schlotz wrote:
Can't say I'm that fond of the creator's app. I updated directly from the .DAT file loaded to the root of SD card. No issues for both my A1's.
Yeah, I'm not sure I'd trust a flaky app with something as critical as a firmware update and always use an SD card in camera as well.
BillinTexas wrote:
I used the app to update and back up settings first. It was seamless. Now, go through and see what I will find useful.
1) Startup almost immediate
2) New focus areas, better than before, esp. for birds (thin horizontal zone and spot X large)
3) I have the feeling that AFC is crisper (can't quantify)
Have ignored the other updates so far
Updated last night. Took a birding walk at Palo Alto Baylands this morning for initial testing using current camera settings (AFC, zone AF, manual WB, 640-800 ISO, 1/5000, f9, using FE200-600 with 1.4XTC) for BIF. Encountered medium/small sized birds (Male/Female Golden Eyes, Female Buffleheads, Male/Female Surf Scooters, American Avocets, Male/Female Shovelers) and small ones (Cedar Waxwings, Sandpipers) for BIF practice. I am sort of encountering some AF lag at initial AF acquisition which I haven't encountered much in my 11 months of owning a used A1. I am mostly doing short burst shots and some shots (I would say a 3rd of all sequences) would have the 1st (or 2nd on some) frame usually out of focus and the rest were ok then. Will do more testing/confirmation. I am not an expert but more of a competent BIF shooter .
gil3 wrote:
Updated last night. Took a birding walk at Palo Alto Baylands this morning for initial testing using current camera settings (AFC, zone AF, manual WB, 640-800 ISO, 1/5000, f9, using FE200-600 with 1.4XTC) for BIF. Encountered medium/small sized birds (Male/Female Golden Eyes, Female Buffleheads, Male/Female Surf Scooters, American Avocets, Male/Female Shovelers) and small ones (Cedar Waxwings, Sandpipers) for BIF practice. I am sort of encountering some AF lag at initial AF acquisition which I haven't encountered much in my 11 months of owning a used A1. I am mostly doing short burst shots and some shots (I would say a 3rd of all sequences) would have the 1st (or 2nd on some) frame usually out of focus and the rest were ok then. Will do more testing/confirmation. I am not an expert but more of a competent BIF shooter ....Show more →
I updated earlier today using the app. So far everything is working very well and I am impressed with the speed it turns on. Like others I actually don't think that's going to last but hey if it does that's great too. I don't get why they took so long to start adding firmware updates I mean they basically waited until it's successor was out before they even really tried. It's so weird to me how Sony does things sometimes. Like if they did this stuff when the camera was new I don't think anyone would ever complain even if they didn't fix certain things like bird eye in video. Still I guess if you're getting updates that's what matters right?
Haven’t updated my A1 to 4.00 firmware yet but have successfully updated my A7RV a few weeks ago without any problems. I typically try to wait a few weeks to make sure Sony hasn’t missed an issue that potentially can brick the camera like what has happened with the 6.00 firmware on the A7IV.
Just wondering if anyone knows why pre-capture wasn’t or couldn’t be added. It’s probably the one new feature I would really use. At this point I may just get the new A7V to add it but more curious why it couldn’t have been added. Is it some lack of a hardware needed or possibly memory.
Unfortunately I don’t want to pay for an A1 II, at least not at this time.
swldstn wrote:
Haven’t updated my A1 to 4.00 firmware yet but have successfully updated my A7RV a few weeks ago without any problems. I typically try to wait a few weeks to make sure Sony hasn’t missed an issue that potentially can brick the camera like what has happened with the 6.00 firmware on the A7IV.
Just wondering if anyone knows why pre-capture wasn’t or couldn’t be added. It’s probably the one new feature I would really use. At this point I may just get the new A7V to add it but more curious why it couldn’t have been added. Is it some lack of a hardware needed or possibly memory.
Unfortunately I don’t want to pay for an A1 II, at least not at this time....Show more →
I think it's safe to assume by now that precapture cannot be added via firmware only to A1. Maybe, just maybe it would be possible to get jpeg-only precapture like Nikon does. Sony is not know for their robust firmwares though, so I wouldn't count on it .
I'm fairly certain that Sony could add precapture to the A1 if they wanted to. I don't see it having any reliance on the AI chip and otherwise the A1II and A1 hardware is pretty similar.
I'm also fairly certain that they have made the decision not to add it. Maybe just to prop up sales of the A1II. Because if A1 had pre-capture and this latest FW 4.0 update I wouldn't even buy an A1II over it. Most others I know would say the same.
arbitrage wrote:
I'm fairly certain that Sony could add precapture to the A1 if they wanted to. I don't see it having any reliance on the AI chip and otherwise the A1II and A1 hardware is pretty similar.
I'm also fairly certain that they have made the decision not to add it. Maybe just to prop up sales of the A1II. Because if A1 had pre-capture and this latest FW 4.0 update I wouldn't even buy an A1II over it. Most others I know would say the same.
I don't think we really know what changed hw-wise between A1 and A1 II. Maybe there's a teardown somewhere .
You might be right, but we need to remember the closer we get with functionality to hw capability, the less flexible it is. I really think it might be the case that A1's processing pipeline simply does not allow precapture (and I'm not being easy on Sony most of the time ).
Nikon wasn't able to provide RAW precapture with similar tech in the end...
I think any camera with a suitably sized fast buffer is capable of pre-capture. All it's doing is temporarily storing images and deleting the oldest one when the limit is reached.
When the shutter is fully pressed it passes those buffered images to the SD card while the new images are passed to the buffer. Just as happens when the shutter button is held down for a long time.
LiveShots wrote:
I think any camera with a suitably sized fast buffer is capable of pre-capture. All it's doing is temporarily storing images and deleting the oldest one when the limit is reached.
When the shutter is fully pressed it passes those buffered images to the SD card while the new images are passed to the buffer. Just as happens when the shutter button is held down for a long time.
Well, Nikon couldn't do it in RAW .
It really gets exponentially more difficult, the closer you get to the hardware...
arbitrage wrote:
> I'm fairly certain that Sony could add precapture to the A1 if they wanted to. I don't see it having any reliance on the AI chip and otherwise the A1II and A1 hardware is pretty similar.
> I'm also fairly certain that they have made the decision not to add it. Maybe just to prop up sales of the A1II. Because if A1 had pre-capture and this latest FW 4.0 update I wouldn't even buy an A1II over it. Most others I know would say the same.
Agree totally. As someone with close to 40 years in the software business, imo it's purely software and marketing decisions.
The arc that sony has followed over the last decade parallels google/android.
Jerky_san wrote:
What version did you update from?
The latest version before 4.0. Having lots of foggy mornings in the Bay Area lately and I could only go out doing BIF practice on weekends (wife-permitting). Rain is expected this coming Saturday. Need to reconfirm that initial experience but other than that, nothing unusual was encountered so far.
benjimouse wrote:
arbitrage wrote:
> I'm fairly certain that Sony could add precapture to the A1 if they wanted to. I don't see it having any reliance on the AI chip and otherwise the A1II and A1 hardware is pretty similar.
> I'm also fairly certain that they have made the decision not to add it. Maybe just to prop up sales of the A1II. Because if A1 had pre-capture and this latest FW 4.0 update I wouldn't even buy an A1II over it. Most others I know would say the same.
Agree totally. As someone with close to 40 years in the software business, imo it's purely software and marketing decisions.
The arc that sony has followed over the last decade parallels google/android....Show more →
That is how I see it as well. It has plenty of excess storage to hold pictures when you have a slow sd so it should be a thing where it is constantly writing until it hits 30-31 pictures and then drop the last one and put the next one in. You hit the shutter it captures x amount of pictures. The other thing on the new 5 that you can take pictures while doing video seems like it could easily be implemented as well if not just writing a jpg of that frame you captured. It's also why I never understood why animal/bird eye in the video never worked.. like you can do 30 fps at 50 megapixels with locked eye but somehow that in video is a bridge to far? It's so weird to me but if it is simply a business decision then it all comes into making sense.
After a week or so on the new software, I'm getting a troubling amount of freezing on my 3 year old A1 body. Not constantly, but I think I've had 4 instances where it would not wake up or was on a black screen.
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