Sony Photography News and Rumors

Dpreview:

“We’ve tried out the new firmware on a Smart Adapter IV paired with a few lenses (Canon 35mm F1.4L II, 70-200 F2.8L II IS, Sigma 24mm, 35mm, and 50mm F1.4 Art) on the Sony a7R II. Phase-detect functionality appears to be limited to a very small central regions, which means lots of hunting if using off-center points, or Lock-on AF and Eye AF (both in AF-C) for non-central subjects. While AF in video is possible, it’s slow with significant hunting. At this point, with these lenses, we find this update largely useless, and found ourselves reverting to the ‘Green’ mode that was default prior to this update for best performance.”

Via DPReview

Press Release:

Metabones® Adds “Native” AF and Smooth Iris to EF Mount Speed Boosters® and Smart Adapters™ by Firmware Upgrade
Vancouver, Canada, June 23, 2016: Metabones® releases Metabones App 2.3, a major firmware update with the following additional features.

• Eye-AF (A6300/A7series).
• Fast contrast detect AF for all E-Mount cameras.
• DMF (direct manual focus) for E-Mount cameras, where the camera switches to MF as soon as AF completes. This is useful for checking AF accuracy when used with focus peaking.
• Smooth iris for Sony E-Mount and FZ-Mount cameras and Blackmagic, JVC and Panasonic Micro Four Thirds Mount cameras.

Metabones® has already added fast EF lens autofocus to its Micro Four Thirds Mount Speed Boosters® and Smart Adapters™ last year. With this speedy advantage now extended to E-Mount, EF-Mount lenses are now capable of focusing quickly across the widest variety of mirrorless cameras with trusted Metabones precision and reliability.

The smooth iris feature slows down the movement of the electromagnetic aperture diaphragm so that video footage transitions smoothly when the aperture changes, with reduced tick noise from the lens. The latest Canon and Tamron SP lenses have special support for this feature and Metabones® makes use of it if the lens supports it. Read More »