Sony a7SII blots out Sun

[david_smith110]

<p>So the new a7sII is obviously soooo good in low light it has issues dealing with bright light. Lol, hopefully this will be fixed via a firmware release. Its disappointing though that Sony let these cameras ship with this issue. Were they just not aware of it? Shame on you Sony.</p>

<p>http://www.sonyalpharumors.com/new-sony-a7sii-tests-show-major-black-spot-issue/</p>

<p>nex 7 • auto yashinon 5cm f/2<br>

<img src="https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5542/12377048975_3b90518a45_c.jpg" alt="" /></p>

[Ed_Ingold]

<p>I've noticed this taking sunsets. If you use wide area exposure sensing, including matrix sensing, with the sun's disc in view, the camera will attempt to prevent the sun from being overexposed. In this case the sun is behind a light cloud cover. Although it appears bright to your eye, "proper" exposure renders the disc invisible behind the clouds. If you want sunstars, make sure darker objects dominate the image area, use one of the spot functions, or set the exposure manually. The exposure compensation dial may not have enough range, but it's worth a try.</p>

[Mark Z]

<p>It's not a bug; it's their solarization feature.</p>

[jamie_robertson2]

<p>The Canon 5D2 had a similar, less obvious, problem when it was first released. A firmware update soon cured it.</p>

[Ed_Ingold]

<p>I was looking for a sunstar in this photo, and had to let the sun peep just a little through the branches to keep the Sony from shutting down. I am not aware of a "solarization" feature, but will do some research on the issue.</p>

<p><img src="http://d6d2h4gfvy8t8.cloudfront.net/18123324-lg.jpg" alt="" width="400" height="600" /></p>

<p>Here's another example. The sun is there, but the disk can't be seen until the exposure is reduced about 4 stops in post.<br>

<img src="http://d6d2h4gfvy8t8.cloudfront.net/18123330-lg.jpg" alt="" width="600" height="400" /></p>

<p>- 4 stops (-2 or -3 work too)<br>

<img src="http://d6d2h4gfvy8t8.cloudfront.net/18123331-lg.jpg" alt="" width="600" height="400" /></p>

<p>One thing to notice. This was taken with a Sony 16-35/4 Zoom lens, and there is no flare or sunspots. I only get sunspots if the sun is just outside of the FOV, and not always then.</p>

[Ed_Ingold]

<p>The previous example used Lightroom to adjust the exposure level. A more useful method uses bracketed exposures to create a blended HDR image. In this example, five frames were taken, hand-held, at two stop intervals. The first image resembled the top image shown above, where the sun is buried in a bright field. With HDR, detail in the water is preserved.</p>

<p><img src="http://d6d2h4gfvy8t8.cloudfront.net/18123348-lg.jpg" alt="" width="600" height="401" /></p>