Sony Star Eater : the petition

[fred76]

Hi!

Several photographers (Damian Peach, Ian Norman, Thierry Legault, Babak Takeshi, Aaron D. Priest, Laurent Laveder) specialised in nightscapes and deep sky photos, and I have issued a petition to Sony asking them to remove the Star Eater on their ILCE cameras (A6000, A6300, A6500, A7, A7S, A7R, A9, all versions).

The Star Eater is the given name of a software filtering that occurs for long exposures (typically from 4 seconds and above) in any mode, before the raw file is saved. It is NOT the LENR. There is no way to stop it.

Its goal is mainly to remove hot and deviant pixels. But the algorithm is so basic that it also degrades the image sharpness and mistakes pin point stars with hot pixels. The result is a raw file with 30% to 70% less stars.

It also has a non neglictible effect on the sharpness of the images, as shown below:

It is really painful to spend several thousands dollars in a camera that is limited to exposures of 3.2 seconds or less... knowing that the A7* and A9 are really excellent in lowlight.

This is the reason why we wrote this petition that has already been signed by more than 1200 persons since last friday.

We invite you to sign it and share the link to your friends, your Facebook pages, Twitters accounts, journalists and blog editors you may know...

The link : Sign the Petition

Clear Sky

Fred

 

[idcanyon]

I've read about this but didn't know it was in so many of their camera bodies. Has it rolled out to more bodies via updates after it was initially seen? It seems like they could fix this in a day if they wanted, just tag the prior firmware with a new version number and release it. Then people could choose to step back to the old version while they work on a better algorithm.

 

[fred76]

The A7 mk I, A7S mk I and A7R mk I don't have any firmware update anymore. These cameras can be considered obsolete. The Star Eater will occur for exposure shot in Bulb mode only, from 30 seconds and above.

The mk II where issued with the same setting. But mid 2016, a firmware update changed the setting (without any warning to the photographers), and the Star Eater is activated in all modes, for any exposure of 4 seconds and above.

The latest firmware update of June 2017 did not change anything on the Star Eater (there is a very subtil improvement, but hardly noticeable).

I'm not aware on a way to downgrade the firmware...

 

[fred76]

The petition has now more than 2100 supporters. That is great. Remember this spatial filter doesn't affect only astrophotography, but ANY long exposure photos. The impact is degraded microcontrast, equivalent to a median spatial filter.

Do you want that systematically on your RAWs, or do you prefer to do that filtering when you want it only ?

The more popular the petition is, the more journalists will be prone to write a paper on this subject, and the more chances we will have Sony gives us the choice !

 

[VidThreeNorth]

You have not listed the a5000 or a5100 cameras in your list. Is that because you are sure that they are "ok" or because you do not have enough information about them to be sure?

 

[fred76]

From what I can see, the Star Eater is a problem for all Sony alpha cameras. However the A5000/5100 have a worst problem : the Long exposure noise reduction cannot be disabled... (there are some tricks however explained on the net, not sure if they give good images).

 

[VidThreeNorth]

From what I can see, the Star Eater is a problem for all Sony alpha cameras.

That is what I expect too. The A5100 circuitry seems to be similar to the A6000 so the programming is probably based on that. The a5000 circuitry seems to be based on an older model that is not being made anymore, but again, I doubt if there was much fresh programming done for it.

However the A5000/5100 have a worst problem : the Long exposure noise reduction cannot be disabled... (there are some tricks however explained on the net, not sure if they give good images).

I have not heard about that problem yet, so I guess I will "look forward" to encountering it.

 

[fred76]

3600 supporters in less than 3 weeks ! Who can ignore such a problem now ?

 

[fred76]

The petition has now been supported by more than 4000 persons!

It is available in 4 languages:
- english
- french
- spanish
- russian

Please:
If you speak Spanish or Russian, post the links to the Spanish or Russian versions of the petition on the Spanish and Russian forums / Facebook/ Twitter... about photography, nightscape and astronomy !

Clear Sky to all

Fred

 

[fred76]

A rumor at SonyAlphaRumors says a firmware update may soon be online to solve the Star Eater but ... on mk II cameras only.

Why not the mk I ?

Source : (SR3) Sony will soon launch major firmware update with the fix for "star eater" issue - sonyalpharumors

Continue to sign the petition (if not signed yet) or share it !

 

[benhben]

Hi.
Does this issue affect the new Sony A7R III?

Thanks
Ben

 

[dxqcanada]

Good news: The new A7rIII has no star eater issue! - sonyalpharumors