Gamma Display Assist Explanation On The Sony a7Sii
Sony RX10 II review by CameraLabs.
Polarlicht Maerz 2015 extended 1280×720 (Youtube)
Contax Zeiss Vario-Sonnar 100-300mm f/4-5.6 on A7r (SonyAlphaForum).
Von Wong uses the A7rII in this storm video on Youtube.
Nehemiah: “I thought some of your readers would like this. It’s a shoot out of legendary 85s–including the Minolta 85 1.4 Limited. It’s almost impossible to find info on this lens, even in 2015 on the internet! http://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/1402791“
Chris Mabey: “I recently picked up an RX10 II and wanted to test out the HFR capabilities so I decided to shoot a waterfall project with it. Aerials were shot with a DJI Phantom 3, the rest of the video was shot with the RX10 II. https://youtu.be/tNCfoGv1f68”
M. Gilden: “So, I’m trying to raise awareness of the “Skin smoothing bug” on certain current-model Sony cameras.
I’d be happy to share details of the bug if you aren’t aware of it, but in a nutshell: HDMI out from many current model Sony cameras default to Skin Smoothing ON with no way to disable it. That makes Atomos recorders and streaming boxes awkward to use, to say the least.
Is it worth making a post about for you guys? The bug effects the A5100 and A6000 that I know of, and used to also effect the A7S and RX100, but that was resolved in a firmware update it seems.
I started a thread about it on Sony’s community site here:
http://community.sony.com/t5/Join-the-Inspiration/Please-let-us-disable-skin-smoothing-so-it-doesn-t-show-up-in/idi-p/538535”
11 Responses
Why didn’t Sony add this on the a7rii?
Skin “waxing” is one of the most ridiculous image manipulations ever invented in history. Sony force-enabeling it by default says a lot about how much they understand photography.
Just for the record, I’m not a Sony hater, I use their products.
Did you read the thread properly? They were not forcing anyone. It was a bug that inadvertedly enabled it on HDMI out. They fixed it rather quick with new FW on the A7S (explains why I never saw it using Atomos Shogun and PIX E5) but left the A5100 and A6000 out. Most likely because very few people use an external recorder with those cameras.
I think I did. But maybe I didn’t understand it correctly.
As far as I understand, the bug was, that the cameras activated face detection when recording externally, forcefully but not intentional.
When recording internally, skin smoothing is still tied to face detection automatically. In other words, skin smoothing is not entirely off on a global level, even if deactivated in menu. To get rid of the skin smoothing completely you have to disable face detection. That’s what I was referring to. Please correct me if I got this wrong.
Yes, it was a bug, not an intended forced function by Sony. Funny they never mentioned it in the v1.1 FW release info, but at least they solved it for the A7S rather swiftly.
I still don’t get which one you mean. There are two incidents:
1) quietly enabling face detection on HDMI = not intentional = bug
2) tying skin smoothing to face detection = intentional = no bug
So, what you say, is the bug? 1, 2 or both?
Yes, it appears that Sony wants to imply that face detection and skin smoothing tied together is intentional. I don’t know if its just an excuse after the fact or if it was really designed to work that way, but Cinema5D’s review of the A5100 reached out to Sony for a comment on the bug, and was told that this is just part of having Face Detection On. Their official response was:
““Yes. face tracking mode “smoothes” the skin tones. It’s optimises brightness, focus, white balance and skin tone for the face. Please disable this function if you would like to control them manually”
What’s silly about this is that I wouldn’t mind so much if turning face detection off fixed it. Problem is, as mentioned already, the camera doesn’t seem to care if face detection is turned off or not either! Really super annoying bug.
I was referring to 1).
2) was something that I missed. Sounds stupid. Fortunately, it will not affect me since I rarely use AF in video (and face tracking even less). And I highly doubt the smoothing affects raw when shooting stills.
AGREED. I heard even their cell phones do this by default, but I can’t confirm or deny that. Other current model cameras do it too according to comments I’ve gotten elsewhere. Everyone who wants Sony to know how much they hate this “feature” should log into that community forum and click “me too”!
WHERE IS COMMLITE…?????
I have been trying to prchase the new Commlite CM-ENF-E(1) the new Nikon F to Sony E mount adapter that supports dual autofocus modes.
It is no longer being sold on ebay and I cannot find one availabe anywhere.
I have E mailed Commlite 3 times and have gotton no response….does anyone know anything about this…????
I have recently purchased an F mount lens that does not have stabilization and want to use it on my A7Rii.
I wish they let you do this with the sharpening. It’s really hard to use focus peaking if you’ve turned the sharpness down all the way. That would require them to admit their sharpening algorithm is garbage, though…