Sony A7 series clipping out stars

[gregbradley]

I read a disturbing thread on DPReview that the Sony A7 series of cameras eat stars when you use Bulb exposures. You're OK up to 30 second times but if you use Bulb it applies a filter to the RAW image to remove hot pixels presumably and it eats stars like Nikon used to before their algorithim got updated by Mariane.

http://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/55841466


Greg.

[dannat (Daniel)]

that is a bugger

[grantboxer (Grant)]

Is this because of the noise reduction system? Perhaps try turning the long exposure noise reduction off.

[rustigsmed (Russell)]

I havent gone past 30 secs yet but Simmo has been busting out 8 min subs on his no worries

[gbeal]

Recall seeing similar report on CN's too.
Gary

[SimmoW (SIMON)]

Yeah, I'd heard of it, but as the last poster at that forum says, it's a minor issue at very long exposure settings. I'm still loving the cam and intend to keep it for a long time. Esp when I go Narrowband, when such a weird algorithm might be handy!

[gregbradley]

Originally Posted by grantboxer

Is this because of the noise reduction system? Perhaps try turning the long exposure noise reduction off.

No. Its something done to RAWs. Nikon do it but the algorithim got modified by an engineer who does Astro so now it works better.

I think most camera makers play with the RAWs these days.

Greg.

[gregbradley]

Originally Posted by grantboxer

Is this because of the noise reduction system? Perhaps try turning the long exposure noise reduction off.

Originally Posted by SimmoW

Yeah, I'd heard of it, but as the last poster at that forum says, it's a minor issue at very long exposure settings. I'm still loving the cam and intend to keep it for a long time. Esp when I go Narrowband, when such a weird algorithm might be handy!

Mode 3 handling like we used to do with the earlier Nikons may work. Its worth trying out.

Just turn the camera off just before the time is up and it probably does an emergency save without the filter being applied. That's how it went with Nikons.

Greg.

[dannat (Daniel)]

seems to be not so much a problem at telescope focal lengths, visible more easily with wide lenses

[gregbradley]

I was thinking that as well
The examples were really short under a minute type shots.
A 10 minute sub might be a different story.
Greg

[Camelopardalis (Dunk)]

Would it really kill camera manufacturers to be honest and at least include the option to save the raw as a raw and not the massaged raw

I suspected my little Fuji would do a similar thing as the noise is pretty good for a crop chip, but when I take long darks I get hot pixels left in the raws.

[gregbradley]

I guess we are in the minority and digital cameras are all about getting good reviews and high marks and noise is one of the things evaluated.

Greg.