for the best and select a shot later. Now that is a frustrating "high tech" experience.

Make Sony the first camera company to produce a "digitally ready" exposure metering system. SLT technique with direct metering from sensor should be perfect for that.

See http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/optimizing_exposure.shtml for more detailed explanations and suggestions.

4. Improve exposure bracketing

(for hdr, of course 😞 more shots, much wider range.

5. Touch screens

You will probably use touch screens for some of the future cameras. Please: do not force the user to use the touch screen where it is not superior to a button or dial. Use touch for features like "tap to zoom in in live view or image review", "drag to scroll zoomed area", "tap again to zoom out", but not to enhance the coolness factor.

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

Yanneman — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 07:16:39 GMT

I absolutely love my A55. Lightweight and easy to work with. Here are my suggestions for improvement:

In P-mode I would like to be able to shift the program up or down with the wheel.
I miss being able to make a time-lapse shoot, with say 1 frame/second, and have it rendered as an *.avi video-file. Custom settings for frames/sec/min/hour and viewing/playback speed, with say 25 frames/sec, on the resulting video.
I also would like to recieve an email when new upgrades of the firmware is available.

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

SaturdayScience — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 19:27:50 GMT

SLT-A55V

Body: I agree that the USB port is a forced connection, I am also waiting for the 'hinge' to give up.

Firmware: AUTO ISO: It would be good to be able to limit the ISO range in auto eg no faster than 400 (selecteable rather like Drange).

I really like the ver 2.0 firmware option to return to the last used menu option. I use it to control GPS on/off. Sadly the reason is to keep charge battery longer.

Hardware: Larger capacity battery

Hardweare: faster charging batteries / and matched charger.

Any chance of a plugin super battery/ grip that would replicate memory card contacts? (I cant see how you could have a plug in battery without blocking the memory card.)

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

dnwinterburn — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 16:14:52 GMT

Sony A-55

A great camera - it does almost everything I want. BUT please upgrade firmware so that I can bracket exposures by more than +- .7. Please

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

dnwinterburn — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 16:17:19 GMT

The cover for the USB connection only just allows the USB plug to fit in. It seems like the flexible plastic "hinge" might break soon when used regularly.

I second that!

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

gvelladvd2005 — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 22:02:08 GMT

Digital level gauge added to the A35 please. In fact, I was quite dissapointed to find that the A35 does not have the digital level gauge, despite the sony website saying that it does under LCD on the A35 specifications page.

Hopefully this will be added as part of a future firmware upgrade?

Cheers

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

MarkHoldgate — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 14:08:40 GMT

I agree totally. If you use shutter priority settings the 10fps is not achievable and the EVF / screen goes black mid way through rapid shooting which is very very very irritating when I'm trying to take shots of fast moving aircraft. I use a Sandisk 16GB Extreme 20MB/s SDHC card and I wondered if I had a problem with it or the camera so I went to my dealer to check if my camera was actually working properly. Apparently it only gives 10fps when set to "auto" and the guy at the dealership queried what the problem was!

The other improvement I would make is to make the body bigger - I have large hands and where my fingers wrap around the grip and my fingertips touch the body I have worn away some of the rubber skin from it - within the first 6 months of owning it which makes me not very impressed!

I consider myself a bit "old-fashioned" in so much as I like to look through the EVF to capture my shot rather than look at the LCD screen. The other reason is that you have more control over "shake" if the camera is held up to the eye and you can balance better to get a steadier shot. Trouble is the EVF is not good for shooting in MF because it is incapable of producing a sharp image so you never know whether its on the money or not until you've taken the shot. I know that the focus point will illuminate green when in focus and the shutter button is held part way down but I'm not always convinced that it is focussed on the actual part of the shot I want!

I would also like to see a dual display - one for settings and the other for live view.

Also why not a number of user-defined saved manual settings that will allow the user to quickly change the settings to accomodate different types of subjects by retrieving them from the memory?

A detachable battery pack that fits on the base of the camera and provides a longer battery life than the standard internal battery?

Finally the flash hotshoe: Why isn't it a standard design to be compatible with other non-Sony devices? Canon and Nikon have a standard design so why not Sony?

Message was edited by: MarkHoldgate

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

Josem82 — Sat, 24 Sep 2011 07:02:20 GMT

A33 - Simple, just improve the battery life...

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

Jabbathehut73 — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 23:59:46 GMT

Hi, I use the A35 mainly for film.

A couple of firmware improvements would be:

1. Configure a button (say live view) to hold focus while pressed when recording. (some older minolta Xi lenses have such a button)

2. Mjpg is already available - why not allow filming 720p in mjpg? Easier editing on PC and SD card sizes are growing + prices are coming down. Would be a nice choice.

3. More control of settings in video mode, for those of us who do have tripods etc...

Because video is in auto mode, it causes ios/ap lighting problems, flickering etc.. I would prefer to choose a constant setting and accept the cons.

4. AVCHD is recorded progressive (25fps PAL), but seen as 25fps interlaced in editing programs. Would be nice to be able to change properties of avchd file in say PMB.

5.Be able to to activate shutter release button for video filming in settings - thus being able to use a remote. A useful setting would be like on Point and shoot, Hold down the shutter to autofocus, fully press to film. I know it's not the point of a n SLT, but for video, it gives instant control in one button for recording when you don't have time to adjust everything. Professionals use higher end gear, the A35 is Entry - family birthdays etc...

Hope we amatuer film guys get some of the above....

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

mikeyp2000 — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 11:48:58 GMT

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!)

😎 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

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

mikeyp2000 — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 20:35:32 GMT

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

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

FidoBoy68 — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 01:53:44 GMT

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,

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

magir75 — Sun, 18 Mar 2012 07:20:03 GMT

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.

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

p4ult212 — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 11:10:28 GMT

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!